A new lower bound approach for single-machine multicriteria scheduling

The concept of maximum potential improvement has played an important role in computing lower bounds for single-machine scheduling problems with composite objective functions that are linear in the job completion times. We introduce a new method for lower bound computation; objective splitting. We show that it dominates the maximum potential improvement method in terms of speed and quality

Measuring welfare for small but vulnerable groups poverty and disabiity in Uganda

When vulnerable population groups are numerically small -as is often the case, obtaining representative welfare estimates from non-purposive sample surveys becomes an issue. Building on a method developed by Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2003) it is shown how, for census years, estimates of income poverty for small vulnerable populations can be derived by combining sample survey and population census information. The approach is illustrated for Uganda, for which poverty amongst households with disabled heads is determined. This is possibly the first time that, for a developing country, statistically representative information on income poverty amongst disabled people is generated.Poverty Assessment,VN-Acb Mis -- IFC-00535908,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Social Protections&Assistance

Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa

As South Africa conducts a review of the first ten years of its new democracy, the question remains as to whether the economic inequalities of the apartheid era are beginning to fade. Using new, comparable consumption aggregates for 1995 and 2000, this paper finds that real per capita household expenditures declined for those at the bottom end of the expenditure distribution during this period of low GDP growth. As a result, poverty, especially extreme poverty, increased. Inequality also increased, mainly due to a jump in inequality among the African population. Even among subgroups of the population that experienced healthy consumption growth, such as the Coloureds, the rate of poverty reduction was low because the distributional shifts were not pro-poor.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40125/3/wp739.pd

Energy flow and fluctuations in non-equilibrium conformal field theory on star graphs

We consider non-equilibrium quantum steady states in conformal field theory (CFT) on star-graph configurations, with a particular, simple connection condition at the vertex of the graph. These steady states occur after a large time as a result of initially thermalizing the legs of the graph at different temperatures, and carry energy flows. Using purely Virasoro algebraic calculations we evaluate the exact long-time cumulant generating function for these flows. We show that this function satisfies a generalization of the usual non-equilibrium fluctuation relations. This extends the results by two of the authors (J. Phys. A 45: 362001, 2012; arXiv:1302.3125) to the cases of more than two legs. It also provides an alternative derivation centered on Virasoro algebra operators rather than local fields, hence an alternative regularization scheme, thus confirming the validity and universality of the long-time cumulant generating function. Our derivation shows how the usual Virasoro algebra leads, in large volumes, to a continuous-index Virasoro algebra for which we develop diagramatic principles, which may be of interest in other non-equilibrium contexts as well. Finally, our results shed light on the Poisson process interpretation of the long-time energy transfer in CFT.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figure

El Nino or El Peso? Crisis, poverty, and income distribution in the Philippines

Using household survey data for 1998, the authors assess the distributional impact of the recent economic crisis in the Philippines. The results suggest that the impact of the crisis was modest, leading to a five percent reduction in average living standards, and a nine percent increase in the incidence of poverty - with larger increases indicated for the depth, and severity of poverty. The greater shock came from El Nino, rather than through the labor market. The labor market shock was progressive (reducing inequality) while El Nino shock was regressive (increasing inequality). Not all households were equally vulnerable to the crisis-induced shocks. Household and community characteristics affected the impact of the shocks. Ownership of land, made households more susceptible to the El Nino shocks, higher levels of education made households more vulnerable to wage, and employment shocks. The impact of the crisis was greater in more commercially developed communities. Occupational diversity within a household helped mitigate the adverse impact. There is some evidence of consumption smoothing by the households affected by the crisis, but the poor were less able to protect their consumption, which is a matter of policy concern.Environmental Economics&Policies,Inequality,Poverty Assessment,Economic Theory&Research,Health Economics&Finance

Irrigation in Africa, Europe and Latin America : update of the Digital Global Map of Irrigation Areas to version 4

The Land and Water Development Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, are cooperating in the development of a global irrigation-mapping facility. This report describes an update of the Digital Global Map of Irrigation Areas for the continents of Africa and Europe as well as for the countries Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay in Latin America. For this update, an new inventory of subnational irrigation statistics was compiled. The reference year for the statistics is 2000. Adding up the irrigated areas per country as documented in the report gives a total of 48.8 million ha while the total area equipped for irrigation at the global scale is 278.8 million ha. The total number of subnational units in the inventory used for this update is 16 822 while the number of subnational units in the global inventory increased to 26 909. In order to distribute the irrigation statistics per subnational unit, digital spatial data layers and printed maps were used. Irrigation maps were derived from project reports, irrigation subsector studies, and books related to irrigation and drainage. These maps were digitized and compared with satellite images of many regions. In areas without spatial information on irrigated areas, additional information was used to locate areas where irrigation is likely, such as land-cover and land-use maps that indicate agricultural areas or areas with crops that are usually grown under irrigation

A digital global map of irrigated areas : an update for Asia

The Land and Water Development Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, are cooperating in the development of a global irrigation-mapping facility. This report describes an update of the Digital Global Map of Irrigated Areas for the continent of Asia. For this update, an inventory of subnational irrigation statistics for the continent was compiled. The reference year for the statistics is 2000. Adding up the irrigated areas per country as documented in the report gives a total of 188.5 million ha for the entire continent. The total number of subnational units used in the inventory is 4 428. In order to distribute the irrigation statistics per subnational unit, digital spatial data layers and printed maps were used. Irrigation maps were derived from project reports, irrigation subsector studies, and books related to irrigation and drainage. These maps were digitized and compared with satellite images of many regions. In areas without spatial information on irrigated areas, additional information was used to locate areas where irrigation is likely, such as land-cover and land-use maps that indicate agricultural areas or areas with crops that are usually grown under irrigation. Contents 1. Working Report I: Generation of a map of administrative units compatible with statistics used to update the Digital Global Map of Irrigated Areas in Asia 2. Working Report II: The inventory of subnational irrigation statistics for the Asian part of the Digital Global Map of Irrigated Areas 3. Working Report III: Geospatial information used to locate irrigated areas within the subnational units in the Asian part of the Digital Global Map of Irrigated Areas 4. Working Report IV: Update of the Digital Global Map of Irrigated Areas in Asia, Results Map

Reducing Child Malnutrition in Tanzania\ud Combined Effects of Income Growth and Program Interventions

\ud Malnutrition is associated with an inadequate diet, poor health and sanitation services and insufficient care for young children. A combination of income growth and nutrition interventions are therefore suggested to adequately tackle this issue (Haddad et al. 2003), yet evidence to support this claim is often not available, especially for African settings. This paper evaluates the joint contribution of income growth and nutrition interventions towards the reduction of malnutrition. Using a four round panel data set from northwestern Tanzania we estimate the determinants of a child’s nutritional status, including household income and the presence of nutrition interventions in the community. The results show that better nutrition is associated with higher income, and that nutrition interventions have a substantial beneficial effect. Policy simulations make clear that if one intends to halve malnutrition rates by 2015 (the MDG objective), income growth will have to be complemented\ud by large scale program interventions.\u

Winds are changing : An explanation for the warming of the Netherlands

Western Europe is warming rapidly, much faster than the world average. To explain this phenomenon for the Netherlands, we look at the region where the airflow comes from instead of looking at the wind on the ground. Thereto, we consider 24 so-called weather patterns, which describe the origin of the airflow (north, northeast, etc.) and whether the airflow comes straight at us, or with bending of isobars (cyclonal or anticyclonal). For each day from January 1, 1836 onwards, we have determined the corresponding weather pattern on basis of the weather maps from Reanalysis archives at wettercentrale.de. Using a statistical test, we can see that a shift has occurred in the weather patterns, which has resulted in a significant increase in airflow coming from warmer directions. We further have applied linear regression to explain the daily average temperatures on basis of the weather patterns for the period 1961-2020. In this way, we find for the daily model an R-2 value of 0.60 and for the yearly model, based on the aggregated average daily values, we find an R-2 of 0.81, which is increased to 0.85 when we take the influence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) into account. These values strongly suggest that the warming in the Netherlands is caused by a shift in the origin of the airflow to warmer directions