Laws without enforcement : the case of unskilled foreign workers in Kuwait

International labour migration has become an issue widely addressed in international relations, due to the many spheres that are related to this area, such as economics, human rights, labour rights as well as sociological issues. In recent years, the Middle East and especially the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have become some of the most sought-after labour destinations in the world. As a newly oil-rich nation, Kuwait relied on foreign workers to fill the gaps in the labour market that existed due to a shortage of skills among the local population. Modern infrastructures, large-scale projects and basic services such as health care and education all needed human resources that were unavailable at the time. The reliance on foreign labour in Kuwait has increased rapidly in the last forty years and shows no signs of abating. What began as an effort to import labour for the purpose of building and developing modern infrastructures in a recently oil-rich nation, has developed into a reliance on foreign labour that generates a great deal of wealth for nationals, without offering proper protections for those laborers. Millions of Asian men and women migrate to the GCC seeking better opportunities for their families in their home countries, however in most cases this is less dependent on legal guarantees of labour protection and more on luck. In theory, unskilled foreign laborers, like other expatriate workers in Kuwait, are granted the same legal rights that are granted to nationals. Although there are some exceptions pertaining to nationals in the labour laws, in general, both groups are protected by the Kuwaiti Constitution, as well as international agreements that Kuwait has signed. In practice, however, the situation is very different. Due to the confines of the sponsorship system, and the immense control over workers’ lives it grants nationals, unskilled foreign workers face widescale discrimination and violations of their rights every day, a situation that is best described as forced labour and slavery. In many cases, the failure of the government to act in respect to the abuse of migrants’ rights reveals its inability to balance its international and national obligations. The purpose of this thesis is to show how the lack of enforcement of national and international labour and human rights laws concerning unskilled foreign workers in Kuwait constitutes modern slavery and forced labour. There are three main factors that will be addressed: the lack of enforcement of existing national laws, as well as international treaties and conventions; the ways in which the sponsorship system, as it exists today, is in breach of international laws and human rights standards; and the responsibilities of governments, recruitment agencies, and other organizations involved with migrant labour. Issues such as wages, housing and working conditions, dispute resolutions, and labour contracts will be discussed

Systematic Review of Auditory Training in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Recipients.

Objective The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the published research in auditory training (AT) for pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients. This review investigates whether AT in children with CIs leads to improvements in speech and language development, cognition, and/or quality of life and whether improvements, if any, remain over time post AT intervention. Method A systematic search of 7 databases identified 96 review articles published up until January 2017, 9 of which met the inclusion criteria. Data were extracted and independently assessed for risk of bias and quality of study against a PICOS (participants, intervention, control, outcomes, and study) framework. Results All studies reported improvements in trained AT tasks, including speech discrimination/identification and working memory. Retention of improvements over time was found whenever it was assessed. Transfer of learning was measured in 4 of 6 studies, which assessed generalization. Quality of life was not assessed. Overall, evidence for the included studies was deemed to be of low quality. Conclusion Benefits of AT were illustrated through the improvement in trained tasks, and this was observed in all reviewed studies. Transfer of improvement to other domains and also retention of benefits post AT were evident when assessed, although rarely done. However, higher quality evidence to further examine outcomes of AT in pediatric CI recipients is needed

Development and early-stage validation of a questionnaire measuring patient acceptance of electronic patient reported outcome measures.

Electronic patient-reported outcome measures (e-PROMs) have been introduced to improve the collection of patient feedback and to facilitate data linkage with research databases. However, before implementing e-PROMs, it is important to understand patient’s feelings about and acceptance of these technologies. Until today, there has been no adequate questionnaire to understand patient acceptance of e-PROMs. So, this study aimed to study patient acceptance of e-PROMs through developing and validating a new questionnaire based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and additional factors including computer anxiety and patient characteristic factors. Not only did this study apply a quantitative method to understand the factors behind patient acceptance, the development and the psychometric testing of the new questionnaire was conducted using a variety of methodological approaches. This includes: (1) developing the initial version of the questionnaire based on the available literature, (2) an expert panel review (n=5) and cognitive interviews (n=10) to measure face and content validity, and (3) conducting field-testing (n=231) to measure construct validity and internal consistency reliability. The field-testing included testing the conceptual model with cancer survivors at an outpatient oncology clinic in Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Based on these study findings, the developed questionnaire shows good validity and reliability. Moreover, the conceptual model results show that patient attitudes (a TPB construct), computer anxiety and gender were significantly (P<0.05) associated with behavioural intention to use e-PROMs. The most influential factor is patients’ attitude to computers, followed by computer anxiety then male gender. Overall, these model constructs explained around 87% of the variance in acceptance. The findings of this study strongly suggest that clinicians need to encourage their male patients to use e-PROMs and help them to reduce their computer anxiety

Measuring service excellence in banking industry using an integrated approach. An empirical study in the Saudi context.

The research sought to investigate the Critical Excellence Factors (CEFs) that drive Excellence in banking industry. Moreover, it examines whether customers perceive the service of an excellent bank differently from a less-excellent bank. Three hypotheses were formed then tested through case study and survey strategy (triangulation), within the Saudi banking industry context. The study combines the EFQM excellence model as an internal assessment tool (case studies), with the SERVQUAL gap model for external assessment (questionnaires). Analysing and contrasting the two sets of results allowed the study to achieve its main objective. Based on the empirical work, the study identifies several CEFs that must be carefully considered when driving excellence in banking. These factors were proposed in a generic integrated model for driving Excellence in Banking

Simple Spectrophotometric Method for Determination of Paroxetine in Tablets Using 1,2-Naphthoquinone-4-Sulphonate as a Chromogenic Reagent

Simple and rapid spectrophotometric method has been developed and validated for the determination of paroxetine (PRX) in tablets. The proposed method was based on nucleophilic substitution reaction of PRX with 1,2-naphthoquinone-4-sulphonate (NQS) in an alkaline medium to form an orange-colored product of maximum absorption peak (λmax) at 488 nm. The stoichiometry and kinetics of the reaction were studied, and the reaction mechanism was postulated. Under the optimized reaction conditions, Beer's law correlating the absorbance (A) with PRX concentration (C) was obeyed in the range of 1–8 μg mL−1. The regression equation for the calibration data was: A = 0.0031 + 0.1609 C, with good correlation coefficients (0.9992). The molar absorptivity (ε) was 5.9 × 105 L mol−1 1 cm−1. The limits of detection and quantitation were 0.3 and 0.8 μg mL−1, respectively. The precision of the method was satisfactory; the values of relative standard deviations did not exceed 2%. The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of PRX in its pharmaceutical tablets with good accuracy and precisions; the label claim percentage was 97.17 ± 1.06 %. The results obtained by the proposed method were comparable with those obtained by the official method

New Spectrophotometric and Fluorimetric Methods for Determination of Fluoxetine in Pharmaceutical Formulations

New simple and sensitive spectrophotometric and fluorimetric methods have been developed and validated for the determination of fluoxetine hydrochloride (FLX) in its pharmaceutical formulations. The spectrophotometric method was based on the reaction of FLX with 1,2-naphthoquinone-4-sulphonate (NQS) in an alkaline medium (pH 11) to form an orange-colored product that was measured at 490 nm. The fluorimetric method was based on the reaction of FLX with 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD-Cl) in an alkaline medium (pH 8) to form a highly fluorescent product that was measured at 545 nm after excitation at 490 nm. The variables affecting the reactions of FLX with both NQS and NBD-Cl were carefully studied and optimized. The kinetics of the reactions were investigated, and the reaction mechanisms were presented. Under the optimum reaction conditions, good linear relationships were found between the readings and the concentrations of FLX in the ranges of 0.3–6 and 0.035–0.5 μg mL−1 for the spectrophotometric and fluorimetric methods, respectively. The limits of detection were 0.1 and 0.01 μg mL−1 for the spectrophotometric and fluorimetric methods, respectively. Both methods were successfully applied to the determination of FLX in its pharmaceutical formulations

Investigation and Statistical Analysis for Optimizing Surface Roughness, Cutting Forces, Temperature, and Productivity in Turning Grey Cast Iron

This paper investigated the influence of cutting parameters, including feed rate, cutting speed, tool nose radius, and wet or dry cutting conditions, on the resultant force, cutting edge/workpiece temperature, and surface roughness when turning grey cast iron. Results showed that increasing the feed rate increased the resultant force, cutting temperature, and surface roughness. At the same time, increasing the cutting speed and nose radius increased the cutting temperature, which in turn reduced the resultant force. For practical applications, basic mathematical calculations based on the sole effect of each parameter on the output of the experiments were used to estimate the extent of percentage increase in cutting temperature due to increasing feed rate, cutting speed, and nose radius. Similarly, the same approach was used to estimate the effect of increasing feed rate, cutting speed, and nose radius on average surface roughness. Results showed that increasing the feed rate increases the cutting temperature by 5 to 11% depending on the nose radius and cutting speed. On the other hand, increasing the cutting speed was found to have limited effect on cutting temperature with small nose radius whereas this effect increases with increasing the nose radius reaching about 11%. Increasing the nose radius also increases the cutting temperature, depending mainly on cutting speed, reaching a maximum of 21% at higher cutting speeds. Results also showed that increasing the feed rate increased the average surface roughness considerably to about 120% at high cutting speeds and a large nose radius. On the other hand, increasing the cutting speed and nose radius reduced the surface roughness (i.e., improved surface quality) by a maximum of 29 and 23%, respectively. In order to study the combined effects of the cutting parameters on the three responses, namely, the resultant cutting force, cutting temperature, and surface roughness, full factorial design and ANOVA were used, where it was found to be in good agreement with mathematical calculations. Additionally, the desirability function optimization tool was used to minimize the measured responses whilst maximizing the material removal rate

Bis(2,3-dimethyl­anilinium) dihydrogen­diphosphate

In the title compound, 2C8H12N+·H2P2O7 2−, the complete dihydrogendiphosphate anion is generated by crystallographic twofold symmetry, with the bridging O atom lying on the rotation axis [P—O—P = 135.50 (9)°]. In the crystal, the 2,3-xylidinium cations are anchored between ribbons formed by the H2P2O7 entities. Crystal cohesion and stability are supported by electrostatic inter­actions which, together with N—H⋯O and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, build up a three-dimensional network