Compliance or Complaints? The Impact of Private Enforceability of Lactation Break Time and Space Laws

https://repository.uchastings.edu/wll/1002/thumbnail.jp

Promoting Sustainable Pro-Poor Growth in Rwandan Agriculture: What are the Policy Options?

In 2000, as part of its strategy for growth and poverty reduction, the Government of Rwanda set a goal to increase per capita income from US$230 to US$900 and halve the incidence of poverty by 2020. Two years after those targets were established Rwanda's first Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) projected that GDP growth in the range of 6 to 7 percent would be needed over the long term for those targets to be realized. The principal sources of growth in the short to medium term were to be the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, with agricultural projected to start at 5.2 percent and accelerate over the period due to productivity improvements. Manufacturing growth was projected to rise sharply to 11.5 percent, based on the expansion of manufacturing capacity in agro-processing, and then slow to a more sustainable level of 7 percent. Between 1995 and 2005, real GDP grew at an average annual rate of 10 percent as the economy recovered from the effects of the 1994 genocide. Real GDP growth is now slowing, however. Between 2001 and 2005, average annual GDP growth averaged only 5.2 percent. If growth continues below 6 percent, this will be insufficient to reach Government's development targets. Government therefore needs to quickly put in place policies to accelerate growth. Transforming the agriculture sector will be a critical element of any growth strategy. Agriculture accounts for 35-40 percent of GDP, and employs around 80 percent of the population. It is also the main source of foreign exchange, and is the primary source of inputs for the manufacturing sector. Yet agricultural growth has been disappointing. Between 2001 and 2005, agricultural growth averaged 4.2 percent per year, below the target range of 5 to 8 percent set out in the PRSP. In recognition of the need to stimulate further sustained growth in agriculture, the government is now poised to identify and prioritize the key interventions. This paper aims to assist government in prioritizing the key measures by examining how the level of agricultural growth needed to achieve the government's policy objectives can be achieved. Some in Rwanda advocate the promotion of export crops, both traditional export crops (e.g., coffee, tea, pyrethrum, hides and skins) and non-traditional export crops (e.g., cut flowers, fruits, vegetables, essential oils, vanilla, silk, macadamia). Others argue that agricultural growth can best be stimulated in the short- to medium-term by increasing productivity in food staples, both crops and livestock. This debate mirrors those ongoing in many other developing countries, in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. An economy-wide, multi-market model (REMM) was developed to test the likely payoffs to alternative agricultural development strategies. The REMM is disaggregated to the sub-national (provincial) level and includes 30 agricultural sectors (commodities) and two aggregate non-agricultural sectors. Eight household types are identified within each province according to size of landholding and gender of household head. The economy-wide model is linked to a micro-simulation model that includes all households sampled in a nationally representative survey (19992001 Household Living Condition Survey). The macro-micro linkage framework permits assessment of the likely impacts of alternative policy scenarios on growth, incomes and poverty, and food security at national, sub-national, and household group levels. The model was first used to simulate a base run scenario representing the "business as usual" option, under which agricultural and non-agricultural growth are assumed to continue along current trends. Alternative growth scenarios were later evaluated relative to this baseline. The modelling results show that business as usual is not an option if Rwanda is to meet its national development targets, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the targets agreed to under the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The base run scenario highlights that a continuation of current policies will bring about a modest reduction in the national poverty rate, but the absolute number of people living below the poverty line will increase because of population growth. Food self-sufficiency at the national level will be eroded in the face of demographic pressure and rising food imports. The simulations conducted using the REMM indicate that rapid and sustainable growth in Rwanda's agricultural sector is achievable only if the productivity, profitability, and competitiveness of agriculture is improved. Therefore, the priority measures identified focus on increasing investments in land and water resources, strengthening extension, promoting the performance of both domestic and export markets. Key to this will be strengthening support to producer organizations. The simulations produced a number of insights to inform policy design: - Agriculture has the potential to be a leading engine of growth for Rwanda's economy over the short to medium term - Within agriculture, the main drivers of growth will be food staples, including livestock. - Staple-led growth is more pro-poor than export-led growth. - Growth in staples will reduce the nation's food deficit, but it will not eliminate imports of all commodities. - Growth in agricultural exports will help to reduce the total trade deficit, but it will not be able to eliminate it completely. - Agricultural growth will contribute to the attainment of the first MDG of halving poverty by 2015, but agricultural growth alone will not to be sufficient. These findings from Rwanda are relevant for the many other developing countries, in sub-Saharan Africa and also in other regions, in which policy makers are struggling to unlock the power of agriculture to serve as a driver of growth and poverty reduction. In recent years, much attention has focused on boosting agricultural growth by promoting the development of high-value export crops. The REMM simulation results serve as a reminder that in agrarian economies in which a large proportion of rural households continue to engage in production of food staples destined for home consumption, investments aimed at raising the productivity of food staples are likely to have a much greater impact in the short to medium term in fostering broad-based, pro-poor growth.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development,

Exposed: Discrimination Against Breastfeeding Workers

https://repository.uchastings.edu/wll/1000/thumbnail.jp

Designing Fair AI for Managing Employees in Organizations: A Review, Critique, and Design Agenda

Organizations are rapidly deploying artificial intelligence (AI) systems to manage their workers. However, AI has been found at times to be unfair to workers. Unfairness toward workers has been associated with decreased worker effort and increased worker turnover. To avoid such problems, AI systems must be designed to support fairness and redress instances of unfairness. Despite the attention related to AI unfairness, there has not been a theoretical and systematic approach to developing a design agenda. This paper addresses the issue in three ways. First, we introduce the organizational justice theory, three different fairness types (distributive, procedural, interactional), and the frameworks for redressing instances of unfairness (retributive justice, restorative justice). Second, we review the design literature that specifically focuses on issues of AI fairness in organizations. Third, we propose a design agenda for AI fairness in organizations that applies each of the fairness types to organizational scenarios. Then, the paper concludes with implications for future research.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153812/4/AI Fairness Final to Online Feb 24 2020.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153812/1/AI Fairness Final to Online Feb 21 2020.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153812/6/Robert et al. 2020 AI Fairness New Proof.pdfDescription of AI Fairness Final to Online Feb 24 2020.pdf : Update Preprint Feb 24 2020Description of AI Fairness Final to Online Feb 21 2020.pdf : PreprintDescription of Robert et al. 2020 AI Fairness New Proof.pdf : Corrected Proof Mar 1 202

Determining conditions for successful culture of multi-cellular 3D tumour spheroids to investigate the effect of mesenchymal stem cells on breast cancer cell invasiveness

Mesenchymal stem cells have been widely implicated in tumour development and metastases. Moving from the use of two-dimensional (2D) models to three-dimensional (3D) to investigate this relationship is critical to facilitate more applicable and relevant research on the tumour microenvironment. We investigated the effects of altering glucose concentration and the source of foetal bovine serum (FBS) on the growth of two breast cancer cell lines (T47D and MDA-MB-231) and human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs) to determine successful conditions to enable their co-culture in 3D tumour spheroid models. Subsequently, these 3D multicellular tumour spheroids were used to investigate the effect of hBM-MSCs on breast cancer cell invasiveness. Findings presented herein show that serum source had a statistically significant effect on two thirds of the growth parameters measured across all three cell lines, whereas glucose only had a statistically significant effect on 6%. It was determined that the optimum growth media composition for the co-culture of 3D hBM-MSCs and breast cancer cell line spheroids was 1 g/L glucose DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS from source A. Subsequent results demonstrated that co-culture of hBMMSCs and MDA-MB-231 cells dramatically reduced invasiveness of both cell lines (F(1,4) = 71.465, p = 0.001) when embedded into a matrix comprising of growth-factor reduced base membrane extract (BME) and collagen

Alternative Summer Break Academic Library Internship: Exploring Professional Engagement as an Acting Librarian

This poster session visualizes an innovative Alternative Summer Break Academic Library Internship program for current or recently graduated library and information science (LIS) students. Currently in its fourth year, the program provides opportunities for graduate students to experience professional engagement in a real academic library. Logistics, planning, recruitment, management, and lessons learned will be shared, which will provide valuable insights for libraries wishing to build similar programs. Prospective interns will learn about the structure of the program, expectations and outcomes, and how to apply

The Eating and Drinking Ability Classification System for cerebral palsy:a study of reliability and stability over time

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordAIM: This study evaluated the inter-observer reliability and stability over time of the Eating and Drinking Ability Classification System (EDACS) for children and young people with cerebral palsy (CP). METHOD: Case records for 97 children with CP were examined to collect retrospective data about eating and drinking abilities at four time-points with a minimum of 2 years between each time-point. Sex, Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) level, presence of feeding tube and orthopaedic issues were recorded from case records. One speech and language therapist (SaLT1) classified eating and drinking ability using EDACS for all cases at all time-points; SaLT2 assigned EDACS levels for 50 cases at time-point 1; SaLT3 assigned EDACS levels for 24 cases at all time-points. Inter-observer reliability and stability over time were assessed using the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC). Associations between EDACS levels and functioning recorded with other Functional Classification Systems (FCSs) were calculated using Kendall's tau (τ). RESULTS: Out of 97 children, 48 were male, 48 had feeding tubes, and 83 had orthopaedic issues. ICC for EDACS levels recorded by SaLT1 across all time-points was 0.97 (95% CI 0.96-0.98); changes in EDACS levels occurred infrequently and never by more than one level. ICC between SaLT1 and SaLT2 at time-point 1 was 0.8 (95% CI 0.67-0.89); ICC between SaLT1 and SaLT3 across all time-points was 0.95 (95% CI 0.92-0.98). Association between GMFCS and EDACS was moderate (τ= 0.58). INTERPRETATION: Retrospective use of EDACS to classify children's eating and drinking abilities appears reliable; EDACS appeared stable over 6 or more years in 86% of the cases.British Academy of Childhood Disability and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Polani Priz