International Research Project on Job Retention and Return to Work Strategies for Disabled Workers: New Zealand

[Excerpt] The International Research Project on Job Retention and Return to Work Strategies for Disabled Workers is an initiative of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Global Applied Research and Information Network on Employment and Training (GLADNET). It reflects ILO and GLADNET joint aims of establishing a base for cross-national research and strengthening links between research analysis and policy reform in the field of employment of disabled people. The Project is a response to a combination of developments which highlight the need for more effective policies and practices in support of workers whose prospects of remaining in employment are jeopardised by work injury, illness or disability. Persons with disabilities are increasingly claiming rights to stay in work as well as to access employment. Pressures on state budgets, the rising costs of compensation claims and disability benefits, and changes in the structure of the labour market are strengthening policies in favour of job retention and return to work. Enterprises are developing their own strategies to minimise the costs of disability and to retain valued employees. Overall, the balance of responsibility is shifting from the state to the enterprise. Policies and practices to prevent disabled workers from leaving work unnecessarily, and to facilitate rapid return to employment if job loss cannot be prevented, are recent developments in many countries. The cross-national exchange of information on initiatives and their effects is limited. The first aim of this Project has been to gather information about what has been attempted, by whom, for what purposes, in which contexts and to what effects. The second, more ambitious, aim, is to examine the interaction between the various policies and practices, identify dysfunctions, and work towards more coherent and cost-effective strategies for job retention and return to work which might be applied in different national systems. The ultimate objective is to identify strategies which can be put into effect in the workplace

Photonic non-volatile memories using phase change materials

We propose an all-photonic, non-volatile memory and processing element based on phase-change thin-films deposited onto nanophotonic waveguides. Using photonic microring resonators partially covered with Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) multi-level memory operation in integrated photonic circuits can be achieved. GST provides a dramatic change in refractive index upon transition from the amorphous to crystalline state, which is exploited to reversibly control both the extinction ratio and resonance wavelength of the microcavity with an additional gating port in analogy to optical transistors. Our analysis shows excellent sensitivity to the degree of crystallization inside the GST, thus providing the basis for non-von Neuman neuromorphic computing

Designing Maine's DirigoChoice Benefit Plan

Outlines the evolution and design of the Dirigo Health Reform Act of 2003, which was developed to provide Maine businesses that have 50 or fewer eligible employees and the self-employed with an affordable, high-quality option for health coverage

Culture and social resistance to reform: a theory about the endogeneity of public beliefs with an application to the case of Argentina

This paper attempts to understand the factors that explain the degree of support or criticism that a reform process may be subject to. Understanding these determinants is critical, in turn, to assess the feasibility and sustainability of those reforms. In particular, we want to assess what are the elements that create societal consensus for reform and which are the main factors that turn public opinion against it. In the case of Argentina, for example, such dynamics are critical to understand how public opinion imposed constraints on government behavior, affected macroeconomic performance, and ultimately, determined the chance of success of reforms.

A Note on the Equivalence between Contractual and Tort Liability

The aim of this paper is to conciliate some conclusions of the economic theories of breach of contract and tort law. The main result is that the two efficient alternatives that tort law identifies (negligence rule and strict liability with a defense of contributory negligence) are mirrored by two efficient ways of defining contract damages. The first consists of forcing the debtor to pay expectation damages but limiting the level of the creditor’s reliance (rule of damage mitigation). The second consists of obliging the debtor to pay expectation damages only when his breach of contract implies negligence, otherwise using restitution remedies (doctrines of impracticability and force majeure).

Cavity-enhanced second harmonic generation via nonlinear-overlap optimization

We describe an approach based on topology optimization that enables automatic discovery of wavelength-scale photonic structures for achieving high-efficiency second-harmonic generation (SHG). A key distinction from previous formulation and designs that seek to maximize Purcell factors at individual frequencies is that our method not only aims to achieve frequency matching (across an entire octave) and large radiative lifetimes, but also optimizes the equally important nonlinear--coupling figure of merit $\bar{\beta}$, involving a complicated spatial overlap-integral between modes. We apply this method to the particular problem of optimizing micropost and grating-slab cavities (one-dimensional multilayered structures) and demonstrate that a variety of material platforms can support modes with the requisite frequencies, large lifetimes $Q > 10^4$, small modal volumes $\sim (\lambda/n)^3$, and extremely large $\bar{\beta} \gtrsim 10^{-2}$, leading to orders of magnitude enhancements in SHG efficiency compared to state of the art photonic designs. Such giant $\bar{\beta}$ alleviate the need for ultra-narrow linewidths and thus pave the way for wavelength-scale SHG devices with faster operating timescales and higher tolerance to fabrication imperfections