Visas, Inc: Corporate Control and Policy Incoherence in the U.S. Temporary Foreign Labor System

This report provides the first comprehensive analysis of the many visas that employers use and misuse to bring foreign workers into the U.S. in every field, from low-wage jobs in agriculture and domestic work, to specialty occupations in health care, education or information technology. The system is vulnerable to misuse by employers who use foreign labor to undermine established wages and working conditions in the U.S. The result is that U.S. workers are losing out on opportunities, and foreign workers have almost no protection from exploitation, unpaid wages, unsafe conditions and even trafficking and other abuses

A Review on Smart Plant Monitoring System

Environmental factor monitoring is very important since the last few decades. It has become very significant to monitor the agricultural environments for various factors such as temperature, moisture, humidity along with other factors can be of more significance. Automated plant monitoring system consists of a feedback control system that employs monitoring of environmental parameters such soil moisture, temperature and humidity are measured which plays an important role in overall development of the crop and good yield. Conservation of water and other resource can be achieved by optimizing these parameters. A traditional approach for measuring these factors in an agricultural environment meant individuals manually taking measurements and checking them at various times. In this paper, plant monitoring systems using wireless protocols used by different researchers for betterment of agricultural yield with best possible technologies is reviewed. The paper also reviews the various sensors available to monitor above environmental parameters and focuses on smart plant monitoring to suite such types of end application

What do they know about me? Contents and Concerns of Online Behavioral Profiles

Data aggregators collect large amount of information about individual users and create detailed online behavioral profiles of individuals. Behavioral profiles benefit users by improving products and services. However, they have also raised concerns regarding user privacy, transparency of collection practices and accuracy of data in the profiles. To improve transparency, some companies are allowing users to access their behavioral profiles. In this work, we investigated behavioral profiles of users by utilizing these access mechanisms. Using in-person interviews (n=8), we analyzed the data shown in the profiles, elicited user concerns, and estimated accuracy of profiles. We confirmed our interview findings via an online survey (n=100). To assess the claim of improving transparency, we compared data shown in profiles with the data that companies have about users. More than 70% of the participants expressed concerns about collection of sensitive data such as credit and health information, level of detail and how their data may be used. We found a large gap between the data shown in profiles and the data possessed by companies. A large number of profiles were inaccurate with as much as 80% inaccuracy. We discuss implications for public policy management.Comment: in Ashwini Rao, Florian Schaub, and Norman Sadeh What do they know about me? Contents and Concerns of Online Behavioral Profiles (2014) ASE BigData/SocialInformatics/PASSAT/BioMedCom Conferenc

WHO IS THE IDENTIFIABLE VICTIM?--CASTE INTERACTS WITH SYMPATHY IN INDIA

Earlier studies have documented an “identifiable victim effect”-- people donate more to help individual people than to groups. Evidence suggests that this is in part due to an emotional reaction to the identified recipients, who generate more sympathy. However, stereotype research has shown that low-ranking groups are often not seen sympathetically; indeed stigmatized groups can be targets of “dehumanized” perception, perceived with disgust. We conducted an internet survey experiment among Indian participants, crossing the identification treatment with the group membership of the recipient. We indicate group membership of identified recipients subtly, with names that connote a social rank. We found an identifiable recipient effect for generically Indian, high caste, and Muslim recipients, but the effect was reversed for low caste recipients. Participants were as willing to donate to statistical low caste recipients as to statistical high caste recipients, but were less willing to donate to identified low caste recipients.However, an identifiable victim effect was seen for all recipient groups among participants open to a love marriage, a coarse indicator of rejecting caste hierarchy in favor of shared humanity. To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating that the identifiable victim effect interacts with the identity of the victim.identifiable victim effect; stereotypes; out-groups; caste; Dalit; pro-social behavior; India

Generalized cover ideals and the persistence property

Let $I$ be a square-free monomial ideal in $R = k[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$, and consider the sets of associated primes ${\rm Ass}(I^s)$ for all integers $s \geq 1$. Although it is known that the sets of associated primes of powers of $I$ eventually stabilize, there are few results about the power at which this stabilization occurs (known as the index of stability). We introduce a family of square-free monomial ideals that can be associated to a finite simple graph $G$ that generalizes the cover ideal construction. When $G$ is a tree, we explicitly determine ${\rm Ass}(I^s)$ for all $s \geq 1$. As consequences, not only can we compute the index of stability, we can also show that this family of ideals has the persistence property.Comment: 15 pages; revised version has a new introduction; references updated; to appear in J. Pure. Appl. Algebr

DOES AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AFFECT PRODUCTIVITY IN THE INDIAN RAILWAYS?

Our objective in this paper is to shed some empirical light on a claim often made by critics of affirmative action policies: that increasing the representation of members of marginalized communities in jobs – and especially in relatively skilled positions – comes at a cost of reduced efficiency. We undertake a systematic empirical analysis of productivity in the Indian Railways in order to determine whether increasing proportions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in railway employment – largely a consequence of India's affirmative action policies – have actually reduced productive efficiency in the railway system. We find no evidence that higher percentages of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the railway labour force have reduced productivity. Indeed, some of our results suggest that the opposite is true, providing tentative support for the claim that greater labour force diversity boosts productivity.affirmative action; labour force; productivity; Indian railways