Industrial employment expansion under alternative development strategies

The general consensus in recent literature on development economics is that outward-looking strategies are likely to create more employment opportunities in labour abundant countries than inward-looking strategies. The reasons generally given to support this contention are (i) that inward-looking strategy limits the scope for structural change into relatively labour-intensive branches and (ii) that policies associated with inward-looking strategy tend to distort factor prices thereby giving incentive to the adoption of relatively capital-intensive techniques of production. This paper develops an identity which delineates the components of industrial employment expansion into effects of: (i) productivity change, (ii) capital accumulation and (iii) change in the composition of manufacturing. Applying this identity to India and Taiwan, two countries that have taken very different paths towards economic development, provides some insight into the source of employment expansion and its stringent limitations under alternative development strategies.

Exploring computer-generated line graphs through virtual touch

This paper describes the development and evaluation of a haptic interface designed to provide access to line graphs for blind or visually impaired people. Computer-generated line graphs can be felt by users through the sense of touch produced by a PHANToM force feedback device. Experiments have been conducted to test the effectiveness of this interface with both sighted and blind people. The results show that sighted and blind people have achieved about 89.95% and 86.83% correct answers respectively in the experiment

Social rank overrides environmental and community fluctuations in determining meat access by female chimpanzees in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire

Meat, long hypothesized as an important food source in human evolution, is still a substantial component of the modern human diet, with some humans relying entirely on meat during certain times of the year. Understanding the socio-ecological context leading to the successful acquisition and consumption of meat by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), our closest living relative, can provide insight into the emergence of this trait because humans and chimpanzees are unusual among primates in that they both (i) hunt mammalian prey, (ii) share meat with community members, and (iii) form long-term relationships and complex social hierarchies within their communities. However, females in both human hunter-gatherer societies as well as chimpanzee groups rarely hunt, instead typically accessing meat via males that share meat with group members. In general, female chimpanzee dominance rank affects feeding competition, but so far, the effect of female dominance rank on meat access found different results within and across studied chimpanzee groups. Here we contribute to the debate on how female rank influences meat access while controlling for several socio-ecological variables. Multivariate analyses of 773 separate meat-eating events collected over more than 25 years from two chimpanzee communities located in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire, were used to test the importance of female dominance rank for being present at, and for acquiring meat, during meat-eating events. We found that high-ranking females were more likely to be present during a meat-eating event and, in addition, were more likely to eat meat compared to the subordinates. These findings were robust to both large demographic changes (decrease of community size) and seasonal ecological changes (fruit abundance dynamics). In addition to social rank, we found that other female properties had a positive influence on presence to meat-eating events and access to meat given presence, including oestrus status, nursing of a small infant, and age. Similar to findings in other chimpanzee populations, our results suggest that females reliably acquire meat over their lifetime despite rarely being active hunters. The implication of this study supports the hypothesis that dominance rank is an important female chimpanzee property conferring benefits for the high-ranking females

A Portable, Low-Cost Wheelchair Ergometer Design Based on a Mathematical Model of Pediatric Wheelchair Dynamics

Evaluation and training of wheelchair propulsion improves efficiency and prevents orthopaedic injury in pediatric manual wheelchair users. Ergometers allow static propulsion and emulate typical conditions. Currently available ergometers have deficiencies that limit their use in motion analysis. A new ergometer is developed and evaluated based on a model of wheelchair inertial dynamics that eliminates these deficiencies. This makes integrated motion analysis of wheelchair propulsion in current community, home, and international outreach efforts possible

Design guidelines for audio presentation of graphs and tables

Audio can be used to make visualisations accessible to blind and visually impaired people. The MultiVis Project has carried out research into suitable methods for presenting graphs and tables to blind people through the use of both speech and non-speech audio. This paper presents guidelines extracted from this research. These guidelines will enable designers to implement visualisation systems for blind and visually impaired users, and will provide a framework for researchers wishing to investigate the audio presentation of more complex visualisations

Data report: Seismic structure beneath the North Cascadia drilling transect of IODP Expedition 311

Between 1999 and 2004, new seismic data became available for the study of gas hydrates on the northern Cascadia margin. These data consist of multi- and single-channel data with two- and partly three-dimensional subsurface coverage and were acquired and used in support of the proposal for Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 311 carried out in 2005. The working area lies across the continental slope off the coast of central Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, with water depths ranging from 2600 m in the trench to 500 m on the upper slope, where it is well above the minimum depth for gas hydrate stability. This paper gives the details of the data acquisition and conventional processing and then focuses on describing the new data at six individual sites along a transect across the gas hydrate zone. Five of the sites were drilled during the Expedition 311. The transect of sites commences at the almost undeformed incoming sediments seaward of the region where gas hydrates are observed; these ocean basin sediments were drilled at a site 40 km southeast during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 146. The transect continues up the continental slope into the area of hydrate stability, with a site on top of the frontal accretionary ridge where normal faulting indicates margin parallel extension; a site in the first slope basin overlying a buried ridge near a reflectivity wipe-out zone; a site adjacent to Site 889 of Leg 146 and therefore acting as a tie hole; the most landward site at the shallowest end of the hydrate stability field; and a cold vent site at one of several blank zones close to a bright spot region in the seismic records

Manfaat Jaminan Fidusia Dalam Pelaksanaan Perjanjian Kredit Bank

Dalam menggerakkan roda perekonomian kebutuhan akan dana dirasakan semakin meningkat. Pada umumnya dalam kehidupan masyarakat terdapat dua sisi yang berbeda. Di satu sisi, ada sekumpulan masyarakat yang memiliki kelebihan dana tapi tidak memiliki kemampuan untuk mengolah dana tersebut, tapi disisi lain terdapat juga masyarakat yang memiliki kemampuan untuk mengolah dana tersebut demi mendapatkan keuntungan namun terhambat akan masalah kurangnya dana bahkan tidak ada dana yang bisa digunakan. Untuk memecahkan masalah tersebut keduanya diperlukan lembaga intermediary yang akan bertindak selaku kreditur yang akan menyediakan dana bagi debitur yang memerlukan dana karena keadaan ekonomi yang terhambat.Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menentukan kejelasan manfaat jaminan fidusia dalam pelaksanaan perjanjian kredit bank.Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode pendekatan yuridis normatif, penelitian ini didasarkan pada peraturan Perundang-undangan khususnya yang berhubungan dengan jaminan fidusia yaitu Undang-undang Nomor 42 Tahun 1999, dan peraturan Perundangan-undangan yang berkenaan dengan mekanisme jaminan fidusia. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bagaimana prosedur dan pelaksanaan pemberian kredit dengan jaminan fidusia dalam perbankan serta bagaimana manfaat jaminan fidusia dalam pelaksanaan perjanjian kredit bank. Prosedur pemberian kredit dengan Jaminan Fidusia diawali dengan tahap pemberian kredit melalui perjanjian kredit antara pemberi kredit dan debiturdalam Undang-Undang Nomor 42 Tahun 1999 telah diatur secara khusus prosedur yang harus dilalui oleh para pihak khususnya bagi debitur dalam hal peningkatan jaminan kredit yaitu seperti yang dimuat dalam Pasal 6 Undang-Undang Jaminan Fidusia sedangkan manfaat yang diharapkan dari jaminan fidusia sebagai lembaga jaminan dalam pemberian kredit adalah sebagai sarana pengaman dalam pemberian kredit apabila terjadi wanprestasi oleh nasabah atau debitur atau apabila nasabah atau debitur tersebut tidak dapat salah satu ketentuan yang diperjanjikan sesuai dengan waktu yang ditentukan

Evaluation of Upper Extremity Movement Characteristics during Standardized Pediatric Functional Assessment with a Kinect®-based Markerless Motion Analysis System

A recently developed and evaluated upper extremity (UE) markerless motion analysis system based on the Microsoft® Kinect® has potential for improving functional assessment of patients with hemiplegic cerebral palsy. 12 typically-developing adolescents ages 12-17 were evaluated using both the Kinect-based system and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Upper Extremity Evaluation (SHUEE), a validated measure of UE motion. The study established population means of UE kinematic parameters for each activity. Statistical correlation analysis was used to identify key kinematic metrics used to develop automatic scoring algorithms. The Kinect motion analysis platform is technically sound and can be applied to standardized task-based UE evaluation while providing enhanced sensitivity in clinical analysis and automation through scoring algorithms