Law Index Research Articles

Country Trafficking Protocol Compliance and the Empowerment of Girls and Women

Human trafficking is a gender-based crime of violence. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Protocol) is one of the most important international means to counter human trafficking; however, the ability of the United Nations to enforce the Protocol is considerably limited. The primary purpose of this study is to theoretically and empirically explore the underlying societal factors that drive - or impede - a country’s compliance with the Protocol. We theorize that countries that have relatively fewer gender-based discriminatory laws, policies, and social practices place a greater value on the welfare of girls and women and are more likely to comply with the Protocol. This hypothesis is empirically tested using a cross-country dataset and a series of ordered logit regressions. Cho et al.’s 3 P index is used to measure country compliance. The degree of women’s inclusivity and empowerment in relation to laws and regulations is measured using the World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law index. The level of socio-economic gender empowerment and inclusivity within a country is assessed using; women’s labor force participation rate, the percentage of parliament seats held by women, and the United Nation’s Gender Inequality Index. The analysis results offer empirical evidence that the degree to which girls and women experience inclusivity and empowerment is a predictor of country compliance. This study extends previous research exploring the relationship between gender inequality and human trafficking to examine how measures of gender inequality can hinder country Protocol compliance.

Women's Labor Participation in Ghana and Effects on Human Development: A Focus on Entrepreneurship

The purpose of this paper is to examine the gender-rooted challenges that women entrepreneurs face in Ghana and to analyze the impacts that increasing women’s rights and entrepreneurship have had on the country’s economy. Several indicators (including labor force participation, women's seats in national parliaments, the Women Business and the Law index, primary completion rate, and the gender inequality index) of gender equality and the prevalence of women’s entrepreneurship are compared with economic and human development trends. Through statistical regressions, the paper’s findings show a positive correlation between greater income equality and women’s seats in national parliament, as well as with the human development index, and conclude that the best way to reduce gender inequality is to increase the number of women in positions of power, as well as improve the education and skill development for women.

Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Economic Freedom and Women's Empowerment

Women’s empowerment conduces economic growth and is crucial for empowering women. Economic freedom means that people can take economic actions independently. Yet, women remain disadvantaged in developing countries like Pakistan. The current study analyses how economic freedom fosters women’s empowerment in Pakistan. We employed time series data for 1990-2021. We employed an index of women’s empowerment (WEI) and the Women's Business and Law Index (WBLI) for economic freedom. WBLI is based on 8 distinct indicators that include diverse aspects of a woman’s life. After unit root testing, we used the ARDL approach followed by the Bound test. The long and short-run empirics have confirmed the association of women’s empowerment and economic freedom in Pakistan. There is a positive and statistically significant relationship between them. A significant ECT term with a negative sign further confirms the long-run association. Women’s mobility, women’s decision to work, rules and laws for equal pay, legal barriers to marriage for women, women’s decision to work after childbirth, restrictions for registering a business on women entrepreneurs, discrimination in the division of property and regulation for women’s pension are the factors that still impede the absolute economic freedom of women in the society.

The impact of women’s labor resources on economic growth in Uzbekistan

One of the main economic and social wealth of Uzbekistan is its people. Although policymaker pay the special attention at the gender equality in almost every aspect of our lives, we still have gender bias in our labor market. The current study empirically investigated the relationship between female labor force participation and economic prosperity of the country. The paper implemented Granger casualty test to define which variable causes to change another variable amongst the gathered secondary data, after it employed Last Squares method to define the long term relationship amongst variables such as GDP, female labor force participation rates (FLFPR), fertility rates, female unemployment rates, female higher educational attainment and women in business and law index. The study showed that GDP influences the tribulations in rates of female labor force participation, and not on the contrary. Meanwhile, OLS regression gave a negative output of the correlations amongst GDP, Female Unemployment Rate, and Female in Business and Law Index regarding to the FLFPR. The significance of Women in Business and Law index is insignificant. In contrast the long term positive relationship is defined among fertility rate and higher education attainment with FLFPR. But in case of fertility rates the variable is insignificant.

Quantifying for Qualifying: A Framework for Assessing Gender Equality in Higher Education Institutions

The objective of this study is to present the development of a framework for assessing gender inequality in higher education institutions (HEIs) which reveals how this academic environment is progressing in terms of gender balance. It proposes a multi-dimension-based index comprised by five dimensions—Empowerment, Education, Health, Violence, and Time. The mathematical model used enables the user to assign a weight value to each dimension, customizing the results according to the institution addressed. The paper is based on a post-doctoral research project which analyzed six globally recognized indexes (Gender Inequality Index; Global Gender Gap Index; Women, Business, and Law Index; Gender Equality Index; Social Institutions Global Index; Women Empowerment Principles) to construct a new framework for gender inequality evaluation tailored for HEIs. It used a Laplace–Gauss-based scale. The research included an experiment of concrete application to two instiutions, one in Europe and the other in South America. While the first one had a Gender Equality Plan, the second had not. The analysis was successfully conducted in both institutions. The two institutions presented general results above 60%. These results need to be read in the specific context of each university. The Gender Equality in Higher Education Institutions Index (GEHEI) provides a user-friendly way of checking the existence of gender inequality, summarized into a single number but able to be detailed in several levels and to provide insight into progression over time. The handling of the GEHEI tool is also very straightforward. The proposal is designed to be used in different HEIs; it is recommended that researchers customize the weights of the dimensions according to their relevance in the specific organization. This paper provides a new methodological model to measure gender inequality in HEIs based on easy-to-obtain data, distinguishing itself from global indexes by its ease of application and interpretation.

Exploration of Ostwald-de Waele non-Newtonian nanofluid subject to Lorentz force, and entropy optimization in a corrugated porous medium enclosure: Galerkin finite element analysis

In this work, we combine the rheological and nanofluidic properties of the fluid in a hermetically sealed chamber. The work was accomplished digitally using Galerkin finite element technique. The work aims to know the effect of these complex properties of the fluid on the quality of thermal activity of the type of free convection. The fluid of this study is composed of a complex fluid with viscosity added to a proportion of nanoparticles. As for the room, it has ripples on the walls and an elliptical obstacle in the middle. The thermal transfer studied here takes place between the hot elliptical obstacle and the cold walls of the room. based on this proposition, the issues studied here are: undulation number (N = 1, 2, 3, and 4); Power – law index (n = 0.8, 1, 1.2, and 1.4); Darcy number (Da = 10-2, 10-3, 10-4, and 10-5); Rayleigh number (Ra = 103, 104, 105, and 106); Hartmann number (Ha = 0, 25, 50, and 100); and the rotational angle of elliptic cylinder (γ = 0, 30, 60, and 90°). The finding shows that the Nusselt number (Nu), is augmented when these parameters increase: Da (for all values of Ra) and γ (large Ra). At the height’s Ra number (106) it was observed that increasing the Ha number and Da number reduced Nu by 18 % and 65 %, respectively. While Nu was enhanced by 129 % when increasing Da number at Ra = 106.

Construction Cost Budget Control Based on the Dynamic Distributed Clustering Algorithm

In order to improve the effect of construction cost budget control, this paper applies the dynamic distributed clustering algorithm to the analysis of project cost budget data and proposes a two-stage strategy iterative algorithm to obtain the iterative control law and iterative performance index function. Moreover, this paper constructs an executive evaluation neural network to approximate the iterative control law and iterative performance index function, respectively. This neural network structure can implement the proposed algorithm online without the need for system dynamics. Through numerical simulation research and evaluation test research, it can be seen that the dynamic distributed clustering algorithm proposed in this paper has a good effect on the construction cost budget control system, which can effectively improve the reliability of construction project cost budget control.

Uncertainty and gender inequality: A global investigation

There is increasing interest in the consequences of uncertainty, yet research on its effects on gender equality is scarce. This study investigates the impact of uncertainty on gender inequality using a sample of 100 countries over the period 1991–2017. The analysis is carried out for 22 indicators of gender inequality in four dimensions (employment, health, education, rights) and five uncertainties (domestic uncertainty, world uncertainty, world trade uncertainty, global economic policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk). First, uncertainty appears to increase gender inequality in employment by affecting vulnerable employment, unemployment, and self-employment; and by reducing waged and salaried employment, numbers of contributing family workers, labour force participation, and employment in industry and services. Second, uncertainty is found to be very harmful in its effect on gender equality in health, as it decreases life expectancy and survival to age 65, and increases the mortality of women. Third, uncertainty improves gender equality in education, as it increases school enrolment at primary and tertiary levels. Fourth, uncertainty improves the Women, Business and the Law Index, but has mixed effects on women’s economic, political, and social rights.

Experimental studies on several properties of PEG 400 and MWCNT nano-enhanced PEG 400 fluids

The main aim of this research is to design and study MWCNTs nanoparticles influence on polyethylene glycol PEG 400 thermophysical properties and structure. In order to accomplish this objective, four suspensions were manufactured and studied, along and in comparison with the base fluid. Structural analysis, in terms of powder X-ray Diffraction Studies (PXRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), rheology and electrical conductivity measurements were performed and was found that samples exhibit good electrical properties, while the viscosity was found to increase when MWCNTs are added. More precisely, melting and phase transitions were explored in relation to temperature from differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) thermograms. Experimental outcomes were linked with the values delivered in the literature and were discussed using different theoretical or experimental correlations. The increase in electrical conductivity is a polynomial one, going to an enhancement of about 16 times when 0.1 wt%. MWCNTs are added to the PEG 400. Rheological results show a non-Newtonian behavior of suspensions and an in-depth discussion on consistency and power – law index was included, together with the viscosity variation as functions of temperature and nanoparticle volume concentration (using Vogel–Fulcher–Tammann equation). Concluding, when it comes to viscosity analysis of MWCNT enhanced fluids, both nanoparticle dimensions, as well as shear rate are relevant influencing parameters.

Ukraine in International Systems for Measuring Gender Inequality

The article contains a complete list of global and regional instruments for measuring gender inequality relevant to Ukraine with global indices at the forefront, as well as international gender equality assessment systems and data portals available at the global, regional and sectoral levels.
 The structure of each of the five global complex and eight global sectoral gender indices from among those covering Ukraine was analyzed: Gender-related Development Index, GDI; Gender Gap Index, GGI; Social Institutions and Gender Index, SIGI; Gender Inequality Index, GII; The SDG Gender Index, SDGGI; Women, Business and the Law Index, WBLI; Women’s Economic Opportunity Index, WEO; Gender Budgeting Indicator, GBI; Women, Peace, and Security Index, WPSI; Gender Social Norms Index, GSNI; Women’s Power Index, WPI; The Female Opportunity Index 2021, FOI2021; Gender Parity Index, GPI.
 The sub-indicators of these indices were analyzed, in fourteen thematic areas identified in accordance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Areas were ranked according to the level of their coverage by global data presented in the indices.
 Thematic gender data portals were analyzed and a list of nine sectoral global data was compiled, in particular for Ukraine: Gender data by DHS Program; Gender Data Portal (GenderStats) by The World Bank; Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Gender Quotas Database; The World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE); Gender, Institutions and Development Database; Inter-Parliamentary Union’s: Women in Parliament; ILOStat Labour Statistics on Women; Digital Gender Gaps; Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Dataset.
 Based on the results of the analysis, key thematic areas of women’s rights were identified and ranked, whether or not covered by global gender data, on which the indices were built. These areas are: Employment; Political and social life (covered by nine indices out of thirteen relevant to Ukraine); Education (by eight indices, respectively); Commitment to eliminate discrimination (by seven indices); Economic and social life (by six indices); Health care and family planning (by five indices).
 Areas where the gender situation may remain unclear due to the lack of global data and the lack of international comparisons have been identified, namely: Temporary special measures; Participation at the international level; Marriage and family life. These areas are covered by only two indices out of thirteen. The thematic area “Women and girls from rural areas” is the least covered by global data and is indexed in only one index out of thirteen. It is concluded that these last thematic areas will be particularly dependent on national statistics and will be in dire need of data.

Repositioning Democratic Governance in Africa for Better Dividends Delivery: A Case for Performance

Given the fact that democracy as a system and form of governance which allows for even participation, freedom of expression, rule of law and other indices attached thereto, had awaken the consciousness of humanity from all over the world to key into this form of leadership due to its uncommon benefits. Africa her ‘third world cousins’ seemed to have remained in a slumbering position and have refused to wake up and wear the toga of democratic principles as acts displayed by leaders lacked democratic character. This paper argues that democratic dividends and flavour can be felt and directly impacted on the citizens of Africa especially Nigeria, if adequate political socialization, culturalization and consciousness are fused as part of her cultural education. This new consciousness and democratic mindset will arguably make leaders and the led see each other as an inclusive indispensable part of the whole. It will also eliminate unwantom suspicion, rancour, ethnic bigotry, exclusion and hegemonic display of power and more so, leadership may not be tenured but anchored on performance and service delivery. The paper believes that with a political consciousness, socialization and high sense of political culture, leadership becomes service to the humanity and not business enterprise. Hence leaders that performed optimally may continue to serve the people if they so desire. This paper adopts critical, analytical and expository methods.

Perceptions About Compliance with Law and Vulnerable Groups in Brazil

This paper investigates the degree of effectiveness of the rule of law in by analyzing how some vulnerable social groups, such as women and black people, deals with the compliance with law and with some authorities’ orders in Brazil. We created the Brazilian Confidence in Justice (BCJI) as a validate argument for our confidence measure and the Brazil Perception of Compliance with Law Index (BPCLI) that measure perceptions, attitudes and habits of Brazilians concerning compliance to law. We identified some reasons that could explain the perceptions of these specific social groups. We found that there is a positive and significant relationship between the Brazilian Confidence in Justice (BCJI) and Perception of Compliance with Law (BPCLI). This paper innovates when it shows some patterns regarding two vulnerable groups analyzed here: women and blacks believe that there are few reasons for a person like them obey the laws. In addition, we concluded that women have a higher level of BPCLI than men, which means, women comply with the law more than men; and blacks have a worst perception of the compliance with law comparing with whites, since they understand that Brazilian society seldom comply with law. We also found a positive relationship of BPCLI with variable age and income.

‘Let’s talk about sex’: the state of gender in IORA for a future agenda

ABSTRACTGender equality is high on the global agenda. With the adoption of the sustainable development goals, the world reaffirmed its commitment to advance gender equality and the empowerment of all women and children. In this context, the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) committed itself to gender equality through advancing women’s economic empowerment [IORA (2016). Declaration on gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. Retrieved from http://www.iora.net/media/168553/iora_declaration_on_gender_equality_and_women_s_economic_empowerment_2016.pdf]. At the heart of sustainable development for the IORA countries is the need for women’s economic empowerment. Drawing on the United Nations Development Programme’s 2016 Human Development Report Statistical Annex and the World Bank’s report [(2016). Women, business and law index. Retrieved from http://wbl.worldbank.org/data/exploretopics/protecting-women-from-violence], this paper presents a baseline analysis of gender, transformation, and development within the IORA. The paper analyzes gender and transformation within IORA focusing on policy directives for gendered development and transformation. We argue to advance gender transformation within IORA, a political imaginary of what a gender-equal IORA entails is an essential component of gendered developmental policy within the region. This requires building transnational feminist and women empowerment networks to create discursive feminist frameworks that guide women empowerment and gender justice within IORA, contributing to a transformed understanding of diplomacy within the region.

Time dependence of noise characteristics in continuous GPS observations from East Africa

A noise model for the regional continuous GPS (cGPS) timeseries in East Africa (Ethiopia and Eritrea) was computed using the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method. Using this method and assigning different noise models for each cGPS site and each component (north, east and vertical) may bias the noise level of the velocity solutions due to the non-uniformity of the length of the timeseries. Within the whole regional network, the length of the timeseries varies from one to seven years. We compute a preferred regional noise model for the whole data sets using a stacked maximum likelihood values for the different power – law indexes (between −2 and 0 with a time step of 0.1), presuming that there is only one noise model that exists in the regional cGPS timeseries. Therefore, a single power – law index (flicker plus white noise) was assigned for the whole regional network irrespective of the length of the timeseries. This approach is more robust and “realistic” to determine the noise characteristics of the regional GPS network.

Effect of Response Related Weighting Matrices on Performance of Active Control Systems for Nonlinear Frames

In this paper, the effect of various arrangements of displacement, velocity and acceleration related weighting matrices on the performance of active control systems on nonlinear frames has been studied. Different arrangements of weighting matrices and feedback combinations of the response have been considered to design the active controllers using a single actuator for reducing the response of an eight-storey bilinear hysteretic frame under white noise excitations. The nonlinear Newmark-based instantaneous optimal control algorithm has been used, where the distributed genetic algorithm (DGA) is employed to determine the proper set of weighting matrices. For each set of feedback and weighting matrices, the active control system has been designed with the optimal weights determined. Here, the objective is to minimize the maximum control force required to reduce the maximum structural drift to a value below the desired level. The numerical results of simulation show that, for the cases studied, the use of different arrangements of weighting matrices in the proposed method for the performance index of the active control law has no significant impact on the performance of the active control system. However, the type of response feedback combination included in the control law considerably affects the performance, and the controllers designed based on velocity feedback have been found to be more effective. It was also shown that for all the weight-cases, using the full feedback of response can lead to design controllers that require minimum control force to reduce the structural response with more online measurements. The robustness of the designed controllers for different weighting matrices arrangements and feedback combinations has also been tested under a number of real earthquake excitations with the results discussed.

Effect of the transient energy input on thermodynamic performance of passive water-in-glass evacuated tube solar water heaters

In this work the effect of the energy input time distribution on thermodynamic performance of a Water-in-glass Evacuated Tube Solar Water Heater (WGET-SWH) is studied, including thermo-hydraulic, first law and second law analysis. Geometrical model was based on a commercial WGET-SWH with nominal capacity of 40 L and 8 evacuated tubes. Simulations were carried out for four different transient energy inputs and 10°, 20°, 27° and 45° collector tilt angles. If tilt angle and total energy input are fixed, the energy input function with larger rates produced larger velocities and temperatures. Nevertheless this temperature increment is negligible for any practical purpose and the increment of kinetic energy is not large enough to affect stratification. Thus cumulated energy rather than energy input rate is significant for systems performance. Several second law indexes are proposed to assess stratification in the storage tank. The internal stratification number was used to compare the performance of WGET-SWH and active energy storage systems, showing that the former can achieve higher levels of stratification at low tilts, even comparable to those obtained in active systems with stratification promoters. The novelty of this work is to assess the influence of the transient energy input on the thermodynamic performance and stratification of a passive solar water heater.

Star Formation Law at Sub-kpc Scale in the Elliptical Galaxy Centaurus A as Seen by ALMA

We present an extensive analysis of the relationship between star formation rate surface density (∑SFR) and molecular gas surface density (∑H2) at sub-kpc scale in the elliptical galaxy Centaurus A (also known as NGC 5128) at the distance 3.8 Mpc. 12CO (J = 2-1) data from Atacama Large Millimetre/Sub-Millimetre Array SV data with very high resolution (2.9′′, 0.84′′), as well as 24 μm data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, were used. This is one of the first studies of the SF law on Centaurus A at this very high spatial resolution. The results showed a breakdown in star formation law with a 0.49±0.05 index relating ∑SFR and ∑H2 at 185 pc. A significant correlation exists between surface densities of molecular gas and SFR with very long depletion time (68 Gy). In addition we examined the spatially resolved relationship between velocity dispersion and star formation rate surface density for the outer disk of this galaxy and we found that the average velocity dispersion is equal to 11.78 km/s. The velocity dispersion of the molecular ISM for the outer disk is found to follow a power relation with the star formation rate surface density σ∝∑SFRβ, where β is the slope from the ordinary least square fitting. The value of β is about 1/n≈2.16±0.40 and n is the power law index of the star formation law.

Long-term firm growth properties derived from short-term laws of sales and number of employees in Japan and France

In Japan, we observed rapid power law growth in the first 10 years of the existence of firms and subsequent slow exponential growth on their ages not only in their sales but also in their number of employees. We also confirmed similar long-term properties in France. These observations were found by employing around one million bits of exhaustive financial data of firms in Japan and France from 2004 to 2013. Comparing the parameters, the power law and exponential growth indices of sales are larger than those of the number of employees. Such long-term growth is derived from non-Gibrat’s law in the middle-scale range and Gibrat’s law in the large-scale range. We observed both non-Gibrat’s law and Gibrat’s law, which denotes the dependence of the growth rate distributions on the initial values, for two successive years in the short-term. By introducing a stochastic model based on the short-term laws, we showed that non-Gibrat’s law and Gibrat’s law lead to power law growth and the subsequent exponential growth, respectively.

Estimation of the initial shape of meteoroids based on statistical distributions of fragment masses

An approach to the estimation of the initial shape of a meteoroid based on the statistical distributions of masses of its recovered fragments is presented. The fragment distribution function is used to determine the corresponding scaling index of the power law with exponential cutoff. The scaling index is related empirically to the shape parameter of a fragmenting body by a quadratic equation, and the shape parameter is expressed through the proportions of the initial object. This technique is used to study a representative set of fragments of the Bassikounou meteorite and compare the obtained data with the results of statistical analysis of other meteorites.

Model analysis of the dust tail of comet C/2012 K5 (LINEAR)

From the dynamic modeling of the process forming the dust tail of comet C/2012 K5 (LINEAR), the brightness distribution in this dust tail has been retrieved. The model developed by Korsun on the basis of the statistical Monte-Carlo approach was used. The adequacy of the model was determined by fitting the observed and modeled isophots. The following parameters of dust particles composing the dust component of the cometary atmosphere have been estimated: the range of radii (0.7–100 μm), the power index of the size distribution law (–2.4), the range of velocities (6–135 m/s), and the maximum age of dust particles (88 days).