IMPACT of Cash Transfer Programs on School Attendance and Child Poverty: An Ex-ante Simulation for Sri Lanka

For countries assessing whether to implement a cash transfer program, an ex-ante evaluation is vital to assess its potential impacts. This study simulates the impact of alternative cash transfer programs on school attendance and poverty among Sri Lankan children. We find that cash transfer programs targeting poor children would be the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty and encourage school attendance. If means-testing is not feasible, then programs targeting the children in households with at least three school-age children would provide a suitable second-best solution. Our findings suggest that even a limited program budget can provide significant impacts.Cash Transfers; Poverty; School Attendance; Sri Lanka

社会保障システムに関する研究: スリランカと他の新興市場国における事例

政策分析プログラム / Policy Analysis Program政策研究大学院大学 / National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies論文審査委員: Wade Pfau（主査）, 大山 達雄, Minchung Hsu, Alistair Munro, 高橋 新吾（IUJ

Refining Human Capital Insight: An Elegant Exposition of Enriching Essentials: A Book Review

This book review pertaining to “Advanced HRM” offers a panoramic view relating to intricacies of managing people, the most “precious” resource in any organization. The author, having produced a masterpiece “Human Resource Management”, has extended the depth and breadth of its coverage in adding much value, inclusive of concepts, frameworks, applications, cases, tools as well as  reflections. In the logically sequenced twelve chapters, the author offers valuable knowledge enriched with objectives and a series of real life examples. Visual depictions such as frameworks, process flow charts, models and figures have enriched the clarity of thoughts associated with an increased appeal for reading. From a critical perspective, providing useful web links for further reading, additional tools, or latest statistics can be a further improvement.  Also, reference to the contribution towards HRM by regional and local resource personnel could have been  meaningfully incorporated into the discussion. Overall, the author invites the reader for an impactful interaction of reflecting and relating the richly covered content towards the betterment of individuals and institutions alike

Education Policy 2020: Distance and Open Learning Challenges

India faces severe problems in education like huge drop outs from Schools, Colleges, Universities and poor merge GER enrolment ratio of 26.3%. Another crisis is quality in higher education due to lack of professional training got various levels of teachers reflected on the performance of students. This lead to poor performance of students which created huge vacuum as the market is unable to absorb into the Job market. In addition to this access to higher education is limited to a few sections of the society because of location of the institutions and affordability. To overcome different policies have introduced distance Learning Centre’s to cater to the needs of the aspiring people to get education. The NEP 2020’s importance and its integrated approach is critically analyzed to have a comprehensive understanding of the policy in transforming the Education system in India

Sri Lanka’s Role in the World Trade Organization

As the key regulatory body of the international trading system, it is important to analyze Sri Lanka’s position and its role in the WTO system with regard to two aspects. First, to get an understanding about the country’s whole trade regime, its development and its direction. Second aspect is, as a founding member of the GATT and later the WTO, it is important to study about its evolution, achievements and its current position. Further, there are trading partners at bilateral, regional and global levels and scholars who are interested in this field who wish to know Sri Lanka’s current trading position or its role in the WTO. According to Sri Lanka’s trade and economic interests, NAMA, Agriculture, Trade Facilitation, Services, TRIPS, Rules and Aid for Trade are the most important areas as per priority in descending order. Within these areas Sri Lanka’s role in the WTO negotiations has been active

A Study on Natural Language Processing for Sinhalese

博士論文 (Doctoral dissertation)doctoral thesi

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-Infected CCR6+ Rectal CD4+ T Cells and HIV Persistence On Antiretroviral Therapy.

BackgroundIdentifying where human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) persists in people living with HIV and receiving antiretroviral therapy is critical to develop cure strategies. We assessed the relationship of HIV persistence to expression of chemokine receptors and their chemokines in blood (n = 48) and in rectal (n = 20) and lymph node (LN; n = 8) tissue collected from people living with HIV who were receiving suppressive antiretroviral therapy.MethodsCell-associated integrated HIV DNA, unspliced HIV RNA, and chemokine messenger RNA were quantified by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Chemokine receptor expression on CD4+ T cells was determined using flow cytometry.ResultsIntegrated HIV DNA levels in CD4+ T cells, CCR6+CXCR3+ memory CD4+ T-cell frequency, and CCL20 expression (ligand for CCR6) were highest in rectal tissue, where HIV-infected CCR6+ T cells accounted for nearly all infected cells (median, 89.7%). Conversely in LN tissue, CCR6+ T cells were infrequent, and there was a statistically significant association of cell-associated HIV DNA and RNA with CCL19, CCL21, and CXCL13 chemokines.ConclusionsHIV-infected CCR6+ CD4+ T cells accounted for the majority of infected cells in rectal tissue. The different relationships between HIV persistence and T-cell subsets and chemokines in rectal and LN tissue suggest that different tissue-specific strategies may be required to eliminate HIV persistence and that assessment of biomarkers for HIV persistence may not be generalizable between blood and other tissues

Analyzing the Adoption of Digital Platforms in Sri Lankan Vocational Education, Identifying Software Gaps, and Developing a MERN Based Educational Framework

Digital platforms form an integral part of Sri Lanka’s vocational education but the implementa-tion in this sector is low as a result of conventional practices and infrastructural constraints. It was a task of taking inventory of the current digital adoption in the vocational education of Sri Lanka, identifying the gaps in the software, and building a modern educational framework us-ing the MERN stack. The aim being to create a user centric, accessible digital platform for en-hancing learning experience, controlling courses and designing a platform for student’s assess-ment process. Data was collected through mixed methods, surveys, interviews, and case studies from students, instructors, and administrators. To identify the shortcomings of current plat-forms, data were systematically analyzed for instance, for lack of student engagement features, ineffective course management tools and lack of accessibility for rural learners. The findings were used to build a mature full stack MERN application that included the core functionalities such as student registration, course management, module result tracking and student performance evaluation. The frontend uses React.js, and the back is written using Node.js and Express.js while the data is stored in MongoDB. Visual Studio Code, GitHub, Post-man and design platforms were included as development tools. The application contained ca-pacities similar to course enrolment, GPA calculation, module exams, dynamic improvement following, and course material caring for use. In regard to authentication security, environment specific credential management using CI/CD pipelines, and JSON Web Tokens were specially looked into. Compared to the white flag, completed platform addressed the gaps in critical software and significantly improved usability, effectiveness and user satisfaction in test groups. Results showed administrative efficiency improved and students learned better. Finally, the research and development process has demonstrated that a MERN based built tailored, and scalable platform can modernize vocational education delivery in Sri Lanka, and make it more inclusive, efficient, and industry relevant