The UK Future Jobs Fund: Labour’s adoption of the job guarantee principle

This paper examines the development of employment policy in the United Kingdom leading to the creation of the Young Person’s Guarantee and its main component, the Future Jobs Fund. Past public-sector direct employment schemes, including those associated with the workfare model, had been discredited as ineffective across the OECD. In numerous countries, however, newer job creation schemes were implemented from the 1990s, aimed at addressing some of the shortcomings of earlier projects, and utilizing the growth of smaller community-based projects – the Intermediate Labour Markets, or ILMs. Whilst there was no strategic policy commitment to demand-led active labour market policy in the UK until recent years, a network of ILMs came into existence, and much of the funding for these small-scale local projects came from the government. With the onset of the current economic downturn, and the substantial rise in cyclical unemployment, policy-makers more closely examined options for a demand-led strategy. Although ILMs had not been created with a view to forming part of an ‘employer of last resort’ policy, and were generally directed at very specific groups, the potential of these schemes to form part of a wider national strategy was clearly seen. In 2009 the government announced a job guarantee for all young people, primarily through the Future Jobs Fund. This initiative was inspired by ‘employer of last resort’ (or ‘job guarantee’) concept and the work of Hyman Minsky, and the intention was to extend it over time. Although the Future Jobs Fund was scrapped in May 2010 following a change of government in the UK, it incorporates the lessons of past policy failures, representing a bold step in active labour market policy – and may form a model for reviving demand-led employment policy.Unemployment; New Deal; Job Guarantee; Employer of Last Resort; Minsky; Future Jobs Fund

Seed policy in Pakistan: The impact of new laws on food sovereignty and sustainable development

This paper highlights the challenges that genetically modified (GM) seeds pose for farmers, citizens and the land itself in Pakistan. It explores the history of agricultural policy in Pakistan from the Green Revolution to what is now being dubbed the “Gene Revolution”, and analyzes how harmful effects of both are being amplified by two recently passed laws: the Seed (Amendment) Act 2015 and the Plant Breeders\u27 Rights Act 2016. The analysis of these laws is done from a food sovereignty perspective on sustainable development, where food sovereignty represents “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.” Finally, the paper offers comparative perspectives on seed policy and activism from Ecuador, Bolivia, India and Europe to suggest ways in which GM seeds have been approached with caution or outright bans, in order to promote health safety, farmers\u27 rights, resistance to corporate monopolies over seed, and preservation of indigenous biodiversity. Ultimately, the paper sheds light on the forms of control and corporatization that patented GM seeds embody, and asks: who owns the seed and want kind of food do we want to leave for our future generations

The UK Future Jobs Fund: Labour’s adoption of the job guarantee principle

This paper examines the development of employment policy in the United Kingdom leading to the creation of the Young Person’s Guarantee and its main component, the Future Jobs Fund. Past public-sector direct employment schemes, including those associated with the workfare model, had been discredited as ineffective across the OECD. In numerous countries, however, newer job creation schemes were implemented from the 1990s, aimed at addressing some of the shortcomings of earlier projects, and utilizing the growth of smaller community-based projects – the Intermediate Labour Markets, or ILMs. Whilst there was no strategic policy commitment to demand-led active labour market policy in the UK until recent years, a network of ILMs came into existence, and much of the funding for these small-scale local projects came from the government. With the onset of the current economic downturn, and the substantial rise in cyclical unemployment, policy-makers more closely examined options for a demand-led strategy. Although ILMs had not been created with a view to forming part of an ‘employer of last resort’ policy, and were generally directed at very specific groups, the potential of these schemes to form part of a wider national strategy was clearly seen. In 2009 the government announced a job guarantee for all young people, primarily through the Future Jobs Fund. This initiative was inspired by ‘employer of last resort’ (or ‘job guarantee’) concept and the work of Hyman Minsky, and the intention was to extend it over time. Although the Future Jobs Fund was scrapped in May 2010 following a change of government in the UK, it incorporates the lessons of past policy failures, representing a bold step in active labour market policy – and may form a model for reviving demand-led employment policy

日本人高齢男性における飲酒量と認知機能の関連

Alcohol. 2020 Jun;85:145-152.滋賀医科大学令和2年

The Frequency of Early Post Traumatic Cerebrospinal Fluid Rhinorrhea in Patients with Head Trauma

Objective:  To determine the frequency of early post-traumatic CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) rhinorrhea in patients with head trauma. Materials and Methods:  A prospective study was conducted in the Department of Neurosurgery, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi from 13th December 2019 to 12th December 2020. This study comprised 155 patients who had suffered head trauma. All patients were followed for one week. If patients developed clear, watery discharge from the nose, this was documented as being CSF rhinorrhea. The frequency was then further divided into immediate and early. Results:  The ages of the patients were 34.28 ± 14.20 years on average. The prevalence of CSF rhinorrhea was observed in 3.2% (5/155) patients. In all the patients, the CSF leak presented within the first 48 hours i.e. it was immediate. Conclusion:  Although rare, this post-traumatic complication continues to be a challenge in terms of morbidity and subsequent mortality. Key Words:  Cerebrospinal fluid, Rhinorrhea, Head Trauma

A Hepta-band Antenna Loaded with E-shaped Slot for S/C/X-band Applications

A compact planar multiband antenna operating at 3.1 (S-band) /4.7/6.4/7.6 (C-band) /8.9/10.4/11.8 GHz (X-band) is presented. The proposed Microstrip Patch Antenna (MSPA) consists of a rectangular radiator in which an E-shaped slot is etched out and a microstrip feed line. The E-shaped slot modifies the total current path thereby making the antenna to operate at seven useful bands. No external impedance matching circuit is used and the impedance matching at these bands are solely achieved by using a rectangular microstrip feed line of length 10mm (L6) and width 2mm (W10). The antenna has a compact dimension of and exhibits S11<-10dB bandwidth of about 6.45% (3.2-3.0GHz), 8.5% (4.9-4.5GHz), 7.6% (6.7-6.2GHz), 3.9% (7.8-7.5GHz), 5.7% (9.1-8.6GHz), 1.2% (10.44-10.35GHz) and 2.2% (11.87-11.62GHz). The simulation analysis of the antenna is carried out by using HFSS v.13.

A Sierpinski Carpet Five Band Antenna for Wireless Applications

A compact Sierpinski Carpet square fractal multiband antenna operating at 3.9 (WiMAX) /6.6 (Satellite TV) /8.1/10.7/11.8 GHz (X-band) is presented. The proposed Microstrip Patch Antenna (MSPA) consists of a Sierpinski Carpet square fractal radiator in which square slots are etched out and a tapered microstrip feed line. The Sierpinski Carpet square fractal patch modifies the current resonant path thereby making the antenna to operate at five useful bands. Impedance matching at these bands are solely achieved by using Sierpinski square slot and tapered feedline, thus eliminating the need of any external matching circuit. The dimensions of the compact antenna is  and exhibits S11<-10dB bandwidth of about 4.8% (4.01-3.82 GHz), 2.1% (6.62-6.48 GHz), 2.7% (8.24-8.02 GHz), 2.1% (10.77-10.54 GHz) and 21% (12.1-11.60 GHz) with the gain of 7.57/3.91/3.77/6.74/1.33 dB at the operating frequencies 3.9/6.6/8.1/10.7 and 11.8 GHz, respectively under simulation analysis carried out by using HFSS v.13.0

Aerial identification of flashed over faulty insulator using binary image classification

Flashed over insulator faults are the most significant faults in high voltage line insulators. They are complicated to identify using traditional methods due to their labor-intensive nature. This study proposes a deep learning-based algorithm for detecting flashed over insulator faults in the real time. The algorithm is based on the Resnet 50 architecture, which has been shown to be effective for image classification tasks in the previous studies regarding image analysis. The algorithm is fast, robust and efficient, making it suitable for real-time applications. The algorithm is trained on a dataset of images of flashed over and non-flashed over insulators. This dataset was collected from various transmission lines and National Center of Robotics and Automation, which are located in Pakistan. For validating the effectiveness of the Resnet 50 algorithm, it was compared with the results obtained from the two other widely popular deep learning algorithms, Densenet 121 and VGG 16 (trained and validated on the same dataset). The results showed that the Resnet 50 was able to detect flashed over insulator faults with an accuracy of over 99%. Whereas the Densenet 121 and VGG 16 have achieved an accuracy of less than 51%