(Why) Do Self-Employed Parents Have More Children?

We provide a theory whereby non-benevolent, self-employed households increase their expected family size to raise the likelihood that an inside family member will be a good match at running the business. Hence, having larger family sizes raises the self-employed household’s expected return to their business. Using data from the General Social Survey, we find that respondents have approximately .2 to .4 more actual and expected number of children if they are self-employed as compared to if they are not self-employed. This empirical relationship is established across a broad array of sub-samples using a simple differences in means test. As well, the empirical relationship holds using a regression framework, including the use of instrumental variables estimation to allow for the possibility of endogeneity of the respondent’s self-employment status and whether the respondent’s spouse stays at home.self-employed, children, familiy business, matching

Contra \u27 Verses: Jazz with the intersectionality of race and politics

This project is both a musical performance and an original album idea. My intention is to explore the trope of creating contrafacts from jazz standards (i.e. Tin Pan Alley, Great American Songbook). Inspired by the contrafacts I was required to submit of: “All the Things You Are,” “Inner Urge,” and Footprints”; which I submitted as: “All the Things Emmett Till Could have Been,” “Inner Outer Africa” and “Harriet Tubman’s Feet” respectively. My contrafacts both play on the wording of the standard and allude to a historical and racial significance replete with contradiction. They have relevance to both American history and current socio-political unrest in this country. The notion of relevance is essential here. I want to create jazz that is engaging and entertaining to my generation, and without relevance that becomes impossible.https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-global-jazz/1035/thumbnail.jp

A Transmission Model For Diffusion Based Molecular Communication Nano Networks

Tez (Yüksek Lisans) -- İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, 2016Thesis (M.Sc.) -- İstanbul Technical University, Instıtute of Science and Technology, 2016Nano ölçekli haberleşmenin tanıtımından sonra moleküler haberleşme, bilim adamları için cazip bir araştırma konusu haline çevrilmiştir. Nanoağların çok sayıda olası uygulamaları günümüzde moleküler haberleşmeyi daha da çekici kılmıştır. Bu olası uygulamalar biyomedikal alanında akıllı ilaç dağıtımı ve sağlık izleme sistemlerinden başlayıp, askeri ve çevresel alanlarda uygulanan hava kirliliğini izleme gibi uygulamalarla değişe bilir.Nanoağ, nanomakine veya moleküler makine gibi adlandırılan nanocihazlar arasında haberleşme veya iletişim biçimidir. Nanomakine, nanometre ölçekli bileşenlere dayanan yapay cihaz olarak düşünüle bilir. Moleküler haberleşme, nanomakinelerin algılaya, hesaplaya ve haberleşe bildiği iletişim türlerinden biridir. Transmisyon veya aktarma, yayılma/üreme ve resepsiyon - moleküler haberleşmede gönderici ve alıcı arasında bilgi değişimini sağlamak için üç ana aşamadır. Moleküler haberleşmenin önemli bir türü olan difüzyon tipli moleküler iletişim, serbest difüzyon yolu ile gönderici ve alıcı düğümleri arasında moleküllerin yayılmasına esaslanıyor. Difüzyon tipli moleküler iletişimde üç farklı aşama vardır. İlk aşama emisyon aşamasıdır. Bu aşamada, verici veya geçirici nanomakine veya gönderen düğüm çalışma ortamına parçacıklar yayar. İkinci faz veya aşama ise difüzyon sürecini oluşturmaktadır. Bu fazda vericiden yayılan hissecikler Brown hareketine tabidir. Son olarak, sonuncu aşama olan resepsiyon fazında alıcı nanomakine veya alıcı düğümler tüm parçacıkları yakalıyorlar. Bu tez boyunca, verici ve alıcı düğümler bir-biriyle temas halinde olan ve parçacıkları yakalayan düğümler olarak görülmüştür. Çalışma ortamı ise hiç bir molekülün veya başka bir parçacığın kaçıp kurtulamadığı sınırlı bir sistemdir. Ayrıca, transmisyon veya aktarma sürecinde verici düğümden ayrılan ve etrafa yayılan molekül ve parçacıklar, sınırlı çalışma ortamında dolaşıyor ve eğer bir parçacık çalışma ortamının sınırına ulaştığında, duvara değerek sisteme geri dönüyor. Bu nedenle, sınırlı çalışma ortamında parçacıkların sayısı zaman boyunca değişmezkalıyor. Belirli t zamanında verici düğüm tarafından serbest bırakılan parçacıkların toplam sayısı mdoeliın girdisini veya sinyalini göstermektedir.Daha sonra, model sinyali difüzyon yoluyla sınırlı akışkan alanda ilerler. Bu çalışmada, molekül ve tüm parçacıkların difüzyonu rastegele yürüyüşle elde edilmiştir.Bu nedenle, verici ve alıcı düğümler arasındakı parçacıkların ilerlemesi ve yayılımı benzersiz Brown hareketi ile gerçekleştirilmektedir. Verici düğümün kapasitesi, alıcı düğümün sinyal alımı üzerine yaptığı etkileri incelemek amacıyla sınırlandırılmış ve belli bir miktarın üzerinde olamaz hale getirilmiştir. Örneğin, eğer verici düğümün rezervuar kapasitesi doluysa, yeni gelen parçacık verici düğümden çıkan diğer parçacıklara çarpa bilir. Her parçacık, her bir eksen boyunca mutlak sıcaklık ve Boltzman sabitinin çarpımının yarısına eşit olan kinetik enerjiye sahiptir. Ve aynı zamanda, her parçacık, zamandan bağımsız olduğu kabul edilen kitle ve hıza da sahiptir. Modelin esas amaçlarından biri, verici düğümün alıcı düğüm üzerinde olan sinyal resepsiyon etkisini araştırmaktır. Alıcı düğüm, kendi aralığı dahilinde sinyal gücüne tabi olan konsantrasyonu ölçer. Bu tez çalışması,alıcı düğümlerin sinyal gücünün verici düğümler tarafındansınırlı bir çalışma alanında nasıl zayıflatıla-bilindiklerini araştırıp göz önüne sergiliyor. Alıcı düğümde gerçekleşen alıcı sinyalin analitik ifadesi grafiksel olarak gösterilmiştir; verici düğümlerinin ve onların vericilik performanslarının artan sonuçlarının etkileri bu çalışmada söz konusu olmuştur. Bilim adamları iki veya daha fazla verici düğümlerinden ibaret nanoağlar üzerinde çalışırken bu makale ve çalışmada ireli sürülen analitik ifadeni difüzyon sürece dayanan moleküler haberleşme ve iletişimlerde bu makaleyi referans olarak gösterip kolaylıkla kullana bilirler. Tezin geri kalanı ise şu şekilde düzenlenmiştir: I. bölümde giriş kısmı belirlenmiştir. II. bölümde ise tüm detaylı açıklamalarıyla model tasvirinden bahsedilmiştir. III.bölümde ise, iki veya daha fazla verici düğümün olduğu her durum için verici düğümün konsantrasyonunu veya yoğunluğunu hesaplayan analitik ifade gösterilmiştir. Simulasyon sonuçlari IV. bölümde açıklanmış ve detaylı şekilde anlatılmıştır. V. bölümde, difüzyon denklemi için sayısal bir çözüm üretmede kullanılansayısal yaklaşım denklemleri ile elde edilen kesin sonlu yöntemler anlatıldı. Bu bölümde alıcı düğümün sinyal gücünü ölçmek icin açık sayısal, kapalı sayısal ve Crank Nicolson şablonları kullanılmıstır. Açık sayısal ve Crank Nicolson şablonları ile elde edilen sonuçlar, kapalı sayısal şablon ile elde edilen sonuçlar ile karşılaştırıldığında daha iyi sonuçlar ürettiği görülmüstür. Son olarak, VI. bölümdeki sonuç kısmında ise IV. ve V. bölümdeki hesaplama sonuçlarını da kullanarak tüm sonuçlar grafiksel olarak çizilmiştir.Molecular communication has been an attractive topic for researchers afterthe introduction of the nanoscale communications. Numerous potential applications of nanonetworks make molecular communication even more appealing.These potential applications range from biomedical applications, such as intelligent drug delivery and health monitoring systems, to military and environmentalapplications such as air pollution monitoring. Nanonetworks is a communication between nanodevices, called nanomachines or molecular machine. A nanomachine can be definedas an artificial device that relies on nanometer-scale components.Molecular communication is one of the types of nanonetworks in which nanomachines are able to sense, calculate, actuate and intercommunicate. Transmission, propagation and reception are the three main stages to provide information exchange between sender and receiver in molecular communication. Diffusion based molecular communication that is an essential type of molecular communication, relies on propagation of molecules between sender and receiver nodes through free diffusion. There are three different phases in diffusion based molecular communication. The first phase is named emission process. In this phase, the transmitter nanomachine or the sender node emits particles into the medium. The second phase is composed of diffusion process. In this part, emitted particles by the transmitter node are subject to Brownian motion. Finally, the last phase, the reception process in which the receiver nanomachine or receiving node absorb or capture all particles within its range. Throughout this thesis, the harvester and receiver nodes have been considered as absorbers that capture particles which are in contact with their range. For the working operating environment is a bounded confined one, no particle escapes from it. Furthermore, particles released by the transmitter node during transmission process, circulate in the bounded operating environment and when a particle reaches the edge or boundary of the working environment, it is bounced back into the working environment. Therefore, the total number of particles within the bounded operating environment remains unchanged along the time. The amount of particles to be released by the transmitter node at a certain time t represents the input or the signal of the model. Afterwards, the signal of the model propagates in the bounded fluidic space via diffusion. In this work, the diffusion of particles is achieved via random walk. Therefore, the propagation of particles between transmitter and receiver nodes is uniquely accomplished via Brownian motion. Harvester nodes have been assigned a limited harvesting capacity that cannot exceed a certain amount of particles in order to investigate their impact upon the signal reception at the receiving node. For example, if the harvesting node reservoir capacity is full, a new particle reaching its range will result to hitting one particle from the harvester reservoir. A particle has a kinetic energy along each axis, which is the half of the product of the absolute temperature and Boltzmann’s constant. And also it has a mass and speed or velocity that has been assumed to be unchanged and independent of time. The model is to investigate the impact of the harvester nodes on signal reception at the receiver node. The receiver node measures the concentration within its range, which is subject to the signal strength. This thesis investigates how harvesting nodes can degrade the signal strength of the receiver node in a confined space. The analytic expression of the received signal at the receiver node has been drawn; the effects of the increasing number of harvesting nodes and the harvesting rate have been discussed in this work.Scientists in diffusion based molecular communication may use that analytic expression proposed in this current paper when dealing with nanonetworks composed of more than two receiving nodes. The signal received in terms of concentrations at the receiver node has been approximated using finite difference methods and the accuracy of each numerical scheme (Explicit, Implicit and Crank Nicolson) has been computed and compared to the analytic solutions. The rest of the thesis is organized as follows. The introduction is given in section I. The model description is presented in section II. In section III, the analytic expression that computes the concentration of receiver node in a scenario of multiple harvesters is proposed. The results are discussed in section IV. The section V provides the approximations on the signal received at the receiver nanomachine. Finally, a conclusion has been drawn based on the results obtained at sections IV and V in section VI.Yüksek LisansM.Sc

AID AND AGENCY IN AFRICA EXPLAINING FOOD DISBURSEMENTS ACROSS ETHIOPIAN HOUSEHOLDS, 1994-2004.

We study the distribution of food aid in Ethiopia between 1994 and 2004 using data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey. Over this period village leaders had considerable discretion in disbursing aid subject to official guidelines and periodic monitoring. We use a principal-agent model and household panel data for approximately 940 households to understand biases in the allocation of aid. The model shows that correlations between aid and observed measures of need are not a good measure of targeting because agents have incentives to distort allocations within targeted classes. Consistent with the model, we find that the aid recipients match official criteria but disbursements are negatively correlated with determinants of need that are not easily observable by monitoring agencies, namely pre-aid consumption, self-reported power and involvement in village-level organizations. Our results suggest informal structures of power within African villages influence the extent to which food aid insulates some of the world's poorest families from agricultural shocks but also that policy guidelines do constrain permissible deviations from need-based allocations.

The lynx1 gene and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Potential Neuroprotective Mechanism

The sociological impact of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), places a heavy burden on the healthcare industry, patients and families, not only from a medical and financial impact, but also in terms of quality of life. The consequences to the patient, family and caregivers can be life-changing, yet quantitative studies have been sparse. Our understanding of ways to improve cognition in these patients would be highly beneficial. One such potential tool to improve cognition in these patients, the lynx1 gene, has been identified. The purpose of this project is to compare the effects of the lynx1 gene on Alzheimer\u27s development in different genetic variant mice (wildtype, knockout, and heterozygous genotypes).To do this, mice underwent fear conditioned learning via the Chronic Social Defeat Stress (CSDS) paradigm. Based on the results from these behavioral tests, as well as predicted data for planned experiments, I believe that an introductory case for further studies of the relationship between the lynx1 gene and AD has been shown

Black Is Decidedly Not Just Black: A Case Study on HIV among African-born Populations Living in Massachusetts

Black or African American is a racial category that includes the descendants of enslaved Africans as well as members of foreign-born black communities who migrated to the United States from places abroad, such as Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Grouping native-born and foreign-born blacks into a single homogeneous racial category may make it easier to track disease and health outcomes; however, it masks the different cultural experiences, histories, languages, social and moral values, and expectations that influence health beliefs, attitudes, practices, and behaviors. It also ignores such factors as migration, which forces foreign-born populations to examine both their traditional cultures and the culture(s) of their new environment, and also exposes populations to other health risks. The black or African American category also does not accurately reflect how health conditions are disproportionately affecting subgroups, specifically black immigrants. Rather than race, using ethnicity as an indicator situates health within a cultural framework and acknowledges a person’s shared sense of membership, ancestral heritage, and cultural affiliation with a specific group. Acknowledging and utilizing cultural strengths in health programming and services can facilitate individual behavior change and improve community health

Ethiopia’s youth and their labour market prospects

The transition from education to employment often presents challenges for the youth in many countries, culminating in rates of youth unemployment that are habitually higher than the unemployment rate for adults. High youth unemployment is likely to have adverse social and economic consequences for an economy, with a large proportion of the young population unable to engage in productive activities

Hybrid clinical-managers in Kenyan Hospitals : navigating between professional, official and practical norms

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the way “hybrid” clinical managers in Kenyan public hospitals interpret and enact hybrid clinical managerial roles in complex healthcare settings affected by professional, managerial and practical norms. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a case study of two Kenyan district hospitals, involving repeated interviews with eight mid-level clinical managers complemented by interviews with 51 frontline workers and 6 senior managers, and 480 h of ethnographic field observations. The authors analysed and theorised data by combining inductive and deductive approaches in an iterative cycle. Findings Kenyan hybrid clinical managers were unprepared for managerial roles and mostly reluctant to do them. Therefore, hybrids’ understandings and enactment of their roles was determined by strong professional norms, official hospital management norms (perceived to be dysfunctional and unsupportive) and local practical norms developed in response to this context. To navigate the tensions between managerial and clinical roles in the absence of management skills and effective structures, hybrids drew meaning from clinical roles, navigating tensions using prevailing routines and unofficial practical norms. Practical implications Understanding hybrids’ interpretation and enactment of their roles is shaped by context and social norms and this is vital in determining the future development of health system’s leadership and governance. Thus, healthcare reforms or efforts aimed towards increasing compliance of public servants have little influence on behaviour of key actors because they fail to address or acknowledge the norms affecting behaviours in practice. The authors suggest that a key skill for clinical managers in managers in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) is learning how to read, navigate and when opportune use local practical norms to improve service delivery when possible and to help them operate in these new roles. Originality/value The authors believe that this paper is the first to empirically examine and discuss hybrid clinical healthcare in the LMICs context. The authors make a novel theoretical contribution by describing the important role of practical norms in LMIC healthcare contexts, alongside managerial and professional norms, and ways in which these provide hybrids with considerable agency which has not been previously discussed in the relevant literature

Geographic variation of female genital mutilation and legal enforcement in sub-saharan Africa : a case study of Senegal

This paper draws on household data to examine the prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Senegal and the effectiveness of the country's anti-FGM law in dealing with actual breaches and providing protection to the victims. The 2010-2011 Senegal Demographic Health Survey and Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (SDHS-MICS) covers 14,228 women and their daughters. Logistic regression was used to investigate the geographic distribution of FGM across regions. For the enforceability of anti-FGM, desk research was used. Overall prevalence among women and daughters was 28.1% and 6.2%, respectively. Significant factors were sociodemographics, ethnicity, and region. This analysis shows both advantages and vulnerabilities of the anti-FGM law in relation to the issue of enforcement. It indicates that the law falls short of offering adequate protection to potential victims. FGM is a cultural and social norm imbedded predominantly in rural settings and as such, drives resistance to jettisoning FGM. Legislation has been one of the driving forces behind the eradication of the practice