Regulatory assembly of the vacuolar proton pump VOV1-ATPase in yeast cells by FLIM-FRET

We investigate the reversible disassembly of VOV1-ATPase in life yeast cells by time resolved confocal FRET imaging. VOV1-ATPase in the vacuolar membrane pumps protons from the cytosol into the vacuole. VOV1-ATPase is a rotary biological nanomotor driven by ATP hydrolysis. The emerging proton gradient is used for transport processes as well as for pH and Ca2+ homoeostasis in the cell. Activity of the VOV1-ATPase is regulated through assembly / disassembly processes. During starvation the two parts of VOV1-ATPase start to disassemble. This process is reversed after addition of glucose. The exact mechanisms are unknown. To follow the disassembly / reassembly in vivo we tagged two subunits C and E with different fluorescent proteins. Cellular distributions of C and E were monitored using a duty cycle-optimized alternating laser excitation scheme (DCO-ALEX) for time resolved confocal FRET-FLIM measurements.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Structure industrielle et croissance locale en République Populaire de Chine

Using panel data from a sample covering 30 industrial sectors for 29 Chinese provinces (excluding Tibet) over the 1988 to 1997 period, this paper provides empirical evidence on the relation between industrial structure and growth performance. The influence of two types of variables is examined along with traditional production factors: industrial structure (degree of specialization, diversity in the industrial environment and plant size) and the level of regional initial development. Our results show that if the diversity and a limited plant size have a positive influence on local growth, specialization has a negative impact. It appears however different growth impulses from sectors and their localization.panel data, China, growth, Industrial structure

L'effet des politiques sociales sur l'emploi des nouveaux immigrants à Montréal :une analyse longitudinale et conjoncturelle

La question de l'insertion sur le marché du travail des immigrants est aujourd'hui devenue essentielle. Les dispositifs mis en place au Canada cherchent à favoriser la réarticulation entre immigration, marché du travail, protection sociale, formation et cohésion sociale. Cet article étudie l'insertion des immigrés sur le marché du travail québécois à quatre points de leur parcours : après 1, 2, 3 et 10 ans de séjour. Outre les caractéristiques individuelles, nous portons une attention particulière à l'impact de l'environnement macroéconomique et des politiques sociales de redistribution sur la probabilité de sortie d'un épisode de non-emploi de ces immigrants. Nos résultats montrent que les immigrés forment un groupe hétérogène du point de vue de leurs caractéristiques individuelles et de leur employabilité. Certains restent marginalisés sur le marché du travail. C'est le cas notamment des femmes, des migrants âgés et dans un premier temps des moins qualifiés. L'assurance chômage et les prestations sociales jouent négativement sur la sortie de l'épisode de non-emploi. Le taux de chômage local exerce un effet significativement négatif sur la probabilité d'avoir un emploi et touche essentiellement l'emploi des immigrants peu qualifiés

L’effet des politiques sociales sur l’emploi des nouveaux immigrants à Montréal :une analyse longitudinale et conjoncturelle

La question de l’insertion sur le marché du travail des immigrants est aujourd’hui devenue essentielle. Les dispositifs mis en place au Canada cherchent à favoriser la réarticulation entre immigration, marché du travail, protection sociale, formation et cohésion sociale. Cet article étudie l’insertion des immigrés sur le marché du travail québécois à quatre points de leur parcours : après 1, 2, 3 et 10 ans de séjour. Outre les caractéristiques individuelles, nous portons une attention particulière à l’impact de l’environnement macroéconomique et des politiques sociales de redistribution sur la probabilité de sortie d’un épisode de non-emploi de ces immigrants. Nos résultats montrent que les immigrés forment un groupe hétérogène du point de vue de leurs caractéristiques individuelles et de leur employabilité. Certains restent marginalisés sur le marché du travail. C’est le cas notamment des femmes, des migrants âgés et dans un premier temps des moins qualifiés. L’assurance chômage et les prestations sociales jouent négativement sur la sortie de l’épisode de non-emploi. Le taux de chômage local exerce un effet significativement négatif sur la probabilité d’avoir un emploi et touche essentiellement l’emploi des immigrants peu qualifiés.Immigrants, emploi, Politiques sociales, canada

Protectionism and industry localization in Chinese provinces (?)

This paper investigates the determinants of regional specialization between 1992 and 1997 using a panel covering 33 industries across 25 Chinese regions, paying particular attention to the role of regional protectionism. This study is motivated by a double paradox concerning the Chinese economy over the reforms. First some authors evidence reduced regional specialization despite the promotion of liberalization away from the introverted development strategy of the pre-reform period. Moreover, several empirical works find a negative impact of the degree of regional concentration on the performance of industries. These counter-intuitive findings lead us to evaluate whether the localization of industries in Chinese regions is rooted in a market process or on the opposite results from industrial and trade policies disconnected from the logic of comparative advantages. This article investigates in a straightforward manner the role of inter-provincial barriers to trade in shaping regional specialization. China?s economic reforms since 1978 have introduced fiscal decentralization, which provided the local governments with a strong incentive to protect their tax base by shielding local firms and industries from outside competition. We study how the impediments to trade between Chinese provinces impact geographic concentration in production beside other traditional factors such as resource endowment, external economies and increasing returns to scale. Regional protectionism is apprehended through all-inclusive indicators of provincial industry-level trade barriers computed based on inter-provincial trade flows. Regional specialization is measured by a location quotient with respect to output. It is found that the dynamics of comparative advantages and the forces of the new geographic economy are at work in Chinese provinces. It is found that there is greater geographic concentration in industries that enjoy significant knowledge spillovers, specialized suppliers and labor-market pooling. Results however lend strong support to the role of local protectionism on the concentration of activities. The localization of economic activities in Chinese provinces does not exclusively follow the logic of the market. It is also is influenced by interregional trade barriers put in place by local governments. Greater location quotients are found for industries that enjoy high protection from interregional competition. The role of protectionism in regional specialization appears to have increased between 1992 and 1997, especially in the provinces that are the least opened to the international.

Migrations et discriminations professionnelles dans la province du Guangdong

Cet article étudie l'insertion de ces migrants ruraux sur le marché du travail de la province du Guangdong à partir d'une base de données originales issues d'une enquête sur les paysans-ouvriers (ming gong), réalisée en 2006. A partir de modèles de durée, nous portons une attention particulière aux caractéristiques individuelles, temporelles (évolution de la mobilité dans l'emploi au cours du temps) et spatiales (rôle du lieu d'origine). Nos résultats montrent que les migrants forment un groupe hétérogène du point de vue de leurs caractéristiques individuelles et de leur employabilité dans le delta de la rivière des Perles. L'insertion sur le marché du travail des femmes, des jeunes et des peu qualifiés est facilitée. La proximité géographique du lieu de départ de la migration est également favorable. Nous examinons enfin les déterminants du salaire urbain des paysans-ouvriers qui s'insèrent sur un marché du travail de plus en plus segmenté et fragmenté. / The integration of rural migrants into the urban labor market has become an essential economic issue in today's China. In the context of economic reforms, policies affecting migration in continental China have been redefined, which therefore greatly intensified the internal migration flows. Since the 1980s, the rural depopulation has been essentially linked to the migration of "peasant-workers" (ming gong) who continue to play a key role in the country's transition into a market economy. In this article, we study the integration of these rural migrants into the labor market in the Guangdong province using the original data from a 2006 survey of peasant-workers. Based on duration models estimation, the analysis focuses on the role of different characteristics: personal, temporal (i.e. the course of employment mobility through time) and spatial (i.e. the role of place of origin). Results show that migrants form a heterogeneous group in terms of personal characteristics and employability in the Pearl River delta. Women, the youth and the less qualified are among the advantaged. Geographical proximity also plays a favorable role. Finally, we examine the determinants of the wage in urban areas for peasant-workers who integrated the increasingly segmented and fragmented labor market

Migrations et discriminations professionnelles dans la province du Guangdong

Cet article étudie l’insertion de ces migrants ruraux sur le marché du travail de la province du Guangdong à partir d’une base de données originales issues d’une enquête sur les paysans-ouvriers (ming gong), réalisée en 2006. A partir de modèles de durée, nous portons une attention particulière aux caractéristiques individuelles, temporelles (évolution de la mobilité dans l’emploi au cours du temps) et spatiales (rôle du lieu d’origine). Nos résultats montrent que les migrants forment un groupe hétérogène du point de vue de leurs caractéristiques individuelles et de leur employabilité dans le delta de la rivière des Perles. L’insertion sur le marché du travail des femmes, des jeunes et des peu qualifiés est facilitée. La proximité géographique du lieu de départ de la migration est également favorable. Nous examinons enfin les déterminants du salaire urbain des paysans-ouvriers qui s’insèrent sur un marché du travail de plus en plus segmenté et fragmenté. / The integration of rural migrants into the urban labor market has become an essential economic issue in today’s China. In the context of economic reforms, policies affecting migration in continental China have been redefined, which therefore greatly intensified the internal migration flows. Since the 1980s, the rural depopulation has been essentially linked to the migration of "peasant-workers" (ming gong) who continue to play a key role in the country’s transition into a market economy. In this article, we study the integration of these rural migrants into the labor market in the Guangdong province using the original data from a 2006 survey of peasant-workers. Based on duration models estimation, the analysis focuses on the role of different characteristics: personal, temporal (i.e. the course of employment mobility through time) and spatial (i.e. the role of place of origin). Results show that migrants form a heterogeneous group in terms of personal characteristics and employability in the Pearl River delta. Women, the youth and the less qualified are among the advantaged. Geographical proximity also plays a favorable role. Finally, we examine the determinants of the wage in urban areas for peasant-workers who integrated the increasingly segmented and fragmented labor market.paysans-ouvriers, migration, emploi, villes, Chine / peasant workers, urban employment, wages, China

Regional policy between efficacy and cohesion

The European experience of convergence reveals that the catching up of some peripheral countries takes place by an increase of their regional disparities. In a way there is a tension between growth and social cohesion. That is particularly worrying for the socio-economic balance of the European Union when one expects that the enlargement to the Central and Eastern European countries will introduce more heterogeneity in space. Is public intervention able to reduce this tension and to seek at once more efficacy and more cohesion, i.e. equity? The aim of this article is to model public intervention in its two dimensions. The first is a search for efficacy through expected increased returns, i.e. productivity gains resulting from agglomeration forces. The second is a search for some collective gains that arise from a preservation of social cohesion by limiting disparities. Tax rates, fiscal incentives and capital grants are not the only public determinants of firm’s location choice. Public expenditures and economic infrastructures also play an important role on location behaviours. Regions compete by offering fiscal incentives and by supplying public goods in order to attract mobile capital. Our approach rests on several recent contributions. Models of effective taxation, in particular the seminal work of King and Fullerton (1984), have proved to be an appropriate framework to assess the impact of fiscal and financial incentives on firm’s investment decisions. In addition, two inspiring studies provide us with an elegant way to take into account both agglomeration economies, which stimulate collective efficacy [Garcia-Milà and McGuire (2002)] and the reduction of interregional disparities [Garcia-Milà and McGuire (2004)]. The key factor in this analysis is the solidarity level between regions. The approach could make the trade-off between efficiency and equity more explicit. These theoretical and methodological contributions are then subject of an application to the Belgian economy and its regions, at the heart of the European issues.

Globalization and the Growth of Chinese Cities

China experiences rapid growth in urbanization. This paper investigates whether openness may, ceteris paribus, partly explain the urbanization process. Trade openness and foreign direct investments are often regarded as important explanatory variables during the nineties. However, the impact of the later is expected to be positive, as FDI are mostly concentrated in few urban areas, whereas the impact of the former is a priori less clear. A cross section of 132 cities (data are averaged over the period 1992-1998) is used to carry out an econometric analysis. Trade openness appears only significant and negative for the sub-sample of coastal cities, when Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai are excluded from the data. Foreign direct investments are significant and positive for the sub-sample of cities with more than one million inhabitants. These results contradict the common view of openness as a positive factor of urbanization in the nineties.urbanization, Trade, panel data, Openness, FDI, cities, China

Regional policy between efficacy and cohesion

The European experience of convergence reveals that the catching up of some peripheral countries takes place by an increase of their regional disparities. In a way there is a tension between growth and social cohesion. That is particularly worrying for the socio-economic balance of the European Union when one expects that the enlargement to the Central and Eastern European countries will introduce more heterogeneity in space. Is public intervention able to reduce this tension and to seek at once more efficacy and more cohesion, i.e. equity? The aim of this article is to model public intervention in its two dimensions. The first is a search for efficacy through expected increased returns, i.e. productivity gains resulting from agglomeration forces. The second is a search for some collective gains that arise from a preservation of social cohesion by limiting disparities. Tax rates, fiscal incentives and capital grants are not the only public determinants of firm's location choice. Public expenditures and economic infrastructures also play an important role on location behaviours. Regions compete by offering fiscal incentives and by supplying public goods in order to attract mobile capital. Our approach rests on several recent contributions. Models of effective taxation, in particular the seminal work of King and Fullerton (1984), have proved to be an appropriate framework to assess the impact of fiscal and financial incentives on firm's investment decisions. In addition, two inspiring studies provide us with an elegant way to take into account both agglomeration economies, which stimulate collective efficacy [Garcia-Milà and McGuire (2002)] and the reduction of interregional disparities [Garcia-Milà and McGuire (2004)]. The key factor in this analysis is the solidarity level between regions. The approach could make the trade-off between efficiency and equity more explicit. These theoretical and methodological contributions are then subject of an application to the Belgian economy and its regions, at the heart of the European issues