This study examines long-term effects of a large minimum wage increase in Slovenia, covering the universe of employed and unemployed workers. By distinguishing subminimum and super-minimum workers, ...we find large, persistent disemployment effects for the subminimum group whose productivity fell below the rising minimum wage, both due to lower probability of remaining employed and of finding a job if non-employed. The shock to firm wage bills caused by the minimum wage creates a substitution toward workers whose marginal revenue products are slightly above the minimum wage, but the most skilled are complements with the subminimum workers in their firm.
•In 2010, the minimum wage in Slovenia increased by 22.9%.•The increase had a large and persistent disemployment effect on low-skill workers.•The effect occured due to lower probability of remaining employed and of finding job.•The shock caused firms to substitute from subminimum toward super-minimum workers
East Asia in Slovenia Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik
Asian Studies/Asian studies,
09/2021, Letnik:
9, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
This special issue of Asian Studies aims to contribute to the field of European global collecting history by opening new vistas in order to readdress some of the unexplored topics. By presenting East ...Asian material in Slovenia and reconstructing the intercultural contacts between the two territories, it sheds light on the specific position of the Slovenian territory in the history of Euro-Asian exchanges on the threshold of the 20th century.
Face coverings, such as surgical masks and respirators, have an important role in preventing bacterial and viral transmission, especially during a global pandemic like COVID-19. Therefore, to secure ...their availability, new manufacturers and the use of novel materials must be encouraged. However, masks and their materials must first be properly tested for safety and efficiency, as required by the relevant standard, valid in a specific region. All standards prescribe determination of the bacterial filtration efficiency (BFE) of masks. In this study, we report the establishment of a test method for the BFE of face masks in accordance with European standard EN 14683:2019, by which we tested 52 samples, each composed of 3 to 5 subsamples, of surgical and cloth masks, respirators, filters, and mask materials. Forty-seven out of the 52 samples reached a BFE above 75 %. Of these, 16 samples had a BFE of 75 % to 95 %, 3 had a BFE of 95 % to 98 %, while 28 reached a filtration efficiency above 98 %. Our findings show that all tested samples provided some level of protection, most of which met the requirements for the national or European market.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a markedly negative impact on global tourism and, on the other hand, has offered new opportunities for researchers to analyze the resilience of the tourism industry in ...such conditions. Recently, several scientific articles have emerged claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic could represent an opportunity for significant changes in tourism. This refers to changing practices at several levels and spreading new ethical principles. The pandemic has also made people aware of the importance of "well-being". Even without a pandemic, wellness tourism has been one of the fastest-growing types of tourism in recent years. In all parts of the world, including Slovenia, natural spas have tried to adapt to new conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis confirms that visitors to Slovenian spas strongly support introducing new/alternative activities and thus the dispersion of visitors to several locations. They showed the greatest interest in visiting nature in the vicinity of spas, which is also expected as a result of the closure during the pandemic. The purpose of our article is to give suggestions for offering alternative activities in Slovenian natural spas. However, adapting the wellness offer in spas should ensure that the basic traditional principles of wellness are maintained.
The relative survival field has seen a lot of development in the last decade, resulting in many different and even opposing suggestions on how to approach the analysis.
We carefully define and ...explain the differences between the various measures of survival (overall survival, crude mortality, net survival and relative survival ratio) and study their differences using colon and prostate cancer data extracted from the national population-based cancer registry of Slovenia as well as simulated data.
The colon and prostate cancer data demonstrate clearly that when analysing population-based data, it is useful to split the overall mortality in crude probabilities of dying from cancer and from other causes. Complemented by net survival, it provides a complete picture of cancer survival in a given population. But when comparisons of different populations as defined for example by place or time are of interest, our simulated data demonstrate that net survival is the only measure to be used.
The choice of the method should be done in two steps: first, one should determine the measure of interest and second, one should choose among the methods that estimate that measure consistently.
The Slovene community in Italy paid the utmost attention to the events in Slovenia at the time of the declaration of independence in June 1991 and the subsequent attack of the Yugoslav People’s Army. ...Drawing from newspaper reports, the article focuses on some major public events, charities and youth activities that were the result of cooperative activities of the Slovene community in Italy during the events in Slovenia. Thereby, the Slovene minority tried to influence the decisions of the Italian and European political leaders to intervene in the event of military aggression and support Slovenia’s independence, while also involving the public and successfully encouraging it to participate en masse in public events and charity campaigns to help Slovenia.
Mercury (Hg) solubility and reactivity in soils at two extremely contaminated ancient small scale cinnabar roasting sites in the surroundings of the Hg mining area of Idrija (Slovenia) were ...determined in order to assess the mobility of Hg in the aqueous phase and to evaluate the extent of leaching of Hg into Idrijca River and further downstream. Water leaching experiments were performed on soil and SOM (soil organic matter) samples from historical roasting sites Pšenk and Frbejžene trate. The determined concentrations of leachable Hg in soil samples from the studied areas range from 16 to exceptionally high concentration of 18,000μg/kg, representing 0.0002 to 1.1% of total Hg in these samples, while in SOM samples leachable Hg concentrations range between 13.3 and 6000μg/kg, which corresponds to 0.0017–0.074% of total Hg determined in SOM. The soluble Hg concentrations in investigated soil profiles range from 183 to 18,000μg/kg (0.038–1.7% of total Hg). On the average, more than 90% of soluble Hg occurs in a non-reactive complex bound form, suggesting the preferential binding of Hg to humic matter. Soluble Hg in studied soil profiles generally increases with depth. The obtained results show that Hg is effectively transported to deeper soil layers, mainly as soluble organic complexes. It is estimated that there is still about 10kg of soluble Hg stored in soils of the investigated roasting sites, which is continuously leached to surface waters and deeper into the soil.
•Water leaching experiments were performed on soil and SOM samples.•Total soluble, complex-bound and reactive Hg was defined.•Extremely high concentrations (up to 18,000μg/kg) of soluble Hg were determined.•More than 90% of soluble Hg occurs in a non-reactive complex bound form.•We estimate that soluble Hg stored in soils is mobilized to the groundwater.
A Mesoscale Convective System in North-Western Slovenia produced up to 350–400mm in 12h on 18 September, 2007. The region impacted by the storm shows significant differences in climatic and geologic ...properties at short distances. Owing to such variability, extreme flooding concentrated over the Selška Sora watershed at Železniki (103.3km2), outside the area which received the highest precipitation. Hydrometeorological analyses of the storm are based on accurate analysis of C-band weather-radar observations and data from a rain gauge network. Detailed surveys of high-water marks and channel/floodplain geometry, carried out two months after the flood, are used for hydrologic analyses of the Selška Sora flood. These include estimation of peak discharge at 21 sites. Unit peak discharges range from 5 to 7m3s−1km−2 in basins characterised by size up to approximately 25km2. Higher unit peak discharges (>10m3s−1km−2), estimated in a few smaller basins, are influenced by intense sediment transport. Observed rainfall, estimated peak discharges, and observer notes on timing of peak discharge are used along with a distributed hydrologic model to reconstruct hydrographs at multiple locations. Examination of the rainfall distribution and flood response shows that the extent and the position of the karst terrain provided a major control on flood response in the region impacted by the storm. Use of the distributed hydrological model together with the post-flood survey observations is shown to provide an accurate description of the flood. Water balance and response time characteristics are examined for selected catchments, showing that event runoff coefficient ranged between 17% and 24% for different catchments. The quality of the peak discharge simulation at the 21 surveyed sites is substantially degraded when using spatially-uniform rainfall over the area covering all the surveyed sub-catchments, mainly due to rainfall volume errors introduced by using the spatially uniform value. On the other hand, the influence of rainfall spatial averaging at the scale of the sub-catchments generally has a very limited effect on runoff modelling, showing that rainfall spatial organisation was not able to overcome the catchment dampening effect for this flood.
Previous studies on SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV reported the detection of viral RNA in the stool of both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. These clinical observations suggest that municipal and ...hospital wastewater from affected communities may contain SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Recent studies have also reported the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in human feces. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a promising approach to understand the prevalence of viruses in a given catchment population, as wastewater contains viruses from symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. The current study reports the first detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in untreated wastewater in Slovenia. Two sizes of centrifugal filters were tested: 30 kDa and 10 kDA AMICON® Ultra-15 Centrifugal Filters, where 10 kDA resulted in a higher concentration factor and higher recovery efficiency. The results in hospital wastewater show that WBE can be used for monitoring COVID −19 and could be applied in municipal wastewater treatment plants as a potential complementary tool for public health monitoring at population level.
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•The first study in Slovenia that reports the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in untreated wastewater.•66.7% (10/15) of untreated hospital wastewater samples tested positive for at least one SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR target.•SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in untreated hospital wastewater when only one COVID-19 patient was hospitalized.
Contaminated sediments transported onto the river terrace during high water events can contribute significant quantities of potentially toxic elements to riparian soils. Seven trace elements (As, Cd, ...Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn) were analysed in the river sediment and riparian soil of the River Sava and their spatial distribution, potential toxicity and ecological risk levels were evaluated. The results showed that levels of all the trace metals were enriched to varying extents in both the sediment (As, Cr, Ni, and Pb) and soil (Ni) when compared to reference levels for sediments and European soils. Mean concentrations of trace metals in sediment and soil, apart from Pb, increased downstream in the River Sava. The similar increasing trend of these elements in sediment and soil may be explained by their increased load due to anthropogenic pressures (As, Cr, Ni, Pb and Zn in sediment and the significant accumulation of Ni in soil) and frequent periodic flooding (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn in sediment and Cd in soil are influenced by both high water events and natural factors such as the geological substrate), particularly in lowland regions. In this study, soluble As, Cd, Cr, Cu and Ni fractions in sediment and soil <10% indicated their low mobility. The exceptions were readily soluble Pb and Zn in the sediment and soil at some sampling sites. In the lower reaches, levels of Pb in sediment was indicative of a medium environmental hazard, while there was a high environmental hazard in the upper reaches with the average Pb content in sediment higher than the PEL. Pollution factors for Pb in soil indicated a medium environmental hazard in the upper and middle reaches and a high environmental hazard at some sites in the lower stretches of the Sava River, although total Pb content in soil was within the range proposed for European soils.
•Riparian zone contamination was studied on a large spatial scale.•As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn in riparian soil and river sediment were analysed.•Cr and Ni levels >PEL (CCME 2001) were found in river sediment in river's lower reaches.•Elevated As, Cr, Ni and Zn levels were found in riparian soil in river's lower reaches.•Hazardous readily soluble Pb in sediment and soil was found in upper reaches.
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