The benefits of growth for Indonesian Workers

Indonesia's adopted development model has proved to be the most successful in alleviating poverty and benefiting workers in developing countries. The government's development efforts focused on agriculture, education, and transport infrastructure. It emphasized providing productive employment opportunities and gradually improving the labor quality through education and training. The wage, employment, and income growth rates were left to market forces. Although the rapid growth of labor-intensive manufacturing has led to more jobs and higher wages benefiting workers, workers employed in these industries have expressed growing dissatisfaction. They complain about problems of child labor, the denial of centrally mandated wages and benefits to workers, poor working conditions, and the abuse of young female workers. The government has tried to improve worker's wages and working conditions by centrally mandating higher labor standards, relying principally on minimum wages. Enforcement has improved and, despite low compliance, minimum wages are beginning to bite. Indonesians are debating whether they need labor intensive industries and whether it is a mistake to base Indonesia's growth on cheap labor. They argue that if labor is more expensive, manufacturers must substitute some capital for labor. However, if labor-intensive industries are rejected, the capacity of the economy to absorb plentiful workers will be reduced. The main alternatives are to push up wages now, or to let wages be determined by market forces and strengthen institutions that could improve working conditions, such as labor unions. The author recommends maintaining flexible labor markets and allowing market forces to set the pace of change, while strengthening labor unions.Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Labor Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Work&Working Conditions,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Banks&Banking Reform,Work&Working Conditions,Municipal Financial Management

Indonesia - Labor market policies and international competitiveness

Indonesia's labor market in the 1990s is characterized by rising labor costs, reduced worker productivity, and increasing industrial unrest. The main problem is generous, centrally mandated, but unenforceable worker benefits. Legislation encouraging enterprise-level collective bargaining might help reduce some of the costs associated with worker unrest. Policy measures Indonesia adopted in 1986 led to a boom in manufacturing exports and foreign direct investment and put Indonesia on the path to rapid export-oriented, labor-intensive growth. In the second half of the 1980s, because of abundant cheap labor, real labor costs did not rise but worker productivity did, partly through improved education and training of the workforce. There are increasing signs that in the early 1990s Indonesia's competitiveness is being eroded by several factors: rising labor costs, low worker productivity, and increasing industrial unrest. One problem is generous, centrally mandated benefits, detailed in the new social security law. The estimated cost of the government-mandated benefits package would be a hefty 12 percent of the wage bill. The other problem is that the government has greatly limited organized labor, viewing it as a threat to political and economic stability. This approach of mandating benefits centrally through legislation without empowering workers to enforce compliance with the legislation (or negotiate their own benefits packages with employers) is beginning to strain industrial relations in Indonesia. Policymakers should consider allowing effective, democratic plant-level worker organizations. Legislation to encourage collective bargaining at the enterprise level would enable workers and managers to negotiate outcomes that might improve worker productivity. Improving dispute resolution mechanisms and the workers'ability to be heard in the workplace could reduce the incidence of illegal or wildcat strikes. But more than legislative changes are needed. Changes in approaches to industrial relations, deregulation, and increased competition in product markets could make unions'roles more positive, while limiting their"negative"role.Municipal Financial Management,Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Standards,Municipal Financial Management,Labor Standards,Labor Markets,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

Structural adjustment, economic performance, and aid dependency in Tanzania

Tanzania embarked on a structural adjustment program in 1986 after a decade of protracted economic decline. Its program was supported by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and was accompanied by a substantial increase in foreign assistance. After seven years of adjustment the environment for higher economic growth has improved, but the results are only partially encouraging: economic growth has only slightly exceeded population growth, and officially measured domestic savings have deteriorated. Meanwhile, Tanzania's dependency on foreign assistance has increased, reflected in a deterioration of the current account of the balance of payments. This has led to an increasingly heated debate about whether real adjustment is in fact taking place in Tanzania, or whether foreign aid has served to postpone adjustment instead of supporting it. The authors shed light on the relationship between adjustment and aid dependency on the basis of Tanzania's experience. Tanzania's weak database is adjusted in several respects to correct for the most glaring deficiencies in it. After adjustment of the database, Tanzania's performance is compared in the period 1981-85, prior to when reforms were launched, with that in the period 1986-90, which followed the launch of the Economic Recovery Program in 1986. To put the Tanzanian experience in context, its performance is also compared with that of four sub-Saharan African countries - Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda - which embarked on similar reform programs during the 1980s. The adjustment of the macroeconomic data shows that, contrary to traditional interpretation, Tanzania's increased dependency of foreign assistance did not lead to a deterioration in domestic savings performance. Most of the foreign assistance was used for investment rather than for consumption. But the principal difference between Tanzania and the four sub-Saharan African countries sampled was the efficiency with which the foreign assistance was used. Using a measure of macroeconomic return on investment, the comparison shows that Tanzania is getting very little return on domestic investment even after the introduction of structural reforms. There are several reasons for this, including the dominance of the Tanzania economy by a large and highly inefficient parastatal sector. If Tanzania is to generate the accelerated growth that it so urgently needs, one of the key areas of policy reform needs to be the increase in productivity of domestic investment.ICT Policy and Strategies,Economic Theory&Research,Achieving Shared Growth,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Stabilization

A rare case of congenital vesico-uterine fistula

Herein we report the case of a patient with primary amenorrhea and cyclical menouria. The patient was a 20 years female with primary amenorrhea. Clinical examination revealed normal external genitilia. A mature female pubic hair pattern was present, and axillary development was normal. Breast was normally developed. Intraoperatively, a congenital vesico-uterine fistulous tract was observed. Repair was done. The patient has been regularly menstruating since the operation

Spontaneous uterine rupture in first trimester of pregnancy

This is a case of 30 years old female who presented in emergency at 11 weeks 3 days with acute abdomen and diagnosed as spontaneous uterine rupture. The defect was repaired and bilateral tubal ligation was done. This shows that uterine rupture can occur as early as that late first trimester and should be included in the differential diagnoses of acute abdomen

Feto-maternal outcome in early-term, full-term, late-term and post-term pregnancies at a tertiary centre in India

Background: The risk of perinatal complications does not remain consistent over the 5-week period between 37-42 weeks taken as ‘term pregnancy’. The American college of obstetrics and gynecology (ACOG) has further classified this period into early-term (37-38+6 weeks), Full-term (39-40+6 weeks) and late-term (41-41+6 weeks), besides post-term (>42 weeks). The present study evaluates the feto-maternal outcomes in deliveries at various term gestations as per this new classification in Indian settings. Methods: This is a retrospective record-based study of women delivering at a tertiary care medical college hospital in central India between 1st January 2014 and 31st December 2017. Low risk spontaneous deliveries with confirmed gestational age 37 completed weeks or more, with single fetus in vertex presentation were analyzed. Those with incomplete records or complications such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus, heart disease, antepartum hemorrhage, etc. were excluded. Results: Out of 1498 case-records that satisfied the criteria, 722 (48.2%) were early term (ET); 690 (46.1%) were full term (FT); 76 (5%) were late term (LT) and 10 (0.7%) were post term (PT). A significantly higher proportion of women who delivered post-term were from rural area, lacked institutional antenatal care visits and had lesser formal education. Caesarean section (CS) rate was significantly higher in the PT group (60%) compared to the groups ET (40.9%), FT (39.7%), and LT (39.5%). The PT group also had a significantly higher rate of meconium-stained liquor (MSL), APGAR<7 and still birth rate. The maternal and fetal parameters were not significantly different between the ET, FT and LT groups except birth weight (BW). Conclusions: The post-term pregnancies have a higher risk of MSL, still birth, APGAR <7, and delivery by CS. Women with lesser education, those from rural areas and who have not received institutional antenatal care are more likely to report in late and PT. Larger studies in our settings are needed to evaluate and compare the maternal and fetal outcomes in pregnancies delivering at ET, term and PT gestations

Screening of secreted proteins of Sporisorium reilianum f. sp. zeae for cell death suppression in Nicotiana benthamiana

Sporisorium reilianum f. sp. zeae (SRZ) is a biotrophic fungus causing head smut in maize. Maize infection with SRZ leads to very little cell death suggesting the presence of cell-death suppressinpg effectors. Several hundred effector proteins have been predicted based on genome annotation, genome comparison, and bioinformatic analysis. For only very few of these effectors, an involvement in virulence has been shown. In this work, we started to test a considerable subset of these predicted effector proteins for a possible function in suppressing cell death. We generated an expression library of 62 proteins of SRZ under the control of a strong constitutive plant promoter for delivery into plant cells via Agrobacterium tumefaciens -mediated transient transformation. Potential apoplastic effectors with high cysteine content were cloned with signal peptide while potential intracellular effectors were also cloned without signal peptide to ensure proper localization after expression in plant cells. After infiltration of Nicotiana benthamiana leaves, infiltration sites were evaluated for apparent signs of hypersensitive cell death in absence or presence of the elicitin INF1 of Phytophthora infestans . None of the tested candidates was able to induce cell death, and most were unable to suppress INF1-induced cell death. However, the screen revealed one predicted cytoplasmic effector (sr16441) of SRZ that was able to reliably suppress INF1-induced cell death when transiently expressed in N. benthamiana lacking its predicted secretion signal peptide. This way, we discovered a putative function for one new effector of SRZ

Spontaneous unscarred fundal rupture after normal vaginal delivery

Uterine rupture is one of the most dangerous obstetric situation carrying an increased risk of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality, associated with poorly managed labour. The incidence of spontaneous rupture of unscarred uterus is around 1 in 8000 to 1 in 15000 deliveries. We report this unusual case of spontaneous unscarred fundal rupture after normal vaginal delivery. This case under reference developed shock soon after delivery and was explored due to suspected intraperitoneal hemorrhage. This case is being reported to emphasis the need for proper post-delivery monitoring not only to diagnose post-partum hemorrhage but also to suspect uterine rupture as a cause of unexplained shock developing after delivery inspite of all resuscitative measures. Although unexpected in a woman with an unscarred uterus, rupture should be considered as a possible cause of unusual pain or hypotension in the mother. The most effective way to reduce the number of morbidity and mortality would be to prevent unwanted pregnancies by informed and effective use of contraception

A simple range characterization for spherical mean transform in odd dimensions and its applications

This article provides a novel and simple range description for the spherical mean transform of functions supported in the unit ball of an odd dimensional Euclidean space. The new description comprises a set of symmetry relations between the values of certain differential operators acting on the coefficients of the spherical harmonics expansion of the function in the range of the transform. As one application of this range characterization, we construct an explicit counterexample proving that unique continuation type results cannot hold for the spherical mean transform in odd dimensional spaces. Finally, as an auxiliary result of one of our proofs, we derive a remarkable cross product identity for the spherical Bessel functions of the first and second kind, which may be of independent interest in the theory of special functions

Role of bundled intervention in reducing surgical site infection rate in gynecologic surgeries

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is most common nosocomial infection (15%) among surgical patient’s and contributes significantly to morbidity and mortality. CDC (2015) provides “bundled intervention for prevention of SSI. The present study was planned to evaluate the feasibility and usefulness of these bundled intervention in reducing SSI in our setup. Objectives of this study to study the effect of bundled interventions on SSI in gynaecologic surgery.Methods: A total 50 cases  undergoing gynecological surgery in elective OT included in pilot group and bundled intervention followed  these pilot group cases compared with 50 control group operated in same OT in which bundled intervention not followed outcome measures recorded were Incidence of SSI, type of SSI, need for antibiotic usage, need for secondary suturing, duration of hospital stay.Results: Out of 50 subjects in pilot group, five developed signs and symptoms of SSI giving an SSI rate of 10%. Out of those five, two had superficial SSI and three had deep SSI, none of the patient had organ space SSI.SSI rate in 50 cases operated in the same operating room during the same time period without use of bundled interventions (control group) was 12%.Conclusions: Bundled approach is easy and feasible in all setups. It adds only three extra minutes to the total duration of the surgery with risk reduction of SSI