Earnings of American Civil Engineers 1820–1859

1971 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 407-419
Author(s):  
Mark Aldrich
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Competitive Market ◽  
Engineering Profession ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Know How ◽  
Significant Structural Change ◽  
Geographical Scope ◽  
Civil Engineers

Skilled engineers who had sufficient technical know-how to construct the antebellum canals and railroads were viewed by their contemporaries as a key input in the transportation revolution, and a number of modern scholars have concurred in this judgment. Yet very little is known about the economics of the antebellum engineering profession. This article is a modest attempt to help remedy that deficiency. We shall present and describe three original salary series that chart the course of earnings for three distinct grades of antebellum civil engineers from 1820 through 1859. In addition, we shall argue that our data clearly indicate that a highly competitive market of broad geographical scope for high-ranking engineers was coming into being during the decade of the 1820's. This trend toward competition which these data reveal persisted until about 1835, but was then swamped by the rapid economic changes which occurred in the fifteen years from 1835 to 1850, only to reappear again in the last antebellum decade. As we shall argue below, the economic changes that temporarily overrode the earlier pattern of competition reflect a significant structural change in the antebellum engineer market.

Structural Change and its Impact on Industrial Relations

1992 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14
Author(s):  
C S Venkata Ratnam
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Macroeconomic Policy ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Industrial Policies ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Impact

The National Seminar on Economic Changes, Employment and Industrial Relations focused on the impact of macroeconomic policy changes on employment and industrial relations in the short as well as in the long run. This background paper by C S Venkata Ratnam argues for the need to bring .about changes in labour policies in tune with the industrial policies.

From unit-and-ten to ten-before-unit order in the history of English numerals

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Berg ◽  
Marion Neubauer
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Old English ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Unit Order ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Number Words ◽  
Significant Structural Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
Order Change

AbstractIn the course of its history, English underwent a significant structural change in its numeral system. The number words from 21 to 99 switched from the unit-and-ten to the ten-before-unit pattern. This change is traced on the basis of more than 800 number words. It is argued that this change, which took seven centuries to complete and in which the Old English pattern was highly persistent, can be broken down into two parts—the reordering of the units and tens and the loss of the conjoining element. Although the two steps logically belong to the same overall change, they display a remarkably disparate behavior. Whereas the reordering process affected the least frequent number words first, the deletion process affected the most frequent words first. This disparity lends support to the hypothesis that the involvement or otherwise of low-level aspects of speech determines the role of frequency in language change (Phillips, 2006). Finally, the order change is likely to be a contact-induced phenomenon and may have been facilitated by a reduction in mental cost.

Term Structure of Interest Rates with B-Spline Model during the Money-Shortage-Event in China

2014 ◽  
Vol 989-994 ◽  
pp. 5634-5637
Author(s):  
Peng Zheng ◽  
Lian Qiang Yang ◽  
Zhen Ni Dai
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Term Structure ◽  
Yield Curves ◽  
B Spline ◽  
Parametric Test ◽  
B Splines ◽  
Price Data ◽  
Significant Structural Change ◽  
Total Test

Using the price data of bonds’ transactions during June 2013, the discounting function is fitted by non-uniform cubic B-Splines and yield curves are modeled. Models’ single parametric test and total test are both significant. Furthermore, the structural change’s test shows that there is no significant structural change between adjacent transaction days, which means that the bonds’ market is relatively steady during June 2013.

scholarly journals Canadian Civil Engineers Pre-1850: Professionals Before Professionalization

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 73-95
Author(s):  
Richard White
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Civil Engineering ◽  
Public Works ◽  
The Other ◽  
Engineering Profession ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Civil Engineers

Abstract This article argues for a thorough re-thinking of the origins of the civil engineering profession in Canada. Working from a variety of sources, the richest being the public works papers in the National Archives of Canada, the author has assembled a list of forty-three men who practised as civil engineers in Canada before the railway boom of the 1850s and for whom biographical details are known. They are overwhelmingly men of the upper middle class who received good academic educations before their professional apprenticeships in engineering. Almost none were tradesmen. The civil engineering profession thus appears of much higher status, and much closer to the other traditional gentlemanly professions of the early nineteenth century, than others have recognized. The author goes on to explore to what extent this first generation of civil engineers might be considered true professionals, and what their existence suggests about the society in which they lived and practised.

scholarly journals A Tanzanian perspective on the nutrition transition and its implications for health

2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (1a) ◽  
pp. 163-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
TN Maletnlema
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Protein Energy Malnutrition ◽  
Nutrition Transition ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Infants And Toddlers ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Protein Energy ◽  
Urban Sample

AbstractObjective:The purpose of this paper is to describe social and economic changes related to shifts in diet and activity and to present prevalences for chronic diseases associated with the nutrition transition.Design:Observations about social changes are descriptive, based on published reports and personal observations. Prevalence and trends data are based on a Ministry of Health published report and, for infants and toddlers, on primary data.Setting:Disease prevalences for diabetes mellitus and hypertension are taken from four sites, representing underdeveloped, semi-developed and well-developed rural communities and Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania. The prevalences of underweight and overweight for infants and toddlers are taken from a small periurban clinic in Tanzania.Subjects:Adults over 15 years of age are included in the prevalence data for chronic disease. The urban sample is stratified by occupation and ethnicity. The data for infants and toddlers include newborns to those aged 23 months.Results:An increase in the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension was observed. Simultaneously, there have been rapid changes in diet and physical activity related to urbanisation and modernisation. The highest prevalences for diabetes and hypertension were among high-ranking executives.Conclusion:The increase in chronic disease could be related to the rise in the number of high-ranking executives. Simultaneously, per capita income has gone down, and malnutrition prevalence has risen. Programmes are being developed to simultaneously monitor trends in overweight while preventing protein-energy malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency.

scholarly journals Structural change and productivity growth in Brazil: where do we stand?

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-263
Author(s):  
ANDRÉ NASSIF ◽  
LUCILENE MORANDI ◽  
ELIANE ARAÚJO ◽  
CARMEM FEIJÓ
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Labor Productivity ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Labour Productivity ◽  
Trade Openness ◽  
Labor Productivity Growth ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
Significant Structural Change ◽  
Low Degree

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to discuss the evolution of the Brazilian labour productivity in the 1990s and 2000s to shed some light on the resilience of the Brazilian economy to recover growth. Labor productivity growth in Brazil, after showing positive annual rates between 1950 and 1979, became stagnant after 1980. Following McMillan and Rodrik’s (2011) methodology, this paper at first decompose labor productivity growth in the period 1950-2011, according to “structural change” (which is considered growth-enhancing) and “within effect” (which is growth-reducing, if not accompanied by significant structural change while the country is still pursuing its catching-up process). Next, an econometric exercised is presented to explain the determinants of the structural change component of the labour productivity since economic opening in the 1990s. The results show that the stagnation of the Brazilian productivity is explained by the overvaluation trend of the Brazilian currency, the reprimarization of the export basket, the low degree of Brazil’s trade openness and the high real interest rates prevailing in the period.

Teaching Materials for Civil Engineers in a Slightly Different Way

2019 ◽  
pp. 111-127
Author(s):  
Jonathan Oti
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Profession ◽  
Assessment Criterion ◽  
Teaching Materials ◽  
Report Writing ◽  
Writing Skill ◽  
Practical Task ◽  
Passing Grade ◽  
Civil Engineers

The overall aim of this chapter is to report the possibility of teaching materials for civil engineers in a slightly different way. Under the proposed change, the assessment criterion of the module was delivered through 50% laboratory coursework (coursework 1 to 10) and 50% closed-book examination. The students worked in groups, a total of 10 laboratory practical exercises were conducted, and 10 laboratory reports were submitted by the student. The work of the students was evaluated after the first practical exercise, and feedback was given to the students before they were allowed to carry out the second practical task. In this way, the students were able to take the feedback on-board and see how they were progressing. The overall result from the quantitative feedback suggests that students overwhelmingly agreed that the laboratory sessions enhanced their understanding of the module. The students read fewer materials, and most of the students achieved a passing grade. In addition, the students developed their report writing skill, which is highly relevant to the engineering profession.

Development of Environmental Engineering Education in Developing Countries

1987 ◽  
Vol 19 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 401-407
Author(s):  
Shamin Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Engineering Education ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Education Programme ◽  
Environmental Engineering ◽  
Engineering Profession ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Know How ◽  
Engineering Problems ◽  
And Training

Environmental engineering education should include appropriate curricula, courses and subject materials relevant to the needs of the society. Emphasis on environmental engineering should be laid at the undergraduate level, but to develop local capabilities both for the present and the future it is essential to develop post-graduate education and training for young engineers and a continuing education programme for senior engineers. Research work should be encouraged and financed so as to develop local expertise and know-how for solving environmental engineering problems. Students should be exposed to the concept of appropriate technologies, however simple these may appear. Many of the concepts developed in advanced countries in connection with environmental protection need modification before application. These may not be directly applicable to the conditions found in the region in which many of the developing countries are located. Necessary incentives, rewards, security of job and opportunities for professional development should be provided to attract engineers to the environmental engineering profession.

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