Impact of the Global Crisis on Overseas Workers and the Families-Left-Behind: A Snapshot of the Philippine Case

The Global Economic Crisis (GEC) of 2008-2009 was seen as negatively affecting the Philippines in a different way. Most countries affected by the GEC suffered export declines and domestic economic slowdown leading to the collapse of certain sectors in the economy. Though the Philippines was affected this way in some aspects, it is more the unique nature of its economy having around 10% of its population abroad working or permanently settled but continuing to send a significant amount of remittances. It was the concern of the Philippines that the crisis affecting many of the destination countries of its migrant workers will lead to massive layoffs and creating a much larger crisis at home. Based on this hypothesis, this study attempts to view how the GEC actually affected the economy by directly looking at the impacts on the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families-left-behind in the Philippines and how they coped with the perceived effects of the crisis. The study sampled the National Capital Region or Metro Manila. It used a semi-structured questionnaire which profiled the demographic characteristics and determined the coping strategies of the respondents. A focus group discussion with ten (10) of the respondents for the purpose of validating the data gathered by the questionnaire was also done. The results show that a number of affected households indicate decreases in their family income during the crisis period as compared to previous years. However, there are relatively few affected workers who returned home. Majority opted to stay abroad hoping for better opportunities in their affected host countries rather than to return home. The families-left-behind also adjusted to the crisis by implementing coping strategies such as cuts in spending (primarily in recreation, food and utilities), seeking extra jobs/sideline and a decline in allocation for savings

Non-parametric regression for robot learning on manifolds

Many of the tools available for robot learning were designed for Euclidean data. However, many applications in robotics involve manifold-valued data. A common example is orientation; this can be represented as a 3-by-3 rotation matrix or a quaternion, the spaces of which are non-Euclidean manifolds. In robot learning, manifold-valued data are often handled by relating the manifold to a suitable Euclidean space, either by embedding the manifold or by projecting the data onto one or several tangent spaces. These approaches can result in poor predictive accuracy, and convoluted algorithms. In this paper, we propose an "intrinsic" approach to regression that works directly within the manifold. It involves taking a suitable probability distribution on the manifold, letting its parameter be a function of a predictor variable, such as time, then estimating that function non-parametrically via a "local likelihood" method that incorporates a kernel. We name the method kernelised likelihood estimation. The approach is conceptually simple, and generally applicable to different manifolds. We implement it with three different types of manifold-valued data that commonly appear in robotics applications. The results of these experiments show better predictive accuracy than projection-based algorithms.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figure

Do agri-food market incentives improve food security and nutrition indicators? a microsimulation evaluation for Kenya

The sustainable development goal #2 aims at ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Given the numbers of food insecure and malnourished people on the rise, the heterogeneity of nutritional statuses and needs, and the even worse context of COVID-19 pandemic, this has become an urgent challenge for food-related policies. This paper provides a comprehensive microsimulation approach to evaluate economic policies on food access, sufficiency (energy) and adequacy (protein, fat, carbohydrate) at household level. The improvement in market access conditions in Kenya is simulated as an application case of this method, using original insights from households’ surveys and biochemical and nutritional information by food item. Simulation’s results suggest that improving market access increases food purchasing power overall the country, with a pro-poor impact in rural areas. The daily energy consumption per capita and macronutrients intakes per capita increase at the national level, being the households with at least one stunted child under 5 years old, and poor households living areas outside Mombasa and Nairobi, those which benefit the most. The developed method and its Kenya's application contribute to the discussion on how to evaluate nutrition-sensitive policies, and how to cover most households suffering food insecurity and nutrition deficiencies in any given country

Report on the findings of the 2005-2006 Australian National e-Procurement Survey

The report presents the key results and findings of the 2005-2006 Australian National e-Procurement Survey.The aim of the 2005-2006 survey is to build on the findings of the 2004 survey and establish the nature, extent and adoption profile of e-procurement strategies and processes within Australian organisations. It seeks to identify e-procurement adoption patterns by activities, product types and technologies.The Australian Research Council (Grant No. LP0214841

Caracterização preliminar de linhagens de arroz com tipos de grãos especiais.

Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar 36 linhagens de origens diversas e pertencentes a sete tipos distintos de grãos especiais visando caracterizá-las quanto ao número de dias até o florescimento, altura de plantas e produtividade, para de identificar as mais promissoras utilizá-las como genitores no programa de melhoramento da Embrapa

Caracterização preliminar de linhagens de arroz com tipos de grãos especiais.

No Brasil os tipos de grãos de arroz mais consumidos são o arroz branco polido, o parboilizado e o integral, apesar da existência de tipos de grãos bem diferentes, os arrozes especiais. Estes tipos de arroz possuem valor comercial elevado, mas, sua produção é dificultada pelo baixo consumo interno

Preservação e organização da geoinformação em instituições: o caso da construção da Infraestrutura de Dados Espaciais da Embrapa.

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar a estratégia da Embrapa para construir sua Infraestrutura de Dados Espaciais de forma a contribuir com o debate sobre a organização, preservação e integração de dados geoespaciais heterogêneos de acordo com as diretrizes federais estabelecidas pela INDE. Para esse fim, apresentaremos as etapas do processo interno realizado na Embrapa para elaboração o plano de adesão à INDE, o qual contou com a formação de um grupo de trabalho e, em seguida, descreveremos a estratégia elaborada