The earning power of mothers and children's time allocation in Lao PDR

In this paper I explore the relationship between a mother's contribution to household income and her children's work and school outcomes. Using household data from Lao PDR, I find that as a mother's share of total household earnings increases, her children shift time away from school and wage work to work under parental control. The findings demonstrate that a mother's short-term needs and interests may not always align with her children's long-term interests, and work may become a contested terrain between mothers and children.Publisher's Versio

A Network representation of households by health exclusion, poverty, and unemployment

Social exclusion, emphasized in the European Social Agenda, presents an interesting case study on the discussion of universal vs. means-tested social policies. To understand the conditions under which universal policies may have an advantage over means-tested policies, we propose a method of network representation in which partitions are detected by background characteristics of the households. Using non-relational household level data from three countries, we map the association between exclusion from health care, unemployment and poverty. Our results show that households are less likely to form homogeneous partitioning by poverty and health care exclusion profiles, compared to the partitioning formed by poverty and unemployment characteristics. The results suggest that in cases where identifying beneficiaries is difficult, illustrated by heterogeneous partitioning, universal coverage offers an advantage over means-tested social policies.An earlier version of this paper was discussed at an Expert Group Meeting on Policies to Advance Social Integration for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division of Social Policy and Development in 2009; comments from participants are gratefully acknowledged. This work is partially supported by Isik University and Yeditepe UniversityPublisher's Versio

Introducing professional skills during unit operations laboratory

Unit operations laboratory (UOL) course is considered to be a crucial and integral part of the chemical engineering education. The primary objective of the course is to enable students to combine theory and practice. Problems in industry however entail more than finding technical solutions. Indeed professional life requires other skills such as an ability to propose ideas, develop practical solutions, participate in teamwork, meet deadlines, establish communication between technical support and suppliers, oversee financial issues, and finally reporting and presentation skills. This study describes how in three consecutive courses, we preserve academic rigor of the UOL course while incorporating components such as experimental design, project development and teamwork, which aim to meet the needs of professional careers. We follow up the course outcomes with a survey targeting the graduates of the program. The results show that graduates employed in industry frequently rely on these skills during job interviews, research and product development, whereas those who pursue advanced degrees in academia use these skills predominantly for their research, highlighting the need for adaptive approach for different graduate trajectories in designing the course. For both groups of graduates, the skills introduced during the UOL courses are reported to be valuable in their daily life, emphasizing life-long learning.Publisher's Versio

The relationship between a mother's attitude toward domestic violence and children's schooling outcomes in Turkey

PubMed ID: 24518668This study explores the relationship between a mother's attitude toward domestic violence and her children's schooling outcomes in Turkey. The sample is drawn from the 2003 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey and consists of 7,951 children within the ages of legally mandated compulsory education. A probit regression model is used to analyze the data. The results suggest that the daughters of mothers who find domestic violence acceptable are 2.6 percentage point less likely to enroll in school, all else being equal, than the daughters of mothers who do not tolerate abuse. In comparison, the schooling outcomes of male children are not statistically sensitive to the mother's attitude toward wife beating. The policy implications of the results are discussed.Publisher's Versio

Adaptation of professional skills in the unit operations laboratory

We introduce the design of three consecutive unit operations laboratory (UOL) courses that retain the academic rigor of the course while incorporating skills essential for professional careers, such as ability to propose ideas, develop practical solutions, participate in teamwork, meet deadlines, establish communication between technical support and suppliers and oversee financial issues. We follow up the course outcomes with a survey targeting the graduates of the program. The results show that the implementation of these skills varies across post-graduate careers, highlighting the need for adaptive approaches for different graduate trajectories in designing the course.This study was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1003574. DR is supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey 2219 Program.An earlier version of this study was presented at American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) 2011 Annual Conference. The reviewers of this study are acknowledged with sincere appreciationPublisher's Versio

Neighborhoods in development: Human development index and self-organizing maps

The Human Development Index (HDI) has been instrumental in broadening the discussion of economic development beyond money-metric progress, in particular, by ranking a country against other countries in terms of the well being of their citizens. We propose self-organizing maps to explore similarities among countries using the components of the HDI rather than rankings. The similarities approach using the HDI components reveals information which is not available from ranking or bilateral comparisons. By illustrating clusters of countries, which we call "neighborhoods in development", self-organizing maps draw out the potential for mutual policy learning among countries and shift the focus to discovering what kind of policies might have led countries change their position in the rankings.Publisher's Versio

Rebuilding multi-ethnic communities in post-conflict nations: returnee assessment of municipal services in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Local administrative units are crucial to the reconstruction of a sustainable multi-ethnic social consensus in fragile states. Using the delivery of public goods and social services in Bosnia and Herzegovina as our case study, we ask whether the level of heterogeneity in community composition has any effect on resident opinion of public services at the municipal level. We find that post-war residency status is not the only factor defining community-level heterogeneity and that evaluations of public services at the local level are not neutral to community composition.Publisher's Versio

WikiLeaks on the Middle East: Obscure diplomacy networks and binding spaces

In this paper, we explore the flow of information regarding strategic Middle Eastern countries in the WikiLeaks 'diplomatic cables' by applying data-mining techniques to construct directed networks. The results show that between 2002 and 2009, US diplomatic communication related to these countries increased although with notable variation in flow patterns. We discuss the value of a visual display of diplomatic communication patterns in understanding the decentralized nature of information gathering on regional foreign policy issues.Publisher's Versio