Poverty, Discrimination and Slavery: The reality of bonded labour in India, Nepal and Pakistan

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.ASI_2008_BL_India_PovertyDiscrimination.pdf: 949 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Quantum Buckling

We study the mechanical buckling of a two dimensional membrane coated with a thin layer of superfluid. It is seen that a singularity (vortex or anti-vortex defect) in the phase of the quantum order parameter, distorts the membrane metric into a negative conical singularity surface, irrespective of the defect sign. The defect-curvature coupling and the observed instability is in striking contrast with classical elasticity where, the in-plane strain induced by positive (negative) disclinations is screened by a corresponding positive (negative) conical singularity surface. Defining a dimensionless ratio between superfluid stiffness and membrane bending modulus, we derive conditions under which the quantum buckling instability occurs. An ansatz for the resulting shape of the buckled membrane is analytically and numerically confirmed

How to Price Shared Optimizations in the Cloud

Data-management-as-a-service systems are increasingly being used in collaborative settings, where multiple users access common datasets. Cloud providers have the choice to implement various optimizations, such as indexing or materialized views, to accelerate queries over these datasets. Each optimization carries a cost and may benefit multiple users. This creates a major challenge: how to select which optimizations to perform and how to share their cost among users. The problem is especially challenging when users are selfish and will only report their true values for different optimizations if doing so maximizes their utility. In this paper, we present a new approach for selecting and pricing shared optimizations by using Mechanism Design. We first show how to apply the Shapley Value Mechanism to the simple case of selecting and pricing additive optimizations, assuming an offline game where all users access the service for the same time-period. Second, we extend the approach to online scenarios where users come and go. Finally, we consider the case of substitutive optimizations. We show analytically that our mechanisms induce truth- fulness and recover the optimization costs. We also show experimentally that our mechanisms yield higher utility than the state-of-the-art approach based on regret accumulation.Comment: VLDB201

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON AWARENESS TOWARDS GLOBAL WARMING AMONG LAW STUDENTS

During the past few years, earth's climate has been noticed to be getting hotter and hotter, year after year which is caused mainly due to the deterioration of our environmental quality. Continuous industrialization, development of various transportation, and deforestation, increase much SO2 and CO2 gases which augment global warming. The changes of global warming is visible from the highest mountains to deep in the oceans and it extinguished different parts of the earth and it's also creates rich bio-diversity. To identify the level of awareness towards global warming among Law students, the authors decided to conduct the present research study. A self made tool (global warming awareness study scale) made by investigators, was used for collecting the data from Law students. The result shows that male and female, rural and urban law students are well aware about global warming and they do not differ significantly towards global warming awareness

Heterogeneity in Ty1-copia group of retroelements in chickpea (Cicer arietinum) genome

Retrotransposons constitute a major fraction of plant genomes and these elements may have played a significant role in evolution and sequence organization of genomes. In order to access the diversity of Ty1-copia group of retroelements, reverse transcriptase (RT) sequences were amplified from chickpea genome, using the primers derived from two conserved domains of RT region. Thirty-six RT regions from independent amplicons were cloned and sequenced. On the basis of homology of deduced amino acids, the RT sequences could be grouped into three major families. The intra-family divergence at amino acid level ranges from 2 to 19%. Though intra-family RT sequences were conserved but no two sequences were identical. The results indicate a high degree of heterogeneity among the Ty1-copia group of retroelements from chickpea. It was possible to isolate RT specific sequences from RNA isolated from stressed seedlings, indicating that some of the retroelements may be functional under certain stress conditions

Laser Diode Induced Lighting Modules

Laser diodes have the potential of becoming the light engines of future lighting technology since they have negligible efficiency droop factor, unlike light emitting diodes. This study demonstrates the possibility of laser diodes coupled to phosphor targets being used as a solid state lighting system with high power applications. It was revealed that white light emitting modules with efficiency of up to 217 lumens per watt based on laser diodes can currently be made and upon further development of laser diode technology and relevant phosphor materials there is room for further improvements. The report also demonstrates the ability of this technology to produce a tailored emission spectrum for a given specific requirement. Two test lamp prototypes were made using laser diodes and phosphor targets and their emission characteristics were investigatedBrunel University London & EPSRC grant No. EP/K504208/