Diversifying the uniform? The participation of minority ethnic personnel in the British armed services

This paper considers the pressures on the British armed services to increase the participation of minority ethnic groups and assesses recent government policy on this issue. Limited progress has been made towards the realisation of current goals, which are framed largely in terms of the concept of ‘equal opportunities’. The authors argue that while the concept of diversity appears to provide a more sociologically well founded basis for future government strategy on this aspect of service personnel policy, there remain significant obstacles to effective implementation of practical measures. These concern in particular the way in which the armed services relate to wider questions of British identity. Successfully increasing the participation of minority ethnic communities in the British armed services, we contend, entails developing a new framework for British identity and citizenship that cannot be accomplished by the armed services alone. Rather it is a responsibility of both government and wider society as a whole

Microcomputerized electric field meter diagnostic and calibration system

A computerized field meter calibration system which includes an apparatus for testing the calibration of field meters normally utilized for measuring electromagnetic field potentials is described. A reference voltage is applied to the field meter for causing signals to be produced on the output terminals thereof. A bank of relays is provided for selectively connecting output terminals of the field meter to a multiplexer by means of a digital voltmeter and an oscilloscope. A frequency-shift-keyed receiver is also connected to one of the terminals of the field meter for transmitting and converting a frequency shift keyed signal to a digital signal which is, subsequently, applied to the multiplexer

How important are labor markets to the welfare of the poor in Indonesia?

A majority of the poor in Indonesia come from agricultural and self-employed households. Moreover, the largest single contribution to poverty reduction between 1990 and 1993 came from within-sector welfare gains to self-employed farm households. Data show that the role of the labor market in reducing poverty has increased since the mid-1980s. Wage labor markets can be expected to play an increasingly important impact on the welfare of Indonesia's poor as the economy continues to undergo structural change, and as the workforce moves out of agriculture into manufacturing and services. Because poverty remains largely an agricultural and self-employed phenomenon, the most direct way to reduce poverty is to focus on improving the operation of product, land, and capital markets. At the same time, labor market policy can play an important role in the Government's poverty reduction efforts by helping to facilitate labor mobility across sectors. But if they reduce labor mobility, labor market policies can be counterproductive to Indonesia's poverty reduction efforts. Recent empirical evidence suggests that increases in the minimum wage may have hurt employment growth, particularly among small firms. As such, using minimum wage policy to ensure high wages to a limited number of workers will almost certainly diminish the poverty reducing potential of the labor markets.Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Services&Transfers to Poor,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Rural Poverty Reduction,Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Assessment,Health Economics&Finance,Safety Nets and Transfers