(Why) Do Self-Employed Parents Have More Children?

We provide a theory whereby non-benevolent, self-employed households increase their expected family size to raise the likelihood that an inside family member will be a good match at running the business. Hence, having larger family sizes raises the self-employed household’s expected return to their business. Using data from the General Social Survey, we find that respondents have approximately .2 to .4 more actual and expected number of children if they are self-employed as compared to if they are not self-employed. This empirical relationship is established across a broad array of sub-samples using a simple differences in means test. As well, the empirical relationship holds using a regression framework, including the use of instrumental variables estimation to allow for the possibility of endogeneity of the respondent’s self-employment status and whether the respondent’s spouse stays at home.self-employed, children, familiy business, matching

AID AND AGENCY IN AFRICA EXPLAINING FOOD DISBURSEMENTS ACROSS ETHIOPIAN HOUSEHOLDS, 1994-2004.

We study the distribution of food aid in Ethiopia between 1994 and 2004 using data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey. Over this period village leaders had considerable discretion in disbursing aid subject to official guidelines and periodic monitoring. We use a principal-agent model and household panel data for approximately 940 households to understand biases in the allocation of aid. The model shows that correlations between aid and observed measures of need are not a good measure of targeting because agents have incentives to distort allocations within targeted classes. Consistent with the model, we find that the aid recipients match official criteria but disbursements are negatively correlated with determinants of need that are not easily observable by monitoring agencies, namely pre-aid consumption, self-reported power and involvement in village-level organizations. Our results suggest informal structures of power within African villages influence the extent to which food aid insulates some of the world's poorest families from agricultural shocks but also that policy guidelines do constrain permissible deviations from need-based allocations.

Ethiopia’s youth and their labour market prospects

The transition from education to employment often presents challenges for the youth in many countries, culminating in rates of youth unemployment that are habitually higher than the unemployment rate for adults. High youth unemployment is likely to have adverse social and economic consequences for an economy, with a large proportion of the young population unable to engage in productive activities

A Transmission Model For Diffusion Based Molecular Communication Nano Networks

Tez (Yüksek Lisans) -- İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, 2016Thesis (M.Sc.) -- İstanbul Technical University, Instıtute of Science and Technology, 2016Nano ölçekli haberleşmenin tanıtımından sonra moleküler haberleşme, bilim adamları için cazip bir araştırma konusu haline çevrilmiştir. Nanoağların çok sayıda olası uygulamaları günümüzde moleküler haberleşmeyi daha da çekici kılmıştır. Bu olası uygulamalar biyomedikal alanında akıllı ilaç dağıtımı ve sağlık izleme sistemlerinden başlayıp, askeri ve çevresel alanlarda uygulanan hava kirliliğini izleme gibi uygulamalarla değişe bilir.Nanoağ, nanomakine veya moleküler makine gibi adlandırılan nanocihazlar arasında haberleşme veya iletişim biçimidir. Nanomakine, nanometre ölçekli bileşenlere dayanan yapay cihaz olarak düşünüle bilir. Moleküler haberleşme, nanomakinelerin algılaya, hesaplaya ve haberleşe bildiği iletişim türlerinden biridir. Transmisyon veya aktarma, yayılma/üreme ve resepsiyon - moleküler haberleşmede gönderici ve alıcı arasında bilgi değişimini sağlamak için üç ana aşamadır. Moleküler haberleşmenin önemli bir türü olan difüzyon tipli moleküler iletişim, serbest difüzyon yolu ile gönderici ve alıcı düğümleri arasında moleküllerin yayılmasına esaslanıyor. Difüzyon tipli moleküler iletişimde üç farklı aşama vardır. İlk aşama emisyon aşamasıdır. Bu aşamada, verici veya geçirici nanomakine veya gönderen düğüm çalışma ortamına parçacıklar yayar. İkinci faz veya aşama ise difüzyon sürecini oluşturmaktadır. Bu fazda vericiden yayılan hissecikler Brown hareketine tabidir. Son olarak, sonuncu aşama olan resepsiyon fazında alıcı nanomakine veya alıcı düğümler tüm parçacıkları yakalıyorlar. Bu tez boyunca, verici ve alıcı düğümler bir-biriyle temas halinde olan ve parçacıkları yakalayan düğümler olarak görülmüştür. Çalışma ortamı ise hiç bir molekülün veya başka bir parçacığın kaçıp kurtulamadığı sınırlı bir sistemdir. Ayrıca, transmisyon veya aktarma sürecinde verici düğümden ayrılan ve etrafa yayılan molekül ve parçacıklar, sınırlı çalışma ortamında dolaşıyor ve eğer bir parçacık çalışma ortamının sınırına ulaştığında, duvara değerek sisteme geri dönüyor. Bu nedenle, sınırlı çalışma ortamında parçacıkların sayısı zaman boyunca değişmezkalıyor. Belirli t zamanında verici düğüm tarafından serbest bırakılan parçacıkların toplam sayısı mdoeliın girdisini veya sinyalini göstermektedir.Daha sonra, model sinyali difüzyon yoluyla sınırlı akışkan alanda ilerler. Bu çalışmada, molekül ve tüm parçacıkların difüzyonu rastegele yürüyüşle elde edilmiştir.Bu nedenle, verici ve alıcı düğümler arasındakı parçacıkların ilerlemesi ve yayılımı benzersiz Brown hareketi ile gerçekleştirilmektedir. Verici düğümün kapasitesi, alıcı düğümün sinyal alımı üzerine yaptığı etkileri incelemek amacıyla sınırlandırılmış ve belli bir miktarın üzerinde olamaz hale getirilmiştir. Örneğin, eğer verici düğümün rezervuar kapasitesi doluysa, yeni gelen parçacık verici düğümden çıkan diğer parçacıklara çarpa bilir. Her parçacık, her bir eksen boyunca mutlak sıcaklık ve Boltzman sabitinin çarpımının yarısına eşit olan kinetik enerjiye sahiptir. Ve aynı zamanda, her parçacık, zamandan bağımsız olduğu kabul edilen kitle ve hıza da sahiptir. Modelin esas amaçlarından biri, verici düğümün alıcı düğüm üzerinde olan sinyal resepsiyon etkisini araştırmaktır. Alıcı düğüm, kendi aralığı dahilinde sinyal gücüne tabi olan konsantrasyonu ölçer. Bu tez çalışması,alıcı düğümlerin sinyal gücünün verici düğümler tarafındansınırlı bir çalışma alanında nasıl zayıflatıla-bilindiklerini araştırıp göz önüne sergiliyor. Alıcı düğümde gerçekleşen alıcı sinyalin analitik ifadesi grafiksel olarak gösterilmiştir; verici düğümlerinin ve onların vericilik performanslarının artan sonuçlarının etkileri bu çalışmada söz konusu olmuştur. Bilim adamları iki veya daha fazla verici düğümlerinden ibaret nanoağlar üzerinde çalışırken bu makale ve çalışmada ireli sürülen analitik ifadeni difüzyon sürece dayanan moleküler haberleşme ve iletişimlerde bu makaleyi referans olarak gösterip kolaylıkla kullana bilirler. Tezin geri kalanı ise şu şekilde düzenlenmiştir: I. bölümde giriş kısmı belirlenmiştir. II. bölümde ise tüm detaylı açıklamalarıyla model tasvirinden bahsedilmiştir. III.bölümde ise, iki veya daha fazla verici düğümün olduğu her durum için verici düğümün konsantrasyonunu veya yoğunluğunu hesaplayan analitik ifade gösterilmiştir. Simulasyon sonuçlari IV. bölümde açıklanmış ve detaylı şekilde anlatılmıştır. V. bölümde, difüzyon denklemi için sayısal bir çözüm üretmede kullanılansayısal yaklaşım denklemleri ile elde edilen kesin sonlu yöntemler anlatıldı. Bu bölümde alıcı düğümün sinyal gücünü ölçmek icin açık sayısal, kapalı sayısal ve Crank Nicolson şablonları kullanılmıstır. Açık sayısal ve Crank Nicolson şablonları ile elde edilen sonuçlar, kapalı sayısal şablon ile elde edilen sonuçlar ile karşılaştırıldığında daha iyi sonuçlar ürettiği görülmüstür. Son olarak, VI. bölümdeki sonuç kısmında ise IV. ve V. bölümdeki hesaplama sonuçlarını da kullanarak tüm sonuçlar grafiksel olarak çizilmiştir.Molecular communication has been an attractive topic for researchers afterthe introduction of the nanoscale communications. Numerous potential applications of nanonetworks make molecular communication even more appealing.These potential applications range from biomedical applications, such as intelligent drug delivery and health monitoring systems, to military and environmentalapplications such as air pollution monitoring. Nanonetworks is a communication between nanodevices, called nanomachines or molecular machine. A nanomachine can be definedas an artificial device that relies on nanometer-scale components.Molecular communication is one of the types of nanonetworks in which nanomachines are able to sense, calculate, actuate and intercommunicate. Transmission, propagation and reception are the three main stages to provide information exchange between sender and receiver in molecular communication. Diffusion based molecular communication that is an essential type of molecular communication, relies on propagation of molecules between sender and receiver nodes through free diffusion. There are three different phases in diffusion based molecular communication. The first phase is named emission process. In this phase, the transmitter nanomachine or the sender node emits particles into the medium. The second phase is composed of diffusion process. In this part, emitted particles by the transmitter node are subject to Brownian motion. Finally, the last phase, the reception process in which the receiver nanomachine or receiving node absorb or capture all particles within its range. Throughout this thesis, the harvester and receiver nodes have been considered as absorbers that capture particles which are in contact with their range. For the working operating environment is a bounded confined one, no particle escapes from it. Furthermore, particles released by the transmitter node during transmission process, circulate in the bounded operating environment and when a particle reaches the edge or boundary of the working environment, it is bounced back into the working environment. Therefore, the total number of particles within the bounded operating environment remains unchanged along the time. The amount of particles to be released by the transmitter node at a certain time t represents the input or the signal of the model. Afterwards, the signal of the model propagates in the bounded fluidic space via diffusion. In this work, the diffusion of particles is achieved via random walk. Therefore, the propagation of particles between transmitter and receiver nodes is uniquely accomplished via Brownian motion. Harvester nodes have been assigned a limited harvesting capacity that cannot exceed a certain amount of particles in order to investigate their impact upon the signal reception at the receiving node. For example, if the harvesting node reservoir capacity is full, a new particle reaching its range will result to hitting one particle from the harvester reservoir. A particle has a kinetic energy along each axis, which is the half of the product of the absolute temperature and Boltzmann’s constant. And also it has a mass and speed or velocity that has been assumed to be unchanged and independent of time. The model is to investigate the impact of the harvester nodes on signal reception at the receiver node. The receiver node measures the concentration within its range, which is subject to the signal strength. This thesis investigates how harvesting nodes can degrade the signal strength of the receiver node in a confined space. The analytic expression of the received signal at the receiver node has been drawn; the effects of the increasing number of harvesting nodes and the harvesting rate have been discussed in this work.Scientists in diffusion based molecular communication may use that analytic expression proposed in this current paper when dealing with nanonetworks composed of more than two receiving nodes. The signal received in terms of concentrations at the receiver node has been approximated using finite difference methods and the accuracy of each numerical scheme (Explicit, Implicit and Crank Nicolson) has been computed and compared to the analytic solutions. The rest of the thesis is organized as follows. The introduction is given in section I. The model description is presented in section II. In section III, the analytic expression that computes the concentration of receiver node in a scenario of multiple harvesters is proposed. The results are discussed in section IV. The section V provides the approximations on the signal received at the receiver nanomachine. Finally, a conclusion has been drawn based on the results obtained at sections IV and V in section VI.Yüksek LisansM.Sc

(Why) Do Self-Employed Parents Have More Children?

We provide a theory whereby non-benevolent, self-employed households increase their expected family size to raise the likelihood that an inside family member will be a good match at running the business. Hence, having larger family sizes raises the self-employed household's expected return to their business. Using data from the General Social Survey, we find that respondents have approximately .2 to .4 more actual and expected number of children if they are self-employed as compared to if they are not self-employed. This empirical relationship is established across a broad array of sub-samples using a simple differences in means test. As well, the empirical relationship holds using a regression framework, including the use of instrumental variables estimation to allow for the possibility of endogeneity of the respondent's self-employment status and whether the respondent's spouse stays at home

Geographic variation of female genital mutilation and legal enforcement in sub-saharan Africa : a case study of Senegal

This paper draws on household data to examine the prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Senegal and the effectiveness of the country's anti-FGM law in dealing with actual breaches and providing protection to the victims. The 2010-2011 Senegal Demographic Health Survey and Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (SDHS-MICS) covers 14,228 women and their daughters. Logistic regression was used to investigate the geographic distribution of FGM across regions. For the enforceability of anti-FGM, desk research was used. Overall prevalence among women and daughters was 28.1% and 6.2%, respectively. Significant factors were sociodemographics, ethnicity, and region. This analysis shows both advantages and vulnerabilities of the anti-FGM law in relation to the issue of enforcement. It indicates that the law falls short of offering adequate protection to potential victims. FGM is a cultural and social norm imbedded predominantly in rural settings and as such, drives resistance to jettisoning FGM. Legislation has been one of the driving forces behind the eradication of the practice

Service delivery in Kenyan district hospitals – what can we learn from literature on mid-level managers?

BACKGROUND: There is a growing emphasis on the need to tackle inadequate human resources for health (HRH) as an essential part of strengthening health systems; but the focus is mostly on macro-level issues, such as training, recruitment, skill mix and distribution. Few attempts have been made to understand the capability of health workers, their motivation and other structural and organizational aspects of systems that influence workforce performance. We have examined literature on the roles of mid-level managers to help us understand how they might influence service delivery quality in Kenyan hospitals. In the Kenyan hospital settings, these are roles that head of departments who are also clinical or nursing service providers might play. METHODS: A computerized search strategy was run in Pub Med, Cochrane Library, Directory of Open Access Journals Social Science Research Network, Eldis, Google Scholar and Human Resources for Health web site databases using both free-text and MeSH terms from 1980 to 2011. In addition, citation searching from excluded and included articles was used and relevant unpublished literature systematically identified. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: A total of 23 articles were finally included in the review from over 7000 titles and abstracts initially identified. The most widely documented roles of mid-level managers were decision-making or problem-solving, strategist or negotiator and communicator. Others included being a therapist or motivator, goal setting or articulation and mentoring or coaching. In addition to these roles, we identified important personal attributes of a good manager, which included interpersonal skills, delegation and accountability, and honesty. The majority of studies included in the review concerned the roles that mid-level managers are expected to play in times of organizational change. CONCLUSION: This review highlights the possible significance of mid-level managers in achieving delivery of high-quality services in Kenyan public hospitals and strongly suggests that approaches to strengthen this level of management will be valuable. The findings from this review should also help inform empirical studies of the roles of mid-level managers in these settings

Women’s studies and contingency: between exploitation and resistance

We know the numbers: 76 percent of faculty in U.S. universities is contingent. We are captivated by the viral news pieces: “Thesis Hatement,” “Academia’s Indentured Servants,” “Death of a Professor”, and “The PhD Now Comes with Food Stamps”– and we follow hashtags on Twitter – #NotYourAdjunctSidekick. But in what ways does Women’s Studies’ relatively precarious place within academia fit into these conversations? How do feminists working in a variety of disciplines reconcile their feminist labor politics with the need to grow their programs and departments under the edicts of the corporate university, particularly when relying upon contingent labor to do so? These questions were at the heart of three collectively-organized sessions on feminist contingency at the 2014 annual National Women’s Studies Association Conference (NWSA) in San Juan Puerto Rico, the highlights of which are presented here. It is our hope that the lessons learned in this historic event -- lessons about silence-breaking and collectivizing, but also about inequity, privilege, shame and guilt -- will be used in WS classrooms, departmental meetings and beyond, contributing to the growing conversation about this most important issue, and maybe even offering action steps toward solutions

Secular trends in the prevalence of female genital mutilation/cuttings among girls: a systematic analysis

Background Current evidence on the decline in the prevalence of female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) has been lacking worldwide. This study analyses the prevalence estimates and secular trends in FGM/C over sustained periods (ie, 1990–2017). Its aim is to provide analytical evidence on the changing prevalence of FGM/C over time among girls aged 0–14 years and examine geographical variations in low-income and middle-income countries. Methods Analysis on the shift in prevalence of FGM/C was undertaken using the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) data sets from Africa and Middle East. A random-effects model was used to derive overall prevalence estimates. Using Poisson regression models, we conducted time trends analyses on the FGM/C prevalence estimates between 1990 and 2017. Findings We included 90 DHS and MICS data sets for 208 195 children (0–14 years) from 29 countries spread across Africa and two countries in Western Asia. The prevalence of FGM/C among children varied greatly between countries and regions and also within countries over the survey periods. The percentage decline in the prevalence of FGM/C among children aged 0–14 years old was highest in East Africa, followed by North and West Africa. The prevalence decreased from 71.4% in 1995 to 8.0% in 2016 in East Africa. In North Africa, the prevalence decreased from 57.7% in 1990 to 14.1% in 2015. In West Africa, the prevalence decreased from 73.6% in 1996 to 25.4% in 2017. The results of the trend analysis showed a significant shift downwards in the prevalence of FGM/C among children aged 0–14 years in such regions and subregions of East Africa, North Africa and West Africa. East Africa has experienced a much faster decrease in the prevalence of the practice (trend=−7.3%, 95% CI −7.5% to −7.1%) per year from 1995 to 2014. By contrast, the decline in prevalence has been much slower in North Africa (trend=−4.4%, 95% CI −4.5% to −4.3%) and West Africa (trend=−3.0%, 95% CI −3.1% to −2.9%). Conclusion The prevalence of FGM/C among children aged 0–14 years varied greatly between countries and regions and also within countries over the survey periods. There is evidence of huge and significant decline in the prevalence of FGM/C among children across countries and regions. There is a need to sustain comprehensive intervention efforts and further targeted efforts in countries and regions still showing high prevalence of FGM/C among children, where the practice is still pervasive

Contra \u27 Verses: Jazz with the intersectionality of race and politics

This project is both a musical performance and an original album idea. My intention is to explore the trope of creating contrafacts from jazz standards (i.e. Tin Pan Alley, Great American Songbook). Inspired by the contrafacts I was required to submit of: “All the Things You Are,” “Inner Urge,” and Footprints”; which I submitted as: “All the Things Emmett Till Could have Been,” “Inner Outer Africa” and “Harriet Tubman’s Feet” respectively. My contrafacts both play on the wording of the standard and allude to a historical and racial significance replete with contradiction. They have relevance to both American history and current socio-political unrest in this country. The notion of relevance is essential here. I want to create jazz that is engaging and entertaining to my generation, and without relevance that becomes impossible.https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-global-jazz/1035/thumbnail.jp