Laggards No More: The Changed Socioeconomic Status of Francophones in Quebec

The economic returns to knowing French in the Quebec labour market have increased steadily since 1970, while the returns to knowing English have decreased. The ability to speak both English and French has increased the earnings of anglophone men since 1980 and anglophone women since 1990, while the returns to bilingualism for francophone men and women remain positive. The health state of the French language in Quebec is also evident in the impressive growth in ownership of Quebec's economy by francophone firms, from 47 percent to 67 percent since the early 1960s.social policy, francophone socioeconomic status

Complex Impedance as a Diagnostic Tool for Characterizing Thermal Detectors

The complex ac impedance of a bolometer or microcalorimeter detector is easily measured and can be used to determine thermal time constants, thermal resistances, heat capacities, and sensitivities. Accurately extracting this information requires an understanding of the electrical and thermal properties of both the detector and the measurement system. We show that this is a practical method for measuring parameters in detectors with moderately complex thermal systems.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, RevTeX, Review of Scientific Instruments, in pres

Polarized Emission from Interstellar Dust

Observations of far-infrared (FIR) and submillimeter (SMM) polarized emission are used to study magnetic fields and dust grains in dense regions of the interstellar medium (ISM). These observations place constraints on models of molecular clouds, star-formation, grain alignment mechanisms, and grain size, shape, and composition. The FIR/SMM polarization is strongly dependent on wavelength. We have attributed this wavelength dependence to sampling different grain populations at different temperatures. To date, most observations of polarized emission have been in the densest regions of the ISM. Extending these observations to regions of the diffuse ISM, and to microwave frequencies, will provide additional tests of grain and alignment models. An understanding of polarized microwave emission from dust is key to an accurate measurement of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The microwave polarization spectrum will put limits on the contributions to polarized emission from spinning dust and vibrating magnetic dust.Comment: 19 pages; LaTeX2e uses eas.cls; embeds 10 eps files into 7 Figures in document. To appear in "Sky Polarisation at Far-infrared to Radio Wavelengths: The Galactic Screen before the Cosmic Microwave Background," eds. M.-A. Miville-Deschenes and F. Boulanger. EAS Publications Series, Paris. Proceedings of a conference held at IAS, University of Paris-Sud, September 200

Combining losing games into a winning game

Parrondo's paradox is extended to regime switching random walks in random environments. The paradoxical behavior of the resulting random walk is explained by the effect of the random environment. Full characterization of the asymptotic behavior is achieved in terms of the dimensions of some random subspaces occurring in Oseledec's theorem. The regime switching mechanism gives our models a richer and more complex asymptotic behavior than the simple random walks in random environments appearing in the literature, in terms of transience and recurrence

Astronomical Image Processing with Array Detectors

We address the question of astronomical image processing from data obtained with array detectors. We define and analyze the cases of evenly, regularly, and irregularly sampled maps for idealized (i.e., infinite) and realistic (i.e., finite) detectors. We concentrate on the effect of interpolation on the maps, and the choice of the kernel used to accomplish this task. We show how the normalization intrinsic to the interpolation process must be carefully accounted for when dealing with irregularly sampled grids. We also analyze the effect of missing or dead pixels in the array, and their consequences for the Nyquist sampling criterion.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the PAS

Population, health, and nutrition : annual operational review for fiscal 1992

Population, health, and nutrition (PHN) lending decreased in fiscal 1992 from the record levels of fiscal 1991, in both the amount and the number of operations. Lending amounted to $961.6 million for 16 projects, compared with$1,567.6 million for 28 projects in fiscal 1991. This temporary dip in PHN lending is attributable largely to pipeline factors. Fiscal 1993 lending is projected to recapture if not exceed the fiscal 1991 level, and projections for fiscal 1993 and fiscal 1995 are for a continued increase in lending volume. PHN projects approved in fiscal 1992 have been responsive to the World Bank's objective of poverty alleviation. Collectively, fiscal 1992 projects cover the essential features of good poverty work but the depth and quality of poverty work varies across projects. Drawing from the good practices observed and lessons recorded in this year's portfolio, the review offers the following suggestions, among others, for strengthening PHN interventions to alleviate poverty: poverty information and monitoring must be accompanied by dissemination and sensitization activities to strengthen national understanding of poverty-related issues and national commitment to resolving them through the proper policy; community involvement in project design and development requires clearly defined and carefully designed institutional and procedural mechanisms, and a concerted effort to make them work; it is essential that PHN sector work identify poor and vulnerable groups and assess their needs and demands for basic health, family planning, and nutrition services; and even the most demand-driven project designs targeted to clearly identified poverty groups require promotional activities to ensure that these groups participate in and benefit from project initiatives. Health lending is now a decade old, and many innovations in PHN lending have emerged only in the past four or five years. This review demonstrates that good practices and new and promising ideas - well worth emulating - are scattered across PHN work. Overall, PHN work is moving in the right direction and the quality of work is generally seen to be improving. Welcome trends (which should be encouraged and reinforced) include serious attention to the poorest, most vulnerable populations, growing consideration of the demand of target groups, and increased attention to monitoring and evaluation of sector performance.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Urban Services to the Poor