A framework for thinking about enterprise formalization policies in developing countries

What policies encourage firms to become formal? The standard approach emphasizes reducing the costs of compliance with government regulation. This is unlikely to be sufficient. Instead we need to understand compliance as a function not only of firm-level costs and benefits but also in terms of the interaction between the firm and its competitors and between the firm and the state. This paper emphasizes the coordination and credibility issues involved in promoting formalization and discusses possible institutional solutions, among them business associations that make the benefits of membership dependent on compliance, information sharing arrangements among government agencies and improvements in the quality of public management.Microfinance,Small Scale Enterprise,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Public Sector Regulation

Reforming the investment climate : lessons for practitioners

Most people agree that a good investment climate is essential for growth and poverty reduction. Less clear is how to achieve it. Many reforms are complex, involving more than technical design and content. They are both political, facing opposition from organized and powerful groups-and institutionally demanding, cutting across different departments and levels of government. Reform thus requires paying as much attention to understanding the politics and institutional dimensions as to policy substance, which is the goal of this paper. Drawing from more than 25 case studies, it shows that there is no single recipe or"manual"for reform, given diverse contexts and serendipity in any reform effort. But three broad lessons emerge. The first is to recognize and seize opportunities for reform. Crisis and new governments are important catalysts, but so is the competition generated by trade integration and new benchmarking information. The second is to invest early in the politics of reform. Central to this process is using education and persuasion strategies to gain wider acceptance and neutralize opponents. Pilot programs can be valuable for demonstrating the benefits and feasibility of change. And the third is to pay greater attention to implementation and monitoring. This does not require full scale public management reforms. Reformers can draw on private sector change management techniques to revitalize public institutions responsible for implementation. Given the cross-cutting nature of reform, new oversight mechanisms may be needed to monitor and sustain reform. The paper concludes with an emerging checklist for reformers and identifies areas for future work.Enterprise Development&Reform,Children and Youth,Economic Theory&Research,Population Policies,Markets and Market Access

In silico identification of natural inhibitory compounds against the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Enzyme Pyrazinamidase using high-throughput virtual screening techniques

Tuberculosis (TB) is most commonly a pulmonary infection caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. With the exception of the COVID-19 pandemic, TB was the most common cause of death due to an infectious disease for a number of years up until 2020. In 2019, 10 million people fell ill with TB worldwide and 1.4 million people died (WHO, 2020a). Additionally, multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis and a health security threat. A global total of 206 030 people with multidrug- or rifampicin-resistant TB (MDR/RR-TB) were reported in 2019, a 10% increase from 186 883 in 2018. South Africa is ranked among the 48 high TB burden countries, with an estimated 360 000 people falling ill in 2019, resulting in 58 000 deaths, the majority of which being among people living with HIV. Unlike HIV, however, TB is a curable disease when managed correctly with long durations of antitubercular chemotherapy. Pyrazinamide (PZA) is an important first-line tuberculosis drug unique for its activity against latent TB. PZA is a prodrug, being converted into its active form, pyrazinoic acid (POA) by the Mtb gene pncA, coding for the pyrazinamidase enzyme (PZase). TB resistance to first-line drugs such as PZA is commonly associated with mutations in the pncA/PZase enzyme. This study aimed to identify potential novel inhibitors that bind to the active site of PZase. By making use of molecular docking studies and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, high throughput virtual screening was performed on 623 compounds from the South African Natural Compounds database (SANCDB; https://sancdb.rubi.ru.ac.za). Ligands that selectively bound to the PZase active site were identified using docking studies, followed by MD simulations to assess ligand-PZase complex stability, Finally, hit compounds identified from the first round of MD simulations were screened again against PZase structures with high confidence point mutations known to infer PZA resistance in order to identify any novel compounds which had inhibitory potential against both WT and mutant forms of the PZase enzyme.Thesis (MSc) -- Faculty of Science, Biochemistry and Microbiology, 202

Distances on Rhombus Tilings

The rhombus tilings of a simply connected domain of the Euclidean plane are known to form a flip-connected space (a flip is the elementary operation on rhombus tilings which rotates 180{\deg} a hexagon made of three rhombi). Motivated by the study of a quasicrystal growth model, we are here interested in better understanding how "tight" rhombus tiling spaces are flip-connected. We introduce a lower bound (Hamming-distance) on the minimal number of flips to link two tilings (flip-distance), and we investigate whether it is sharp. The answer depends on the number n of different edge directions in the tiling: positive for n=3 (dimer tilings) or n=4 (octogonal tilings), but possibly negative for n=5 (decagonal tilings) or greater values of n. A standard proof is provided for the n=3 and n=4 cases, while the complexity of the n=5 case led to a computer-assisted proof (whose main result can however be easily checked by hand).Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Theoretical Computer Science (special issue of DGCI'09

The Effect of Herbage Availability and Season of Year on the Rate of Liveweight Loss during Weighing of Fasting Ewe Lambs

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Application of Machine Learning Algorithms to Predict Body Condition Score from Liveweight Records of Mature Romney Ewes

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A Typology of Federal and State Programs Designed to Promote College Enrollment

Over the past four decades, policymakers have developed numerous policies and programs with the goal of increasing college enrollment. A simple Google search of the phrase college access program generates 226,000,000 hits. Entering the same terms into the search engine on the U.S. Department of Education\u27s Web site generates 500 hits. Despite the apparent plentitude of policies and programs, however, college access and choice for recent high school graduates remain stratified by socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity (Thomas & Perna, 2004). Young people from low-income families and whose parents have not attended college, as well as those of African American and Hispanic descent, are less likely than other young people to enroll in college. When they do enroll, these students find themselves concentrated in lower-priced institutions, such as public two-year colleges and less-selective four-year colleges and universities (Baum & Payea, 2004; Ellwood & Kane, 2000; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2003, 2004; Thomas & Perna, 2004)

An Archaeological Survey of Areas Proposed for Modification in the Vicinity of Del Rio International Airport

In accordance with an agreement between URS/Forrest and Cotton, Inc., consulting engineers (Dallas, Texas), and the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio, an archaeological survey was conducted on property adjacent to the Del Rio International Airport, Val Verde County, Texas. The specific area examined during the survey is the proposed site for airport expansion and construction as part of the Del Rio International Airport Master Plan. The locality examined encompassed a total of 197 acres and extended along the runway, on the south, from approximately midway to approximately 800 meters beyond (going west) . The main purpose of the survey was to determine if there existed any historic or archaeological evidence that would warrant preservation or further investigation. The stated objectives of the survey were: 1. Ascertain if archaeological or historical resources exist within the area to be affected. 2. Identify and appraise the significance of any resources found. 3. Evaluate the impact of project modification, if any, on the resources. 4. Recommend procedures for mitigation of any anticipated adverse impacts

The effect of nutrition and body condition of triplet-bearing ewes during late pregnancy on the behaviour of ewes and lambs

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