Five years of social security reforms in the UK

The current Labour Government was elected in 1997 with few specific social security proposals. This paper argues that after five years, consistent trends in social security policy have emerged: there is a willingness to increase benefits; a “work-first” focus; increasing centrality for benefits that relate to ‘need’, which has involved expanded means-testing; a downgrading of contributory benefits; and, a desire to reduce poverty by redistributing to particular demographic groups. Many of these characteristics of Labour policy, such as the size of caseloads or aggregate expenditure, are yet to show up in various aggregate data, and we argue that this is probably due to various counter-balancing socio-economic changes since 1997. Looking forward, we discuss what the introduction of new forms of means-test might achieve. We also suggest that it might be considered odd that Labour has left Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit unreformed, especially since a good chance to reform them without significant cost or low-income losers, has been missed

Leader neurons in leaky integrate and fire neural network simulations

Several experimental studies show the existence of leader neurons in population bursts of 2D living neural networks. A leader neuron is, basically, a neuron which fires at the beginning of a burst (respectively network spike) more often that we expect by looking at its whole mean neural activity. This means that leader neurons have some burst triggering power beyond a simple statistical effect. In this study, we characterize these leader neuron properties. This naturally leads us to simulate neural 2D networks. To build our simulations, we choose the leaky integrate and fire (lIF) neuron model. Our lIF model has got stable leader neurons in the burst population that we simulate. These leader neurons are excitatory neurons and have a low membrane potential firing threshold. Except for these two first properties, the conditions required for a neuron to be a leader neuron are difficult to identify and seem to depend on several parameters involved in the simulations themself. However, a detailed linear analysis shows a trend of the properties required for a neuron to be a leader neuron. Our main finding is: A leader neuron sends a signal to many excitatory neurons as well as to a few inhibitory neurons and a leader neuron receives only a few signals from other excitatory neurons. Our linear analysis exhibits five essential properties for leader neurons with relative importance. This means that considering a given neural network with a fixed mean number of connections per neuron, our analysis gives us a way of predicting which neuron can be a good leader neuron and which cannot. Our prediction formula gives us a good statistical prediction even if, considering a single given neuron, the success rate does not reach hundred percent.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures, 2 table

Five years of social security reforms in the UK

The current Labour Government was elected in 1997 with few specific social security proposals. This paper argues that after five years, consistent trends in social security policy have emerged: there is a willingness to increase benefits; a “work-first” focus; increasing centrality for benefits that relate to ‘need’, which has involved expanded means-testing; a downgrading of contributory benefits; and, a desire to reduce poverty by redistributing to particular demographic groups. Many of these characteristics of Labour policy, such as the size of caseloads or aggregate expenditure, are yet to show up in various aggregate data, and we argue that this is probably due to various counter-balancing socio-economic changes since 1997. Looking forward, we discuss what the introduction of new forms of means-test might achieve. We also suggest that it might be considered odd that Labour has left Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit unreformed, especially since a good chance to reform them without significant cost or low-income losers, has been missed.

Novel Endoscopic Techniques in Celiac Disease

Celiac disease (CD) is a systemic, immune‐mediated illness that primarily affects the small bowel. A few decades ago, in the era of Watson and Crosby capsules, we used to sample the small bowel without even looking at it. Nowadays, with the continuous developing field of digestive endoscopy, we can even see the duodenal villi up closely, allowing for an optical, real‐time diagnosis of villous atrophy. Advanced endoscopic techniques such as magnification, chromoendoscopy (dye‐based and digital), water immersion, confocal endomicroscopy, endocytoscopy, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) have been evaluated in CD with good results: good agreement with histology, allowing for targeted biopsies and a reduction in the number of biopsies needed for diagnosis. Moreover, with the growing use of open‐access endoscopy in many parts of the world, endoscopy is now contributing to increasing the diagnostic rate of CD, by recognition of endoscopic markers in patients without clinical suspicion of this disease. This is however an observer‐dependent method; to overcome the endoscopists subjectiveness in assessing villous atrophy, in the last years, many papers have looked at means of computerized analysis of endoscopic images. Currently available data show that these automated, quantitative methods hold very promising for the future

Analisis Efektifitas Pola Rekrutmen Kader Rantingmuhammadiyah Di Ponorogo

professional resources that can support all kinds of vision, mission or goals of the organization. To get members who have a high professionalism of course required a good recruitment and not just random, because how many members of an organization would be meaningless if not have adequate competence. Conversely, if an organization, although having few members but in each member has adequate competence, then the rate of development of the organization will run well then it is important that large organizations such as Muhammadiyah looking for the right pattern in recruitment cadres in order to support organizational performance. Furthermore, in this research will use descriptive qualitative research method by taking samples from three twigs in Ponorogo regency which represents the central city area, the central area and the periphery. The conclusion this research is recruitment pattern owned by the Muhammadiyah organization is Muhammadiyah educational institution, employee charity Muhamamdiyah, and the general public and there is no direct recruitment process.Orientation or encouragement of prospective members to participate in Muhammadiyah organization other than it is as a medium of learning and means of worship (non-profit oriented). This is very different from the existing recruitment theory where recruitment theory in general is on profit oriented organizations or companies

Understanding and Implementing Classroom Discussions of Literature: A Case Study of One High School Teacher\u27s Beliefs and Practices Concerning Classroom Discussions

Classroom discussion of literature is often lauded as a powerful pedagogical tool in the high school English classroom. Researchers have shown that student talk in the classroom is a powerful teaching strategy. Many teachers express a belief in classroom discussions as a means of teaching literature. At the same time, relatively few teachers actually use classroom discussions of literature in their teaching. Research has identified that student talk in the classroom is a powerful pedagogical tool, and also that such discussions are difficult for many classroom teachers to enact. Little research has explored why teachers might have this disconnect. Teachers believe that classroom discussions are good for students and for their practice, yet they don\u27t use this strategy in the classroom. This study looks at one teacher who believes that classroom discussions of literature should be a powerful teaching tool, but who has struggled to effectively actualize this practice in his classroom. A combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses of the teacher\u27s statements beliefs and his practices, as seen in classroom transcripts and student work, was conducted to determine what the teacher believes to be the attributes of a good classroom discussion, and what he did, inside and outside the classroom, to foster discussions with such attributes. Results identified successful practices that the teacher named and was aware of as well as successful practices that seemed to be invisible to the teacher himself. The findings suggest that the way teachers talk about classroom discussions may fail to give voice to all the aspects of classroom talk that they actually value. In addition, it is suggested that additional research is needed that involves teachers looking at classroom practice with a researcher\u27s lens

Merasakan Tasawuf

AbstractAwareness has inspired humans to feel Sufi sm. Various kinds of questions lie about mutasawifi n, including Who am I? Where am I? For what I created? How do I fi ll out alive? What am I looking for? What kind of life I want to pick up after death? If I could go back to my native place safely? And other fundamental questions in human beings. Religion deifying vehicle, Iman deifying fuel, and the man who drove, the religion with the contents of the sentences noble in heart, it was the straight path. Th e way of approaching Him is to continue to multiply zikrullah. Zikir is the parent of worship, then where is the zikir when penetrating into the heart of a clean then it will feel the souls kesufi an true. Hearts (qolbu) can also be likened to building a house. He was surrounded by walls and secured with a gate or gate locked. Only family members and guests who comes who may enter it. While the heart of the deeper (lubb) is a locked room that holds valuable heirlooms belonging to the family. Only a few family members who have the key. So when the door was open means opened the doors of Sufi sm in human beings and to feel the pleasure that can perform worship and all the good deeds that will save people in the world and the hereafter.Keyword: Sufi sm, qolbu, ziki