Education, Skills and Labor Market Outcomes: Results from Large-Scale Adult Skills Surveys in Urban Areas in 12 Countries

In recent years, skills development has become a priority among developed and developing countries alike. The World Bank Group, in its quest to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity, has joined efforts with countries and multilateral development partners to ensure that individuals have access to quality education and training opportunities and that employers can find the skills they need to operate. The skills towards employability and productivity (STEP) skills measurement program is part of the World Bank's portfolio of analytical products on skills. The STEP program consists of two survey instruments that collect information on the supply and demand for skills in urban areas: a household survey and an employer survey. STEP has been implemented in waves, the first surveys being implemented in seven countries in 2012 (Bolivia, Colombia, Ghana, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (PDR), Ukraine, Vietnam, and the Yunnan Province in China), and the second in five countries in 2013 (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kenya, and Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of (FYR)). The data presented in this publication correspond to these countries. It illustrates the similarities and differences among groups that have completed different education levels on a wide range of issues and outcomes. Section one analyzes the trajectory of skills acquisition: participation in early childhood education programs, educational attainment by gender, and participation in training and apprenticeship programs. Section two explores background conditions associated with educational attainment, including the socioeconomic status of survey respondents at age 15, the educational attainment of their parents, their households' asset levels, their health (as expressed by the presence of chronic illness), and their overall satisfaction with life. Section three covers cognitive skills: writing, numeracy, and reading (which is also evaluated through a direct reading assessment). Section four covers job-relevant skills, which are task-specific and which respondents possess or use on the job; and section five covers socio-emotional skills, using established metrics to measure personality and behavior. Section six covers the status of survey respondents in the labor market: whether they are employed, unemployed, or inactive

Conjunctive queries with negation over DL-Lite: a closer look

While conjunctive query (CQ) answering over DL-Lite has been studied extensively, there have been few attempts to analyse CQs with negated atoms. This paper deepens the study of the problem. Answering CQs with safe negation and CQs with a single inequality over DL-Lite with role inclusions is shown to be undecidable, even for a fixed TBox and query.Without role inclusions, answering CQs with one inequality is P-hard and with two inequalities CoNP-hard in data complexity

Anomalous quartic WWγγWW\gamma\gamma couplings in epep collisions at the LHeC and the FCC-he

We conducted a study on measuring $W^+W^-$ production and on the sensitivity limits at $95\%$ Confidence Level on thirteen anomalous couplings obtained by dimension-8 operators which are related to the anomalous quartic $WW\gamma\gamma$ couplings. We consider the main $e^-p \to e^-\gamma^*\gamma^*p \to e^-W^+W^-p$ reaction with the sub-process $\gamma^*\gamma^* \to W^+W^-$ at the Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) and the Future Circular Collider-hadron electron (FCC-he). For the LHeC, energies of the $e^-$ beams are taken to be $E_e =60$ and 140 GeV and the energy of the $p$ beams is taken to be $E_p = 7$ TeV. For the FCC-he, energies of the $e^-$ beams are taken to be $E_e =60$ and 140 GeV and the energy of the $p$ beams is taken to be $E_p = 50$ TeV, respectively. It is interesting to notice that the LHeC and the FCC-he will lead to model-independent limits on the anomalous quartic $WW\gamma\gamma$ couplings which are one order of magnitude stringent than the CMS Collaboration limits, in addition to being competitive with other limits reported in the literature.Comment: 28 pages, 10 Figures and 13 Table

Primitive model electrolytes. A comparison of the HNC approximation for the activity coefficient with Monte Carlo data

Accuracy of the mean activity coefficient expression (Hansen-Vieillefosse-Belloni equation), valid within the hypernetted chain (HNC) approximation, was tested in a wide concentration range against new Monte Carlo (MC) data for +1:-1 and +2:-2 primitive model electrolytes. The expression has an advantage that the excess chemical potential can be obtained directly, without invoking the time consuming Gibbs-Duhem calculation. We found the HNC results for the mean activity coefficient to be in good agreement with the machine calculations performed for the same model. In addition, the thermodynamic consistency of the HNC approximation was tested. The mean activity coefficients, calculated via the Gibbs-Duhem equation, seem to follow the MC data slightly better than the Hansen-Vieillefosse-Belloni expression. For completeness of the calculation, the HNC excess internal energies and osmotic coefficients are also presented. These results are compared with the calculations based on other theories commonly used to describe electrolyte solutions, such as the mean spherical approximation, Pitzer's extension of the Debye-H\"uckel theory, and the Debye-H\"uckel limiting law.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Does Participation in Extracurricular Theatre Productions Influence Emotional Wellbeing?

The purpose of this study was to research whether or not participating in extracurricular theatre productions had an impact on the emotional wellbeing of students in middle and high school. Students involved in extracurricular theatre productions during the 2021-2022 school year were surveyed and asked to rate their level of confidence, self-esteem, among others. They were also asked open-ended questions regarding their experience in the theatre department and the learnings or benefits they perceived to have gained as a result. The multiple-choice questions showed data ranging from students claiming they were very confident to not confident at all, but the most valuable information came from the open-ended questions. Students compared their participation in the theatre to being in a family and many of them shared personal gainings from being in extracurricular theatre productions, such as feeling more confident, meeting new people, making friends, taking a break from the stress of school, etc

Quantum Interference in Single Molecule Electronic Systems

We present a general analytical formula and an ab initio study of quantum interference in multi-branch molecules. Ab initio calculations are used to investigate quantum interference in a benzene-1,2-dithiolate (BDT) molecule sandwiched between gold electrodes and through oligoynes of various lengths. We show that when a point charge is located in the plane of a BDT molecule and its position varied, the electrical conductance exhibits a clear interference effect, whereas when the charge approaches a BDT molecule along a line normal to the plane of the molecule and passing through the centre of the phenyl ring, interference effects are negligible. In the case of olygoynes, quantum interference leads to the appearance of a critical energy $E_c$, at which the electron transmission coefficient $T(E)$ of chains with even or odd numbers of atoms is independent of length. To illustrate the underlying physics, we derive a general analytical formula for electron transport through multi-branch structures and demonstrate the versatility of the formula by comparing it with the above ab-initio simulations. We also employ the analytical formula to investigate the current inside the molecule and demonstrate that large counter currents can occur within a ring-like molecule such as BDT, when the point charge is located in the plane of the molecule. The formula can be used to describe quantum interference and Fano resonances in structures with branches containing arbitrary elastic scattering regions connected to nodal sites.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure