Gender pay discrimination in the hospitality industry in South Africa.

This article documents laws and codes of practice regulating pay discrimination in South Africa, as well as the applicable international laws pertaining to gender pay discrimination. The legal application of international law is explained and the practical application of international and domestic law pertaining to gender pay discrimination is discussed. Gender pay discrimination is particularly rife in the hospitality industry, given the prevalence of sex-typed jobs and the resulting intensified relevance of gender pay discrimination to be found there. Gender inequality is generally based on archaic notions of male superiority and other similar, highly conservative and fallacious notions. It is clear that gender stereotyping and other unfair notions are precluding women from breaking “glass ceilings” in the industry – something that is ironic given that the majority of employees in hospitality are, in any event, women. Women should be assisted to address work–life balance and to have equal opportunity for upward mobility in the industry. The practical advantages and better access to justice relating to such issues that have arisen as a consequence of recent amendments to South African legislation are discussed.Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL

Towards Automatic Model Completion: from Requirements to SysML State Machines

Even if model-driven techniques have been enabled the centrality of the models in automated development processes, the majority of the industrial settings does not embrace such a paradigm due to the procedural complexity of managing model life cycle. This paper proposes a semi-automatic approach for the completion of high-level models of critical systems. The proposal suggests a specification guidelines that starts from a partial SysML (Systems Modeling Language) model of a system and on a set of requirements, expressed in the well-known Behaviour-Driven Design paradigm. On the base of such requirements, the approach enables the automatic generation of SysML state machines fragments. Once completed, the approach also enables the modeller to check the results improving the quality of the model and avoiding errors both coming from the mis-interpretation of the tool and from the modeller himself/herself. An example taken from the railway domain shows the approach.Comment: Editor: Ib\'eria Medeiros. 18th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC 2022), September 12-15, 2022, Zaragoza, Spain. Student Forum Proceedings - EDCC 202

Measurements with the ELI-NP cavity Beam Position Monitor Read-out Electronics at FLASH

The Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics Gamma Beam System (ELI-NP GBS) will be installed and commissioned starting within the next year in Magurele, Romania. It will generate gamma beam through Compton back-scattering of a recirculated laser and a multi-bunch electron beam, produced by a 720 MeV LINAC. In order to obtain bunch by bunch position measurements, four cavity beam position monitors (cBPM) near the two interaction points are foreseen. Extensive tests on the cBPM readout electronics, recently developed by Instrumentation Technologies and acquired for ELI-NP GBS, were performed in laboratory at INFN-LNF and at FLASH in DESY, during the user operation. In the latter case, three cBPMs installed along the LINAC, with similar features as the ones of ELI-NP GBS, were used as measuring devices and signal sources for the read-out electronics under test. We present here the measurements collected and the related analysis, with a particular focus on the beam position measurement resolution

Sexual harassment at the workplace in the hospitality industry

This research paper is a conceptual analytical one which discusses the issue of employee sexual harassment in the hotel industry and the legal avenues open to victims. By unpacking and analyzing the issue, a better understanding of what can be done to obviate sexual harassment can be obtained. The article thus strives to make important information available to those who are employed in the industry and also makes suggestions as to what policies should be implemented by hotel managers to make the workplace safer and more ethical in orientation for employees. The article sets out the various bases of claim or causes of action that are at the disposal of an employee who has been sexually harassed at work. The article sets out under what circumstances each cause of action is applicable and the amount and type of compensation that can be awarded in each case in terms of South African labour law

Persuasion and Recommendation System Applied to a Cognitive Assistant

In this paper, we present a persuasive recommendation module included in the iGenda framework. iGenda is a cognitive assistant that helps care-receivers and caregivers in the management of their activities of daily living, by resolving scheduling conflicts and promoting active aging activities. The proposed new module will allow the system to select and recommend to the users an event that potentially best suits to his/her interests (likes or medical condition). The multi-agent approach followed by the iGenda framework facilitates an easy integration of these new features. The social objective is to promote social activities and engaging the users in physical or psychological activities that improve their medical condition

Argumentation Schemes for Events Suggestion in an e-Health Platform

In this work, we propose the introduction of persuasion techniques that guide the users into interacting with the Ambient Assisted Living framework iGenda. It is a cognitive assistant that manages active daily living activities, monitors user's health condition, and creates a social network between users via mobile devices. The objective is to be inserted in a healthcare environment and to provide features like adaptive interfaces, user profiling and machine learning processes that enhance the usage experience. The inclusion of a persuasive architecture (based on argumentation schemes) enables the system to provide recommendations to the users that fit their profile and interests, thus increases the chance of a positive interaction.A. Costa thanks the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) the Post-Doc scholarship with the Ref. SFRH/BPD/102696/2014. This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013. It was also supported by the by the projects TIN2015-65515-C4-1-R and TIN2014-55206-R of the Spanish government and by the grant program for the recruitment of doctors for the Spanish system of science and technology (PAID-10-14) of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ethical Responses and Environmental Law for Ecotourism Sustainability.

This article is grounded on a literature-based exploratory overview research methodology and proposes that without ethical practices, and solid environmental laws in place, there is no likelihood of sustainable development of either our ecology or ecotourism which plays an important role in environmental conservation, and provides understanding of what the needs of the people are who are local to an area so that their quality of life can be improved. The researchers have examined how the extant literature has addressed a range of issues such as for example social responsibility, legislation, philosophical stances, environmental ethics and sustainable development. This article thus looks at moral responsibility and the non-commonsensical scope of environmental business relations. It argues that how organizations and people treat one another in their approach to nature, is critical to sustainable business in an environment which is increasingly threatened by malpractices such as disregard for others which is a rampant feature of business practice of wealthy nations. The article is prescriptive in nature and thus normative since it suggests practical guidelines based on accountable ethical values. By adopting ethical practices and by having ethically driven leaders, creativity and careful strategies in environmental matters, businesses will be able to generate wealth within legal and value-motivated boundaries which do not compromise the sustainability of future generations while conserving the natural endowments of the country. Philosophical stances on ethics are important in drives to mitigate environmental degradation and these are also considered since in considering the need for sustainability in ecotourism, and indeed the planet, it is critical that it be regulated effectively to help the country convert to a green economy. This will however require a very effective regulation of corporations and other businesses in their environmental dealings backed up by a range of carefully crafted legislation and by-laws in the realm of environmental law to keep them in check. Over and above the ethical duty of all of us to drive ecological sustainability, ecotourism can be an inducement for conservation measures and education promotion on ecological issues, and it also serves to support local communities in enhancing their livelihoods

Ethical Responses and Environmental Law for Ecotourism Sustainability.

This article is grounded on a literature-based exploratory overview research methodology and proposes that without ethical practices, and solid environmental laws in place, there is no likelihood of sustainable development of either our ecology or ecotourism which plays an important role in environmental conservation, and provides understanding of what the needs of the people are who are local to an area so that their quality of life can be improved. The researchers have examined how the extant literature has addressed a range of issues such as for example social responsibility, legislation, philosophical stances, environmental ethics and sustainable development. This article thus looks at moral responsibility and the non-commonsensical scope of environmental business relations. It argues that how organizations and people treat one another in their approach to nature, is critical to sustainable business in an environment which is increasingly threatened by malpractices such as disregard for others which is a rampant feature of business practice of wealthy nations. The article is prescriptive in nature and thus normative since it suggests practical guidelines based on accountable ethical values. By adopting ethical practices and by having ethically driven leaders, creativity and careful strategies in environmental matters, businesses will be able to generate wealth within legal and value-motivated boundaries which do not compromise the sustainability of future generations while conserving the natural endowments of the country. Philosophical stances on ethics are important in drives to mitigate environmental degradation and these are also considered since in considering the need for sustainability in ecotourism, and indeed the planet, it is critical that it be regulated effectively to help the country convert to a green economy. This will however require a very effective regulation of corporations and other businesses in their environmental dealings backed up by a range of carefully crafted legislation and by-laws in the realm of environmental law to keep them in check. Over and above the ethical duty of all of us to drive ecological sustainability, ecotourism can be an inducement for conservation measures and education promotion on ecological issues, and it also serves to support local communities in enhancing their livelihoods

Gender pay discrimination in the hospitality industry in South Africa.

This article documents laws and codes of practice regulating pay discrimination in South Africa, as well as the applicable international laws pertaining to gender pay discrimination. The legal application of international law is explained and the practical application of international and domestic law pertaining to gender pay discrimination is discussed. Gender pay discrimination is particularly rife in the hospitality industry, given the prevalence of sex-typed jobs and the resulting intensified relevance of gender pay discrimination to be found there. Gender inequality is generally based on archaic notions of male superiority and other similar, highly conservative and fallacious notions. It is clear that gender stereotyping and other unfair notions are precluding women from breaking “glass ceilings” in the industry – something that is ironic given that the majority of employees in hospitality are, in any event, women. Women should be assisted to address work–life balance and to have equal opportunity for upward mobility in the industry. The practical advantages and better access to justice relating to such issues that have arisen as a consequence of recent amendments to South African legislation are discussed

DEAD-Box Helicase 4 (Ddx4)+ Stem Cells Sustain Tumor Progression in Non-Serous Ovarian Cancers

DEAD-Box Helicase 4 (Ddx4)+ ovarian stem cells are able to differentiate into several cell types under appropriate stimuli. Ddx4 expression has been correlated with poor prognosis of serous ovarian cancer (OC), while the potential role of Ddx4+ cells in non-serous epithelial OC (NS-EOC) is almost unexplored. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the presence of Ddx4+ cells in NS-EOC and investigate the effect of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) on this population. Increased Ddx4 expression was demonstrated in samples from patients with advanced NS-EOC, compared to those with early-stage disease. Under FSH stimulation, OC-derived Ddx4+ cells differentiated into mesenchymal-like (ML) cells, able to deregulate genes involved in cell migration, invasiveness, stemness and chemoresistance in A2780 OC cells. This effect was primarily induced by ML-cells deriving from advanced NS-EOC, suggesting that a tumor-conditioned germ cell niche inhabits its microenvironment and is able to modulate, in a paracrine manner, tumor cell behavior through transcriptome modulation