Labor Day Research Articles

Study the Input Use Pattern and Cost and Returns of Hybrid Cotton Seed Production in Karnataka, India

The cotton industry is a cornerstone of the global agricultural sector, contributing significantly to economies, employment, and trade. The improved situation regarding hybrid seeds made this investigation to undertake the present study on “Input use pattern and cost and return of hybrid cotton seed production”, with major objectives as to study the cost and returns in hybrid cotton seed production and to study the labour use pattern in hybrid cotton seed production in the study area and to suggest appropriate remedial measures. For this study multistage sampling method as well as snow ball technique was adopted to select districts based on highest area and 60 hybrid cotton seed growers. The per acre total labour utilised for the production of hybrid cotton seed was 2075.73 labour days. The per acre total cost incurred for hybrid cotton seed (cost C) stood at ₹ 1,78,204. Cost of production per quintal over the total cost (cost C) was ₹ 20,965 per quintal. Returns per rupee of expenditure results revealed that HCSG obtained ₹ 1.77 returns per rupee of expenditure. Overall, these findings underscore the potential benefits of hybrid seed production in terms of both net returns, overall type of costs and rate of return per rupee of expenditure, despite the higher initial cost.

Research on the Prediction of Flight Passenger Flow in Holidays based on Machine Learning

This article focuses on predicting holiday flight passenger flow to optimize airline resource allocation. Analyzing daily passenger data during key holidays, including New Year’s Day, Qingming Festival, Labour Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, and National Day, the study employs four machine learning models: Random Forest, Multilayer Perceptron, LightGBM, and Stacking. Findings reveal that all models effectively capture holiday flow patterns, with LightGBM demonstrating superior prediction accuracy. Moreover, creating unified models for all holidays outperforms individual holiday-specific models. The study delves into the factors influencing the varying performance of the best model across different features, providing insightful analysis and discussion.

An Application of Social Accounting Matrix to Analyse the Growth Linkages of Sericulture in a Village Economy

Sericulture is an important avenue in rural areas. Karnataka stands second in position in the mulberry silk production of the country during 2020-21. The study describes constructing a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) framework for Naguvanahalli village, Mandya district, Karnataka state, to understand the effect of investment in sericulture on the income distribution of the selected village economy. Sericulture is practised in the Naguvanahalli village through the State Department of Sericulture, Karnataka, and Central Silk Board, Bangalore. Purposive sampling was adopted for data collection from 30 households and 42 economic agents during 2020-21. The SAM framework provides inter-sectoral linkages across the sectors within the village. With `10 lakhs further investment in sericulture as a simulation, there was an impact of 1.82 per cent rise in the aggregate volume of transactions or `14,26,100, implying 4754 labour days or full-time employment to 14 households for 320 employment days per annum per household. The indirect impact on labour employment was 71.17 per cent of the effect of 1.82 per cent. The promotion of sericulture succeeded in generating higher employment and income multipliers, but it still requires strengthened awareness creation in the village.

Strategy and Subterfuge: Billy Graham’s Political Machinations from Montreux to the Mayflower Hotel and Beyond

Abstract One of the turning points in the 1960 presidential campaign was a gathering of 150 Protestant ministers at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on September 7, 1960, two days after Labor Day. During the closed-door gathering, Protestant leaders, including Norman Vincent Peale, unanimously adopted a statement warning about the dangers to the First Amendment and the separation of church and state should a Roman Catholic be elected president. Drawing on newly available archival sources, this article examines the role of religion in the 1960 campaign, including John F. Kennedy’s long struggle to neutralize the issue and the significance of Paul Blanshard’s 1949 best-seller, American Freedom and Catholic Power. Although Peale was roundly criticized for his role in the Mayflower gathering, the real force behind the meeting was Billy Graham, who did not attend. After assuring Kennedy in a letter dated August 10, 1960, that he, Graham, would not raise the religious issue in the campaign, Graham, at Peale’s behest, convened a group of Protestant ministers at the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland eight days later to discuss how they could deny Kennedy’s election in November. The direct consequence of the Montreux meeting was the Mayflower Hotel gathering. While Peale took the heat for the meeting, Graham continued to play both sides, insisting publicly that he was neutral in the presidential race while working behind the scenes to advance Nixon’s candidacy, a strategy he employed again twenty years later in an attempt to jettison the reelection of a fellow evangelical, Jimmy Carter.

Farm location and occupational choices in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for agricultural households in Tanzania

This paper examines how agricultural households in Tanzania use a labor coping strategy in occupational choices between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors due to farm locational effect. It investigates whether agricultural households diversify their income generating activities away from agriculture by using Multinomial logit Marginal Effects model. It employs three rounds panel data from the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) carried out in Tanzania as a typical case of SSA economies. The key finding indicates that for each additional kilometer from their residences, households choose non-agricultural self-employment sector by relocating labor from agricultural sector in response to the associated costs and income risks. The comparable results between distant and farmlands nearby households reveal that for farmlands located in each additional kilometer beyond 7.8 km, a typical household relocates away 20 more labor days from agricultural sector compared to the number of days relocated for a similar effect on a farmland located in close proximity to household residence. Meanwhile, the average household allocates 13 more labor days to non-agricultural self-employed sector compared to the number of labor days allocated to a farmland located in close proximity to household residence. There is no empirical evidence on labor movements to and from the non-agricultural waged sector. The policy outlook from the findings implies improvement of rural transport technology and infrastructure in order to curb the income loss due to distant farmlands.

The long‐run evolution of global real wages

AbstractThis article reviews the literature on comparative real wages in history that has emerged over the past two decades. Research has shown that unskilled men's real wages were higher in England and the Low Countries than in other parts of Europe and Asia from about 1720. Yet 18th‐ and 19th‐century real wages were even higher in the northern American colonies than they were in the European leaders, while those in Latin America were somewhere in the middle of the global wage ladder. This comparative picture is drawn on the basis of unskilled male day wages and various recent contributions focused on specific countries and time periods noting the variation in wage levels and trends for different groups of workers across urban and rural areas and labor contracts, varying days of labor per year, and the crucial and changing contributions of other family members. The latest research also highlights new ways to compute comparative cost‐of‐living indices. Building new datasets to take these issues into account in a new global comparative picture of long‐run real wages is a major area for future research.

Women Struggle for Workers' Rights in Radical and Moderate Feminist Media

Aims: This study sought to take a closer look at how a message and theme are presented by two online feminist alternative media considered to have distinct styles, namely Konde.co which is Radical and Magdalene.co which is Moderate, sincethe text in the news contains a powerful ability to influence the public’s views towards existing reality.  
 Study Design:  This study used quantitative text analysis.
 Place and Duration of Study: 35 articles that are relevant to the topic were taken as research material, with a publication period between April 1, 2019 –May 31, 2023. This period was chosen due to the nuance of Labor Day where many working women voiced their aspirations at that moment
 Methodology: Content analysis is an important research method in social sciences and human sciences. This method has two key advantages. First, it accepts symbolic communications, which are relatively unstructured, as data. It means that content analysis can accept data in the form of text, images, or other symbols, even if they lack clear formal structures.
 Results: Text in the news is very effective in shaping public perceptions of existing reality. In the context of news, text functions as a representation of communication. Through words, sentences and writing styles, text in news can shape how readers perceive and judge reality. In addition, text as a symbol has the ability to convey meaning that seeps into people's feelings or emotions. The massive scale of developments in information technology makes it easier for people to access text in the news. It is also utilized by certain groups to disseminate information using their media. As a result, media have grown healthily in Indonesia.
 Conclusion:  It is clear from this study that Konde.co and Magdalene.co, among others, fill the role of alternative media in voicing women's issues, especially working women. Konde.co is aggressively voicing the issue of female workers using radical language and diction. Magdalene.co, on the other hand, is consistent in pushing the belief that women deserve the same stability and career path as men.

Zoo York: race, gender, enclosures, and the policing of the West Indian Carnival

In tracing the controversy-ridden social history of the West Indian Labor Day Carnival in Central Brooklyn, the phrase ‘Zoo York’ emerged as a powerful descriptor of city life as a staged and enclosed spectacle, an ethos that is enunciated by Carnival. The term ‘Zoo York’ was coined by the hip-hop generation of the 1970s. Zoo York is said to have been inspired by the physical, literal zoo in Central Park, but might have been influenced by the major construction projects that enclosed the inner city of New York City decades prior. In this analysis, Carnival is shown to be a method and praxis for examining the racial and gender aspects of the city. This method places the West Indian Carnival within a larger narrative of enclosure that has been critical in the policing of Black cultural aesthetics in the United States and beyond.

An Economic Analysis of Cost of Production and Marketing Channels of Watermelon in Banaskantha District, Gujarat, India

The objective of the study is to analyse the production costs and marketing channels of watermelon in Banaskantha District, Gujarat, India. Owing to maximum area under cultivation in the district, Deesa, Dantiwada, and Lakhani were purposefully chosen for the study. A multistage sampling method was applied and a total of 120 watermelon farmers, 20 intermediaries, and 20 consumers were selected for data collection. The basic tabular approach and the percentage method were the statistical tools used for data analysis. To estimate the cost of cultivation of the watermelon crop, the cost concept was applied. The marketing effectiveness of the channel was examined using Shepherd's and Acharya's approaches. The watermelon cultivation required a total of 78 man days of labour, including 58 family labours and 20 hired labours. Cost A was ₹19671.95, Cost B was ₹17172.05, and Cost C1 was ₹186087.15, for a total cultivation cost (cost C2) per hectare of ₹204695.87. This resulted in the overall cost of production per quintal of ₹537.82. According to the findings, the majority of farmers (61.67%) sell to contractors, followed by retailers (22.50%) and direct customers (15.83%). It was found that channel I had the highest marketing efficiency (Shepherd's method) i.e., 33.67, followed by channel II with 9.87 and channel III with 5.97. The most effective channel in terms of marketing efficiency (Acharya's method) was channel I, with an efficiency of 33.67, followed by channels II and III with an efficiency of 1.33 and 0.76 respectively. This demonstrated that watermelon farming was profitable in the research area.

The Impact of Saltwater Intrusion on Rice Cultivation and Aquaculture in Ham Tan Commune, Tra Cu District, Tra Vinh Province, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

This article discusses the impact of saltwater intrusion on rice cultivation and aquaculture in Ham Tan commune, Tra Cu District, Tra Vinh Province, Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Based on 15 in-depth interviews and sociological surveys conducted in Ham Tan commune, Tra Cu District, Tra Vinh Province, the article highlights the main findings. Firstly, rice cultivation and aquaculture in Ham Tan are multidimensionally affected by the negative impacts of saltwater intrusion. Secondly, saltwater intrusion reduces crop yields and decreases the area available for rice cultivation. It also increases labor days and investment costs in rice production. Thirdly, saltwater intrusion decreases the productivity of aquaculture. In fact, a significant number of households engaged in aquaculture experienced complete losses due to saltwater intrusion.

Impact of Teleworking on the Labor Day in Spain

Impact of Teleworking on the Labor Day in Spain

Whether or not the weather matters: A retrospective review assessing the influence of weather on SARS-CoV-2 transmission

Background: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many variables have contributed to surges in cases such as the presence of variants, vaccination status, and comorbid medical conditions. However, other factors can be considered including temperature, precipitation, and periods in large congregations. The spike in SARS-CoV-2 infections during the winter has made it seem plausible that transmission may be affected by meteorological factors. A study by Birukov et al demonstrated that a 1°C increase in temperature was associated with a 3.08% reduction in daily new cases and a 1.19% decrease in daily new deaths. We propose that SARS-CoV-2 transmission will decline more rapidly when either precipitation or temperature is higher; thus, in warmer regions with less precipitation daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths will be lower. Methods: This is a retrospective study of statewide data in Hartford County, Connecticut, collected from May 2020 to June 2022 assessing percent positivity reported in daily case count, hospitalizations for COVID-19, and deaths from COVID-19 collected from the Connecticut Department of Public Health COVID-19 database. Information on weather conditions, including temperature and precipitation, were collected from the National Weather Service pertaining to Hartford County. Trends in variables related to patient outcomes were compared to weather conditions within the county of Hartford. Moreover, certain periods within the various seasons that typically involve large gatherings and public holidays (eg, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day) were further analyzed. Results: There appears to be an inverse correlation coefficient of −0.422, between confirmed daily cases and mean temperature in Hartford County, indicating that as temperature increases, confirmed cases decrease. This phenomenon is also observed with confirmed daily deaths and mean temperature, with a correlation coefficient of −0.463. Moreover, there is an even more significant relationship between hospitalization cases and mean temperature, with a correlation coefficient of −0.667. Furthermore, the year-end holidays (Christmas Day and New Year’s Day) were associated with a significant spike in confirmed daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.However, the relationship between confirmed daily cases, hospitalized cases, and confirmed deaths against mean precipitation in Hartford County demonstrated no significant relationship, reporting correlation coefficients of −0.042, −0.044, and −0.044, respectively. Conclusions: Our available COVID-19 and weather data show that temperature is inversely correlated with daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. However, with regard to precipitation, there was no discernable relationship between the variables.Disclosures: None

Multi-objective Allocation Optimization of Soil Conservation Measures Under Data Uncertainty.

Many regions worldwide face soil loss rates that endanger future food supply. Constructing soil and water conservation measures reduces soil loss but comes with high labor costs. Multi-objective optimization allows considering both soil loss rates and labor costs, however, required spatial data contain uncertainties. Spatial data uncertainty has not been considered for allocating soil and water conservation measures. We propose a multi-objective genetic algorithm with stochastic objective functions considering uncertain soil and precipitation variables to overcome this gap. We conducted the study in three rural areas in Ethiopia. Uncertain precipitation and soil properties propagate to uncertain soil loss rates with values that range up to 14%. Uncertain soil properties complicate the classification into stable or unstable soil, which affects estimating labor requirements. The obtained labor requirement estimates range up to 15 labor days per hectare. Upon further analysis of common patterns in optimal solutions, we conclude that the results can help determine optimal final and intermediate construction stages and that the modeling and the consideration of spatial data uncertainty play a crucial role in identifying optimal solutions.

Affordability of household water services across the United States

Households that cannot be able to afford their water bills may lose access to drinking water and wastewater services. This study seeks to quantify how many households may struggle to pay for water services across 787 of the largest drinking water providers located within each state of the United States. Household water affordability is the ability for a household to pay for basic water services without undue hardship. Here, we select 6,000 gallons per month (22.7 m3/mo) as sufficient to meet basic needs and define undue hardship as spending more than 4.6% of household income (one day of labor each month) to pay for water services. Monthly bills are combined with census income data based on service area boundaries to determine how many households are spending more than 4.6% of their income on water services. We find that basic water services are unaffordable for 17% of the households (28.3 million persons) in this study. The median, or representative community, has one in seven households spending more than 4.6% of their income paying for water services. We developed a data visualization tool to allow users to explore how affordability challenges change across different volumes of water usage and levels of financial hardship (https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/water-affordability/water-affordability-united-states). This research shows that household water unaffordability is not a localized problem but rather is a challenge experienced by households in communities across the nation.

በኢትዮጵያ የሩዝ ሜካናይዜሽን: አዝማሚያዎች እና ተስፋዎች

The domestic rice industry of Ethiopia is constrained by low productivity, poor quality, and old processing machines. The rice production system is done by hand or with rudimentary tools, and only 2% of households have access to tractors. It takes 175 labor days to weed and 66% of the total farm operations. Rice harvesting and threshing are done manually using a serrated sickle and animal trembling respectively. Farmers are responsible for most of the pre-milling operations and store paddy for household consumption in local stores. Challenges include fragmented farm holdings, poor marketing channels, and a lack of awareness of post-harvest utilization. The prospects for rice mechanization development include improving the rice mechanization research system, training local entrepreneurs, providing repair and maintenance services, promoting custom hiring centers, local manufacturing of farm implements, organizing agricultural cooperatives, landholding, and land ownership structures, assessing foreign experience, linking importers and service providers, and encouraging investments in the rural infrastructure.

Impact of COVID-19 on the quantity of visitation to leisure tourism facilities in China: cases of Beijing, Shanghai, and Qingdao

ABSTRACT Based on mobile positioning big data, this study analyzes the quantity of visitation changes of leisure tourism facilities under the impact of COVID-19, which is a direct way to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the leisure tourism industry. The quantity of visitation to the four types of leisure facilities (scenic spots, shopping services, sports services, science and cultural education services) in the three Chinese cities (Beijing, Shanghai, and Qingdao) decreased by 63.06% and 44.74% respectively on the Tomb Sweeping Day and the Labor Day in 2020 compared with 2019. The biggest decreasing was in science and cultural education services, followed by scenic spots and sports services, and finally shopping services. The curve of hourly visitations to leisure facilities in 2020 shows a smooth feature, indicating that the public has reduced the risk of pandemic through peak shifting leisure. The analysis of influencing factors shows that the influence of the floor area on visitation is different in different phases. From Tomb Sweeping Day to Labour Day in 2020, the influence of area on leisure behaviour changes from negative to positive. This paper provides a technical framework for assessing the impact of crisis event, and expands the protection motivation theory.

Analysis of veterans crisis line data: Temporal factors associated with the initiation of emergency dispatches.

To identify temporal patterns of emergency dispatches as initiated by Veteran Crisis Line (VCL) responders and among moderate- and high-risk contacts. Incidence rate ratios (IRRs) were used to examine the incidence of emergency dispatches among all 1,437,543 VCL contacts across 2019-2020. Emergency dispatches were initiated in 57,077 (4.0%) contacts. IRRs were elevated during Labor Day, IRR (95% CI) = 1.33 (1.15-1.54), and Independence Day, IRR (95% CI) = 1.22 (1.05-1.43), weekends, Saturdays, IRR (95% CI) = 1.04 (1.01-1.08), Sunday (reference), and 6 pm to 11:59 pm, IRR (95% CI) = 1.06 (1.04-1.09). IRRs for moderate- and high-risk contacts were higher on Memorial Day, IRR (95% CI) = 1.16 (1.00-1.33), Sunday (reference), and 6 pm to 11:59 pm (reference). The initiation of emergency dispatches fluctuates over time and were highest during Labor Day and Independence Day, weekends, and evenings. Moderate- and high-risk contact also fluctuate over time and were highest on Memorial Day, Sundays, and midnight to 5:59 am. VCL policy makers can use knowledge of temporal fluctuations to allocate public health resources for increased efficiency and greatest impact; however, additional research on temporal stability and generalizability is needed.

Study on the Operation and Optimization of Holiday Passenger Flow of Shenyang Metro on the Basis of Queuing Theory

By studying the passenger flow data in and out of the station of Shenyang Metro, the changes of holiday and daily passenger flow are obtained. Determine whether and how to optimize the running interval according to the load factor and the average waiting time of passengers, and provide reference for optimizing the running interval. The selection of holiday passenger flow data is explained, the proportion of the average inbound passenger flow is used as the basis for dividing the inbound passenger flow of different lines at the transfer station. The time series stationarity test is carried out and the passenger flow attraction factor of the subway station is given in order to calculate the full load rate. By using the Random number Generator in MATLAB to generate the time interval between incoming passengers, it is checked that the incoming data of subway obeys Poisson distribution, the full-load ratio of subway and the average waiting time of passengers are calculated. During the Spring Festival, Qingming Festival, Labor Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, the driving interval is set by weighing the full load rate and the service time. Finally, the method of this paper is summarized and explained, the method proposed in this paper has certain reference value for subway operation optimization.

Can the Application of Environmentally Friendly Fertilisers Reduce Agricultural Labour Input? Empirical Evidence from Peanut Farmers in China

Environmentally friendly fertilisers (EFFs) can improve the quality of cultivated land, purify the soil environment, and promote reduction in the amounts of fertiliser applied by improving efficiency. However, few studies have analysed the spillover effects of EFF applications on agricultural labour inputs. Hence, this study discusses the impact of EFFs on agricultural labour input, using the propensity score matching method based on the micro-survey data of peanut growers in the main producing areas in China. The results showed that EFFs have a labour-saving advantage, with a significant average reduction in the number of labourers’ input and labour days in agriculture production of 0.127 persons/mu and 0.601 days/mu at the 1% to 10% significance level. Additionally, EFFs improve yield and revenue but significantly raise production costs, ultimately increasing net revenue for farmers. The mechanism of the labour-saving effect is the capability of EFFs to reduce the amount and frequency of fertilisers applications, the amounts of pesticides applied, and irrigation water consumption by their technical characteristics and farmland’s ecological environment enhancement. Accordingly, the time effect strengthens the ecological regulation function and the application reduction effect of EFFs, further decreasing agricultural labour inputs. At the same time, the application of EFFs contributes to the adoption of mechanical deep tillage and fertilisation technology (MDTFT), thereby reducing fertiliser application and ultimately improving the labour-saving effect of EFFs. Heterogeneity analysis revealed that the labour-saving effect of EFFs is more obvious for farmers operating with a larger planting scale. To improve the labour-saving effect of EFFs, the findings imply that the application years of EFFs should be appropriately extended and the MDTFT should be promoted according to local conditions.

Effectiveness of video assisted teaching on child birth preparedness and labor outcome among primigravida mothers

Pregnancy is a vital event in a woman's life. Many primigravida mothers do not have adequate knowledge regarding birth preparedness. Video-assisted teaching on birth preparedness helps improve the level of knowledge. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of video-assisted teaching on knowledge regarding childbirth preparedness among primigravida mothers. A pre-experimental, one-group pre-test, post-test design without a control group was adopted for the study. Fifty primigravida mothers were selected using the non-probability purposive sampling technique. A self-structured knowledge questionnaire was used to collect the required data. The pre-test was conducted after 37 weeks of gestation. The video was played for 20 minutes to make the subjects aware of childbirth preparedness. The posttest was conducted on the day of labor using the same self-structured questionnaire. At the time of labor, maternal pain perception was assessed using the Wong-Baker pain coping scale. The collected data were tabulated and scrutinized using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results show that the majority of the sample had a moderate level of knowledge, while no one had adequate or inadequate knowledge in the pretest. In the post-test, the majority of the samples (30%) had an adequate level of knowledge, 13% had a moderate level, and 7% had an inadequate level of knowledge in childbirth preparedness among primigravida mothers. The pre-test mean knowledge score was 14.82 with a standard deviation of 1.98, and in the post-test, the score was 26.28 with a standard deviation of 1.38. The mean difference was high and statistically significant. The study concludes that video-assisted teaching was effective in improving the level of knowledge of primigravida mothers regarding childbirth preparedness.