2,954 research outputs found
Risk attitudes and informal employment in a developing economy
© 2012 Bennett et al.; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.We model an urban labour market in a developing economy, incorporating workersâ risk attitudes. Trade-offs between risk aversion and ability determine worker allocation across formal and informal wage employment, and voluntary and involuntary self employment. Greater risk of informal wage non-payment can raise or lower informal wage employment, depending on the source of risk. Informal wage employment can be reduced by increasing detection efforts or by strengthening contract enforcement for informal wage payment. As the average ability of workers rises, informal wage employment first rises, then falls. Greater demand for formal production may lead to more involuntary self employment
Accelerating learning for pro-poor health markets
CommentaryBackground: Given the rapid evolution of health markets, learning is key to promoting the identification and uptake of health market policies and practices that better serve the needs of the poor. However there are significant challenges to learning about health markets. We discuss the different forms that learning takes, from the development of codified scientific knowledge, through to experience-based learning, all in relationship to health markets.
Discussion: Notable challenges to learning in health markets include the difficulty of acquiring data from private health care providers, designing evaluations that capture the complex dynamics present within health markets and developing communities of practice that encompass the diverse actors present within health markets, and building trust and mutual understanding across these groups.
The paper proposes experimentation with country-specific market data platforms that can integrate relevant evidence from different data sources, and simultaneously exploring strategies to secure better information on private providers and health markets. Possible approaches to adapting evaluation designs so that they are better able to take account of different and changing contexts as well as producing real time findings are discussed. Finally capturing informal knowledge about health markets is key. Communities of practice that bridge different health market actors can help to share such experience-based knowledge and in so doing, may help to formalize it. More geographically-focused communities of practice are needed, and such communities may be supported by innovation brokers and/or be built around member-based organizations.
Summary: Strategic investments in and support to learning about health markets can address some of the challenges experienced to-date, and accelerate learning that supports health markets that serve the poor.DFI
A calcium ion in a cavity as a controlled single-photon source
We present a single calcium ion, coupled to a high-finesse cavity, as an almost ideal system for the controlled generation of single photons. Photons from a pump beam are Raman-scattered by the ion into the cavity mode, which subsequently emits the photon into a well-defined output channel. In contrast with comparable atomic systems, the ion is localized at a fixed position in the cavity mode for indefinite times, enabling truly continuous operation of the device. We have performed numeric calculations to assess the performance of the system and present the first experimental indication of single-photon emission in our set-up
Synthesis, structural and chemosensitivity studies of arena d6 metal complexes having N-phenyl-N'-(pyridyl/pyrimidyl) thiourea derivatives
The d6 metal complexes of thiourea derivatives were synthesized to investigate its cytotoxicity. Treatment of various NâphenylâN Ì pyridyl/pyrimidyl thiourea ligands with halfâsandwich d6 metal precursors yielded a series of cationic com- plexes. Reactions of ligand (L1âL3) with [(pâcymene)RuCl2]2 and [Cp*MCl2]2 (M = Rh/Ir) led to the formation of a series of cationic complexes bearing gen- eral formula [(arene)M(L1)Đș2(N,S)Cl]+, [(arene)M(L2)Đș2(N,S)Cl]+ and [(arene) M(L3)Đș2(N,S)Cl]+ [arene = pâcymene, M = Ru (1, 4, 7); Cp*, M = Rh (2, 5, 8); Cp*, Ir (3, 6, 9)]. These compounds were isolated as their chloride salts. Xâray crystallographic studies of the complexes revealed the coordination of the ligands to the metal in a bidentate chelating N,Sâ manner. Further the cytotox- icity studies of the thiourea derivatives and its complexes evaluated against HCTâ116 (human colorectal cancer), MIAâPaCaâ2 (human pancreatic cancer) and ARPEâ19 (nonâcancer retinal epithelium) cancer cell lines showed that the thiourea ligands displayed no activity. Upon complexation however, the metal compounds possesses cytotoxicity and whilst potency is less than cisplatin, several complexes exhibited greater selectivity for HCTâ116 or MIAâ PaCaâ2 cells compared to ARPEâ19 cells than cisplatin in vitro. Rhodium complexes of thiourea derivatives were found to be more potent as compared to ruthenium and iridium complexes.<br/
Senior Sway: Using a Mobile Application to Measure Fall Risk
Background and Purpose: The Senior Sway mobile application uses the iPhone/iPad gyroscope to assess postural sway and motion reaction time. Impairment in postural sway and motion reaction time have the potential to increase risk for future falls. Senior Sway thereby has the potential to provide a quick, easy to use, objective measure for predicting falls in older adults. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of the Senior Sway mobile application and its associations with fall risk in community-dwelling older adults. Methods: Adults older than 62 years were recruited from senior centers and community events. Descriptive and bivariate statistics were used to examine feasibility on the basis of enrollment, time required, satisfaction with application, and association with fall risk. Results and Discussion: Fifty-seven adults were recruited. Use of the Senior Sway mobile application was feasible. Ninety-one percent said that they liked the application and reported length of time of assessment was âjust right.â The average Senior Sway score was 64.0 (range: 47.8-84.0), which was signifi cantly associated with the 30-second sit-to-stand test. In addition, the motor reaction time score was associated with the Timed Up and Go. Conclusions: Senior Sway is a promising application to improve identifi cation of adults at risk for falls and need for rehabilitation but warrants further research
âThe embodiment of pure thoughtâ? Digital fabrication, disability and new possibilities for auto/biography
This essay draws on findings from a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council project: âIn the Makingâ (AH/M006026/1) to argue that the digital turn in art therapy â particularly 3D printing â makes possible new forms of disability agency, engaging post-humanist theory to suggest re-conceptualizations of embodied person-hood.
Keywords: digital fabrication; disability; auto/biography; embodimen
Stratified reference: the common core of distributivity, aspect, and measurement
Why can I tell you that I 'ran for five minutes' but not that I *'ran to the store for five minutes'? Why can we talk about 'five pounds of books' but not about *'five pounds of book'? What keeps you from saying *'sixty degrees Celsius of water' when you can say 'sixty inches of water'? And what goes wrong when I complain that *'all the ants in my kitchen are numerous'? The constraints on these constructions involve concepts that are generally studied separately: aspect, plural and mass reference, measurement, distributivity, and collectivity. This paper provides a unified perspective on these domains and gives a single answer to the questions above in the framework of algebraic event semantics
Two-phase equilibrium and molecular hydrogen formation in damped Lyman-alpha systems
Molecular hydrogen is quite underabundant in damped Lyman-alpha systems at
high redshift, when compared to the interstellar medium near the Sun. This has
been interpreted as implying that the gas in damped Lyman-alpha systems is
warm. like the nearby neutral intercloud medium, rather than cool, as in the
clouds which give rise to most H I absorption in the Milky Way. Other lines of
evidence suggest that the gas in damped Lyman-alpha systems -- in whole or part
-- is actually cool; spectroscopy of neutral and ionized carbon, discussed
here, shows that the damped Lyman-alpha systems observed at lower redshift z
2.8 are warm (though not
devoid of H2). To interpret the observations of carbon and hydrogen we
constructed detailed numerical models of H2 formation under the conditions of
two-phase thermal equilibrium, like those which account for conditions near the
Sun, but with varying metallicity, dust-gas ratio, . We find that the low
metallicity of damped Lyman-alpha systems is enough to suppress H2 formation by
many orders of magnitude even in cool diffuse clouds, as long as the ambient
optical/uv radiation field is not too small. For very low metallicity and under
the most diffuse conditions, H2 formation will be dominated by slow gas-phase
processes not involving grains, and a minimum molecular fraction in the range
is expected.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures; accepted 2002-04-30 by Astronomy and
Astrophysic
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