Cotton-textile-apparel sectors of India:

"Cotton, textiles, and apparel are critical agricultural and industrial sectors in India. This study provides descriptions of these sectors and examines the key developments emerging domestically and internationally that affect the challenges and opportunities the sectors face. More than four million farm households produce cotton in India, and about one-quarter of output is produced by marginal and small farms. Although production has expanded—most recently with the introduction of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton—domestic prices dropped sharply in the late 1990s, in parallel to world cotton prices. Using partial equilibrium simulations, we estimate that a price movement of the magnitude that occurred has a significant effect on levels of poverty among cotton-producing households. The fiber-to-fabric production chain, from cotton processing through apparel, employs more than 12 million workers in India and provides 16 percent of export earnings. Except for the spinning industry, these sectors are dominated by small, fragmented, and nonintegrated units, which adversely affect their competitiveness. Recent policy reforms have induced some technological improvements. In terms of future prospects for the Indian processing, textile, and apparel industries, our analysis emphasizes three dimensions of reform—the need for further investments in human resource development to improve industry productivity and reduce poverty among workers in these sectors, the emergence of modern domestic retail marketing chains, and the potentially vibrant prospects for the industry that arise from a growing domestic fabric demand and new opportunities in world markets if appropriate policies and investments are undertaken." from authors' abstractCotton, textiles, Apparel, Rural poverty, subsidies, Industry policy, World markets,

Democracy, Technology and The Civil Rights Project

Democracy has been defined as a political system in which the whole people make, and are entitled to make, the basic determining decisions on important matters of public policy. While the United States is often touted as the world\u27s leading proponent of democracy, many U.S. citizens find themselves unable to engage in one of the central acts of democracy—creating public voice through public engagement. Public engagement in the United States is constrained by our inability to talk through our shared, complementary and divergent values. This lack of public engagement and our inability to speak in a public voice is also driven by a cultural tendency to reduce complex public issues to simple for or against policy positions. The process of building a public voice in the United States is further complicated by the vast racial, ethnic, linguistic and economic diversity, and the imbalance of power that exist among these separate sectors of our society. The history of this country is replete with the struggles of people to overcome these power imbalances and create opportunities for their voices to become an integral part of the public voice. But, as the 21st century approaches, these same citizens find themselves on the brink of a new battle over citizen participation. This battle is being defined around access to and use of technology. Currently, most Americans are merely bystanders watching the rapid advances in technology shift the political, economic, and social terrain in which their viability as citizens is being determined. For members of the African-American community, and indeed for all communities of color and for economically disadvantaged communities, their ability to participate as equal citizens will now, in part, depend upon their ability to shape the technological world that is redefining the concept of public discourse and public involvement in the political process

On the relationship between Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown and global surface warming

According to established understanding, deep-water formation in the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean keeps the deep ocean cold, counter-acting the downward mixing of heat from the warmer surface waters in the bulk of the world ocean. Therefore, periods of strong Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) are expected to coincide with cooling of the deep ocean and warming of the surface waters. It has recently been proposed that this relation may have reversed due to global warming, and that during the past decades a strong AMOC coincides with warming of the deep ocean and relative cooling of the surface, by transporting increasingly warmer waters downward. Here we present multiple lines of evidence, including a statistical evaluation of the observed global mean temperature, ocean heat content, and different AMOC proxies, that lead to the opposite conclusion: even during the current ongoing global temperature rise a strong AMOC warms the surface. The observed weakening of the AMOC has therefore delayed global surface warming rather than enhancing i

Reply to Comment on ‘On the relationship between Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown and global surface warming’

In their comment on our paper (Caesar et al 2020 Environ. Res. Lett. 15 024003), Chen and Tung (hereafter C&T) argue that our analysis, showing that over the last decades Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) strength and global mean surface temperature (GMST) were positively correlated, is incorrect. Their claim is mainly based on two arguments, neither of which is justified: first, C&T claim that our analysis is based on 'established evidence' that was only true for preindustrial conditions—this is not the case. Using data from the modern period (1947–2012), we show that the established understanding (i.e. deep-water formation in the North Atlantic cools the deep ocean and warms the surface) is correct, but our analysis is not based on this fact. Secondly, C&T claim that our results are based on a statistical analysis of only one cycle of data which was furthermore incorrectly detrended. This, too, is not true. Our conclusion that a weaker AMOC delays the current surface warming rather than enhances it, is based on several independent lines of evidence. The data we show to support this covers more than one cycle and the detrending (which was performed to avoid spurious correlations due to a common trend) does not affect our conclusion: the correlation between AMOC strength and GMST is positive. We do not claim that this is strong evidence that the two time series are in phase, but rather that this means that the two time series are not anti-correlated

Analisis Kinerja Sistem Doppler VHF Omnidirectional Range dan Distance Measuring Equipment pada Navigasi Penerbangan

Navigasi udara merupakan kegiatan untuk mengarahkan transportasi udara dari satu tempat ke tempat yang lain agar tidak keluar dari jalurnya. Sistem transmisi sinyal pada Doppler VHF Omnidirectional Range (DVOR) belum sepenuhnya optimal karena persentase sinyal modulasinya sering mengalami peningkatan yang berakibat pada munculnya kondisi sinyal over-modulated. Deteksi sinyal interogasi maupun sinyal balasan pada Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) mengalami hambatan disebabkan oleh waktu tunda dan jarak pulsa yang tidak sesuai. Pada penelitian ini, akan dilakukan analisis kinerja sistem DVOR-DME dengan membandingkan nilai parameter dan nilai kondisi normal. Berdasarkan analisis kinerja sistem, didapatkan bahwa sistem DVOR-DME AirNav Indonesia Distrik Tanjungpinang beroperasi dengan normal. Nilai optimal 30Hz MOD dan 9960Hz MOD pada DVOR berada pada rentang nilai normal yaitu sebesar 30%. Nilai optimal delay dan spacing pada DME berada pada rentang nilai delay normal dan nilai spacing normal yaitu sebesar 50,01 μs dan 12,02 μs

Assessing the Potential Impacts of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion and the Build Build Build Program

The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act has prompted key changes in the personal income tax regime through excise taxes on most goods such as petroleum, sugar-sweetened beverages, and automobiles. The TRAIN was implemented to generate funds for the Build Build Build (BBB) program and at the same time to address income inequality and poverty. This paper aims to assess the potential growth, poverty, and distributional effects of the TRAIN Package 1 and the BBB Program using a computable general equilibrium model with poverty simulation. Results suggest that TRAIN I has prompted additional revenue in social programs and infrastructure spending. There are clear increases in the capital stock which drive economic growth with the industry sector leading the way and the services and agricultural sectors lagging behind. With regard to the inflationary effects, we can see that the additional excise taxes increase inflation in 2018 and 2019 but decelerates after that as higher growth would significantly dominate the inflationary effects. Results of the poverty and distributional microsimulation showed that the policy had reduced poverty and reduced income inequality very slightly. Assuming that the old tax regime is retained while implementing the other changes, the effect will be higher government revenue which may prompt higher spending and allocation to additional social programs and infrastructure in addition to higher economic growth and greater reductions in poverty

Allelomimesis as universal clustering mechanism for complex adaptive systems

Animal and human clusters are complex adaptive systems and many are organized in cluster sizes $s$ that obey the frequency-distribution $D(s)\propto s^{-\tau}$. Exponent $\tau$ describes the relative abundance of the cluster sizes in a given system. Data analyses have revealed that real-world clusters exhibit a broad spectrum of $\tau$-values, $0.7\textrm{(tuna fish schools)}\leq\tau\leq 2.95\textrm{(galaxies)}$. We show that allelomimesis is a fundamental mechanism for adaptation that accurately explains why a broad spectrum of $\tau$-values is observed in animate, human and inanimate cluster systems. Previous mathematical models could not account for the phenomenon. They are hampered by details and apply only to specific systems such as cities, business firms or gene family sizes. Allelomimesis is the tendency of an individual to imitate the actions of its neighbors and two cluster systems yield different $\tau$ values if their component agents display different allelomimetic tendencies. We demonstrate that allelomimetic adaptation are of three general types: blind copying, information-use copying, and non-copying. Allelomimetic adaptation also points to the existence of a stable cluster size consisting of three interacting individuals.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

“When Out Is In”: Community Mobilization through Social Marketing in Nearshore Fisheries in Panabo City, Mindanao Island, Philippines

A pride campaign in Panabo City was implemented from 2012 to 2014 to inspire local fishers to change their behavior so that they will use only the allowed fishing gear, hook and line in buffer zone and fish only outside the no-take zone to reduce the threats and preserve coral cover and fish population in Cagangohan Fish Sanctuary. The Rare’s Theory of Change (TOC), hypothesis and impact assessment framework were used in the study. The analysis involved evaluation of social marketing and barrier removal strategies using quantitative (KAP) and qualitative (Non-KAP) data during pre and post campaign. Thirty five social marketing and 30 barrier removal activities were conducted that were complemented with 30 social marketing materials. The results of the campaign are as follows: increased level of fishers’ knowledge on fish sanctuary location, rules and regulations, and MPA benefits; increased level of fishers’ belief that non-compliance of rules and regulations results in the decline of fish populations and on MPA benefits; increased level of fishers’ interpersonal communication on fish sanctuary location, rules and regulations and MPA benefits; increased MPA management effectiveness from level 0 to level 2; behavior change and decreased intrusion into the no-take-zone, and use of non-allowed fishing gear in buffer zone; and the preservation of coral cover and fish biomass. The increase in desired behavior has reduced the threats to fish sanctuary but did not increase coral cover and fish population as the expected conservation result. However, a strong capacity and constituency was established during the campaign implementation that needs to be sustained in year 3 and beyond