A growing body of research uses field and survey experiments to examine ethnic discrimination. Central to these studies is the use of people’s names as a proxy for ethnic origin. However, names signal more than solely ethnic markers. Moreover, their signals might vary across national contexts. Scholars should pre-test the perception of names used in experiments in order to properly interpret their results and reveal the mechanisms underlying discrimination. There is, however, no comprehensive study yet in Europe which thoroughly pre-test the perception of names across countries with profoundly different migration histories. In this paper, we present the dataset ‘Perceptions of names in Europe’, containing the perceptions of 1078 names studied across nine European countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The dataset includes 82.400 evaluations from 8.240 respondents about the distinctiveness of Sub-Sahara African, Muslim and Roma names in terms of minority-majority group status, gender, religiosity, socioeconomic status, skin colour, and language proficiency. Information on respondents’ background characteristics are also available.
Adapting to continuously changing needs and circumstances is a constant challenge for the designers of today. One possible solution to this is a flexible design, which can be effectively accomplished by a system of modular elements. A properly designed modular system can provide sufficient flexibility when configuring the product or equipment for the first time according to current needs. Furthermore, in case of changes in circumstances, the modular system can be easily reconfigured with another, optimized combination of elements according to the new needs. Modular design principles (DFM – Design for Modularity) is one focused direction of DFX techniques (DFX – Design for X) [1], which means design based on the modular principle. The paper presents modular design principles, methods and tools [2], which can be used to design modular equipment or modular product family. Reason for discussion is a running research project implemented by G-MAX Europe Ltd: development of a giant modular 3D printer (M3DP), project ID: 2021-1.1.4-GYORSÍTÓSÁV [3]. The research process can be divided into three parts. First is the design and construction of a prototype that is a large (5m x 1m x 1m workspace) modular 3D printer. Second part is the design of large-scale 3D printed products that can be manufactured by M3DP special machine. The 3D printing of these products must be feasible, reasonable and economical. The third part is the research and implementation of recycling-technology, since the machine must be able to produce a 3D printed product from 100% recycled raw materials. Professors, experts and specialists of the Technical University of Budapest; Faculty of Mechanical Engineering; Department of Machine and Product Design participated in the design of the research parts of the project. The paper further describes the modular machine family designed by the DfM method, including the modular element library system, the modular graph and the designed modules. Then some products will be presented that can be manufactured by the large M3DP equipment and can be flexibly selected or combined according to current requirements. During the design process, the principles and methods of Design for 3D printing (DF3DP), Design for Environment (DFE) and Design for Recycling (DFR) have been applied. For the development of the products, several small-scale mock-ups were 3D printed and tested used for iterations, to gain final and optimized product designs. In summary, the designers and researchers successfully fulfilled the very complex design and development tasks by a lot of research, simulations and experiments. The paper introduces the theory of DfM, presents the practical application, and certifies the adequacy by concrete examples.
In this paper, we examine children’s ethnic discrimination in access to sport. We conducted two field experiments to test whether Roma applicants get greater rejection rates when applying to sport clubs and whether this rate is higher in case Roma applicants have a lower-class background. Basketball, volleyball, and soccer coaches were contacted by e-mail using Roma and non-Roma sounding names, requesting to participate in a trial practice. Previous findings show persistent discrimination of Roma people in Central and Eastern Europe in the labor and housing market and in access to various public services. Our findings in the field of sport in Hungary show that there is significant ethnic discrimination only when a stereotype about Roma people being lower class is activated. Further, gender was found to have a significant effect, with higher positive response rates for mothers applying for a trial session for a daughter, than for a son, regardless of their ethnicity. Our findings suggest a prevailing intersection of class and ethnicity, though our data does not allow for the separation of these two effects. These differences are discussed to better understand the role of intersectionality in discrimination within sport.
The central banks of the industrialised world faced an unusual and difficult challenge in 2022-2023 when inflation, public debt in several countries and the exposure of banking systems to private debtors rocketed all at once. Thus, interest rates needed to be raised (to curb inflation) and reduced the same time (to stop the growth of public debt, usually termed fiscal dominance), and/or save banks from losses (which means financial dominance). The question arises whether central banks must accept fiscal and/or financial dominance? And, really, how could this happen? Can one blame central banks for the processes leading up to it and if they can, in what sense? What has been misunderstood about the relationship of unemployment and the rate of inflation? Has quantitative easing (QE) by a number of central banks been the right response since interest rate reduction as a means to boost the economy failed? Is it possible that forward guidance may lead to better results? Or else, should the operating modes of central banks be changed temporarily? Those seem to be the most interesting issues dealt with by experts of the IMF and former and current central bank governors and experts in the 2023 March issue of Finance & Development. Final answers to the questions cannot be expected in the near future, but readers can find some worthy opinions here.
A cikk célja a magyar közoktatás alkalmazkodási képességének bemutatása nemzetközi összehasonlításban. Egyfelől röviden összefoglalja a politika, a társadalom, és a gazdaság alrendszerének szerkezetét átalakító globális folyamatok legfontosabb, a közoktatást érintő következményeit. Másfelől, nemzetközi mutatókkal illusztrálva bemutatja, hogy más – hasonló intézményi gyökerekkel rendelkező – országokhoz képest a jelenlegi magyar rendszer mennyire képes megfelelni az ebből adódó kihívásoknak. Ennek alapján Magyarország az oktatást érintő kihívások mindhárom nagy területén a sérülékenyebb és az alkalmazkodásra kevésbé felkészült országok közé tartozik a régióban. Ez az elmaradás nem csak az új generációk munkalehetőségeit és életminőségét fogja erősen behatárolni, hanem a magyar társadalom és gazdaság egészének fejlődését is fékezni fogja. Az országok közötti eltérések változatos mintázata ugyanakkor azt is mutatja, hogy még a szovjet-típusú iskola súlyos örökségével terhelt rendszerekben is lehetséges érdemi javulást elérni.
