Transit Surveys Research Articles

Does working while studying affect education mismatch among youth? Evidence from Zambia

PurposeThis paper aims to study the relationship between working while studying in college/university and education mismatch among employed youth in the Zambian labour market.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses data from the 2014 School-to-Work Transition Survey and a multinomial logit model to examine three education-mismatch categories: undereducated, matched and overeducated. The paper also examines heterogeneities by education level and gender and uses empirical and subjective approaches of education mismatch.FindingsThe evidence shows that employed youth who worked while studying have a higher likelihood of having well-matched jobs. The subgroup analysis by education level reveals no significant relationship between working while studying among employed youth with higher education (secondary and above). However, employed youth with lower education (primary and lower) are less likely to be mismatched for the job. The linkage between the education system and the labour market needs to be strengthened to support a smoother school-to-work transition for youth. Additional support to enable exposure to the right type of work during youth's college or university studies could increase job match and reduce labour market inefficiencies.Originality/valueThe paper provides insights into a significant challenge faced by youth in developing countries, i.e. finding a suitable job for youth's level of education.

A Survey of Transitions of Young People From Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS)

AimsTo evaluate current transition service provision from CAMHS to AMHS focusing on information sharing, transition planning and continuity of care. Many young people find service transition from CAMHS to AMHS stressful, sometimes because of there being multiple simultaneous transitions from child centred services to adult oriented models of care. If not handled well, this can lead to drop out from services, repeated assessments, suboptimal treatment and support, and raised likelihood of emergency psychiatric admissions. Longitudinal planning and sensitive management of transition is vital, because of transition being a risk period for young people.MethodsA retrospective case note survey of service users who had transitioned from 1st February 2020 to 31st January to 2022 was undertaken. Fifteen individuals transitioned: 9 females and 6 males. All were White British except for one who was Sudanese and an asylum seeker. Six out of 15 young people had a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in addition to other diagnoses making transition more difficult, as more agencies were involved requiring multiple meetings prior to transition to adult services. One case of emerging personality disorder, despite our best efforts for smooth transitioning, had already disengaged from CAMHS.ResultsMost individuals transitioned successfully to adult mental health services. Two were transferred to learning disability, and one to early intervention in psychosis services, the diagnoses having been confirmed by the treating psychiatrist near the patient's 18th birthday. One was transferred to a rehabilitation service. Only one referral was declined.The transition pathway is patient centred, and provides clear transition plans to young person, family and carers. In the past 4 months AMHS, because of lack of resources, have not been able to identify a named worker till a few weeks before the patient's 18th birthday, which conflicts with NICE guidelines.ConclusionAn effective transition service was found to include •A designated psychiatrist to facilitate smooth transition of complex cases to AMHS, providing continuity of care, good intra and inter agency working and maximising patient welfare.•CAMHS preparation of young persons for transition commencing six months before their 18th birthday.•Prior researching of best transition destinations.•An overlap period of CAMHS/AMHS joint working.•Identified CAMHS and AMHS transition coordinators.•Patient and family engagement with process.•Mindfulness and awareness of AMHS eligibility criteria.

Corruption and life satisfaction: Evidence from a transition survey

AbstractFighting corruption cannot lie exclusively on appropriate formal institutions. It also requires social support and public engagement. Particularly in countries under institutional and economic transition. We embrace the recent perspective arguing that higher quality of life conditions makes people better citizens, more civically committed and more conformed to institutional rules. Accordingly, we study whether life satisfaction is a predictor of individuals' corruption aversion across 28 former socialist countries from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We use data from the third wave of the Life in Transition Survey (2015–2016). 2SLS estimations suggest that individuals reporting higher scores of life satisfaction are more averse to corruption. Our results are robust to a series of sensitivity analyses. Additionally, we estimate predicted values of corruption aversion for different levels of institutional trust across low and high life satisfaction groups. We find that when institutional trust is very low, its impact on corruption aversion does not differ between life satisfaction groups. As institutional trust increases so does corruption aversion and this occurs even more amongst the group of respondents with high life satisfaction.

Protective Environments, Health, and Substance Use Among Transgender and Gender Expansive Youth.

Purpose: Transgender and gender expansive (TGE) youth experience elevated risk for substance use and other health inequities compared to cisgender peers. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between protective environments-perceived community tolerance, perceived family support, and housing stability-and recent binge drinking, lifetime high-risk substance use (HRSU; cocaine, methamphetamines, and/or heroin), and self-rated health in a sample of TGE youth. Methods: This secondary analysis of 1567 TGE youth aged 13-24 years draws from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2018 web-based Survey of Today's Adolescent Relationships and Transitions, which used a nonprobabilistic recruiting strategy via social media. Logistic regression was used to test the associations between protective environments and substance use and health outcomes. Results: Overall, 28.1% of participants reported that people who lived near them were tolerant of transgender people, 32.8% reported that their family was at least somewhat supportive of their TGE identity, and 77.0% were stably housed. In the logistic regression models, community tolerance and housing stability were associated with lower odds of self-rated poor health. Housing stability was associated with lower odds of recent binge drinking and lifetime HRSU. Conclusion: Perceived community tolerance and housing stability were associated with several health outcomes among TGE youth in this study. Protective factors, including safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments, are critical to youth health and wellbeing. The findings in this study highlight the need for prevention strategies to promote protective environments and reduce known substance use and overall health inequities among TGE youth.

Alleviating the transit timing variation bias in transit surveys

Transit timing variations (TTVs) can provide useful information for systems observed in this way, putting constraints on the masses and eccentricities of the observed planets, and in some cases even revealing the existence of non-transiting companions. However, TTVs can also prevent the detection of small planets in transit surveys, or bias the recovered planetary and transit parameters. Here we show that Kepler-1972 c, initially the ‘not transit-like’ false positive KOI-3184.02, is an Earth-sized planet whose orbit is perturbed by Kepler-1972 b (initially KOI-3184.01). The pair is locked in a 3:2 mean-motion resonance, each planet displaying TTVs of more than 6h of amplitude over the duration of the Kepler mission. The two planets have similar masses mb/mc = 0.956−0.051+0.056 and radii Rb = 0.802−0.041+0.042REarth, Rc = 0.868−0.050+0.051REarth, and the whole system, including the inner candidate KOI-3184.03, appears to be coplanar. Despite the faintness of the signals (signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of 1.35 for each transit of Kepler-1972 b and 1.10 for Kepler-1972 c), we recovered the transits of the planets using the RIVERS method, which is based on recognition of the tracks of planets in river diagrams using machine learning, and a photo-dynamic fit of the light curve. Recovering the correct ephemerides of the planets is essential to obtaining a complete picture of the observed planetary systems. In particular, we show that in Kepler-1972, not taking into account planet-planet interactions yields an error of ~30% on the radii of planets b and c, in addition to generating in-transit scatter, which is why KOI3184.02 was mistaken for a false positive. Alleviating this bias is essential for an unbiased view of Kepler systems, some of the TESS stars, and the upcoming PLATO mission.

Shallow Transits—Deep Learning. II. Identify Individual Exoplanetary Transits in Red Noise using Deep Learning

In a previous paper, we introduced a deep learning neural network that should be able to detect the existence of very shallow periodic planetary transits in the presence of red noise. The network in that feasibility study would not provide any further details about the detected transits. The current paper completes this missing part. We present a neural network that tags samples that were obtained during transits. This is essentially similar to the task of identifying the semantic context of each pixel in an image—an important task in computer vision, called “semantic segmentation,” which is often performed by deep neural networks. The neural network we present makes use of novel deep learning concepts such as U-Nets, Generative Adversarial Networks, and adversarial loss. The resulting segmentation should allow further studies of the light curves that are tagged as containing transits. This approach toward the detection and study of very shallow transits is bound to play a significant role in future space-based transit surveys such as PLATO, which are specifically aimed to detect those extremely difficult cases of long-period shallow transits. Our segmentation network also adds to the growing toolbox of deep learning approaches that are being increasingly used in the study of exoplanets; but, so far mainly for vetting transits, rather than their initial detection.

An Insight into Students’ Transition to Tertiary or Academic Pathways Programs

ABSTRACT There is a lot of research on pathways students’ transition to universities, however, little is known about those students’ initial transition to the Academic Pathway Program (APP). This study investigated students’ transition to an Academic Pathway Program (APP) offered at a College affiliated to a metropolitan university in Sydney, Australia. Data collected from a sample of students using the Transition, Wellbeing, Help-seeking, and Adjustments Survey (TWHAS) were analysed both descriptively and inferentially. Most students reported positive moods, emotional coping, and were able to seek help without many barriers. Also, most students reported adjusting positively to the College, despite facing a few personal and social challenges such as finding time to exercise, balance study with family commitments and socialise with friends outside the College. Further, a possible association between students’ adjustments and their initial feelings when beginning the College, proficiency in written and spoken English, and help-seeking was noted. Additionally, differences in the students’ transitional challenges, wellbeing, help-seeking behaviors, adjustments across gender, age, and type of enrollment were evident. The implications of these findings for supporting students’ transition to the Academic Pathway Programs and recommendations for future research addressing the limited sample size are discussed.

Periodic stellar variability from almost a million NGTS light curves

ABSTRACT We analyse 829 481 stars from the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) to extract variability periods. We utilize a generalization of the autocorrelation function (the G-ACF), which applies to irregularly sampled time series data. We extract variability periods for 16 880 stars from late-A through to mid-M spectral types and periods between ∼0.1 and 130 d with no assumed variability model. We find variable signals associated with a number of astrophysical phenomena, including stellar rotation, pulsations, and multiple-star systems. The extracted variability periods are compared with stellar parameters taken from Gaia DR2, which allows us to identify distinct regions of variability in the Hertzsprung–Russell Diagram. We explore a sample of rotational main-sequence objects in period-colour space, in which we observe a dearth of rotation periods between 15 and 25 d. This ‘bi-modality’ was previously only seen in space-based data. We demonstrate that stars in sub-samples above and below the period gap appear to arise from a stellar population not significantly contaminated by excess multiple systems. We also observe a small population of long-period variable M-dwarfs, which highlight a departure from the predictions made by rotational evolution models fitted to solar-type main-sequence objects. The NGTS data spans a period and spectral type range that links previous rotation studies such as those using data from Kepler, K2, and MEarth.

The thermal architecture of the ESA ARIEL payload at the end of phase B1

The Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanets Large-survey (ARIEL) is the fourth medium (M4) mission selected in the context of the ESA Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 programme, with a launch planned in 2028. During 4 years of flight operations, ARIEL will probe the chemical and physical properties of approximately 1000 known exoplanets by observing their atmosphere, to study how planetary systems form and evolve [1, 2]. The mission is designed as a transit and eclipse spectroscopy survey, operated by a 1-m class telescope feeding two instruments, the Fine Guidance system (FGS) and the ARIEL InfraRed Spectrometer (AIRS), that accommodate photometric and spectroscopic channels covering the band from 0.5 to 7.8 μm in the visible to near-IR range [3, 4]. The mission high sensitivity requirements ask for an extremely stable thermo-mechanical platform. The payload thermal control is based on a passive and active cooling approach. Passive cooling is achieved by a V-Groove shields system that exploits the L2 orbit favourable thermal conditions to cool the telescope and the optical bench to stable temperatures <60 K. The FGS focal planes operate at the optical bench temperature while the AIRS channel detectors require a colder reference, lower than 42 K. This is provided by an active cooling system based on a Neon Joule-Thomson cold end, fed by a mechanical compressor. In this paper we report the thermal architecture of the payload at the end of Phase B1 and present the requirements that drive the design together with the analyses results and the expected performances.

TIC-320687387 B: a long-period eclipsing M-dwarf close to the hydrogen burning limit

ABSTRACT We are using precise radial velocities from CORALIE together with precision photometry from the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) to follow-up stars with single-transit events detected with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). As part of this survey, we identified a single transit on the star TIC-320687387, a bright (T = 11.6) G-dwarf observed by TESS in Sectors 13 and 27. From subsequent monitoring of TIC-320687387 with CORALIE, NGTS, and Lesedi we determined that the companion, TIC-320687387 B, is a very low-mass star with a mass of $96.2 \pm _{2.0}^{1.9}$ MJ and radius of $1.14 \pm _{0.02}^{0.02}$ RJ placing it close to the hydrogen burning limit (∼80 MJ). TIC-320687387 B is tidally decoupled and has an eccentric orbit, with a period of 29.77381 d and an eccentricity of 0.366 ± 0.003. Eclipsing systems such as TIC-320687387 AB allow us to test stellar evolution models for low-mass stars, which in turn are needed to calculate accurate masses and radii for exoplanets orbiting single low-mass stars. The sizeable orbital period of TIC-320687387 B makes it particularly valuable as its evolution can be assumed to be free from perturbations caused by tidal interactions with its G-type host star.

Intra-Generational upward mobility and fertility: evidence from transition countries

ABSTRACT We examine the role of intra-generational upward mobility (hereafter upward mobility) in determining the fertility of transition countries. Upward mobility can increase fertility through a positive income effect. It can also reduce the value of children’s support during parents’ elderly years as parents expect to have more resources in the future. Transition countries have experienced large socio-economic changes since the early 1990s and have highly varied economic conditions, including upward mobility. Using data from the Life in Transition Survey, we find that upward mobility increases fertility and the effect is robust to different model specifications. This result is consistent with a dominating income effect. Our findings point out the importance of considering upward mobility to boost fertility which has significant implications for demographic policy.

A Comparison of Multiphase Magnetic Field Tracers in a High Galactic Latitude Region of the Filamentary Interstellar Medium

Abstract Understanding how the Galactic magnetic field threads the multiphase interstellar medium (ISM) remains a considerable challenge, as different magnetic field tracers probe dissimilar phases and field components. We search for evidence of a common magnetic field shared between the ionized and neutral ISM by comparing 1.4 GHz radio continuum polarization and H i line emission from the Galactic Arecibo L-Band Feed Array Continuum Transit Survey (GALFACTS) and Galactic Arecibo L-Band Feed Array H i (GALFA-H i) survey, respectively. We compute the polarization gradient of the continuum emission and search for associations with diffuse/translucent H i structures. The polarization gradient is sensitive to changes in the integrated product of the thermal electron density and line-of-sight field strength (B ∥) in warm ionized gas, while narrow H i structures highlight the plane-of-sky field orientation in cold neutral gas. We identified one region in the high Galactic latitude Arecibo sky, G216+26 centered on (ℓ, b) ∼ (216°, +26°), containing filaments in the polarization gradient that are aligned with narrow H i structures roughly parallel to the Galactic plane. We present a comparison of multiphase observations and magnetic field tracers of this region, demonstrating that the warm ionized and cold neutral media are connected likely via a common magnetic field. We quantify the physical properties of a polarization gradient filament associated with Hα emission, measuring a line-of-sight field strength B ∥ = 6 ± 4 μG and a plasma beta β = 2.1 − 2.1 + 3.1 . We discuss the lack of widespread multiphase magnetic field alignments and consider whether this region is associated with a short-timescale or physically rare phenomenon. This work highlights the utility of multitracer analyses for understanding the magnetized ISM.

Detection of Exoplanets using Machine Learning

Three methods for using machine learning to decide if a star has an exoplanet from transit survey data are discussed in this paper and are also used to determine which approach performs better on a labeled data set containing light intensity time series from extrasolar stars. Convolutional Neural Network (C.N.N.), a C.N.N. autoencoder, and Support Vector Machines ( S.V.M.) are among the three models. We trained the models using data from the Kepler Space Telescope; because there were very few confirmed exoplanet in the data, some preprocessing is performed before implementing the data set methods. SMOTE (Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique) was used to over-sample the exoplanet class to further boost the performance. For the supervised learning approaches, CNN and SVM, the outcomes were promising. Therefore, CNN autoencoder, the unsupervised method, did not generate meaningful results.

Parental background and the use of dirty fuels at home: An exploratory study of Bangladesh

The use of dirty fuels at home is still widespread in developing countries, and it is often associated with various undesirable consequences especially for human health and the environment. Using data from the 2013 Bangladeshi section of the School-to-Work Transition Survey, we investigate whether and how the use of kerosene for lighting in young households is associated with parental education. Adopting a mediation analysis technique, we disentangle the total effect of parental education into the direct effect and the effect mediated by the role of household financial conditions. We find that having both parents not educated is associated to an increase in the probability of using kerosene for lighting (+10.3%). The greater part of the impact takes place directly, while just the 15% works through the mediating role of poor financial conditions. Finally, we find the role of mother's education is predominant over father's one, highlighting the importance of accounting for gender norms and roles.

Access to finance and rural youth entrepreneurship in Benin: Is there a gender gap?

AbstractRural entrepreneurship is an important employment generation intervention for the fast‐growing young labour force in developing countries. Many bottlenecks including access to finance impede rural youths from performing in their new ventures. This paper examines the impact of access to finance on rural youths' entrepreneurship in Benin using data from the second wave of the School‐To‐Work Transition Survey, involving over 900 youths. The paper employs the endogenous switching regression technique, combined with propensity score matching, to investigate the drivers of rural youths' access to finance and its impact on entrepreneurship intention and performance. The results indicate that age, education, poverty status, experience, working in the agricultural sector and the existence of a bank branch are important determinants of rural youths' access to finance. The results also show that access to finance increases the probability of youth entrepreneurship by 15.2% on average. Moreover, the study shows a significant gender gap in rural entrepreneurship of 5.24% among youths with access to finance in Benin. These results suggest that policymakers should facilitate the access of youth, especially young women, to finance by encouraging formal financial institutions to reduce their credit eligibility conditions for those who do not have collateral.

Inactive Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Inequality of Opportunity Matter?

The present study seeks to find out how gender, age, area of living, parent background in terms of educational level and occupation determine the probability of youth to be out of the labour market in six Sub-Saharan Africa countries. We utilize data from the school-to-work transition surveys from 2014 and 2015 from the ILO. For each country, we first calculate a revised version of the Human Opportunity Index developed by the World Bank. Second, we compute the contribution of each factor to that index. The results show that dissimilarity has a marked influence in Madagascar and to some extent Malawi and Uganda, while the major challenges with getting the youth onto the labour market are still in Liberia even after taking dissimilarity of unchangeable background into account.

Economic analysis of youth participation in agripreneurship in Benin

The study assessed the factors affecting youth participation in rural entrepreneurship in Benin using data from the School-to-Work Transition Survey (SWTS) and applying the binary logit and the multinomial logit models. The results showed youth who have a larger number of children are more likely to choose agricultural businesses (agripreneurship) while those who have formal education, who have received training on entrepreneurship, who have registered business, and those who have located in urban areas are more likely to engage in non-agricultural businesses. Within agripreneurship, youth who belong to a larger household are more likely to engage in farming while those who are educated, who have access to credit, and who are located in urban areas are more likely to be engaged in non-farming agri-businesses. The study also revealed that cash crop production among Beninese youth was positively influenced by access to credit. The findings suggest that it would be necessary to promote development programmes that are geared towards enhancing the capacities of the youth with regards to concepts and skills of entrepreneurship in agriculture and measures to overcome challenges associated with different agribusiness activities.

A Comprehensive Survey on the Most Important IPv4aaS IPv6 Transition Technologies, their Implementations and Performance Analysis

As the central public IPv4 address pool has already been exhausted, the deployment of IPv6 has become inevitable. However, the users still require IPv4 Internet access due to some IPv4-only applications. The IPv4aaS (IPv4-as-a-Service) IPv6 transition technologies facilitate that ISPs provide IPv4 service to their customers while using only IPv6 in their access and core networks. This paper discusses the widely used IPv4aaS IPv6 transition technologies in ISP/enterprise networks; we explain their operations, advantages, properties and consider their performances. There are currently many IPv6 transition technologies, nevertheless, in this paper, the five most prominent IPv4aaS IPv6 transition technologies are discussed, namely 464XLAT, Dual-Stack Lite, Lightweight 4over6, MAP-E, and MAP-T. Moreover, the deployment and implementations of these technologies are being analysed and inspected. This paper also overviews the benchmarking methodology for IPv6 transition technologies and surveys several papers that investigated metrics and tools utilized in analysing the performance of different IPv6 transition technologies.

Влияние неровностей пути в плане на интенсивность износа рельсов

The article discusses the study of the impact of track irregularities on the intensity of rail wear. The relevance of this issue derives from the necessity to develop approaches to reduce the intensity of lateral wear in curves. The objective of this research paper is to estimate the parameters and magnitude of deviations of the track in plan which affect the intensity of rail wear. In order to resolve this issue, modelling methods implemented in the “Universal Mechanism” software environment (UMLoco module) have been used in this paper. The initial data has been obtained as a result of the tachometric transit survey conducted on the Samara – Chelyabinsk route in 2019-2020. The results of this paper include an analysis of the calculated indicators of interaction of the track and rolling stock, particularly, lateral forces and the intensity of rail wear.

Working while studying: Employment premium or penalty for youth?

AbstractMost youths in developing countries leave school with only a general academic education level, slowing down their transition to the labour market. We analyse whether work experience during school can ease youth transition to first job in Benin. Using data from the 2014 School‐to‐Work Transition Survey (SWTS), we estimate a three‐equation model to control for endogenous treatment assignment and sample selection and a hazard frailty model. We find that working while studying eases transition from school to first job. However, these findings were significant only for men and youth who left school with at least a secondary education.