The False Promise of International Financial Institutions in Building Stable Democracies in Third World Countries

The available literature on the democratic process in third world countries shows that there is a strong correlation between the strength of a country\u27s economic and social infrastructure and the successful promotion of democratic principles. It is my assumption that democracy can not be established without strong economic and social infrastructures. Furthermore, the current aid programs as operated by international financial institutions (IFIs) like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) give false hope to third world countries that fail to develop sound socioeconomic policies and yet want to establish stable democratic societies. Are neo-liberal policies advocated by international financial institutions necessarily associated with successful democratization? Is a strong economic and social infrastructure a necessary prerequisite in order for neo-liberal policies to be correlated with strong democracies

Sakarya'da Kobi'lerde İnsan Kaynakları Yönetimine Yönelik Algı Araştırması

Bu araştırmanın amacı Küçük ve Orta Büyüklükteki İşletmelerde (KOBİ) İnsan Kaynakarı Yönetimi algısının araştırılmasıdır. Araştırmada, literatür taraması ardından, katılımcılarla yapılan anketlerin SPSS programında analiz edilmesi ile tamamlanan nicel bir yöntem kullanılmıştır. Araştırma kapsamını Sakarya’da faaliyet gösteren toplam 9 sektörden 278 KOBİ oluşturmaktadır. Örneklem; gıda sektöründen 76, taşımacılık sektöründen 67, dokuma-giyim sektöründen 45, makine üretim sektöründen 19, petro-kimya sektöründen 18, orman sektöründen 17, yapı-inşaat sektöründen 15, metal-çelik sektöründen 12 ve elektrik sektöründen 9 firmadan oluşturulmuştur.Çalışma üç bölümde yapılandırılmıştır. İlk bölümde KOBİ kavram ve kapsamı, ikinci bölümde İKY kavram kapsam ve fonksiyonları incelenmiştir. Üçüncü bölüm araştırma süreci ve bulgularına ayrılmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda Sakarya’da faaliyet gösteren KOBİ’lerin aradıkları nitelikte işgücü bulmakta zorlandıkları, standart ölçüm yöntemlerinin çoğunlukla olmadığı, insan kaynakları yönetimine stratejik olarak önemli bulmalarına rağmen yarısına yakınının İKY bölümleri hakkında yeterince bilgi sahibi olmadığı bulgularına ulaşılmıştır

Practical Management of Diabetes during Ramadan Fast

Fasting in Ramadan is obligatory for all healthy Muslim adults. No food or drink may be consumed between dawn and sunset [1]. Strictly speaking, the fast of Ramadan is a period of “intermittent fasting” or daily cycles of “alternating” fasting and feeding periods. The periods of the fasting and feeding vary by the geographical locations and by time of the year. During the month of Ramadan, there are two main meals in most Moslem communities. These are commonly referred to by their Arabic origin, namely the “Iftar” (i.e. break of fast immediately after sunset) and “Sohur or Suhoor” (i.e. pre-dawn meal). As the Islamic calendar year is lunar, Ramadan (the ninth month) therefore starts approximately 10 days earlier each year on the Gregorian calendar. This year, 2007, Ramadan is likely to start between 12th and 14th September

NIR-red reflectance-based algorithms for chlorophyll-a estimation in mesotrophic inland and coastal waters: Lake Kinneret case study

A variety of models have been developed for estimating chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration in turbid and productive waters. All are based on optical information in a few spectral bands in the red and near-infra-red regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The wavelength locations in the models used were meticulously tuned to provide the highest sensitivity to the presence of Chl-a and minimal sensitivity to other constituents in water. But the caveat in these models is the need for recurrent parameterization and calibration due to changes in the biophysical characteristics of water based on the location and/or time of the year. In this study we tested the performance of NIR-red models in estimating Chl-a concentrations in an environment with a range of Chl-a concentrations that is typical for coastal and mesotrophic inland waters. The models with the same spectral bands as MERIS, calibrated for small lakes in the Midwest U.S., were used to estimate Chla concentration in the subtropical Lake Kinneret (Israel), where Chl-a concentrations ranged from 4 to 21 mgm-3 during four field campaigns. A two-band model without reparameterization was able to estimate Chl-a concentration with a root mean square error less than 1.5 mgm-3. Our work thus indicates the potential of the model to be reliably applied without further need of parameterization and calibration based on geographical and/or seasonal regimes

Sustainability of Load Balancing Techniques in Fog Computing Environment: Review

The extreme workloads on the fog layer caused a misalignment in some fog nodes that affect its efficiency and degenerate fog technology's primary goal. Therefore, creating a balanced computing environment via the offloading process is the key. However, there are many obstacles to balance computing nodes in the fog environment, such as offloading strategy and its consequences due to the extreme offloading processes, and when need to offload and where. These obstacles are vital concerns among researchers. Thus, several studies have been conducted to enhance the fog system performance to increase the entire system's throughput. This paper explores the recent articles to determine the possible research gaps and opportunities to implement an efficient solution for load balancing in fog environments after analyzing and assessing the existing solutions. While most of the proposed solutions involve short-term solution, this literature review reveals the need to find out a sustainable resolution for load balancing to avoid listed obstacles by using the offloading technique with maintaining the bandwidth of the network

Higher Education Exchange: 2010

This annual publication serves as a forum for new ideas and dialogue between scholars and the larger public. Essays explore ways that students, administrators, and faculty can initiate and sustain an ongoing conversation about the public life they share.The Higher Education Exchange is founded on a thought articulated by Thomas Jefferson in 1820: "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."In the tradition of Jefferson, the Higher Education Exchange agrees that a central goal of higher education is to help make democracy possible by preparing citizens for public life. The Higher Education Exchange is part of a movement to strengthen higher education's democratic mission and foster a more democratic culture throughout American society.Working in this tradition, the Higher Education Exchange publishes interviews, case studies, analyses, news, and ideas about efforts within higher education to develop more democratic societies

The picosecond structure of ultra-fast rogue waves

We investigated ultrafast rogue waves in fiber lasers and found three different patterns of rogue waves: single- peaks, twin-peaks, and triple-peaks. The statistics of the different patterns as a function of the pump power of the laser reveals that the probability for all rogue waves patterns increase close to the laser threshold. We developed a numerical model which prove that the ultrafast rogue waves patterns result from both the polarization mode dispersion in the fiber and the non-instantaneous nature of the saturable absorber. This discovery reveals that there are three different types of rogue waves in fiber lasers: slow, fast, and ultrafast, which relate to three different time-scales and are governed by three different sets of equations: the laser rate equations, the nonlinear Schrodinger equation, and the saturable absorber equations, accordingly. This discovery is highly important for analyzing rogue waves and other extreme events in fiber lasers and can lead to realizing types of rogue waves which were not possible so far such as triangular rogue waves

Incidence of hip fracture in Saudi Arabia and the development of a FRAX model

Summary A prospective hospital-based survey in representative regions of Saudi Arabia determined the incidence of fractures at the hip. The hip fracture rates were used to create a FRAX® model to facilitate fracture risk assessment in Saudi Arabia. Objective This paper describes the incidence of hip fracture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that was used to characterize the current and future burden of hip fracture, to develop a country-specific FRAX® tool for fracture prediction and to compare fracture probabilities with neighbouring countries. Methods During a 2-year (2017/2018) prospective survey in 15 hospitals with a defined catchment population, hip fractures in Saudi citizens were prospectively identified from hospital registers. The number of hip fractures and future burden was determined from national demography. Age- and sex-specific incidence of hip fracture and national mortality rates were incorporated into a FRAX model for Saudi Arabia. Fracture probabilities were compared with those from Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. Results The incidence of hip fracture applied nationally suggested that the estimated number of hip fractures nationwide in persons over the age of 50 years for 2015 was 2,949 and is predicted to increase nearly sevenfold to 20,328 in 2050. Hip fracture rates were comparable with estimates from Abu Dhabi and Kuwait. By contrast, probabilities of a major osteoporotic fracture or hip fracture from the age of 70 years were much lower than those seen in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait due to higher mortality estimates for Saudi Arabia. Conclusion A country-specific FRAX tool for fracture prediction has been developed for Saudi Arabia which is expected to help guide decisions about treatment

Work and resilience: Care leavers' experiences of navigating towards employment and independence

Poor education and employment outcomes have long been associated with care experienced young people transitioning into independence, even after adjusting for prior disadvantage. In the United Kingdom, such young people are generally referred to as care leavers. Policies that aim to reduce the gap between care leavers and non-care experienced young people's success transitioning to employment and independence have had limited success. This paper draws on a qualitative methodology that utilized theories of resilience, to glean a range of perspectives from both care leavers and their employers. All the participants were engaged in a U.K. local authority's initiative to support care leavers into employment. Drawing on resilience theory, resilience was found to be located in a complex interaction between a resilience enabling environment and, crucially, emotionally supportive networks. Uniquely, we argue that emotional support, drawn from such networks, is the key factor that facilitates young people navigating towards such resources, leading to successful outcomes. Previous studies have underplayed this aspect in favour of more tangible resources. Attention to strengthening emotional support networks is thus identified as a significant factor that supports transition to employment and successful independence for care leavers

Incidence of hip fracture in Saudi Arabia and the development of a FRAX model

Summary A prospective hospital-based survey in representative regions of Saudi Arabia determined the incidence of fractures at the hip. The hip fracture rates were used to create a FRAX® model to facilitate fracture risk assessment in Saudi Arabia. Objective This paper describes the incidence of hip fracture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that was used to characterize the current and future burden of hip fracture, to develop a country-specific FRAX® tool for fracture prediction and to compare fracture probabilities with neighbouring countries. Methods During a 2-year (2017/2018) prospective survey in 15 hospitals with a defined catchment population, hip fractures in Saudi citizens were prospectively identified from hospital registers. The number of hip fractures and future burden was determined from national demography. Age- and sex-specific incidence of hip fracture and national mortality rates were incorporated into a FRAX model for Saudi Arabia. Fracture probabilities were compared with those from Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. Results The incidence of hip fracture applied nationally suggested that the estimated number of hip fractures nationwide in persons over the age of 50 years for 2015 was 2,949 and is predicted to increase nearly sevenfold to 20,328 in 2050. Hip fracture rates were comparable with estimates from Abu Dhabi and Kuwait. By contrast, probabilities of a major osteoporotic fracture or hip fracture from the age of 70 years were much lower than those seen in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait due to higher mortality estimates for Saudi Arabia. Conclusion A country-specific FRAX tool for fracture prediction has been developed for Saudi Arabia which is expected to help guide decisions about treatment