Building on the Hong Kong Ministerial: A Critical Year for the DOHA Development Round

International Relations/Trade,

Human Trafficking in Iraq: Patterns and Practices in Forced Labor and Sexual Exploitation

Human trafficking in the form of forced prostitution and labor has long existed in Iraq, as has forced marriage and domestic servitude within the family, tribe and community. Since the 2003 invasion and subsequent civil war, Iraq has increasingly been a source of trafficking victims who are transported to neighboring countries, as well as a destination for foreign workers who are at risk of trafficking and come to Iraq from the Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh and other countries where poverty is widespread. Furthermore, internal conflict and breakdown in law and order has resulted in a rise in kidnapping and trafficking from one location to another within Iraq.The Iraqi Constitution prohibits forced labor, kidnapping, slavery, slave trade, trafficking in women or children, and the sex trade, and the Government of Iraq ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW"). However Iraqi government officials have overwhelmingly failed to act to prevent abuses and to punish offenders. Iraq has not passed anti-trafficking legislation, allowing traffickers to continue to operate with impunity. Research and preliminary investigations leading to the production of this report indicate that Iraqi women and girls are being subjected to the following types of trafficking: 1) exploitation of prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation; 2) forced labor or services; 3) slavery or practices similar to slavery; and 4) servitude. There are also credible reports of trafficking-related practices such as forced participation in criminal activity. Because of the nature of trafficking, quantitative measurement is inexact even in developed nations with functioning judicial and law enforcement sectors. In Iraq, measuring the scope of trafficking is far more difficult. However, there is ample evidence of established patterns and practices of trafficking, leading to a strong likelihood that hundreds of women have been trafficked over the last five years in the Kurdistan region, and thousands elsewhere in Iraq and in neighboring regions.In accordance with the Iraqi Constitution as well as international treaty obligations, Iraq must develop an effective national and regional counter-trafficking strategy. A comprehensive approach to combating trafficking must include prevention strategies, protection of trafficking victims, and prosecution of traffickers. This is a difficult time for Iraqis as they struggle with ongoing violence and war, as well as ongoing political restructuring in which many issues have yet to be determined. However it is also an opportune time to address trafficking and other serious human rights violations, as Iraq's national and regional governments work to strengthen the rule of law. Addressing problems of trafficking and other forms of gender-motivated violence is integral to this process of reform

Sampling algorithms for validation of supervised learning models for Ising-like systems

In this paper, we build and explore supervised learning models of ferromagnetic system behavior, using Monte-Carlo sampling of the spin configuration space generated by the 2D Ising model. Given the enormous size of the space of all possible Ising model realizations, the question arises as to how to choose a reasonable number of samples that will form physically meaningful and non-intersecting training and testing datasets. Here, we propose a sampling technique called ID-MH that uses the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm creating Markov process across energy levels within the predefined configuration subspace. We show that application of this method retains phase transitions in both training and testing datasets and serves the purpose of validation of a machine learning algorithm. For larger lattice dimensions, ID-MH is not feasible as it requires knowledge of the complete configuration space. As such, we develop a new "block-ID" sampling strategy: it decomposes the given structure into square blocks with lattice dimension no greater than 5 and uses ID-MH sampling of candidate blocks. Further comparison of the performance of commonly used machine learning methods such as random forests, decision trees, k nearest neighbors and artificial neural networks shows that the PCA-based Decision Tree regressor is the most accurate predictor of magnetizations of the Ising model. For energies, however, the accuracy of prediction is not satisfactory, highlighting the need to consider more algorithmically complex methods (e.g., deep learning).Comment: 43 pages and 16 figure

Local isotropy and refractive index fluctuations in the surface layer of the atmosphere

Theoretical and experimental evidence for the existence of local isotropy is briefly examined and conflicting results are found. Recent measurements of temperature spectra support earlier hot wire anemometer and optical scintillation measurements that show little evidence of local isotropy at 1 to 1.5 meters over an extensive uniform and level grass covered field

Promoting widening participation and higher education: Lessons from a four year intervention programme

Since the labour government came to power in 1997, a major policy has been to increase the participation rates of those entering higher education, particularly those from lower-socio economic backgrounds. Just over 10 years later, little has changed. The Brunel Urban Scholars programme is a 4 year long intervention programme for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds aged 12-16. It aims, through university style teaching, emersion in a university environment, and regular interaction with undergraduates, to enhance these students’ aspirations and higher education orientation. Findings from the first 2 years suggest that higher education orientation has increased. Aspirations are showing some signs of increasing, but are more gradual. This evidence supports previous findings from pilot programmes that change is slow, and justifies and suggests the need for a longer intervention programmes