The end of child labour: Within reach: Global Report under the Follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work

The report focuses on the decline of child labor, and argues for its ultimate abolition with effective policy implementation and cooperative efforts

Viewfinder: final activity report

The VIEW-FINDER project (2006-2009) is an 'Advanced Robotics' project that seeks to apply a semi-autonomous robotic system to inspect ground safety in the event of a fire. Its primary aim is to gather data (visual and chemical) in order to assist rescue personnel. A base station combines the gathered information with information retrieved from off-site sources. The project addresses key issues related to map building and reconstruction, interfacing local command information with external sources, human-robot interfaces and semi-autonomous robot navigation. The VIEW-FINDER system is a semi-autonomous; the individual robot-sensors operate autonomously within the limits of the task assigned to them, that is, they will autonomously navigate through and inspect an area. Human operators monitor their operations and send high level task requests as well as low level commands through the interface to any nodes in the entire system. The human interface has to ensure the human supervisor and human interveners are provided a reduced but good and relevant overview of the ground and the robots and human rescue workers therein

The privatization of the Russian coal industry: policies and processes in the transformation of a major industry

This paper provides an overview of the privatization of the Russian coal industry. It reviews the salient aspects of the Government's privatization policy as it evolved over the years, and looks at the reasons for the successes and the pitfalls encountered along the way. Specific procedures and methods of sale are described in detail. A profile of the new owners of the industry is given, with a look at the implications for competition in the industry and at first performance indicators. As the World Bank has been closely involved in the support of the Government's coal sector restructuring program through provision of financing and policy advice, throughout the paper aspects of World Bank advice are considered.Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Non Bank Financial Institutions,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Water and Industry,Non Bank Financial Institutions,Mining&Extractive Industry (Non-Energy),Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

Science for Disaster Risk Reduction

This thematic report describes JRC's activities in support to disaster management. The JRC develops tools and methodologies to help in all phases of disaster management, from preparedness and risk assessment to recovery and reconstruction through to forecasting and early warning.JRC.A.6-Communicatio

Regulation of transmission expansion in Argentina Part II: Developments since the Fourth Line

Argentina’s 1992 transmission expansion policy was subsequently modified by, for example, including provision for transmission companies and proposing quality and substation expansions. There have been several such expansions, and no lack of investment in quality and reliability of supply. In 1999, reflecting a decision to give greater weight to political considerations, a Federal Transmission Plan was introduced to build lines designated by the federal and provincial governments. The original reform led to less investment in major transmission lines but more intensive use of existing lines. Competition to construct expansions developed, leading to lower construction costs. Thus the Argentine transmission expansion mechanism was a considerable success in terms of meeting the requirements of users efficiently. This experience suggests that involving users in the regulation of monopoly networks is feasible, and the scope for it may be greater than generally appreciated. However, the reconciliation of economic and political considerations needs further consideration.Argentina, electricity, transmission, regulation

Secured Transactions and Financial Stability: Regulatory Challenges

Although secured transactions traditionally are regulated to protect transacting parties and to make the transactions themselves more efficient, the financial crisis has revealed that regulation should also protect the stability of the financial system. This raises numerous future challenges. For example, regulation to control moral hazard in secured loan origination faces the challenge that the relevant market failure is less likely to be asymmetric information than mutual misinformation. Because of its impact on home ownership, the regulation of collateralization levels and interconnectedness faces fundamentally different challenges than those underlying the (technically) analogous post-Depression regulation of margin lending. Non-traditional secured transactions, including securitization and other forms of structured finance, raise innovative regulatory challenges concerning complexity and the limits of disclosure. The potential for the widening gap between the rich and the poor to undermine stability also raises the challenge (which is itself partly informed by the UCC’s innovative disentanglement of commercial and property law) of whether to recognize de facto rights, in order to enable the poor to use their homes and other commonly held assets as collateral to raise capital