Children’s Engagement with Exploitative Work in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Despite decades of interventions aiming to reduce child labour, children’s engagement with exploitative work remains widespread, particularly in South Asia. Emerging evidence about cash transfer programmes point towards their potential for reducing children’s engagement with work, but knowledge is scarce in terms of their impact on exploitative work and in urban settings. One component of the CLARISSA programme is to trial an innovative ‘cash plus’ intervention and to learn about its potential for reducing children’s harmful and hazardous work in two slum areas in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This Working Paper presents findings from a small-scale qualitative study that was undertaken in late 2019, aiming to inform the design of the cash plus intervention. Findings point towards the potential for cash transfers to reduce the need for children to engage in exploitative work and highlight key considerations for design and delivery, including mode and frequency of delivery and engagement with local leaders and community representatives.FCD

Machine Learning Methods for detection of bystanders: A Survey

The number of users on social media networks is increasing day by day as their popularity increases. The users are sharing their photos, videos, daily life, experiences, views, and status updates on different social networking sites. Social networking sites give great possibilities for young people to interact with others, but they also make them more subject to unpleasant phenomena such as online harassment and abusive language, which leads to cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a prevalent social problem that inflicts detrimental consequences to the health and safety of victims such as psychological distress, anti-social behavior, and suicide. To minimize the impact of Cyberbullying, the Bystander role is very important. In this paper, a review of the cyberbullying content on the Internet, the classification of cyberbullying categories, classifying author roles (harasser, victim, bystander-defender, bystander-assistant), data sources containing cyberbullying data for research, and machine learning techniques for cyberbullying detection are overviewed.&nbsp

How to Set Up, Manage, and Study a UBI+ Experiment The Case of the ‘WorkFREE’ Project in Hyderabad, India

WorkFREE is a collaborative research project led by the University of Bath,UK in partnership with the Montfort Social Institute (MSI) and the IndiaNetwork for Basic Income (INBI). It is funded by the European ResearchCouncil (ERC). The project brings together civil society institutions, academics,and activists from India and the UK to pilot and study a unique interventionthat we call ‘UBI+’ in four slum communities (‘bastis’) in Hyderabad, India. Thepilot combines universal basic income (UBI) and needs-focused, participatorycommunity organising to support people to increase their power to meet theirneeds. All residents in the said bastis, (approximately 1250 people across 350households) receive monthly unconditional cash transfers for 18 months. Inaddition, the community organising support wraps around the cash over aperiod of 24 months. The project studies the impact on peoples’ lives –including their relationships, their work, and their wellbeing – and seeks toassess the prospects of UBI+ as a future social policy. WorkFREE is the firstmajor UBI experiment to take place in urban India, and one of the first in theworld to work with entire communities as opposed to selected individualswithin those communities. Full project information can be found on theproject’s website here. The rest of this ‘Process Document’ will outline thecomplex, challenging, nitty-gritty practicalities involved in project design,implementation, and management, with a view to supporting future would-bepiloters embarking on similar journeys. We structure the report around threebroad temporal phases

Detection of AmpC β Lactamases in Gram-negative Bacteria

AmpC β-lactamases are clinically important cephalosporinases encoded on the chromosomes of many Enterobacteriaceae and a few other organisms, where they mediate resistance to cephalothin, cefazolin, cefoxitin, most penicillins, and β-lactamase inhibitor/β-lactam combinations. The increase in antibiotic resistance among Gram-negative bacteria is a notable example of how bacteria can procure, maintain and express new genetic information that can confer resistance to one or several antibiotics. Detection of organisms producing these enzymes can be difficult, because their presence does not always produce a resistant phenotype on conventional disc diffusion or automated susceptibility testing methods. These enzymes are often associated with potentially fatal laboratory reports of false susceptibility to β-lactams phenotypically. With the world-wide increase in the occurrence, types and rate of dissemination of these enzymes, their early detection is critical. AmpC β-lactamases show tremendous variation in geographic distribution. Thus, their accurate detection and characterization are important from epidemiological, clinical, laboratory, and infection control point of view. This document describes the methods for detection for AmpC β-lactamases, which can be adopted by routine diagnostic laboratories

Detection of Carbapenemase Production in Gram-negative Bacteria

The greatest threat to antimicrobial treatment of infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria is the production of carbapenemases. Metallo-beta-lactamases and plasmid-mediated serine carbepenemases like Klebsiella pneumonia carbapenemase are threatening the utility of almost all currently available beta-lactams including carbapenems. Detection of organisms producing carbapenemases can be difficult, because their presence does not always produce a resistant phenotype on conventional disc diffusion or automated susceptibility testing methods. These enzymes are often associated with laboratory reports of false susceptibility to carbapenems which can be potentially fatal. Moreover, most laboratories do not attempt to detect carbapenemases. This may be due to the lack of availability of guidelines and procedures or lack of knowledge and expertise. Because routine susceptibility tests may be unreliable, special tests are required to detect the resistance mechanisms involved. This document describes the standard methodology for detection of various types of carbapenemases, which can be put to use by laboratories working on antimicrobial resistance in Gram-negative bacteria

How to Set Up, Manage, and Study a UBI+ Experiment The Case of the ‘WorkFREE’ Project in Hyderabad, India

WorkFREE is a collaborative research project led by the University of Bath, UK in partnership with the Montfort Social Institute (MSI) and the India Network for Basic Income (INBI). It is funded by the European Research Council (ERC). The project brings together civil society institutions, academics, and activists from India and the UK to pilot and study a unique intervention that we call ‘UBI+’ in four slum communities (‘bastis’) in Hyderabad, India. The pilot combines universal basic income (UBI) and needs-focused, participatory community organising to support people to increase their power to meet their needs. All residents in the said bastis, (approximately 1250 people across 350 households) receive monthly unconditional cash transfers for 18 months. In addition, the community organising support wraps around the cash over a period of 24 months. The project studies the impact on peoples’ lives – including their relationships, their work, and their wellbeing – and seeks to assess the prospects of UBI+ as a future social policy. WorkFREE is the first major UBI experiment to take place in urban India, and one of the first in the world to work with entire communities as opposed to selected individuals within those communities. Full project information can be found on the project’s website here. The rest of this ‘Process Document’ will outline the complex, challenging, nitty-gritty practicalities involved in project design, implementation, and management, with a view to supporting future would-be piloters embarking on similar journeys. We structure the report around three broad temporal phases