Effectiveness of lending for vocational education and training: lessons from World Bank experience

This paper reviews the Bank involvement in the vocational education and training (VET) sub-sector in the 1990s. The paper aims to do just that, by mainly seeking answers to the following questions: 1) How has the Bank performed in its lending services to its clients in VET? 2) How have VET projects performed in terms of meeting stated objectives? 3) What factors led to the success, or failure of Bank operations? Based on what has been learned, the paper provides suggestions about how the performance of future VET interventions can be improved. This review concerns itself primarily with implementation performance, and proposes measures to improve project outcomes.ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Economics&Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Teaching and Learning,Banks&Banking Reform

Trust Based Participant Driven Privacy Control in Participatory Sensing

Widespread use of sensors and multisensory personal devices generate a lot of personal information. Sharing this information with others could help in various ways. However, this information may be misused when shared with all. Sharing of information between trusted parties overcomes this problem. This paper describes a model to share information based on interactions and opinions to build trust among peers. It also considers institutional and other controls, which influence the behaviour of the peers. The trust and control build confidence. The computed confidence bespeaks whether to reveal information or not thereby increasing trusted cooperation among peers.Comment: 14 page

Distinguishing Motor Weakness From Impaired Spatial Awareness: A Helping Hand!

Our patient, aged 73 years, had background peripheral neuropathy of unknown cause, stable for several years, which caused some difficulty in walking on uneven ground. He attended for a teaching session but now staggered in, a new development. He had apparent weakness of his right arm, but there was difficulty in distinguishing motor weakness from impaired spatial awareness suggestive of parietal lobe dysfunction. With the patient seated, eyes closed, and left arm outstretched, S.A.R. lifted the patient’s right arm and asked him to indicate when both were level. This confirmed motor weakness. Urgent computed tomographic scan confirmed left subdural haematoma and its urgent evacuation rapidly resolved the patient’s symptoms. Intrigued by our patient’s case, we explored further and learnt that in rehabilitation medicine, the awareness of limb position is commonly viewed in terms of joint position sense. We present recent literature evidence indicating that the underlying mechanisms are more subtle

Studies of new media radiation induced laser

Various lasants were investigated especially, 2-iodohepafluoropropane (i-C3F7I) for the direct solar pumped lasers. Optical pumping of iodine laser was achieved using a small flashlamp. Using i-C3F7I as a laser gain medium, threshold inversion density, small signal gain, and laser performance at the elevated temperature were measured. The experimental results and analysis are presented. The iodine laser kinetics of the C3F7I and IBr system were numerically simulated. The concept of a direct solar-pumped laser amplifier using (i-C3F7I) as the laser material was evaluated and several kinetic coefficients for i-C3F7I laser system were reexamined. The results are discussed

Non-linear electrical conduction and broadband noise in charge-ordered rare earth manganate Nd_0.5Ca_0.5MnO_3

Measurements of the dc transport properties and the low-frequency conductivity noise in films of charge ordered Nd_0.5Ca_0.5MnO_3 grown on Si subtrate reveal the existence of a threshold field in the charge ordered regime beyond which strong non linear conduction sets in along with a large broad band conductivity noise. Threshold-dependent conduction disappears as T -> T_{CO}, the charge ordering temperature. This observation suggests that the charge ordered state gets depinned at the onset of the non-linear conduction.Comment: 3 pages of two-column text and 4 eps figure

PERFORMANCE STUDY OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENTS ON NON EXPANSIVE SOILS

As part of infrastructure development   huge investment is being made on expansion of National highways and important roads across the country.  For improvement of Highways two types of Pavements are commonly used in India viz., Flexible Pavements (Bituminous) and rigid pavements (Concrete). Flexible pavements are widely used in this country from the considerations of economy The performance of Flexible pavements depends largely on properties of original ground on which the pavement rests, the quality of materials used in the construction of various layers of pavement and quality assurance as per relevant specifications. In general any road after construction is basically evaluated by the performance in terms of unevenness index and structural stability over a period of time. The evaluation of these two important parameters will facilitate the clear understanding of performance of various materials used in the construction and to undertake suitable rehabilitation measures if necessary. Keywords: Expansive Soil, Flexible Pavement

Simulation in development of skilled and competent operators

Modelling and Simulation helps industry to get information about how something will behave without actually testing it in real life in real industry scenario which will incur cost. One can compress the time frame, and study the behaviour of a scenario without engaging it. The use of this within engineering is well recognized. It became necessity or need in an industry. It plays various roles, from fulfilling the requirement in front end task up to furnishing the needed areas in back end task. In a petrochemical plant especially in Ethylene crackers, training operators to operate plant safely and consistent is a need. Highernumber in employees 'migration does play a role in a need of training simulator. When an operator with many years of experience left the company, he brings with himself a valuable portion of knowledge and data and training new personnel will incur money and time cost. The training of ethylene plant new operators now need to rely on senior operators experiences from different plant life cycle and will vary with different trainers. Need of simulation that can represent the real world scenario is a mandatory to give a valuable training experience and loss of billions dollars can be avoided