The Environment for Microdata Access in Japan: A Comparison with the United States and Britain and Future Issues

For most of the post]war period, Japan's administration of statistics was governed by the framework provided by the Statistics Act from 1947. However, because the Act remained largely unchanged since it was originally introduced, it increasingly failed to reflect important changes in economic and social circumstances over time, resulting in various problems, including with regard to the secondary use of various kinds of microdata. To help resolve these problems, the New Statistics Act was enacted in 2007 and came fully into force in April 2009. Among other things, the New Statistics Act provides for a substantial revision of the system of secondary data use. An important element of this is a change in the basic philosophy underlying the legal framework from "statistics for the purpose of administration" to "statistics as an information resource for society." A central aim is ensuring the gusefulnessh of public statistics, and regulations concerning the use of statistics, such as provisions for secondary use, were incorporated in the Act. One important change is that the system of approval by the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications for secondary data use was abolished. Instead, secondary data use can now be directly approved by the survey implementer and procedures have been simplified, so in the new system secondary data use now is considerably easier. Moreover, the New Statistics Act now allows for the provision of anonymized data and for custom tabulations for the purpose of academic research and higher education.

Capacity of English NHS hospitals to monitor quality in infection prevention and control using a new European framework: a multilevel qualitative analysis

Objective:(1) To assess the extent to which current English national regulations/policies/guidelines and local hospital practices align with indicators suggested by a European review of effective strategies for infection prevention and control (IPC); (2) to examine the capacity of local hospitals to report on the indicators and current use of data to inform IPC management and practice. Design A national and local-level analysis of the 27 indicators was conducted. At the national level, documentary review of regulations/policies/guidelines was conducted. At the local level data collection comprised: (a) review of documentary sources from 14 hospitals, to determine the capacity to report performance against these indicators; (b) qualitative interviews with 3 senior managers from 5 hospitals and direct observation of hospital wards to find out if these indicators are used to improve IPC management and practice. Setting 2 acute English National Health Service (NHS) trusts and 1 NHS foundation trust (14 hospitals). Participants 3 senior managers from 5 hospitals for qualitative interviews. Primary and secondary outcome measures As primary outcome measures, a ‘Red-Amber-Green’ (RAG) rating was developed reflecting how well the indicators were included in national documents or their availability at the local organisational level. The current use of the indicators to inform IPC management and practice was also assessed. The main secondary outcome measure is any inconsistency between national and local RAG rating results. Results National regulations/policies/guidelines largely cover the suggested European indicators. The ability of individual hospitals to report some of the indicators at ward level varies across staff groups, which may mask required improvements. A reactive use of staffing-related indicators was observed rather than the suggested prospective strategic approach for IPC management. Conclusions For effective patient safety and infection prevention in English hospitals, routine and proactive approaches need to be developed. Our approach to evaluation can be extended to other country settings

Are Secondary Disinfectants Performing as Intended?

In many countries, regulations do not require the use of secondary disinfectants to ensure safe drinking water. The water industry may be overly reliant on secondary disinfectants to compensate for less‐than‐ideal treatment and distribution system management. The water industry should evaluate the use of secondary disinfectants to ensure the benefits are realized and that public health goals are being met

Malawi's TV white space regulations : a review and comparison with FCC and Ofcom regulations

Regulators are in the process of framing regulations to allow secondary use of vacant TV channels while protecting TV broadcast services from harmful interference. While the US and UK regulators have already passed such regulations in 2008 and 2015 respectively, other countries are still in drafting stages and the underlying circumstances in these countries could be different from those of the US and UK. Malawi released its final draft regulations in 2016. While the US and UK legislate for dynamic spectrum access and licence-exemption for secondary users, Malawi’s draft regulations require such users to apply for a licence for assigned TV white space spectrum. This paper provides an analytical review of Malawi’s regulations and a comparison with FCC and Ofcom regulations, which new regulations can build on. This analysis will also inform future work on network management tools that can enable practical deployment and coexistence of large-scale TV white space networks in a dynamic spectrum access environment in Africa

The Use of Demolition Wood in Papermaking

The reason for this study came from three factors affecting the paper industry as well as society as a whole. These factors are decreasing landfill space, increasing tipping fees, and increasing demands for alternative fiber sources. In the United States, approximately 9.8 million tons of demolition wood waste is landfilled per year. Increasing governmental regulations which require greater amounts of secondary fiber to be used in papermaking are forcing the industry to consider alternative fiber options. The seven steps in the procedure include: rough wood, wood chips, kraft pulping, fiber refining, screening, handsheets, and testing. The four types of wood involved are a 50 year old house wood, a 100 year old barn wood, a kiln-dried wood, and a red pine green wood. All wood types are pine. The strength test (tensile, burst, tear) revealed that demolition wood fiber is strong enough to be considered as a secondary fiber source. The average value obtained for tear from the demolition wood is 13.7 (mN m2/g). The average values for burst and tensile are 20.3 psi and 4.18 km, respectively. In fact, the values obtained from the old wood are comparable to those obtained by Kleppe for a green wood pine(4). Drawbacks to its use include containment removal, probable bleaching limitations, obtaining the wood, and labor/energy requirements. The resource may best be utilized by having a demolition company deliver the wood, pulp, screen, and refine the wood separately, and have the fibers metered in at know quantities at the blend chest within the paper mill. Ultimately the use of this source becomes a function of society\u27s focus on the green movement and regulations imposed on the industry by the government

A hybrid approach for rural broadband access networks

Recent regulatory developments by the US’s Federal Communications Commission and the UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) have opened up new opportunities for wireless systems to utilize unoccupied TV ‘White Space’ (TVWS) channels now available after analog switchover for secondary use as shown in Fig. 1a. TV-band spectrum has favourable radio propagation characteristics that allow signals to travel relatively long distances over hilly terrain or in built-up urban areas. This, coupled with the fact that the regulations currently being drawn up by the FCC and Ofcom are widely expected to allow licence-exempt access to TVWS spectrum, make TVWS attractive for applications such as: i) rural broadband; ii) high-definition CCTV transmissions in towns and cities; iii) data offloading for already-congested cellular networks; iv) machine-to-machine (M2M) communications; etc

Dual Labour Market Theories And Irregular Jobs: Is There a Dualism Even in The Irregular Sector?

The research deals with the characteristics of the irregular labour. Current literature considers that irregular labour arises because of the heavy tax burden on labour, or because of the existence of regulations which impose too many constraints on the labour market. In Italy the labour market has some effective constraints, for instance, due to firing regulations, minimum wage legislation, or to regulations on multiple job holdings (for instance it is only since last year that retired people can have new jobs legally), whereas, regarding taxation, we think that it is not always a valid explanation of irregular labour. Actually, during past years there were several facilities to new hiring, especially in Southern Italy. We suggest that irregular jobs can originate from different causes, and, consequently, they can have different characteristics, referred to as good and bad irregular match. As to our opinion, dual labour market theories are the main framework for studying this phenomenon. This theory assesses that there are two tiers in the labour market, therefore, two type of jobs: the jobs in the primary sector and those in the secondary sector; the secondary tier of the market is the one where turnover is more accentuated. This hypothesis is supported by some empirical observation about irregular labour. Actually, data available for Italy, (INPS), tells us that irregular workers, in the most of cases, have been employed very recently. The 85% of irregular workers censored by INPS during 2001 had been working for less than 12 months; the same percentage in 2002 was 0.88. Dual labour market approach has been used by Boeri and Garibaldi (2002), who analyzed irregular labour in depressed areas. We use a similar framework, which is mainly adapted from the research of Acemoglu (2001), where dualism arises as endogenous choice caused by the different technology used in two different sectors.bad irregular match; good irregular match

Tree Cover Loss in El Salvador's Shade Coffee Areas

Shade coffee farms in Central America provide important ecological services. But because international coffee prices have fallen since 1990, many have been cleared to make way for more remunerative land uses. This problem is of particular concern in heavily deforested El Salvador, where a large share of the remaining tree cover is associated with shade coffee. We use satellite images, stakeholder interviews, and secondary data to analyze the magnitude, characteristics, and drivers of clearing in El Salvador’s shade coffee areas during the 1990s. We find that 13 percent of these areas was cleared, mostly in middle- and high-altitude regions. Falling coffee prices were not the only drivers of this phenomenon, however: a downward spiral of on-farm investment and yields, debt, poverty, urbanization, migration, and weak land use regulation also contributed. Our findings suggest that stricter enforcement of land use and land cover regulations is urgently needed to prevent further clearing.shade coffee, land use, land cover, deforestation, El Salvador

Education of Homeless Students: Action Guide for Parents and Communities

NCLB Action Briefs, a project of Public Education Network (PEN) and the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE), are designed to keep community and parent leaders up to date on various provisions of NCLB.The action briefs are written in easy-to-use language focused on specific sections of the law and include pertinent regulations, a glossary of terms, action steps, and additional resources.The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was signed into law on January 8, 2002; it is the current name for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) passed in 1965. The law comprises nine titles and over 50 different programs, the largest of which is known as Title I. Title I supports school districts educating low-income students through federal funds and programs, and includes many opportunities for parent and community involvement

State and Local Report Cards: Action Guide for Parents and Communities

NCLB Action Briefs, a project of Public Education Network (PEN) and the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE), are designed to keep community and parent leaders up to date on various provisions of NCLB.The action briefs are written in easy-to-use language focused on specific sections of the law and include pertinent regulations, a glossary of terms, action steps, and additional resources.The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was signed into law on January 8, 2002; it is the current name for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) passed in 1965. The law comprises nine titles and over 50 different programs, the largest of which is known as Title I. Title I supports school districts educating low-income students through federal funds and programs, and includes many opportunities for parent and community involvement