Although immigration of workers generates a positive externality on members of domestic pension systems, many countries are very reluctant to allow foreigners into their labor markets. In a political economic framework, we explain this voting outcome by considering a young unskilled median voter who faces – in addition to a reduction of contribution rates – negative effects from immigration as ...

This article presents an overview of the POLYCOST database dedicated to speaker recognition applications over the telephone network. The main characteristics of this database are: large mixed speech corpus size (> 100 speakers), English spoken by foreigners, mainly digits with some free speech, collected through international telephone lines, and more than eight sessions per speaker.

BACKGROUND In their quest to understand and interpret nature, people have frequently sought religious or divine origins for plant species and their characteristics. Less often, historical events or persons are involved. This study comprises eleven cases of the latter kind, all claiming that plant species have been introduced by foreigners or at least from foreign lands. METHODS Based on liter...

This paper examines the element central to the notion of the cyborg as a figure of postmodern resistance – the cyborg's celebrated politics of irony, ambiguity, hybridity and effacement. The paper contends that actual constructions of cyborgism in social practice today are emerging in forms which offer far less empowerment than postmodern narratives might hope for. In the examples looked at, th...