Transnational Trafficking, Law Enforcement and Victim Protection: A Middleman Trafficker's Perspective

We explore three hitherto poorly understood characteristics of the human trafficking market – the cross-border ease of mobility of traffickers, the relative bargaining strength of traffickers and final buyers, and the elasticity of buyers' demand. In a model of two-way bargaining, the exact configuration of these characteristics is shown to determine whether domestic and foreign crackdowns on illicit employment mutually reinforce or counteract one another in efforts to stem the tide of trafficking. Estimation results from a gravity model of trafficking present evidence consistent with the mutual reinforcement view, indicating considerable ease of mobility, partial bargaining power, and inelastic demand.human trafficking, two-way Nash bargaining, victim protection, law enforcement

A video book of ophthalmic skills for medical students

No description supplie

NONTHERMAL EFFECTS OF MOBILE PHONE RADIATIONS ON HUMAN HEART RATE, BLOOD PRESSURE, AND SUGAR LEVEL

Objective: A single-blinded pilot study has been conducted to investigate the effect of cell phone radiation on the human heart. Methods: Experimental work has been conducted in Jalandhar-based hospital under the supervision of a cardiologist. During experimental work, electrocardiogram (ECG), blood pressure (BP) level, and sugar level have been examined before and after cell phone radiation exposure. For ECG analysis, the parameters such as heart rate, rhythm, mechanism, axis, P wave, PR interval, QRS complex, ST segment, T wave, and QT interval have been examined in the study.Results: No significant variations in the results of above-mentioned parameter has been observed before and after acute exposure of cell phones radiations by placing cell phone closer to heart.Conclusion: The result of this study concludes that mobile phone radiations do not interfere with any electrical activity of the human heart, BP, and sugar level in healthy individuals

Motivational factors influencing farming practices in northern Ghana

Socio-economic factors that influence the adoption of management practices and technologies by farmers have received wide attention in the adoption literature, but the effects of socio-psychological farmer features such as perceptions and motivations have been analysed to a lesser extent. Using farm household survey data from three regions in northern Ghana, this study explores farmers’ motivations and perceived adoption impediments for three sustainable intensification practices (SIPs): improved maize varieties, cropping system strategies, and combined SIPs (i.e. improved maize and cropping system strategies), and the effect of motivational factors on decisions to adopt SIPs. First, explorative factor analysis (EFA) was used in identifying factors of motivations and impediments for adoption of SIPs. Then, a multinomial logit model was used to analyze the effect of socio-economic farm characteristics and motivational factors on farmers’ decisions to adopt SIPs. EFA identified three motivational factors: personal satisfaction, eco-diversity and eco-efficiency, which differed in importance between the three regions. Across these regions, higher scores for aspects of personal satisfaction were associated with lower interest in improved maize varieties compared to cropping system strategies, while the opposite was true for eco-efficiency which was related to a stronger preference for improved maize varieties. Uncertainty, absence of social support, and resource constraints were identified as impediment factors. The logit model demonstrated that extension services seemed to support the use of improved maize varieties more than the implementation of cropping system strategies. We conclude that motivational factors significantly influence farmer adoption decisions regarding sustainable intensification practices and should be considered systematically in combination with socio-economic farm features and external drivers to inform on-farm innovation processes and supporting policies.</p

On Socially Optimal Traffic Flow in the Presence of Random Users

Traffic assignment is an integral part of urban city planning. Roads and freeways are constructed to cater to the expected demands of the commuters between different origin-destination pairs with the overall objective of minimising the travel cost. As compared to static traffic assignment problems where the traffic network is fixed over time, a dynamic traffic network is more realistic where the network's cost parameters change over time due to the presence of random congestion. In this paper, we consider a stochastic version of the traffic assignment problem where the central planner is interested in finding an optimal social flow in the presence of random users. These users are random and cannot be controlled by any central directives. We propose a Frank-Wolfe algorithm based stochastic algorithm to determine the socially optimal flow for the stochastic setting in an online manner. Further, simulation results corroborate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm