The Dual Policy in the Dual Economy - The Political Economy of Urban Bias in Dictatorial Regimes

One of the most common policy obstacles in the global effort against poverty is what is termed as “urban bias” where rural residents, who constitute majority of the poor in the world, face systematic bias against their economic interests by their own governments. This paper develops a simple political economy model of urban bias in dictatorial regimes. Equilibrium outcomes relating policy outcomes with economic structure, political power, and other behavioral and structural variables are analyzed. The model shows that anti-agricultural biases can emerge in primarily agrarian societies even if there is no bias in political power between urban and rural citizens. Evidence from recent World Bank country level panel data on biases against/for agriculture provides support for the model’s prediction.Urban bias; rural poverty; dictatorship

Does agricultural growth have a causal effect on manufacturing growth?

Though the role of agricultural growth for manufacturing growth has been at the center of the discourse on economic development, empirically identifying the causal effect of agricultural growth on manufacturing growth has remained illusive for the correlation between the two doesn't necessarily imply causality. This paper attempts to overcome the identification problem. Since agriculture is heavily dependent on the weather, random weather variations are used as instruments to identify the causal impact of agricultural growth on manufacturing growth. Results show that agricultural growth has a significant positive impact on manufacturing growth. The impact is higher the higher is agriculture's share in the economy (as measured by GDP and employment share). For example, in an economy with 50% of agricultural GDP, a 1% increase in agricultural output increases manufacturing output by about 1%.Agricultural Growth, Manufacturing Growth, Instrumental variable., Community/Rural/Urban Development, International Development, O14, O25, Q10,

Poor rural land property rights as a manifestation of urban bias

Though poor agricultural land property rights are typical constraints that many peasants in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have faced since independence, little has been done to explain their persistence. I will first discuss the so called evolutionary theory of property right (ETPR), which stipulates that land property rights evolve as an afficient response to the economic environment. The empirical evidence suggests that the policies adopted by African regimes are actually in sharp contrast to what the ETPR predicts. I will then present a simple political economy model with three major assumptions that are commonly observed in SSA countries: (1) de jure political power belongs to the urban elite, (2) urban unrest is a source of threat to the elite and (3) a dual economy with urban and rural sector side by side. Major prediction of the model is that, in such political and economic environment, we observe poor land property rights if there is low level of urbanization and/or large gap between rural and urban wages, which actually are features of many SSA countries.Land property rights, Urban bias, Population pressure, Rural-urban migration, Land Economics/Use,

Canadian Muslim Voting Guide: Federal Election 2019

This guide assigns a grade to each federal political party Leader\u27s response to identified key issues of importance to the interests of Canadian Muslims and the wider geopolitical concerns that affect Muslims globally. The criteria used to determine these grades has been based on whether a party leader\u27s particular political standpoints and/or policy initiatives are positive or detrimental to the interests of Canadian Muslims and the wider geopolitical concerns that affect Muslims globally

Prevalence of stress among medical students and music to alleviate the stress

Background: Stress has become a cup of coffee in everybody's life. Adults to some extent are able to cope with it. But the young chaps are put into more stressful situations by the society. They find it difficult to handle it at a very early age and end up being a victim of various addictions. The aim of the study was to survey the prevalence of stress among the medical students and their choice of preference to alleviate from stress.Methods: The study was a cross sectional study of random sampling method with a sample size of 100 medical students belonging to age group 18-21 years. Informed consent was obtained from each individual. The study was cleared by the ethics committee. The stress level of each participant was assessed using the student stress scale questionnaire.Results: Of the 100 students who completed the questionnaire, 38% of the students belonged to the ‘no stress’ category, 51% fell under ‘mild stress’ category, 8% under ‘moderate stress’ and 3% under ‘severe stress’ category. Of the 62 students who showed certain degree of stress levels, 47 (76%) students prefer music as a choice for relief from stress and 15 (24%) prefer other modes of relief such sleeping or talking to a friend, etc.Conclusions: Medical students are prone to a lot of stress during their course of study and music is the preferred choice for most students to relieve them from stress

IMPLEMENTASI BIM TERHADAP UPAYA PENGURANGAN WASTE MATERIAL KONSTRUKSI PADA PT. WIJAYA KARYA JABODETABEK

In the implementation of construction projects, materials are a very influential component in determining the cost of a project. Residual material causes wastage and reduces project profits. Research is needed to analyze the implementation of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in efforts to minimize construction material waste. The population of the research is WIKA employees who have implemented BIM in the Jabodetabek area (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi). The research sample was 100 people. The data is processed using the Smart PLS software. The results showed that the implementation of BIM had a positive and significant effect on efforts to reduce residual construction materials. If the implementation of BIM is applied with discipline, stakeholders will have a more complete data source for estimating material needs

ISTILAH MEDIS BAHASA KOREA DALAM DRAMA "PARTNER FOR JUSTICE" (KAJIAN MORFOSEMANTIK)

Penelitian ini membahas mengenai istilah medis dalam drama “Partner for Justice” dengan kajian morfosemantik. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah mengetahui klasifikasi asal bahasa dan jenis istilah medis, pembentukan istilah medis, dan makna istilah medis. Penelitian ini dilakukan karena ditemukannya perbedaan bahasa dan makna dalam istilah medis dengan bahasa Korea yang biasa digunakan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah deskriptif kualitatif dengan mengumpulkan data yang keluar pada layar drama “Partner for Justice”, menganalisis pembentukan istilah medis dengan pembentukan kata bahasa Korea dan makna istilah medis lalu memaparkannya secara deskriptif. Istilah medis paling banyak dari karakter Cina (Hanja) dan serapan bahasa asing dengan jumlah yang sama, lalu jenis istilah paling banyak dalam kondisi tubuh. Pembentukan dengan 3 (tiga) cara yaitu; majemuk, penurunan, gabungan. Fungsi makna istilah medis terbagi sesuai jenis istilah medis yang masing-masing menjelaskan istilah dengan bahasa yang dapat dimengerti oleh orang umum dan menunjang jalannya cerita dalam drama. Kata Kunci : istilah medis, bahasa, jenis, pembentukan, makna, morfosemantik This study discusses medical terms in "Partner for Justice" drama series using morphosemantic studies. The purposes of this study are to clasify the origin, types, formation and meaning of the medical terms. This study is conducted because there are many differences in terms of language and meaning of using Korean language between medical terms and colloquial use. The method used in this study is Qualitative Descriptive. Data are colleted from medical terms that showed up on the screen in "Partner for Justice" drama series, analyzed the formation of medical terms with Korean word formation and its meaning and then explained descriptively. The results showed that medical term (in Korean) are mostly derived from Chinese character (Hanja) and some are loan words that derived from foreign language. The most common (medical) term is about the condition of the body. These (medical term) words are formed from 3 methods; compound, derivation, and blending. The functions of medical terms are divided according to its meaning and explained using commonly used language for the viewers to support storyline of the series. Keywords: medical term, language, types, (word) formation, meaning, morphosemantics

Evaluation of Microbial Safety and Quality of Louisiana Strawberries after Flooding

Rainfall and flooding have impacted the strawberry industry in Louisiana. Floodwater is an ideal medium for microbiological growth and may cause contamination of soil, agricultural water, and fresh produce with foodborne pathogens. This research aimed to evaluate the microbial safety and quality of strawberries after flooding. Three strains of generic Escherichia coli were used to establish a baseline population of approximately 106 CFU/L (high contamination) and 102 CFU/L (low contamination) in floodwater. Five raised beds were filled with water to simulate a flooding event. Simulated floodwater was mixed with cow manure and spiked with generic E. coli then applied to strawberry plants. Treatments included High Flooding High Contamination (HFHC), High Flooding Low Contamination (HFLC), Low Flooding High Contamination (LFHC) and Low Flooding Low Contamination (LFLC). One bed served as the control (C). Strawberry plants were flooded for 4 h and sampled at the time of harvest and during shelf life at 4°C for 48, 96, and 144 h. Soil samples were collected on site for one week. The population of foodborne pathogens and microbial indicators was evaluated. Strawberry quality (yeast and mold count, color, and texture) was also evaluated. Results indicated that the presence of E. coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes in strawberries, soil, and foliage was not detected. Additionally, generic E. coli was not detected (/g) in strawberry fruit or in foliage samples. In soil samples, generic E. coli was higher in HFHC samples (1.61 log CFU/g) compared to HFLC samples (1.09 log CFU/g) at harvest. However, generic E. coli was not detected after 96 h (/g) in soil samples. Significant levels of coliform were present in the strawberry fruit and soil at 0, 48, 96, and 144 h in all treatment beds. Yeast and mold were detected in all samples but with no clear trend throughout shelf life across all floodwater treatments. Moreover, results did not indicate clear correlation among flooding and contamination levels and color and texture change. This study provides local growers science-based information to understand potential effects of flooding on the microbial safety and quality of fresh produce

Motion compensation using correlation-feedback

Motion compensation is widely used for exploiting temporal redundancies in the coding of image sequences. Accurate estimation of motion information in image sequences is important in motion-compensated coding. Different approaches have been used to estimate motion to obtain the motion-compensated frame difference signal. This work uses the correlation-feedback approach to estimate the velocity or the optic flow of the moving image pixel. After the motion of the pixel is estimated. the motion-compensated frame difference signal is found by subtracting the current. frame from the predicted frame. This correlation-feedback approach estimates the true motion vector of moving image accurately. Consequently, the reduced error in determining the optic flow of the moving image leads to a better motion-compensated frame difference signal. This work evaluates the performance of the correlation-feedback method by comparing it with the gradient-based approach and block method