120,917 research outputs found
Who benefits from promoting small and medium scale enterprises ? some empirical evidence from Ethiopia
No full textThe Addis Ababa Integrated Housing Development Program aims to tackle the housing shortage and unemployment that prevail in Addis Ababa by deploying and supporting small and medium scale enterprises to construct low-cost housing using technologies novel for Ethiopia. The motivation for such support is predicated on the view that small firms create more jobs per unit of investment by virtue of being more labor intensive and that the jobs so created are concentrated among the low-skilled and hence the poor. To assess whether the program has succeeded in biasing technology adoption in favor of labor and thereby contributed to poverty reduction, the impact of the program on technology usage, labor intensity, and earnings is investigated using a unique matched workers-firms dataset, the Addis Ababa Construction Enterprise Survey. The data are representative of all registered construction firms in Addis and were collected specifically for the purpose of analyzing the impact of the program. The authors find that program firms do not adopt different technologies and are not more labor intensive than non-program firms. There is an earnings premium for program participants, who tend to be relatively well-educated, which is heterogeneous and highest for those at the bottom of the earnings distribution.Labor Markets,Access to Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Microfinance,Labor Policies
Seroepidemiology of measles in Addis Ababa Ethiopia: implications for control through vaccination
No full textWe undertook a representative survey of measles antibodies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 1994, to characterize immunity and transmission. Specific-antibody levels (IU/l) were determined by ELISA for 4654 sera from individuals aged 0–49 years (1805 <15 years) collected by stratified household-cluster sampling. The proportion seronegative (<100 IU/l) was 20% (95% CI : 16–25) in children 9–59 months old, declining to 9% (7–12) in 5–9 year olds, 5% (4–7) in 10–14 year olds, and <1% in adults. The proportion of children (<15 years old) with low-level antibody (100–255 IU/l) was 8% (7–10). Vaccination and an absence of a history of measles illness were strongly associated with low-level antibody. History of measles vaccination in 9 months to 14-year-old children was y80%. We estimate a primary vaccine failure rate of 21% (12–34) and continued high measles incidence of 22 per 100 susceptibles (19–24) per annum. Our data support the introduction of campaign vaccination in the city in 1998, although higher routine vaccine coverage is required to sustain the impact. The implications of a high prevalence of low-level antibody are discussed
Reliable audiovisual archiving using unreliable storage technology and services
No full textThe drive for online access to archive content within ‘tapeless’ workflows means that mass-storage technology is an inevitable part of modern archive solutions, either in-house or provided as services by third-parties. But are these solutions safe? Can they assure the data integrity needed for long-term preservation of Petabyte volumes of data? The answer is no. Field studies reveal data corruption can take place silently without detection or correction, including in 'enterprise class' systems explicitly designed to prevent data loss. The reality is that data loss is inevitable to some degree or another from hardware failures, software bugs, and human errors. This paper presents ongoing work in the UK AVATAR-m project and in the recently started EC PrestoPrime project on a framework for storing large audiovisual files on heterogeneous and distributed storage infrastructures that allows various strategies for content replication, integrity monitoring and repair to be developed and tested
Seroepidemiology of hepatitis B virus in Addis Ababa Ethiopia: transmission patterns and vaccine control
No full textA community-based seroepidemiological survey of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was conducted in 1994 to inform on the transmission dynamics and control of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Venous blood from 4736 individuals under 50 years of age from 1262 households, selected using stratified cluster-sampling, was screened for HBV markers using commercial ELISAs. HBsAg prevalence was 7% (95% CI 6–8), higher in males (9%; 7–10) than females (5%; 4–6). HBeAg prevalence in HBsAg positives was 23% (18–29), and less than 1% of women of childbearing age were HBeAg positive. Overall HBV seroprevalence (any marker), rose steadily with age to over 70% in 40–49 year olds, indicating significant childhood and adult transmission. Estimated instantaneous incidence was 3–4/100 susceptibles/year, higher in males than females in 0–4 year olds, and peaking in early childhood and young adults. The age at which 50% had evidence of infection was around 20 years, and the herd immunity threshold is approximated at 63–77%. Addis Ababa is of intermediate-high HBV endemicity, with negligible perinatal transmission. Our main findings are the identification of a significant difference between males and females in the age-acquisition of HBV infection, and marked differences between age groups in HBV incidence rates. These results should target future research studies of underlying risk factors. Furthermore, we generate a crude estimate of the level of coverage of HBV vaccine that would be required to eliminate the virus from the study population
Tools for quantitative comparison of preservation strategies
No full textThis report describes the tools developed by IT Innovation for quantitative comparison of preservation strategies. The tools have been open sourced and are publicly available on a website which includes documentation and features for bug reporting and new functionality requests
Sero-epidemiology of rubella in the urban population of Addis Ababa Ethiopia
No full textWe conducted a community-based cluster sample survey of rubella sero-epidemiology in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1994. Among 4666 individuals for whom complete data were available, rubella antibody prevalence was 91% (95% confidence interval: 90, 92). On multivariable analysis, seroprevalence was lower among individuals who were resident in Addis Ababa for 1 year or less. Approx. 50% seroprevalence was attained by age 4 years, and the estimated average age at infection was 5·2 years. The highest age-specific force of infection was estimated to occur in 5- to 9-year-olds. The early age at infection corresponded with a low estimated incidence of congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) of 0·3 per 1000 live births, equivalent to nine cases of CRS in 1994. The predicted critical level of immunity for elimination of rubella via vaccination was 85–91%, requiring 89–96% coverage with a vaccine of 95% effectiveness. Unless very high coverage of rubella vaccine could be guaranteed, the introduction of childhood vaccination could increase the incidence of CRS in Addis Ababa
In memoria di una norma abrogata (art. 13, 5° comma, l. 9 dicembre 1998, n. 431, in tema di nullità di clausole locatizie e riconduzione a conformità)
No full textColl'art. 13, 5° comma, l. 9 dicembre 1998 n.431, la disciplina delle locazioni abitative aveva introdotto nella legislazione italiana un modello rimediale affatto originale, caratterizzato da una tutela di natura costitutiva in relazione ad ipotesi particolarmente riprovevoli di illiceità del comportamento di una parte nei confronti dell'altra. Il recente intervento normativo del 2015 ha tuttavia profondamente
inciso sull'istituto della riconduzione a condizioni conformi, modificandone radicalmente i connotati. L'abrogazione di una norma quasi sempre induce l'interprete ad un atteggiamento di progressiva disattenzione verso una regola non più in vigore, che il tempo renderà, al più, oggetto di interesse da parte degli storici. Questo scritto vorrebbe reagire contro il naturale corso degli eventi e fornire uno spunto
di riflessione sull'attualità, anche oltre i confini del tipo legale che ne aveva consentito l'emersione, della riconduzione a condizioni conformi di un contratto nullo per difetto di forma a causa della pretesa di una delle parti di disattendere l'onere formale legalmente imposto
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