Income inequality and health status: role of institutions quality

This paper investigates the relationships between health indicators, institutional variables and income inequality. In the economic literature, the impact of income distribution on health status is largely studied. Theoretically, all the mechanisms developed in the literature highlight a negative impact of income inequality on health status. However, empirical studies find different results and the conclusions are far from a consensus. In this article, we partly propose an explanation to these discrepancies on the effect of income distribution on health by introducing institutions quality in the debate. More precisely, we assess whether the effect of income inequality on population's health is conditional to institutions quality. Our analysis shows that income inequality affects negatively population health and this negative effect is mitigated by good institutions. Another interesting result is that income inequality affects higher health status in developing countries as compare to others.health status, income inequality, institutions quality, instrumental variables method, panel data

Eugenics: positive vs negative

The distinction between positive and negative eugenics is perhaps the best-known distinction that has been made between forms that eugenics takes. Roughly, positive eugenics refers to efforts aimed at increasing desirable traits, while negative eugenics refers to efforts aimed at decreasing undesirable traits. Still, it is easy to fall into confusion in drawing and deploying the distinction in particular contexts. Clarity here is important not only historically, but also for appeals to the distinction in contemporary discussions of “new eugenics” or “newgenics”

HeteroGenius: A Framework for Hybrid Analysis of Heterogeneous Software Specifications

Nowadays, software artifacts are ubiquitous in our lives being an essential part of home appliances, cars, cell phones, and even in more critical activities like aeronautics and health sciences. In this context software failures may produce enormous losses, either economical or, in the worst case, in human lives. Software analysis is an area in software engineering concerned with the application of diverse techniques in order to prove the absence of errors in software pieces. In many cases different analysis techniques are applied by following specific methodological combinations that ensure better results. These interactions between tools are usually carried out at the user level and it is not supported by the tools. In this work we present HeteroGenius, a framework conceived to develop tools that allow users to perform hybrid analysis of heterogeneous software specifications. HeteroGenius was designed prioritising the possibility of adding new specification languages and analysis tools and enabling a synergic relation of the techniques under a graphical interface satisfying several well-known usability enhancement criteria. As a case-study we implemented the functionality of Dynamite on top of HeteroGenius.Comment: In Proceedings LAFM 2013, arXiv:1401.056

POLA SOSIALISASI PERGURUAN TINGGI DALAM MENINGKATKAN JUMLAH PENERIMAAN MAHASISWA BARU PADA IAIN PALU

This article discusses the effectiveness of the new student admission socialization program on the decision of the prospective student to enroll in the State Islamic Institute (IAIN) Palu. The problem studied is How are the efforts of socialization of new student admissions applied at IAIN Palu? What is the most effective socialization attempt for student candidate's admission at IAIN Palu? This research uses survey research design combined with descriptive qualitative analysis model. Data collection using questionnaire method supported by interview and collecting a documentations. The results showed that the socialization efforts applied in IAIN Palu was by utilizing mass media and school visit. An effective efforts of socialization for introducing institutions to the public is unprogrammed in schedules, they used word to word (door to door) and publicity promotion. Nevertheless, regular programmed socialization models are held regularly every day before the admission of new students, usually used advertising and “personal selling” through visits to schools, is still quite effective. While the main consideration factor for enrolling in IAIN Palu is the availability of courses appropriate to their interests

Ontology and Reason Giving in Law

John Gardner has noted that legal positivism is more a theory of legal validity than it is a theory about law ’ s nature. 1 This is true in that one can be a legal positivist and hold a variety of different theories about law ’ s nature, but not to the extent that ‘ anything goes ’ ontologically speaking. Rather, it seems fairly diffi cult to be a legal positivist and not say that the law is a kind of social fact. That being said, however, there are a variety of ways of creating social facts so there is some room for disagreement when it comes to the nature of law within the wide umbrella of legal positivism. If our focus is legal validity, then we may not have too much reason to wade into these deeper metaphysical waters. However, I believe that legal positivism has a challenge that is not (as) present in other theories of law: the problem of explaining law ’ s normativity. I contend that one of the best hopes for meeting this challenge is to be found in getting more clarity about what it is that yields these special social facts, although I remain open to the possibility that the challenge can also be met in other ways. Let us fi rst get a bit more clarity on the challenge itself, then we will see how settling the metaphysical questions about law can help to meet the challenge, and then I can suggest how my preferred answer to the metaphysical questions meets the challenge..

The poor, the rich and the enforcer: institutional choice and growth

We study economies where improving the quality of institutions – modeled as improving contract enforcement – requires resources, but enables trade that raises output by reducing the dispersion of marginal products of capital. We find that in this type of environment it is optimal to combine institutional building with endowment redistribution, and that more ex-ante dispersion in marginal products increases the incentives to invest in enforcement. In addition, we show that institutional investments lead over time to a progressive reduction in inequality. Finally, the framework we describe enables us to formalize the hypothesis formulated by Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) that the initial concentration of human and physical capital can explain the divergence of different countries’ institutional history.Human capital ; Macroeconomics

The Poor, the Rich and the Enforcer: Institutional Choice and Growth

We study economies where improving the quality of institutions – modeled as improving contract enforcement – requires resources, but enables trade that raises output by reducing the dispersion of marginal products of capital. We find that in this type of environment it is optimal to combine institutional building with endowment redistribution, and that more ex-ante dispersion in marginal products increases the incentives to invest in enforcement. In addition, we show that institutional investments lead over time to a progressive reduction in inequality. Finally, the framework we describe enables us to formalize the hypothesis formulated by Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) that the initial concentration of human and physical capital can explain the divergence of different countries’ institutional history.Enforcement as a Choice, Institutions, Inequality, Human and Physical Capital

Causes of Household Food Insecurity in Koredegaga Peasant Association, Oromiya Zone, Ethiopia

The main objective of the study is to examine the determinants of households food security using a logistic regression procedure. Initially the model was fitted with eleven factors of which six were found to be significant and all had the expected signs. These include farm land size, ox ownership, fertilizer application, education level of household heads, household size, and per capita production. The result obtained was further analyzed to compute partial effects and to conduct simulation studies on significant factors. Analysis of partial effects revealed that an introduction to fertilizer use and an improvement in the educational level of household heads give relatively higher changes in the probably of food security. On the other hand, simulations conducted on the basis of the base category of farmers, representing food secure households, revealed that both educational levels of household heads and fertilizer applications by farmers have relatively high potential to more than double the number of food secure households in the study area following improvements in these factors.Food Security and Poverty,