1,234 research outputs found
Infrastructure bottlenecks, private provision, and industrial productivity : a study of Indonesian and Thai cities
No full textThis research project followed an earlier similar project on Nigeria, applying the same methods. A sample of manufacturers was surveyed to document their responses to infrastructure deficiencies in electricity, water, transport, telecommunications, and waste disposal. They found the manufacturers undertook significant expenditures to offset deficiencies in publicly provided infrastructure services, and that changing public policy toward privately supplied infrastructure and changing the pricing of public infrastructure could yield significant savings in social costs. Thailand and Indonesia have made significant strides in following the policies for private sector participation in infrastructure provision. Nigeria, where public infrastructure monopolies still dominate, lags behind, yet stands to benefit most from such policy reform. Government policy toward the industrial organization and pricing of infrastructure sectors can significantly help a developing economy realize the benefits of private sector participation in the provision of infrastructure services.Banks&Banking Reform,Decentralization,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Services to the Poor,Public Sector Economics&Finance
Multi-Objective Calibration For Agent-Based Models
No full textAgent-based modelling is already proving to be an immensely useful tool for scientific and industrial modelling applications. Whilst the building of such models will always be something between an art and a science, once a detailed model has been built, the process of parameter calibration should be performed as precisely as possible. This task is often made difficult by the proliferation of model parameters with non-linear interactions. In addition to this, these models generate a large number of outputs, and their ‘accuracy’ can be measured by many different, often conflicting, criteria. In this paper we demonstrate the use of multi-objective optimisation tools to calibrate just such an agent-based model. We use an agent-based model of a financial market as an exemplar and calibrate the model using a multi-objective genetic algorithm. The technique is automated and requires no explicit weighting of criteria prior to calibration. The final choice of parameter set can be made after calibration with the additional input of the domain expert
Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses
No full textCoinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the trailblazing restaurant Mother Courage of New York City, Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present. As key sites of cultural and political significance, this volume shows the essential role these institutions served for multiple social justice movements including women’s liberation, LGBTQ equality, and food justice, as well as for training women workers and entrepreneurs.
This systematic study outlines the crucial steps it took to establish these businesses during eras when sexism was so institutionalized it was difficult for unmarried women to obtain a bank loan, while also showing the continuities and influences of past businesses on contemporary places. Through an examination of important establishments across America, Alex D. Ketchum first examines the foundational principles behind these businesses, noting key differences between cooperative, for-profit, and non-profit models. She then looks to issues of financing, labour, pay, food sourcing, and cultural programming to understand how these organizations reconciled feminist beliefs with capitalism and how they strove for more equitable and sustainable business practices.
Brimming with illuminating archival research, interviews with influential restaurateurs, and illustrated with photographs, menus, posters, and calendars, Ingredients for Revolution is a fundamental work of women’s history, food history, and cultural history.
Concordia University Press gratefully acknowledges that this open-access electronic edition has been made possible with funds received from the Partenariat des bibliothèques universitaires du Québec (PBUQ).
Dr. Alex Ketchum is an Assistant Professor at McGill University's Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF) and the author of Engage in Public Scholarship! A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication
Development of the Zimbabwe family planning program
No full textFamily planning was introduced in Zimbabwe as a voluntary movement in the 1950s. Volunteers formed a Family Planning Association in the mid-1960s. The government became interested in family planning in the late 1960s after analysis of the 1961 population census. It gave the Family Planning Association an annual grant, allowed contraceptives to be available through Ministry of Health facilities, and allowed nonmedical personnel to initiate and resupply family planning clients with condoms and pills. But before Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980, family planning was viewed with great suspicion by the black majority, so the program's effectiveness was limited to the urban few. A new era began after independence. The new government took over theFamily Planning Association and changed its outlook completely. Through government and international donor support, the family planning program was restructured and expanded. The number of family planning personnel more than doubled in some units. More service delivery points were set up - particularly in rural areas. And the information, education, and communication and evaluation and research units were established. Through a World Bank-assisted project (with grant funding from Norway and Denmark), the Ministry of Health began strengthening its family planning capabilities. These efforts helped increase the contraceptive prevalence rate from about 14 percent in 1982 to 43 percent in 1988. But the program's growth is beginning to stall. More effort and resources are needed if the program is to grow or even maintain its present status. Particularly important are the following: designing innovative strategies to reach hard-to-reach populations; giving more emphasis to information, education, and communication, especially for men and youths, using multimedia; involving other sectors in the delivery of family planning services; broadening the mix of contraceptive methods (especially promoting long-term and permanent methods); making use of alternative family planning delivery systems, such as the use of depot holders, volunteers, and government extension workers; establishing a national population policy; and considering cost recovery and other measures for self-sustainment and program growth.Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,ICT Policy and Strategies,Gender and Health,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health
Beyond recurrent costs: an institutional analysis of the unsustainability of donor-supported reforms in agricultural extension
No full textInternational donors have spent billions of dollars over the past four decades in developing and/or reforming the agricultural extension service delivery arrangements in developing countries. However, many of these reforms, supported through short-term projects, became unsustainable once aid funding had ceased. The unavailability of recurrent funding has predominantly been highlighted in the literature as the key reason for this undesirable outcome, while little has been written about institutional factors. The purpose of this article is to examine the usefulness of taking an institutional perspective in explaining the unsustainability of donor-supported extension reforms and derive lessons for improvement. Using a framework drawn from the school of institutionalism in a Bangladeshi case study, we have found that a reform becomes unsustainable because of poor demands for extension information and advice; missing, weak, incongruent, and perverse institutional frameworks governing the exchange of extension goods (services); and a lack of institutional learning and change during the reform process. Accordingly, we have argued that strategies for sustainable extension reforms should move beyond financial considerations and include such measures as making extension goods (services) more tangible and monetary in nature, commissioning in-depth studies to learn about local institutions, crafting new institutions and/or reforming the weak and perverse institutions prevailing in developing countries. We emphasize the need to address three categories of institutions – regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive – and call for an alignment among them. We further argue that, in order to be sustainable, a reform should take a systemic approach in institutional capacity building and, for this to be possible, adopt a long-term program approach, as opposed to a short-term project approach
Education and earnings inequality in Mexico
No full textEducation attainment levels increased dramatically for Mexico's labor force in the 1980s and early 1990s. In parallel, the country experienced a pronounced increase in earnings inequality from 1984-94, reflected in a higher dispersion of wages and an absolute decline in the real incomes of less educated, poorer Mexicans. This increased wage dispersion presents policymakers with a tradeoff between efficiency considerations (favoring increased spending on higher education) and equity considerations (favoring a more equal distribution of per student spending) in the allocation of fiscal resources to education. The author concludes that the best way to deal with this equity-efficiency tradeoff is to encourage greater private participation in higher education. His main findings are that: a) The accumulation of human capital during 1984-94, as proxied by education attainment, was accompanied by a more equal distribution of education attainment levels over that period and, thus, exerted an equalizing effect on the distribution of incomes. The increased income inequalityobserved over that period appears to be caused by an increased rate of skill-based technological change, whose transmission to Mexico and other developing countries may have been facilitated by the increased openness of their economies. b) The greater dispersion of wager observed in Mexico during the past decade raised the rates of return on investing in higher education, reversing the traditional pattern where primary education exhibits the highest rates of return. c) The social rates of return across levels of schooling were more uniform in 1994 than in 1984, suggesting a more efficient assignment of education spending. At the same time, the distribution of spending on education became more egalitarian, as per student spending in higher education declined markedly compared with per student spending at the primary level. This surprising coincidence in the pattern of spending on education was only possible because Mexico started out with a very distorted resource allocation in education that was both highly inequitable and inefficient. As Mexico's policymakers are on the way to correcting these distortions, the opportunities for avoiding the equity-efficiency tradeoff within Mexico's centralized education framework will become progressively exhausted. d) There is little reason to expect the pace of technological change, which appears mainly responsible for raising wage dispersion and the relative returns on higher education, to abate. Efficiency considerations dictate that Mexico should respond by devoting more resources to higher education. However, the federal budget, which traditionally has financed the lion's share of higher education costs in Mexico, is unable to accommodate additional spending on higher education, while spending cuts elsewhere in the education sector are bound to raise serious equity questions. Thus, to avoid falling behind in terms of human capital accumulation, greater private sector participation is necessary, at least, in terms of cost recovery from the main beneficiaries of higher education.Decentralization,Teaching and Learning,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Curriculum&Instruction,Teaching and Learning,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Education,Curriculum&Instruction
PR-технологии продвижения предприятия индустрии красоты и здоровья (на примере компании Alex fitness в Санкт-Петербурге)
No full textАннотация выпускной квалификационной работы Козловой Екатерины «РR-технологии продвижения предприятия индустрии красоты и здоровья (на примере компании «Alex fitness» в городе Санкт-Петербурге)» Н. рук. – Шишкин Дмитрий Павлович, канд. философ. наук Кафедра связей с общественностью в бизнесе СПбГУ Очная форма обучения Данная дипломная работа направлена на изучение процесса PR-продвижения фитнес клуба на примере сети клубов Alex fitness. Актуальность исследования определяется возрастающей ролью для общества индустрии красоты и здоровья и перспективами развития данной отрасли. Целью является описание комплекса интегрированных коммуникаций индустрии красоты и здоровья на примере сети фитнес клубов и выявление специфики PR-коммуникаций в фитнес-индустрии на примере Alex fitness. Для достижения данной цели автором были поставлены и решены следующие задачи: произвести анализ рынка красоты и здоровья; определить целевую аудиторию индустрии красоты и здоровья; обозначить современные тренды индустрии красоты и здоровья; определить тенденции и перспективы отрасли; изучить коммуникационную деятельность субъекта сферы фитнес-клуба Санкт-Петербурга Alex fitness; проанализировать документы фитнес клубов Санкт-Петербурга. Объект исследования — PR-коммуникации, применяемые в индустрии красоты и здоровья. Предмет исследования — PR-технологии, приемы, методы, используемые в построении данных коммуникаций на примере компании Alex fitness. Теоретической и методологической базой для исследования послужили, во-первых, работы специалистов в области связей с общественностью Д.П. Шишкина, Д.П. Гавры, Ж.А. Романовича, С.Л. Калачёва, О.Г. Филатовой и, во-вторых, работы по менеджменту и маркетингу, касающиеся деятельности фитнес клубов (Е.В.Пантелеева, В.В.Алёшин, В.Е.Борилкевич, В.И.Григорьев, В.И.Жолдак). Эмпирическую базу исследования составили статистические данные и PR-источники Alex fitness, медиатексты в региональных СМИ об Alex fitness, а также материалы качественных и количественных исследований, проведенных автором работы (экспертные интервью, анализ внутренних документов и включенное наблюдение). Структуру работы составляет введение, 2 теоретических главы, практическая глава, заключение, библиографический список, приложения.Abstract of the graduation paper by Kozlova Ekaterina "RR-technology promotion of enterprises of the industry of beauty and health (on the example of the company "Alex fitness" in the city of Saint Petersburg)" Scientific adviser – Shishkin Dmitry Pavlovich, Cand. philosopher. Sciences Department of public relations in business, St. Petersburg state University Full-time education This thesis aims to study the process PR-promotion of the fitness club on the example of a network of clubs Alex fitness. The relevance of the study is due to the increasing role for companies of the beauty industry and health and development prospects of the industry. The aim is to describe the complex integrated communications industry of beauty and health on the example network of fitness clubs and the detection of the specificity of PR-communications in the fitness industry on the example of Alex fitness. To achieve this aim, the author has formulated and solved the following goals: to analyze the market of beauty and health; to identify the target audience of the industry of beauty and health; to identify contemporary trends of the industry of beauty and health; identify trends and prospects of the industry; to study the communication activity of the subject of the scope of the fitness-club of Saint-Petersburg Alex fitness; analyze the documents of fitness clubs in St. Petersburg. The object of research — the PR communications used in the industry of beauty and health. The subject of research — the PR-technologies, techniques and methods used in the construction of data communications in the example company Alex fitness. Theoretical and methodological basis of the study were, first, the work of specialists in the field of public relations D. P. Shishkina, D. P. Gavra, J. A. R., S. L. Kalachev, O. G. Filatova, and second, work on management and marketing, concerning the activities of fitness clubs (E. V. Panteleev, V. V. Aleshin, V. E., Borisevich, V. I. Grigoriev, V. I. Zholdak). The empirical basis of research was statistics and PR sources, Alex fitness, the media texts in the regional media about the Alex fitness, as well as materials qualitative and quantitative research conducted by the author (expert interviews, analysis of internal documents and participant observation). The project is structured in a following way: introduction, 2 theoretical chapters and practical chapter, conclusion, bibliography, applications
Interactive Multi-Submission Deposit Workflows for Desktop Applications
No full textOnline submission and publishing is the norm for academic researchers. With the pressure on these authors to submit their work to conferences, journals and Institutional Repositories, this leads to demands on the author to go through multiple web based interfaces, filling in forms with the same information multiple times before they can submit. At the same time, each of these services in turn will have made policy decisions on what types of format they allow and what templates the content has to conform to. The amount of work expected of the author does not adding up to the potential gain, thus most authors will only submit into the repository or publication where they foresee the most benefit. In this paper we propose a solution to this problem that embeds the workflow for multiple submissions into the desktop application of the author, most commonly Microsoft Word. We also propose extending the work done on the Microsoft Word Author Add-in tool to allow two-way negotiation between each repository and the desktop application
Trade Update Notes; Report of the Task Force on The Aggregate Measure of Support: Potential Use by GATT for Agriculture
No full textInternational Relations/Trade,
A Dichotomy Concerning Uniform Boundedness of Riesz Transforms on Riemannian Manifolds
No full textGiven a sequence of complete Riemannian manifolds (Mn) of the same dimension, we construct a complete Riemannian manifold M such that for all p ∈(1,∞) the Lp-norm of the Riesz transform on M dominates the Lpnorm of the Riesz transform on Mn for all n. Thus we establish the following dichotomy: Given p and d, either there is a uniform Lp bound on the Riesz transform over all complete d-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, or there exists a complete Riemannian manifold with Riesz transform unbounded on Lp.Accepted author manuscriptAnalysi
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