The ideological use and abuse of Freiburg’s ordoliberalism

In the aftermath of the Eurozone crisis, a battle of ideas emerged over whether ordoliberalism is part of the cause or the solution of economic problems in Europe. While German ordoliberals argued that their policy proposals were largely ignored before, during and after the crisis, critics saw too much ordoliberal influence, especially in form of austerity policies. We argue that neither view is entirely correct. Instead, we observe that the battle of ideas is largely independent of the countries’ actual responses to the Eurozone crisis: pragmatic self-interest on behalf of governments rather than their ideological convictions played a crucial role in political reactions. We explain this dynamic game-theoretically and highlight a number of reasons for the decoupling of the political-pragmatic debate from the ideological-academic discourse. In addition, we argue that ordoliberals themselves contributed to the ideological misuse of their own program: the ordoliberal Freiburg School ceased to be an active research program and instead grew to resemble a tradition which all too often disregarded the international academic discourse, in particular in macroeconomics. As a result, ordoliberal thinking was abused by its proponents and critics alike to emphasize their preconceived Weltanschauung (worldview). We end our paper with some thoughts on how a contemporary ordoliberalism can be constructively used to react to some of the challenges of the ongoing Eurozone crisis.

Issues Faced by Faculty in an Industrial-Organizational Master’s Program

This chapter identifies challenges faculty face when teaching in a terminal industrial-organizational psychology master’s program. The authors discuss how faculty, particularly new/junior faculty, can deal with these issues to become productive in teaching, research, service, consulting, and shaping program culture. The authors offer suggestions for creating a successful program tailored to the needs of different types of students (recent graduates versus experienced students), strategies for maintaining an active research program, and ways to integrate consulting into a master’s program. This chapter includes a discussion of the challenges of offering both a master’s and doctoral program, managing administrators, and building a program culture.

Feasibility study for interspecialistic collaboration in active research of urothelial neoplasms of professional origin

Introduction: In Italy only a small fraction of cancer is reported to the supervisory body and recognised as professional by the insurance institution. Among the causes of this sub-notification, especially for lowgrade etiologic fractional cancers such as bladder cancers are the lack of knowledge of carcinogenicity in the occupational field and the consequent incomplete medical history collections. Objectives: Diagnosis of occupational bladder neoplasms and activation of systematic surveillance of tumors of professional origin through an "active research" program. Methods: From July 2010 to July 2017, all patients diagnosed with Bladder Cancer in the departments of Urology of Area Vasta 3 ASUR Marche underwent a first interview and a further anamnestic study in selected cases.When an occupational exposure was recognised, more information for preventive, social security and criminal justice has been acquired. Results: The study highlighted 18 cases of bladder tumors due to occupational exposure to aromatic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are the most important risk factor for BC after tobacco smoking. Conclusions: Our study confirmed that active research is an useful tool both for the activation of epidemiological surveillance and for the regional registration of professional tumors. In addition active research of occupational exposure allow obtaining information that can be used for preventive purposes, for criminal justice and for the initiation of medico-legal actions and improvement of working conditions aimed at guaranteeing workers' rights.

Portfolio analysis of petroleum fields and prospects: a robust statistical method

Portfolio analysis of several prospects, fields or assets is an important part of economic analysis routinely done by most exploration, development and production companies, often for large dollar amounts. Yet the methods used have not changed for decades, most are done in complicated and difficult to audit spreadsheets, and commonly they are not statistically robust, meaning they sometimes give incorrect results. The Curtin University Petroleum Geology Group has an active research program working with the Curtin Statistical Group to improve assessment of petroleum volumetrics, risking, scenario and portfolio analysis. This note provides a simple case study of portfolio analysis using an area in the North West Shelf in which we have quickly mapped several leads, prospects and drilled traps. They span a range of risk outcomes from undrilled to drilled, of which some were dry and some were successful to varying degrees. The results allow us to demonstrate how to calculate and aggregate the volumes and dependencies for each structure, correctly add the results using a new statistical methodology and formulate the aggregated volumetric distribution for the portfolio. This workflow can be used for any portfolio in the petroleum and other industries.

The life cycle of a genome project: perspectives and guidelines inspired by insect genome projects

Many research programs on non-model species biology have been empowered by genomics. In turn, genomics is underpinned by a reference sequence and ancillary information created by so-called “genome projects”. The most reliable genome projects are the ones created as part of an active research program and designed to address specific questions but their life extends past publication. In this opinion paper I outline four key insights that have facilitated maintaining genomic communities: the key role of computational capability, the iterative process of building genomic resources, the value of community participation and the importance of manual curation. Taken together, these ideas can and do ensure the longevity of genome projects and the growing non-model species community can use them to focus a discussion with regards to its future genomic infrastructure.

Political Science Research on International Law: The State of the Field

The discipline of political science has developed an active research program on the development, operation, spread, and impact of international legal norms, agreements, and institutions. Meanwhile, a growing number of public international lawyers have developed an interest in political science research and methods. For more than two decades, scholars have been calling for international lawyers and political scientists to collaborate, and have suggested possible frameworks for doing so. Some prominent collaborations are under way—sharing research methods and insights.

Air Stripping of Volatile Organics

The Air Force's Installation Restoration Program includes an active research program into treatments for contaminated groundwater. Packed-tower air stripping of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from groundwater has proven to be a costeffective and efficient method of treatment. The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) has recently participated in a packed-tower air-stripping test program for the Air Force in which 16 organic compounds in a groundwater plume were identified, and the air-stripping behavior of each was examined. The performance of four different commercial packing materials was evaluated for each of the 16 contaminants over a range of gas-liquid flow ratios. The mass transfer coefficients for each of the contaminants were subsequently calculated, and the most effective operating conditions were determined.