Realistic Policy Research Articles

Designing an annual leave scheduling policy: Case of a financial center

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Providing annual leave entitlements for employees can help alleviate burnout since paid-time off work directly affects the health and productivity of workers as well as the quality of the service provided. In this paper, we develop realistic vacation scheduling policies and investigate how they compare from both the employer and the employees' perspectives. Among those policies, we consider one that is used in practice, another that we propose as a compromise which performs very well in most cases, and one that is similar to machine scheduling for benchmarking. Integer programming models are formulated and solved under various settings for workload distribution over time, substitution and unit of time for vacations. We use three performance measures for comparisons: penalty cost of unused vacation days, percent vacation granted and level of employee satisfaction. We provide a real-life case study at a bank's financial center. Numerical results suggest that an all-or-nothing type of vacation policy performs economically worse than the others. Attractive annual leave scheduling policies can be designed by administering vacation schedules daily rather than weekly, ensuring full cover for off-duty employees, and offering employees some degree of choice over vacation schedules.</p>

ICT Diffusion, Industrialisation and Economic Growth Nexus: an International Cross-country Analysis

This study examines the ICT diffusion-industrialisation-economic growth nexus for 171 countries over the period 2000–2018. The panel data was divided into four income groups. For the analysis, the newly developed panel VAR in generalized method of moment (GMM) estimation approach was applied. Our findings suggest a long-run equilibrium relationship between the three variables. While a strong evidence of two-way causality among the three variables in the entire sample and four income groups were reported. The panel VAR results suggest that at global level, ICT diffusion has negative and positive impact on industrialisation and growth, respectively, while industrialisation has negative impact on growth. Thus, there is need to promote realistic policies that will enhance ICT diffusion and industrialisation concurrently in order to promote growth globally. An increase and improvement in ICT diffusion will encourage, facilitate and accelerate the process of industrialisation and aggregate output to move in similar direction globally.

Agent-based modelling of post-disaster recovery with remote sensing data

Disaster risk management, and post-disaster recovery (PDR) in particular, become increasingly important to assure resilient development. Yet, PDR is the most poorly understood phase of the disaster management cycle and can take years or even decades. The physical aspects of the recovery are relatively easy to monitor and evaluate using, e.g. geospatial remote sensing data compared to functional assessments that include social and economic processes. Therefore, there is a need to explore the impacts of different dimensions of the recovery, including individual behaviour and their interactions with socio-economic institutions. In this study, we develop an agent-based model to simulate and explore the PDR process in urban areas of Tacloban, the Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Formal and informal (slum) sector households are differentiated in the model to explore their resilience and different recovery patterns. Machine learning-derived land use maps are extracted from remote sensing images for pre- and post-disaster and are used to provide information on physical recovery. We use the empirical model to evaluate two realistic policy scenarios: the construction of relocation sites after a disaster and the investments in improving employment options. We find that the speed of the recovery of the slum dwellers is higher than formal sector households due to the quick reconstruction of slums and the availability of low-income jobs in the first months after the disaster. Finally, the results reveal that the households' commuting distance to their workplaces is one of the critical factors in households’ decision to relocate after a disaster.

학교운동부지도자 무기 계약직 전환 인식과 처우개선 방안

The purpose of this research was to suggest the perception and improvement measures for the non-fixed term transition of the school athletic leaders. The seven school athletic leaders in areas that have been changed to non-fixed term with sufficient information suitable for the purpose of the study by research methods were subjected to the purposeful sampling and data collection through an in-depth interview was mainly done. The collected in-depth interview data was repeatedly read to analyze areas where meanings are classified and categorized, and taxonomic analysis to systematically find the attributes according to meanings. The results of these methods and procedures are as follows. First, the perception of the transition of non-fixed term of the school athletic leaders has been partially resolved from the stress of the renewal contract, and they have been able to guide students steadily away from the pressure of the grades, and the manager''s power tripping, such as unreasonable administrative pressure, exercise of authority using hierarchy, disparaging remarks, and defamation of character, were gradually improved through communication. Negative aspects included a drop in pay. The salary has been lowered by about 500,000 won from 2.1 million won to 1.64 million won in basic salary, and only because it has become a full-time worker, it controls and restricts the methods of preserving salaries such as development funds and beneficiary burdens. As a result, they feel a sense of loss and skepticism, and even have difficulty maintaining a living. This means that the school athletic department is not trying to secure transparency in its operation, but rather it can proceed negatively. Second, improvements should raise the reduced salary that fall short of the minimum wage, improve the difference in basic salary according to the types, and re-implement the beneficiary burden that had been implemented before full-time employment by means of subsidizing benefits through school accounting in accordance with the legal procedures. Similarly, they voiced that afterschool activities that had been carried out before full-time jobs should be actively utilized through communication and agreement, not unilateral control and restriction. Another improvement was hoped to improve insufficient treatment by introducing the salary step system and certification allowance, as did teachers and education officials currently working with school athletic leaders. In conclusion, although the transition of school athletic leaders to full-time positions is being made nationwide, there are still many problems to be supplemented such as improvement of treatment and change of perception. Through communication and understanding between each other, we hope that measures will be established systematically to improve practical treatment. Recently, sports officials have voiced concerns that the school athletic department will shrink if they follow the recommendations made by the Sports Innovation Committee. We hope that realistic policy measures will be established and implemented so that elite and leisure sports can be harmonized and developed by listening to the voice of the field.

Who participates in primary school childcare programmes, in what circumstances, why? : Realist policy evaluation

Who participates in primary school childcare programmes, in what circumstances, why? : Realist policy evaluation

Social Media and Medical Education in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has brought virtual web-based learning to the forefront of medical education as training programs adapt to physical distancing challenges while maintaining the rigorous standards of medical training. Social media has unique and partially untapped potential to supplement formal medical education.ObjectiveThe aim of this review is to provide a summary of the incentives, applications, challenges, and pitfalls of social media–based medical education for both trainees and educators.MethodsWe performed a literature review via PubMed of medical research involving social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and podcasts. Papers were reviewed for inclusion based on the integrity and power of the study.ResultsThe unique characteristics of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and podcasts endow them with unique communication capabilities that serve different educational purposes in both formal and informal education settings. However, contemporary medical education curricula lack widespread guidance on meaningful use, application, and deployment of social media in medical education.ConclusionsClinicians and institutions must evolve to embrace the use of social media platforms for medical education. Health care professionals can approach social media engagement in the same ethical manner that they would with patients in person; however, health care institutions ultimately must enable their health care professionals to achieve this by enacting realistic social media policies. Institutions should appoint clinicians with strong social media experience to leadership roles to spearhead these generational and cultural changes. Further studies are needed to better understand how health care professionals can most effectively use social media platforms as educational tools. Ultimately, social media is here to stay, influencing lay public knowledge and trainee knowledge. Clinicians and institutions must embrace this complementary modality of trainee education and champion social media as a novel distribution platform that can also help propagate truth in a time of misinformation, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bolstering Sustainable Growth through Blue Economy

High pace of industrial growth accompanied by the population surge is putting enormous pressure on economic planning. From time immemorial oceans and waterways have been a source of sustainable economic prosperity as oceans cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface and have the potential to support human economic activity. Today, nations are putting effort and resources to leverage their maritime potential for the sustainability and prosperity of their populace and also provide opportunities for the next generations in a hope that through proper planning and implementation of the maritime policies an eco-balanced maritime strategy can be inactive that ensures socio-economic development of the respective countries. Pakistan is blessed with a coastal belt of 1,046 km which is strategically located and is part of the 21st century’s Maritime Silk Route. With natural ports having full potentials like Gwadar and Karachi that not only connects regional stakeholders but also has the potential as the engine of growth and development for Pakistan and a regional hum of maritime connectivity. It is evident from empirical data that the Blue economy of Pakistan is extremely important not only for Pakistan but also for the entire region as part of MSR. This paper targets to analyze the maritime sector situation of Pakistan under the Blue economy and its pertinence for Pakistan through some realistic policies as the constructive implementation of maritime sector-related policies will play a pivotal role in attaining the Blue growth in Pakistan. The key objective of this study is to focus on the sustainable blue growth of Pakistan, as there is a void in the literature on this topic concerning to Pakistan. This paper fills that gap by offering a conceptual framework to guide policy-makers in Pakistan on the policy recommendations to attain sustainable blue growth in Pakistan.

Determinants of smallholder farmers\u2019 adaptation strategies to the effects of climate change: Evidence from northern Uganda

BackgroundClimate change poses a threat to the sustainability of food production among small-scale rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa that are dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Understanding farmers’ adaptations and the determinants of their adaptation strategies is crucial in designing realistic strategies and policies for agricultural development and food security. The main objectives of this study were to identify the adaptation strategies used by smallholder farmers to counter the perceived negative effects of climate change in northern Uganda, and factors influencing the use of specific adaptation strategies. A cross-sectional survey research design was employed to collect data from 395 randomly selected smallholder farmers’ household heads across two districts by the administration of a semi-structured questionnaire. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze the factors influencing farmers’ adaptation to climate change.ResultsThe three most widely practiced adaptation strategies were planting of different crop varieties, planting drought-resistant varieties, and fallowing. Results of the binary logit regression model revealed that marital status of household head, access to credit, access to extension services, and farm income influenced farmers’ adoption of planting drought-resistant varieties as an adaptation strategy while access to credit, annual farm income, and time taken to market influenced adoption of planting improved seeds. Gender of household head and farm income had a positive influence on farmers’ adoption of fertilizer and pesticide use. Farming experience, farm income, and access to extension services and credit influenced farmers’ adoption of tree planting. Household size, farming experience, and time taken to market had positive influence on the use of fallowing, while size of land cultivated significantly influenced farmers’ planting of different crop varieties as an adaptation strategy.ConclusionFindings of the study suggest there are several factors that work together to influence adoption of specific adaptation strategies by smallholder farmers. This therefore calls for more effort from government to strengthen the provision of agricultural extension services by improving its climate information system, providing recommended agricultural inputs and training farmers on best agronomic practices to enhance their holistic adaptation to the effect of climate change.

The Sea Power of Small States: A Case Study of Sri Lanka

The geo-strategic location of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, which is a part of global and regional power competition, is close to the key and busy naval routes between the East and the West. Particularly, the marine area of Sri Lanka has critical geopolitical importance due to its location between the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca, which are essential transit zones in the world. The marine area of Sri Lanka has gained much attention from the industrial and newly industrial nations due to the living and non-living natural resources contained in the surrounding sea. With this background note, this paper focuses on discussing the sea power dimension of national security, focusing on the case of Sri Lanka, which has been neglected by contemporary academia of small powers’ studies. For this purpose, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s theory on sea power has been employed to theoretically and practically examine the feasibility of its application for enhancing the sea power of Sri Lanka in the context of changing global order. The research was drawn from a wide range of secondary sources and a descriptive analysis was made. The paper concludes with implications for some realistic policies for enhancing the sea power capacity of Sri Lanka as it allows the free flow of people and goods as well as the projection of naval power of Sri Lanka.

The Informal Sector, the “implicit” Social Contract, the Willingness to Pay Taxes and Tax Compliance in Zimbabwe

Abstract The growth of the informal sector in African countries has largely been viewed as an escape from regulation and deliberate intention to avoid paying taxes and these views have been widely popularised, ignoring significant details to the disadvantage of realistic tax policy design. Zimbabwe adopted a presumptive tax system for various informal sector categories to enlarge the tax base and increase tax revenues mobilised. However, presumptive taxes have not generated significant revenue. Tax compliance in the informal sector has often been studied from the tax structure design, the deterrence model perspective and capacity limitations without paying adequate attention to tax morale. Tax morale can be denoted through the peer effect of the compliance behaviour of other taxpayers, the fulfilment of the psychological social contract, transparency and accountability in the use of tax revenues as well as stakeholder communication, built on mutual trust and respect. In light of these tax morale dimensions, it is evident that tax compliance can never be divorced from the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes. The inextricable link, between tax evasion, tax compliance and tax morale, motivates this study. While previous studies on tax morale have applied single method research approaches, this study adopted a sequential exploratory mixed method research design, combining both qualitative and quantitative (through the use of document reviews, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires) in order to bring a balanced view. The study found out that tax morale was a strong driver of tax evasion and non-tax compliance in the informal sector.

Technology Policy Dilemmas in the New Administration

Investors and managers have to deal with the economy as it is, and do business as best they can. New administrationsmake policy decisions with economic consequences, shaping costs and opportunities for firms. In that sense, it is possible to have a nonpartisan conversation about the technology policy dilemmas inherited by a new administration, and discuss how realistic policy changes shape the economic situation for firms. That is what today’s column provides—a nonpartisan survey of interesting technology policy issues to watch in the new administration. To be clear, there is professional opinion in this column—i.e., I made some judgment calls about what topics interest those in the technology business. To the best of my ability, however, I tried to stick to the economics and nothing else. This survey will show how many key decisions are up in the air. That has one important economic implication for investors: It creates a classic situation where new information about policy will move financial markets far in advance of the actual actions of firms responding to new policy. Expect indicators to move up and down immediately after decisions become public.

Unemployment Risk, Liquidity Traps, and Monetary Policy

When the economy is in a liquidity trap and households have a precautionary motive to save against unemployment risk, adverse demand shocks cause severe deflationary spirals and output contractions. In this context, we study the implications of optimal monetary policy, which consists of keeping the nominal rate at zero longer than implied by current macroeconomic conditions. Under such policy and incomplete markets, expected improvements in labour market conditions mitigate the rise in unemployment risk and decline in demand. As a result, market incompleteness may alleviate contractions in output and inflation during a liquidity trap. However, reducing market incompleteness mitigates the fall in demand under realistic monetary policy rules.

Evaluating the Effect of Soda Taxes Using a Dynamic Model of Rational Addiction

The obesity rate has grown to epidemic proportions in the United States. Recent scientific studies suggest that excess intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is one of the primary contributors to weight gain. One option to address the growing obesity epidemic is to discourage SSB consumption through fiscal policies such as excising a soda tax. In this paper, we apply the Becker-Murphy model of rational addiction to present evidence that consumers are rationally addicted to soda consumption. Motivated by the evidence, we build a dynamic structural model to quantify the impact of soda taxes on soda purchases and consumption and study the role of addiction in influencing this impact. Using the parameter estimates, we conduct counterfactual analyses based on realistic policy scenarios and evaluate how different tax policies would affect soda purchases. The policy experiments indicate that imposing a soda tax of 1 cent per ounce would reduce soda consumption by 28.3% and addiction level by 31.7%. We find that 20.6% of the reduction in consumption is due to the reduction in the addiction level. We further investigate how these taxes affect consumer and social welfare through a change in addiction level. We find that addiction plays a critical role because a mild reduction in addiction level in the Berkeley tax scenario (1 cent per ounce on regular soda) benefits consumer and social welfare; however, in the Philadelphia tax scenario (1.5 cents per ounce on regular and diet sodas), the reduction in addiction level is too large, and both consumer and social welfare are worse off than before.

Complex approach for state anti-crisis management in a down economy

The article analyzes anti-crisis state economic measures, justifies the inadmissibility of “targeted anti-crisis measures”, practicality of long-term planning, which should become the foundation of complex approach to state anticrisis management amid the global financial crisis, Russian economic crisis, anti-Russian sanctions and the pandemic of Covid–19. As part of solving this problem – improving the quality of public administration – many scientists and practitioners have high hopes for the global digitalization of the economy, which provides for the introduction of adaptability to the challenges of the digital economy into the state mechanism. The authors focus on the low level of efficiency of interbudgetary relations, which indicates that one of the most important shortcomings of the mechanism used in Russia is the untimely allocation of budget allocations from the state budget-to-budget recipients, one of the unjustified reasons for which may be the conviction of government officials that budget spending stimulates inflation. As part of increasing the level of state anti-crisis management and regulation of personal responsibility of federal executive bodies, it seems expedient to propose the representatives of science13 to include the indicator of evenness of budget execution in the list of criteria for assessing the quality of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. In addition, the article investigates the negative consequences of VAT increase, the abolition of indexation of a working retired person’s pension, the establishment of market relations in the housing and communal services, realistic budget policy. The article pays particular attention to bankruptcy institution in Russia and its negative consequences, the need to increase the level of research and development commercialization in universities.

How Do COVID-19 Policy Options Depend on End-of-Year Holiday Contacts in Mexico City Metropolitan Area? A Modeling Study

Background: With more than 20 million residents, Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) has the largest number of Covid-19 cases in Mexico and is at risk of exceeding its hospital capacity in late December 2020. Methods: We used SC-COSMO, a dynamic compartmental Covid-19 model, to evaluate scenarios considering combinations of increased contacts during the holiday season, intensification of social distancing, and school reopening. Model parameters were derived from primary data from MCMA, published literature, and calibrated to time-series of incident confirmed cases, deaths, and hospital occupancy. Outcomes included projected confirmed cases and deaths, hospital demand, and magnitude of hospital capacity exceedance.Findings: Following high levels of holiday contacts even with no in-person schooling, we predict that MCMA will have 1·0 million (95% prediction interval 0·5 – 1·7) additional Covid-19 cases between December 7, 2020 and March 7, 2021 and that hospitalizations will peak at 35,000 (14,700 – 67,500) on January 27, 2021, with a >99% chance of exceeding Covid-19-specific capacity (9,667 beds). If holiday contacts can be controlled, MCMA can reopen in-person schools provided social distancing is increased with 0·5 million (0·2 – 1·0) additional cases and hospitalizations peaking at 14,900 (5,600 – 32,000) on January 23, 2021 (77% chance of exceedance).Interpretation: MCMA must substantially increase Covid-19 hospital capacity under all scenarios considered. MCMA’s ability to reopen schools in mid-January 2021 depends on sustaining social distancing and that contacts during the end-of-year holiday were well controlled.Funding: Society for Medical Decision Making, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence Foundation.Declaration of Interests: All authors are part of the SC-COSMO consortium. FAE and YP report funds from the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a grant from Open Society Foundations (OSF). JGF reports a gift from the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence Foundation. Dr. Salomon report funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention though the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (NU38OT000297-02) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (3R37DA01561217S1).

Role of location of household and its socio-economic status on energy consumption dynamics in rural Nepal: a categorical data analysis

<div data-canvas-width="397.374989921387">This study is based on data collected from two sample surveys. They are namely survey of 300 households of national grid energy users and 400 households of biogas users. It was conducted in three different rural settings of Nepal. The responses to questions were classifie d into multiple choice options. This generated categorical data and reduced ambiguity and confusion between interviewer and interviewee. Such data were classified into ordinal scale and modelled. As the dependent variable had more than two categories, polytomous and not dichotomous models are developed and fitted. Ten different hypotheses assessing and measuring the energy consumption dynamics are tested. Values of parameters of these model and odds ratio are used in quantifying the impact of change with respect to energy consumption. The variables considered were namely time spent in the collection of firewood, type of house, amount of firewood saved, time saved, employer and school located within 15 min distance. Such data based studies are very crucial for country like Nepal which lacks a strong backbone of accurate and regularly updated official records. They can be generalized to other counties of Asia and Africa. Such results provide guidelines to policy makers and planners regarding formulation of realistic energy policies for such countries.</div>

Blockchain and IoT for Insurance: A Case Study and Cyberinfrastructure Solution on Fine-Grained Transportation Insurance

In this study, we initiate a cyberinfrastructure solution by synergizing both the blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies for transportation insurance. The insurance premium related services are encapsulated in “on-chain” chaincodes to perform over the facts on vehicle’s trip and driver’s behavior, which are deduced through “off-chain” analytic services using the sensing data collected from vehicles’ on-board sensors. A hybrid scheme coordinating both the permissioned (Hyperledger) and public (Ethereum) blockchains is proposed to exploit their respective capabilities in terms of high transaction throughput and built-in cryptocurrency. A working prototype platform is implemented with a basic premium calculation model. The prototype system is deployed across Amazon Web Services (AWSs) cloud in a real-world Internet environment. A comprehensive performance study from the aspects of throughput, latency, and resource usage under different configurations is presented to show the solution’s feasibility. The design practice and research findings are concluded in consort with the experience gained for further enhancing the proposed solution and extending the functional features such as a more realistic insurance policy to be applied in generic vehicle insurance applications.

Air Pollution and Asthma: Critical Targets for Effective Action.

Evidence to advocate for cleaner air for people with asthma is not in short supply. We know that air pollution is associated with the development and worsening of the condition and that mitigating interventions can improve respiratory outcomes. We have clear targets, particularly traffic emissions, especially in urban areas, and plenty of potentially effective actions. Road traffic must be reduced, and what remains should be cleaner and greener. Urban green spaces, safe cycle networks and wider pavements will promote active travel and leisure time exercise. Healthcare professionals must ensure people are aware of their air quality, its impact on asthma and the appropriate behaviour to safeguard health. What remains are realistic policies and effective measures, based on the correct scientific evidence, to be taken forth with political courage and investment so that air pollution no longer contributes to the development or worsening of respiratory ill health.

Implementation of the Assistive Product List (APL) in Malawi through development of appropriate policy and systems: an action research protocol

IntroductionAssistive technology (AT) is important for the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for persons with disabilities (PWD). Increasingly, studies suggest a significant gap between the need for and...

Disciplinary power: Text and body in the Swedish NATO debate

This article draws on identity construction, emotions and a notion of productive power to address the question of why Swedish policymakers and public opinion are becoming increasingly supportive of NATO membership. It contributes theoretically by arguing that such textual phenomena intertwine with ‘disciplinary power’, which operates on the bodies of the subjects of power, exposing them to verbal and physical sanctions, a host of complex feelings and enhanced levels of self-disciplining. The article analyses 354 editorials and op-eds related to Sweden and NATO, published in the four biggest Swedish newspapers in 2014–2018; 1408 tweets, with a focus on 14 selected NATO campaigners and their advocacy; and semi-structured interviews with 12 such influencers. It concludes that Swedish NATO campaigners produce and negotiate emotional discourses in a way that targets other influencers and potential influencers by exposing them to ridicule and allegations of treason. While tendencies are similar on both sides of the debate, the article demonstrates that productive power currently intertwines with disciplinary power in a way that makes anti-NATO advocacy seem more fraught with personal risk than pro-NATO campaigning, and joining NATO appear to be the most normal, realistic and responsible policy option.