Journal articles on the topic 'Money-making schemes for girls'

This research explores the role of symbolization in educational activity in children of late preschool and early school age. The aim of the research was to compare the efficiency of using sign and symbolic means (i.e. schemes and models) in the learning of some new content in preschool and early school age. The study involved 46 children of late preschool age from one of the Moscow kindergartens, 20 girls and 26 boys (M = 78 months); and 25 first grade students of one of the Moscow schools, 16 girls and 9 boys (M = 101 months). The study consisted of the following stages: carrying out tests of mental abilities and dividing the subjects into two sub¬groups within each age group (that is, two subgroups of preschool children and two subgroups of school chil¬dren) with equal levels of development of the explored abilities; conducting developmental lessons aimed at making the children familiar with phenomena characterizing phase transitions in states of aggregation of mat¬ter — with the help of symbolic means (in the experimental group) or sign means (in the control group); carrying out a posttest, that is, measuring the level of development of the concepts of aggregate states in all sub¬groups. The outcomes of the research indicated that symbolization may actually be an effective means of con¬structing learning content both in preschool and in early school age.

Counting money and making change are often difficult concepts for students in the primary grades to grasp. Boys and girls often do not comprehend the relative values of the coins and how to combine these values to determine amounts of money. This problem often seems to exist even when students are able to give the name of the coins and their individual value by rote memory.

In accordance with United Nations’ sustainable development goal in achieving gender equality and to empower all women and girls, this paper investigates gender equality and power in marital relationship. Using Resource Theory of Power as a conceptual framework, this paper examines the distribution of marital power among married couples. More specifically, this paper examines to what extent do married couples use money as a bargaining tool to negotiate for more control in two areas: (1) managing economic resources and (2) household decision making. Forty married couples from urban Sarawak were located and interviewed. Results indicate that apart from money, marital power is affected by more influential factors such as ideologies and religious teachings. Consequently, having more money does not necessarily mean having more control over the decision making as decision making in a marriage is often guided by prescribed gender roles in accordance to one’s ideologies, cultural and religious teachings. Hence, gender equality in the management of economic resources and decision making within a household can only occur when an increase in women’s resources is combined with changes in gender roles and ideologies.

Optimum selections of landslide scheme and scientific treatment are of great theoretical and practical importance to avoid or reduce the unnecessary loss of life and money. In this study, we shall first briefly introduce a Probability Dominance Decision-Making model to evaluate the effectiveness degree of landslide scheme considering the weights of relationship between decision attributes. Firstly, several meas-ured indicators of landslide control (Total Project Investment U1, Construction Difficulty U2, etc.) are selected as key impacting indicators to appraise alternative schemes correctly. Moreover, the attribute values of inter-val information for each landslide scheme is defined, and then the Attribute Dominance Relation is proposed to solve the index weights as well as the problem of unknown attribute weight in landslide control schemes. Next, the attribute weight values are ranked and picked by the dominance index relationship between the de-cision schemes and overall schemes. Simultaneously, this paper analyzed the probability decision making problem of using attribute value as Interval Number. In this procedure, we introduced the detailed derivation and analyzed the same and different points between the proposed model with the Deviation Maximization Al-gorithm. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the model.

The article examines the role of the family in the formation of the attitude towards money. The circumstances of family financial conflicts are investigated. The cases of financial contradictions in the parental family are analyzed. (based on the memories of an adult about his childhood. Situations where either emotional or rational aspect prevailed in financial decision-making are investigated. Special aspects of financial behavior strategies, attitudes to spending and investments are clarified. The conclusions are made that the usual emotional schemes about money are passed from generation to generation. Getting into a conflict of loyalty between parents “there and then”, a person may experience conflicting feelings about money “here and now”. Money, difficulties in relationships, power struggles, recognition – can be the cause and the reason of conflicts, as well as the undifferentiated complex of feelings, emotions, expectations and interpretations.

The article describes ICT innovations in modern banking and the transition to open banking. Platforms for fast money transfers, movement schemes for transactions and types of services are presented. Possibilities for digitalization of financial operations in animal husbandry are discussed. Factors such as reducing costs, increasing efficiency, facilitating and improving decision-making in the overall management of the financial, economic and reporting activities of a livestock farm are analyzed.

AbstrakSalah satu agenda utama bagi pembangunan nasional adalah sektor ekonomi, khususnya kewirausahaan. Oleh karena itu, pada beberapa skim pengabdian kepada masyarakat peningkatan sektor kewirausahaan atau UMKM digalakkan untuk dapat dikembangankan kepada masyarakat. Harapannya, dengan munculnya pewirausaha-pewirausaha baru, sektor ekonomi masyarakat tumbuh dan semakin mapan, maka sektor lainya seperti pendidikan dan kesehatan dapat semakin terjamin. Berbagai pihak diharapkan menjadi agent of change bagi peningkatan di sektor ekonomi dan UMKM ini. Melalui program KKN PPM, tim Universitas Muhammadiyah Metro mencoba menjadi agen untuk menumbuhkan pewirausaha-pewirausaha baru dengan target khusus yaitu pemuda-pemudi di Kampung Pujokerto Kecamatan Trimurjo Lampung Tengah. Alasan dipilihnya lokasi ini adalah karena sebagian besar pemuda dan pemudi di Kampung ini merupakan petani turun temurun, yang dipandang dari sisi orientasi kewirausahaannya masih cukup rendah. Metode yang dilaksanakan pada pengabdian ini adalah pendekatan secara personal, FGD, studi banding, dan pelaksanaan kewirausahaan. Hasil pengabdiannya adalah terbentuknya kelompok kewirsausahaan berbasis pemuda yang diberinama Usaha Muda Mudi Mandiri (UM3) dan terciptanya usaha bagi kelompok berupa budi daya pembesaran dan pembenihan ikan lele, serta pelatihan pembuatan souvenir pernikahan berbahan Tali Kur.Kata Kunci: Kewirausahaan berbasis Pemuda, Kelompok wirausaha pemuda, KKN PPMAbstrakOne of the main agendas for national development is the economic sector, especially entrepreneurship. Therefore, in some community service schemes, the entrepreneurship sector or MSME sector enhancement is encouraged so that it can be developed in the community. The hope is that with the emergence of new entrepreneurs, the economic sector of society will grow and become more established, so that other sectors such as education and health can be more secure. Various parties are expected to become agents of change for improvement in the economic sector and MSMEs. Through the KKN PPM program, the University of Muhammadiyah Metro team tries to become an agent to grow new entrepreneurs with a special target, namely young people in Pujokerto Village, Trimurjo District, Central Lampung. The reason for choosing this location is because most of the youth and girls in this village are hereditary farmers, which is considered from the perspective of their entrepreneurial orientation is still quite low. The method used in this service is a personal approach, FGD, comparative studies, and the implementation of entrepreneurship. The result of this dedication was the formation of a youth-based entrepreneurship group called Usaha Muda Mudi Mandiri (UM3) and the creation of a business for the group in the form of raising and hatching catfish, as well as training in making wedding souvenirs from Tali Kur.Keywords: Youth-based entrepreneurship, youth entrepreneur groups, KKN PPM

ABSTRACTHigh prevalence of teenage pregnancy in low-income countries impacts health, social, economic, and educational situations of teenage girls. To acquire better understanding of factors leading to high prevalence of teenage pregnancy in rural Lindi region, Tanzania, we explored perspectives of girls and key informants by conducting a facility-based explorative qualitative study according to the grounded theory approach. Participants were recruited from Mnero Diocesan Hospital using snowball sampling, between June and September 2018. Eleven pregnant teenagers, two girls without a teenage pregnancy, and eight other key informants were included. In-depth interviews (including photovoice) and field observations were conducted. Analysis of participant perspectives revealed five main themes: 1) lack of individual agency (peer pressure, limited decision-making power, and sexual coercion); 2) desire to earn money and get out of poverty; 3) dropping out of school contributing to becoming pregnant; 4) absence of financial, material, psychological, or emotional support from the environment; and 5) limited access to contraception. A majority of girls reported the pregnancy to be unplanned, whereas some girls purposely planned it. Our findings and the resulting conceptual framework contribute to a new social theory and may inform national and international policies to consider the needs and perspectives of teenagers in delaying pregnancy and promoting sexual and reproductive health in Tanzania and beyond.

Scholars who write about early modern women and crime have focused primarily on prostitution and witchcraft which they deem “feminine” crimes. Removing this gender bias by employing a non-essentialist perspective, reveals a more nuanced picture of women’s participation in crime. Women who were unwilling—or perhaps not feminine enough—to use their sexual attributes to make money existed and are reported in crime statistics and literature. Using both hard evidence from crime studies and soft evidence from literary sources, and considering a wide historical range (from 1600–1800), reveals a steady stream of references to masculine-female criminals on the margins of early modern culture. I argue that future crime studies of early modern periods should allow for the consideration of women who did not conform to their culture’s gender ideals. Making a space for the “masculine-female criminal” contributes to a more nuanced view of gender and early modern culture.

Background Poor menstrual hygiene practices influence school girls’ dignity, well-being and health, school-absenteeism, academic performance, and school dropout in developing countries. Despite this, menstrual hygienic practices are not well understood and have not received proper attention by school WASH programs. Therefore, this study examined the extent of good menstrual hygiene practices and associated factors among high school girls in Dessie City, Amhara Region, northeastern Ethiopia. Methods A school-based cross-sectional study was employed to examine 546 randomly selected high school students in Dessie City, northeastern Ethiopia. Pretested interviewer-administered questionnaires and a school observational checklist were used for data collection. EpiData Version 4.6 and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Version 25.0 were used for data entry and analysis, respectively. Bivariate and multivariable logistics regression analyses were employed to identify factors associated with good menstrual hygiene practices. During bivariable analysis, variables with P-values less than 0.25 were retained for multivariable analysis. In the multivariable analysis, variables with a P-value less than 0.05 were declared to be significantly associated with good menstrual hygiene practices. Results Of the respondents, 53.9% (95% CI [49.6, 58.2]) reported good menstrual hygiene practices. The following factors were found to be significantly associated with good menstrual hygiene practices: age range 16–19 years (AOR = 1.93, 95% CI: [1.22–3.06]); school grade level 10 (AOR = 1.90, 95% CI: [1.18–3.07]); maternal education (primary) (AOR = 3.72, 95% CI: [1.81–7.63]), maternal education (secondary) (AOR = 8.54, 95% CI: [4.18–17.44]), maternal education (college) (AOR = 6.78, 95% CI: [3.28–14.02]) respectively]; having regular menses [AOR = 1.85, 95% CI: (1.03–3.32); good knowledge regarding menstruation (AOR = 2.02, 95% CI: [1.32–3.09]); discussing menstrual hygiene with friends (AOR = 1.79, 95% CI: [1.12–2.86]), and obtaining money for pads from the family (AOR = 2.08, 95% CI: [1.15–3.78]). Conclusion We found that more than half of high school girls had good menstrual hygiene practices. Factors significantly associated with good menstrual hygiene practices include high school girls age 16–18 years, girls grade level 10, maternal education being completed primary, secondary and college level, having regular menses, good knowledge regarding menstruation, discussing menstrual hygiene with friends and obtaining money for pads from the family. Therefore, educating of high school student mothers about MHP should be a priority intervention area to eliminate the problem of menstrual hygiene among daughters. Furthermore, in order to improve the MHP among high school girls, further attention is needed to improving knowledge regarding menstruation among high school girls, encouraging high school girls’ families to support their daughters by buying sanitary pads and promoting discussions among friends about menstrual hygiene. Schools need to focus on making the school environment conducive to managing menstrual hygiene by increasing awareness of safe MHP and providing adequate water/sanitation facilities.

The Plautine corpus contains five letter-plays, comedies in which epistles are composed, delivered and/or read onstage and figure as a major element of the plot. These embedded missives, both stolen and forged ex nihilo, are variously employed by the personae to enact deception and engender duplicitous maneuvering of epistolary conventions, as well as sophisticated jokes about literacy and the dynamics of the medium. The Bacchides features the most elaborate manifestation of this motif. A servus called Chrysalus schemes to facilitate the love affair between his erus minor, Mnesilochus, and the young man's beloved Bacchis. Bacchis resides at Athens with her sister, another hetaera likewise called Bacchis, whose name and affair with the Bacchides’ second adulescens, Pistoclerus, precipitate a misapprehension that causes the play to reset. Under the mistaken impression that Pistoclerus is in love with his own Bacchis, Mnesilochus returns the money Chrysalus has successfully filched from his father, Nicobulus, informing on the tricky slave and undoing his progress. Once the mistake is clarified, Mnesilochus prevails upon Chrysalus to invent a new ruse for getting the girl. The schemer uses epistles to do it all over again. His second round of tricks consists of a two-pronged stratagem in which he forges and delivers a pair of letters to Nicobulus allegedly from Mnesilochus. The missives serve to pilfer not one but two sums of gold from the old man, permitting Chrysalus and his younger master to both purchase Bacchis’ freedom from her contract with the miles and have some fun.

BackgroundChildhood overweight is unequally distributed by ethnicity and socioeconomic circumstances. Weight management interventions are moderately effective under research conditions. We evaluated the Mind, Exercise, Nutrition, Do it! (MEND) 7–13 programme, a multicomponent family-based intervention for children aged 7–13 years who are overweight or obese. The programme was tested in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) and then delivered at scale under service conditions.ObjectivesThe aims of this study were to describe the characteristics of children who take part in MEND, when implemented at scale and under service conditions; assess how the outcomes associated with participation in MEND vary with the characteristics of children (sex, socioeconomic circumstances and ethnicity), MEND centres (type of facility, funding source and programme group size) and areas where children live (in relation to area-level deprivation and the obesogenic environment); examine the cost of providing MEND, per participant, to the NHS and personal social services, including how this varies and how variation in cost is related to variation in outcome; evaluate the salience and acceptability of MEND to those who commission it, those who participate in full, those who participate but drop out and those who might benefit but do not take up the intervention; and investigate what types of costs, if any, are borne by families (and by which members) when participating in MEND, and in sustaining a healthy lifestyle afterwards.Data and methodsWe compared the sociodemographic characteristics of all children referred to MEND (‘referrals’,n = 18,289), those who started the programme (‘starters’,n = 13,998) and those who completed it (‘completers’,n = 8311) with comparable overweight children in England. Associations between participant, programme and neighbourhood characteristics and change in body mass index (BMI) and other outcomes associated with participation in MEND 7–13 were estimated using multilevel models. Economic costs were estimated using published evaluations in combination with service data. We used qualitative methods to explore salience and acceptability to commissioners (n = 27 interviews) and families (n = 23 family interviews and eight individual interviews), and costs to families.FindingsLess than 0.5% of children eligible for MEND were referred to, participated in or completed the programme. Compared with the MEND-eligible population, proportionally more MEND 7–13 starters and completers were girls, Asian or from families with a lone parent, and lived in social or private rented rather than owner-occupied accommodation, in families where the primary earner was unemployed, and in urban and deprived areas. Compared with the MEND-eligible population, proportionally less MEND 7–13 starters and completers were white or from ‘other’ ethnic groups. Having started the programme, boys and participants who were psychologically distressed, lived in socioeconomically deprived circumstances, or attended large groups or groups whose managers had delivered several programmes were less likely to complete the programme.Multilevel multivariable models showed that, on average, BMI reduced by 0.76 kg/m2over the period of the programme (10-week follow-up). BMI reduced on average in all groups, but the reduction was greater for boys, as well as children who were of higher baseline BMI, younger, white or living in less socioeconomically deprived circumstances, and for those who attended more sessions and participated in smaller programmes. BMI reductions under service and RCT conditions were of a similar order of magnitude. Reported participant self-esteem, psychological distress, physical activity and diet improved overall and were also moderated by participant-, family-, neighbourhood- and programme-level covariates.Based on previous studies the cost per programme was around £4000. The mean cost per starter is £463 and the mean cost per completer is £773. The estimated costs varied according to costs associated with local programmes and MEND Central (the organisation which sells MEND interventions to commissioners and delivery partners), and the number of participants per programme.Commissioners liked the fact that the programme was evidence-informed, involved families and was ‘implementation-ready’. However, recruitment and retention of families influenced their view on the extent to which the programme offered value for money. They wanted longer-term outcome data and had concerns in relation to skills for delivery to diverse populations with complex health and social needs.At least one individual in every family felt that participation in MEND had been beneficial, but few had managed long-term change. Most families had self-referred via the mother on the basis of weight concerns and/or bullying and anxiety about the transition to secondary school. Exercising with others of a similar build, tips for parents and cooking lessons for children were all valued. Less positively, timings could be difficult for parents and children, who reported competing after-school activities, and feeling tired and hungry. Getting to venues was sometimes difficult. Although families described liking the facilitators who delivered the programme, concerns were expressed about their skills levels. Engagement with the behaviours MEND recommends was challenging, as were the family dynamics relating to support for participants. The costs families mostly associated with the programme were for higher quality food or ‘treats’, time and transport costs, and the emotional cost of making and maintaining changes to lifestyle behaviours generally unsupported by the wider environment.ConsiderationsFurther research should focus on the sustainability, costs (including emotional costs to families) and cost-effectiveness of behaviour change. However, weight management schemes are only one way that overweight and obese children can be encouraged to adopt healthier lifestyles. We situate this work within a social model of health with reference to inequalities, obesogenic environments, a lifecourse approach and frameworks of translational research.FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme.

This article examines the involvement of youth — constructed as ‘area boys’ and ‘area girls’ — in crises of order in downtown Lagos. It explores the emergence of ‘bases’ and ‘junctions’ as modes of organization and differentiation between and among youth in urban Lagos. A ‘base’ is a neighbourhood meeting place where youths gather to relax, recreate, and discuss sports and politics. A ‘junction’ is where social miscreants, street marauders and touts congregate to exploit money-making opportunities. It is my argument that bases and junctions embody distinct, yet connected, forms of subcultures that are simultaneously imbibed and projected by members. Moreover, they constitute emergent forms of territoriality constructed around spaces of leisure, residence and commerce, manifested in extrastate regimes of (dis)order in downtown Lagos. The article unpacks the involvement of members of junctions and bases in the provision of (dis)order as ‘securo-commerce’ — payment of different kinds of fees and levies to purchase security or forestall insecurity in downtown Lagos.

Purpose Corruption affects development and quality of life of citizens in affected countries. The increase in anti-corruption measures globally reflects a consensus that corruption is pervasive and costly. Public procurement is one area in which corruption manifests because of the sums of money involved; the asymmetry of information; and the bureaucratic nature of decision-making, which presents opportunities for abuse. In developing countries, procurement corruption is rife because of institutional weaknesses, lack of enforced accountability mechanisms and culture of silence in relation to public sector malfeasance. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines procurement corruption in countries with systemic corruption, using Nigeria as a case study, to determine how to reduce public procurement corruption. Findings The paper will highlight prevalent corrupt schemes in public procurement in Nigeria, examine the reasons for the failure of state anti-corruption institutions and analyze the kinds of initiatives that reduced procurement corruption and increased accountability in other countries and the utility of adopting such mechanisms in the Nigerian context.

Abstract We investigate the perception of financial exploitation and its causes and consequences by older adults who have firsthand experience of being exploited. Thirty-one cognitively healthy older adult participants aged 50 or older were drawn from the Finance, Cognition, and Health in Elders Study. In-depth, one-on-one interviews were conducted. Interview transcripts were analyzed using an iterative, data-driven, thematic coding scheme and emergent themes were summarized. Categories of financial exploitation included (a) investment fraud, (b) wage theft/money owed, (c) consumer fraud, (d) imposter schemes, and (e) manipulation by a trusted person. Themes emerged around perceived causes: (a) element of trust, (b) promise of financial security, (c) lack of experience or awareness, (d) decision-making, and (e) interpersonal dynamics. Perceived consequences included negative and positive impacts around (a) finances, (b) financial/consumer berhaviors, (c) relationships and trust, (d) emotional impact, and (e) future outlook. These narratives provide important insights into perceived financial exploitation and experiences.

This study examines the impact of migration on children left behind in terms of schooling and child labor by quantifying two aspects of migration: remittances and parental absence, in cases where the father is the migrant. The study is based on a panel analysis of data drawn from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey for 2007 and the Privatization in Education Research Initiative survey for 2011. The sample comprises 820 households with children aged 5–14 years. The study uses the instrumental variable (IV) approach due to endogeneity. Exogenous variation in parental absence and remittances sent by migrants from a given kinship network are employed as IVs. This, combined with household fixed effects and random effects, increases the reliability of the results. While remittances benefit the children, father’s absence has adverse consequences for them. However, mother’s presence in the house appears to compensate for the father’s absence, making the migration beneficial on net for the child. The father’s absence has worse consequences for girls in terms of increased child labor, where the money coming in through remittances has a larger impact on boys’ schooling.

Libraries are non-profit service-oriented organizations engaged in satisfying the patrons' needs by providing them with whatever they seek from the library, i.e., Books, Journals, Magazines, CDs/DVDs, and Online Resources. However, the libraries must face hardships regarding funds which create difficulties in maintaining the libraries and providing better library services. Its high time libraries should become self-dependent rather than depending upon the funds provided by the parental organization. The funds that the parental organization allocates are minimal and do not cover every area pertaining to the library. Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to conceptualize the transformation of libraries into profit-making organizations to provide improved library services. Results: To make libraries a profit-making organization, librarians should go unconventional by making some amends in the library policy like charging money in exchange for some services which were earlier not provided by the libraries, i.e. (1) Rental of equipment: Renting the items like Computers, CD/DVDs, Cassette, among others, can provide some rents. (2) Advertisement: Libraries can charge advertisement costs by promoting books written by authors. (3) Selling the weeding out items. (4) Translation. (5) Reproduction Cost. (6) Service charge on-demand services. (7) Inter-Library Services. (8). Membership Schemes. (9) Book Reservation. (10) Training. The charges incurred from the above services are implemented to make the library a better place by providing better resources and better services. Conclusion: Libraries are meant to be non-profit organizations and must provide services free of cost to the patrons, but the library's primary goal is also to keep the users' satisfaction into consideration. To keep the users satisfied, libraries must keep implementing new policies and procedures to keep them going head on head with time.

Abstract Objectives The goal of this study was to investigate the perception of financial exploitation and its causes and consequences by older adults who have firsthand experience of being exploited. Method Thirty-one cognitively healthy older adult participants aged 50 or older were drawn from the Finance, Cognition, and Health in Elders Study. In-depth, one-on-one interviews were conducted. Interview transcripts were analyzed using an iterative, data-driven, thematic coding scheme and emergent themes were summarized. Results Categories of financial exploitation included (a) investment fraud, (b) wage theft/money owed, (c) consumer fraud, (d) imposter schemes, and (e) manipulation by a trusted person. Themes emerged around perceived causes: (a) element of trust, (b) promise of financial security, (c) lack of experience or awareness, (d) decision-making, and (e) interpersonal dynamics. Perceived consequences included negative and positive impacts around (a) finances, (b) financial/consumer behaviors (c) relationships and trust, (d) emotional impact, and (e) future outlook. Discussion These narratives provide important insights into perceived financial exploitation experiences.

Abstract Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are a relatively new phenomenon in Kazakh-stan – their development began in 2005 in the transport and energy sectors. Initially sluggish growth transformed into rapid PPP deployment from 2016 to 2019 when hundreds of PPPs were launched in many industries (infrastructure, hospitals, schools), which was in sharp contrast to just a handful of PPPs formed prior to 2016. Rapid PPP deployment raised deep concerns whether the government’s supporting schemes and PPP launch procedures are appropriate and whether they may backfire for the government in the form of increasing debt. This paper aims to investigate the enablers and implications of accelerated PPP formation. The study is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with a range of actors in the field, including PPP operators (railroad, energy company, kindergarten), regional and local governments, national and regional PPP centres, lawyers and private investors, which afforded an opportunity to mitigate bias in opinions. The study has identified three principal enablers: simplified procedures for a PPP launch, pressure exerted on regional governments, and extensive government financial support to PPPs. By making use of agency theory, property rights theory and the value-for-money concept, the paper offers a conceptualisation of rapid PPP growth in Kazakhstan in recent years and argues that growth was disproportionally fast and unintended. Policy implications include a need to re-establish the value-for-money approach to PPP formation, a significant increase in government liabilities to PPPs, and a misconception regarding the role of PPP collaborative governance.

Introduction:Many countries use Health Technology Assessment (HTA) organizations to evaluate the clinical and economic impact of new therapeutic interventions. In some markets, HTA outcomes directly link to reimbursement decision-making based on the manufacturer's submitted price (e.g. NICE and SMC [UK]). In others, the HTA outcome leads to price negotiations with manufacturers by a separate body (e.g. HAS/CEPS [France] and G-BA/GKV [Germany]). This research compares major examples of each approach to inform a discussion on whether such price negotiations align with HTA best practice.Methods:Publically-available technology assessment outcomes for G-BA/GKV, NICE and SMC (01/01/2011-31/12/2015) were extracted and compared.Results:Of 112 G-BA benefit assessments, 45 percent offered no additional benefit with automatic reference pricing; 55 percent offered additional benefit, qualifying for price negotiations; 77 percent had prices negotiated, 14 percent had price fixed by court, and eight percent withdrew from market. Of 156 NICE Single Technology Appraisals, 51 percent were recommended, 17 percent restricted, 20 percent not recommended, and 12 percent non-submissions. Of 497 SMC appraisals, 35 percent were accepted, 28 percent restricted, 17 percent not recommended and 19 percent non-submissions. Forty-eight percent and 24 percent of NICE and SMC positive appraisals were associated with a Patient Access Scheme (PAS), with 86 percent and 88 percent being simple discounts schemes, respectively.Conclusions:Making reimbursement decisions for new medicines based on a clear set of criteria may be the most objectively fair and transparent method of HTA; however, as the NICE and SMC examples show, although strong downward price pressure is exerted (high frequency of PASs), this may come at the cost of many therapies (~33 percent) being denied access. By contrast, the flexibility enabled by a distinct price negotiation phase may enable more therapies access, as shown by the G-BA/GKV example (<10% medicines withdrawn). Nevertheless, the relative effectiveness of the downward price pressures, a key determinant of HTA process effectiveness, cannot be compared due to the confidential nature of UK PAS discounts.

Vote by ballot is the feature in a democratic society and the process of decision-making, tending to achieve the philosophy of democratic politics by having the public who are eligible to vote for competent candidates or leaders. With the rapid development of technologies and network applications, electronization has been actively promoted globally during the social transformation period that the concept of electronic voting is further derived. The major advantages of electronic voting, comparing with traditional voting, lie in the mobility strength of electronic voting, reducing a large amount of election costs and enhancing the convenience for the public. Electronic voting allows voters completing voting on the Internet that not only are climate and location restrictions overcome, but the voter turnout is also increased and the voting time is reduced for the public. With the development in the past three decades, electronic voting presents outstanding performance theoretically and practically. Nevertheless, it is regrettable that electronic voting schemes still cannot be completely open because of lures by money and threats. People to lure by money and threats would confirm the voters following their instructions through various methods that more factors would appear on election results, affecting the quality and fairness of the election. In this study, this project aims to design an electronic voting scheme which could actually defend voters’ free will so that lure of money and threats would fail. Furthermore, an electronic voting system based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography is proposed to ensure the efficiency and security, and Ring Signature and Signcryption are applied to reducing the computing costs. Moreover, this project also focuses on applying voting system to mobile devices. As the system efficiency and security are emphasized, voters do not need to participate in the election, but simply complete voting with smart phones, iPads, and computers. The votes would be automatically calculated and verified the results that the ballots are not necessarily printed, the printing of election mails is reduced, and manual handling is canceled. Such a method would effectively reduce voting costs and enhance the economic efficiency.

The United Kingdom has universal healthcare systems, the National Health System (NHS), in its four nations, with healthcare services provided free of charge at the point of delivery. Approximately 10.5% of the UK population has voluntary supplementary private health insurance. While the provision of inpatient medicines is free of charge, medicines provided in the outpatient setting have a dispensing fee in some of the nations, such as the case of England (co-payment). The UK marketing authorisation process is called product licensing and is overseen by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). There are different licensing routes based on the intended market for launch. MHRA also offers early access schemes and pathways for products targeting unmet medical needs and promising technologies, that aim to accelerate and facilitate market and patient access to products in the UK. These schemes include the option for companies to engage early with regulators and other system partners such as health technology assessment (HTA) agencies. As soon as the technology is authorised, it is available at a list price. Prices for medicines are regulated in legislation and in schemes agreed between the industry association and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The prices for the NHS are negotiated between the government and the companies. Routine funding decisions in the NHS are guided by HTA evaluations informed by agencies such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) in Scotland, and the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group (AWMSG) in Wales. Many medicines and other technologies are subject to price negotiations in the NHS, sometimes with confidential price agreements. The NHS in England is legally mandated to routinely fund technologies recommended by NICE that have been evaluated by some of its programmes. The other UK nations have similar arrangements or recognise decisions made in England. The role and contribution of NICE and other HTA agencies in ensuring value for money and evidence-based decision making is well recognised worldwide.

A central tenet of theoretical cryptography is the study of the minimal assumptions required to implement a given cryptographic primitive. One such primitive is the one-time memory (OTM), introduced by Goldwasser, Kalai, and Rothblum [CRYPTO 2008], which is a classical functionality modeled after a non-interactive 1-out-of-2 oblivious transfer, and which is complete for one-time classical and quantum programs. It is known that secure OTMs do not exist in the standard model in both the classical and quantum settings. Here, we propose a scheme for using quantum information, together with the assumption of stateless (i.e., reusable) hardware tokens, to build statistically secure OTMs. Via the semidefinite programming-based quantum games framework of Gutoski and Watrous [STOC 2007], we prove security for a malicious receiver making at most 0.114n adaptive queries to the token (for n the key size), in the quantum universal composability framework, but leave open the question of security against a polynomial amount of queries. Compared to alternative schemes derived from the literature on quantum money, our scheme is technologically simple since it is of the "prepare-and-measure" type. We also give two impossibility results showing certain assumptions in our scheme cannot be relaxed.

Good governance enhances efficiency both in public and private sector organizations. Productivity and good governance are closely associated to aid value for investment both in terms of time and money, and end-user satisfaction. Productivity Enhancement and quality improvement of higher education depend on governance-trends and productive leadership of the institution. Discipline, and quality vision set, and policy practiced by the leadership in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) propagate down the timeline-hierarchy. This article addresses the pivotal factors and parameters worldwide studied, accepted and opined in various case studies and policy making schemes for good governance of Higher Education Indian Institution (HEIIs). This is necessary to enable their leadership enhancing the organizational productivity for 21st-century Indian subcontinent. The 3rd largest youth in the world studying in HEIIs would contribute the most to the growth of 21st-century Indian economy and living standards. This shall be possible when educational productivity of HEII-leadership is innovatively transformed into transformative innovation. In this paper effects, consequences, impacts, opportunities, problems and remedies regarding pivotal issues and challenges of and for existing HEIIs for becoming world-class education system are systematically reviewed. Recommendations based upon studies and findings are made for 21st-century HEII-leadership, and practical model is presented to measure the productivity.

The proposed article investigates the specifics of social status of urban female domestic servants in post-reform Russia. On the basis of a wide range of sources, including statistical materials, printed press, household manuals and ego-documents, the author distinguishes between two groups in this category of population that were fundamentally different in their status in the master’s family. In the post-reform period in Russia, the work of maidservants was not standardized, there were no guarantees from hirers regarding both working conditions and cases of dismissal and disability. Widespread sexual harassment and abuse seriously worsened the position of maidservants. A significant influx of peasant girls, who considered themselves fully prepared for the work of domestic servants, into the city, created a gigantic supply At the same time, the overwhelming majority of the job seekers did not have any idea about the activities that they were to carry out. Making endless blunders, the clumsy peasant girl acquired professional skills and learned to live in the master’s family, suffering insults and harassment and working hard only to avoid being kicked out. As a result, those girls who had been able to endure several years of torment, acquired not only professional skills, but were trained to live in the city, to use their position to earn money, to protect themselves from encroachment, or to use their attractiveness as a weapon. With the growth of education of female peasant youth, their increasing familiarity with judicial institutions, and the intensification of the activities of various organizations involved in helping those women with education and employment, female domestic servants felt more secure and ready to defend their rights. As a result, despite the seemingly gigantic supply, it was, in fact, extremely difficult to find a suitable maidservant for the household. The choice available to the owners was limited to two options - a docile slouch, or a maid knowing her worth and requiring consideration of her interests.

Women's empowerment is the process in which women expand and recreate what it is that they can be, do, and accomplish in a circumstance that they previously were denied. And, that is possible only when we educate a woman that does not only mean a school’s conventional learning but also refers to every form of education that aims at improving the knowledge, and to develop the vocational skills. Women’s education and their empowerment is still a very hot topic of discussion in India that needs to be addressed for the development of the country. According to the statistics released by the latest census of 2011, India’s female literacy rate is 65.46%, significantly lower than the world average of 79.7% as well as approximately 15% lower than the literacy rate of men in India. China, India’s neighbour and the other global human resource powerhouse, precedes with 82.7% female literacy rate. Though The Right to Education (RtE) Act, introduced in 2009 making elementary education free and compulsory in the country, has been a shot in the arm for many, still the statistics do not sound good at all. Indeed, India has seen a rapid growth and the development of Women for Education in past years after implementing some women-friendly campaigns such as "Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao" so well but the Indian development model has yet to completely incorporate the important role played by women for propelling the socio-economic growth. Rather the culture of many Indian families of spending much more money on the marriages of the girls more than their education especially in higher and specialized education is pulling our country back-foot. Here, a big question also arises that how many Indian women are encouraged and aware about the government plans also for fostering Vocational and Technical education for girls as well as for providing them with the employability in different areas.

As our daily lives and socioeconomic activities have increasingly come to depend on information systems and networks, the impact of disruptions to these systems and networks have also become more complex and diversified. In urban areas, where people, goods, money, and information are highly concentrated, the possibility of chain failures and confusion beyond our expectations and experience is especially high. The vulnerabilities in our systems and networks on have become the targets of cyber attacks, which have come to cause socioeconomic problems with increasing likelihood. To counter these attacks, technological countermeasures alone are insufficient, and countermeasures such as the development of professional skills and organizational response capabilities as well as the implementation of cyber security schemes based on public-private partnerships (PPP) at the national level must be carried out as soon as possible. In this JDR mini special issue on Cyber Security, I have tried to expand the scope of traditional cyber security discussions with mainly technological aspects. I have also succeeded in including non-technological aspects to provide feasible measures that will help us to prepare for, respond to, and recover from socioeconomic damage caused by advancing cyber attacks. Finally, I am truly grateful for the authors’ insightful contributions and the referees’ acute professional advice, which together make this JDR mini special issue a valuable contribution to making our society more resilient to incoming cyber attacks.

After analysing the above answers we can deduct some results, which confirm certain behaviour in girls that can be scientifically explained. A survey helped in establishing ecological consciousness and was a help in characterizing a survival persona. Looking at the answers with inclusion of two different sexes we can follow differences in the views concerning environmental protection, the survey results clearly show a difference in approach to the natural environment depending on the sex. Women more clearly see the beauty, harmony and set order in the environment. Nature astonishes them and is a guarantee of life. Analysing the survey results it is not possible not to see the differences in viewing the natural environment. Quoting Estes we can say that mature woman (surviving woman) looking at a forest sees a home for herself and other people, whilst others looking at the same forest imagine cutting down trees and making money on it. Clean environment allowing life is like air necessary to live and you can only breathe deeply with clean air. It is similar with woman’s psyche where a mechanism of full breath operates and forces her to breathe in the fresh air. The research results confirmed that girls show more concern about harmony and complexity of the natural world and definitely at every opportunity become protectors of life. So a smaller extend that boys they support technological and technical development, they do not see it as a solution to problems connected with degradation of environment. If you would like to separate pro environment personality types taking into account these characteristic for boys and girls, based on the performed survey, we can present: Rational type , scientific thinker and technocrat, consumer, which is dominant in boys answers and emotional type, esthetic environmentalist which is dominant within girls answers. Woman can show man how to admire nature, how to develop sensitivity and open ones eyes to new perspectives, whose theoretical author is often he himself. It is women who with their hearts read and introduce into life philosophical life and written theological works whose authors are men. Woman’s task is activity connected with protecting the wisdom of soul, not to accept abnormal state for normal and to hale the courage to celebrate natural forces with elements of Her soul and life, which a priceless treasure of each woman. When women do not follow their voice when intervening in unacceptable situations her views fade, her nature fades and natural world. Love fades as well as the will to repair the world and harmony with nature, The Word lacks fresh air and water, but also the voice of consciousness. Research I have performed confirmed the thesis I had made and allows to precise the desired personality characteristics, needed to shape a survival personality.

As a contribution to the field of valuation studies this article lays out a number of lessons that follow from an exploratory inquiry into ‘good tomatoes’. We held interviews with tomato experts (developers, growers, sellers, processors, professional cooks and so-called consumers) in the Netherlands and analysed the transcriptions carefully. Grouping our informants’ concerns with tomatoes into clusters, we differentiate between five registers of valuing. These have to do with money, handling, historical time, what it is to be natural, and sensual appeal. There are tensions between and within these registers that lead to clashes and compromises. Accordingly, valuing tomatoes does not fit into inclusive formal schemes. Neither is it simply a matter of making judgements. Our informants told us how they know whether a tomato is good, but also revealed what they do to make tomatoes good. Their valuing includes activities such as pruning tomato plants and preparing tomato dishes. But if such activities are meant to make tomatoes good, success is never guaranteed. This prompts us to import the notion of care. Care does not offer control, but involves sustained and respectful tinkering towards improvement. Which is not to say in the end the tomatoes our informants care for are good. In the end these tomatoes get eaten. And while eating performs tomatoes as ‘good to eat’, it also finishes them off. Valuing may lead on to destruction. An important lesson for valuation studies indeed.

As a contribution to the field of valuation studies this article lays out a number of lessons that follow from an exploratory inquiry into ‘good tomatoes’. We held interviews with tomato experts (developers, growers, sellers, processors, professional cooks and so-called consumers) in the Netherlands and analysed the transcriptions carefully. Grouping our informants’ concerns with tomatoes into clusters, we differentiate between five registers of valuing. These have to do with money, handling, historical time, what it is to be natural, and sensual appeal. There are tensions between and within these registers, that lead to clashes and compromises. Accordingly, valuing tomatoes does not fit into inclusive formal schemes. Neither is it simply a matter of making judgements. Our informants told us how they know whether a tomato is good, but also revealed what they do to make tomatoes good. Their valuing includes activities such as pruning tomato plants and preparing tomato dishes. But if such activities are meant to make tomatoes good, success is never guaranteed. This prompts us to import the notion of care. Care does not offer control, but involves sustained and respectful tinkering towards improvement. Which is not to say in the end the tomatoes our informants care for are good. In the end these tomatoes get eaten. And while eating performs tomatoes as ‘good to eat’, it also finishes them off. Valuing may lead on to destruction. An important lesson for valuation studies indeed.

In the age of the information-based economy and the rapid advancements of data schemes, business management has been faced with extraordinary difficulties and has entered into a reasonable period where the board’s conventional enterprise execution assessment centers around the interests of investors. Speculators accept money-related information as their basis and focus on the investigation of material fascination, and in the event of the off chance that they do not, they cannot confirm the next economy period. In this way, enterprise execution reflects the interests of investors and business strategists for the needs of partners, which is significant for the forthcoming rivalry. Given that, the collection of data is a significant research tool that has lately been considered by researchers for data examination. In this paper, we have established multi-criteria decision-making methods for the assessment of business execution with spherical fuzzy information. We have applied Hamacher aggregation operators such as the spherical cubic fuzzy Hamacher weighted averaging (SCFHWA) operator, the spherical cubic fuzzy Hamacher ordered weighted averaging (SCFHOWA) operator, the spherical cubic fuzzy Hamacher hybrid averaging (SCFHHA) operator, the spherical cubic fuzzy Hamacher weighted geometric (SCFHWG) operator, the spherical cubic fuzzy Hamacher ordered weighted geometric (SCFHOWG) operator, and the spherical cubic fuzzy Hamacher hybrid geometric (SCFHHG) operator for the appraisal of the best choice of enterprise. We ultimately defend the proposed approach with the existing strategies for possibility and adequacy.

Decision-making power is a vital key for assessing the empowerment of a person. Empowerment increases self-efficacy by which one can control one’s mode of life for survival in a better way. It is an established fact that women are the most disempowered section in our society and the rural Muslim women are relatively more oppressed than others as there is the predominance of social-cultural and economic inequality among this minority community. As a result, these women have very limited opportunities to participate in the decision-making process related to their family matters and societal affairs linked with their own lives. Considering this scenario, the present study attempts to examine and analyse the decision-making power of homemakers in rural Muslim communities at micro level, taking Santoshpur village of Murshidabad district, West Bengal, as a case study. The methodology designed for the present study integrates both quantitative and qualitative methods based on field surveys. For this, fifty respondents have been selected using stratified purposive random sampling technique, and data have been acquired through face-to-face interviews through a semi-structured questionnaire. Then, the Cumulative Empowerment Index (CEI) is constructed based on selected eight key indicators to measure respondents' decision-making ability and liberty. Multiple Correlations are also computed, indicating that education and economic dependencies are the most critical determinants influencing women's empowerment and decision-making processes. The study also reveals that the existing rigid cultural system is mainly responsible for the suppression of women’s identity as well as their thoughts. But there remains hope for the next-generation girl children as different schemes are being taken up by the Government of West Bengal to promote and popularise women’s education at different levels.

AbstractObjectiveTo investigate the feasibility and acceptability of using wearable cameras as a method to capture the opportunities for food and drink purchasing/consumption that young people encounter on their regular journeys to and from school.DesignA qualitative study using multiple data-collection methods including wearable cameras, global positioning system units, individual interviews, food and drink purchase and consumption diaries completed by participants over four days, and an audit of food outlets located within an 800 m Euclidean buffer zone around each school.SettingA community setting.SubjectsTwenty-two students (fourteen girls and eight boys) aged 13–15 years recruited from four secondary schools in two counties of England.ResultsWearable cameras offered a feasible and acceptable method for collecting food purchase and consumption data when used alongside traditional methods of data collection in a small number of teenagers. We found evidence of participants making deliberate choices about whether or not to purchase/consume food and drink on their journeys. These choices were influenced by priorities over money, friends, journey length, travel mode and ease of access to opportunities for purchase/consumption. Most food and drink items were purchased/consumed within an 800 m Euclidean buffer around school, with items commonly selected being high in energy, fat and sugar. Wearable camera images combined with interviews helped identify unreported items and misreporting errors.ConclusionsWearable camera images prompt detailed discussion and generate contextually specific information which could offer new insights and understanding around eating behaviour patterns. The feasibility of scaling up the use of these methods requires further empirical work.

The study focused on factors affecting the commercialization of food legumes-cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata), bambara groundnuts(Vignasubterranea), groundnuts (Arachis hypogaea) and soybeans (Glycine max) in two departments (Benouéand Mayo-Louti) of the North Region of Cameroon. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data. Qualitative methods involved focus group discussions and direct observations. A structured interview guide was administered in major peri-urban and urban markets to get supportive quantitative data. The respondents were selected using purposive sampling technique. A content analysis was conducted and quantitative data was analyzed with the aid of XLSTAT 2007 software and Excel. A cross-section of the age and gender population was involved in the marketing of food legumes. Women constituted more than 80% in the retail sector on peri-urban markets. The study found that 100% of the vendors had never got any form of training on business management before engaging into the sector. Socio-cultural factors were determinant factors that impacted negatively in promoting an entrepreneurial culture among women. The marginalization of women, the restriction of land ownership by traditional tenure and poor distribution of land for agriculture were some of the main constraints faced by women. The impediments of women’s empowerment include their lack of access to the decision-making process, low participation in local governance and limited access to technology inputs and credit. Traditional practices forbid women and girls to have or manage large amounts of money. Such restrictions have serious consequences on agricultural production. Instead of exploiting the productive capacity of women at all levels, including food production and transformation, some of the traditions simply stifle their potential energies. In addition to socio-cultural factors, major bottlenecks faced in the production and commercialisation of food legumes includes social structural and institutional, agronomic, natural(biotic and abiotic stress)and climatic factors. Development of intervention strategies through exogenous innovation techniques might act as an incentive for smallholder farmers to invest more of their land and energy in cultivation of food legumes. More attention should be focused on market research and development with crop improvement programmes that are economically profitable, if food legumes are to continue making a greater contribution to the household income, nutrition and sustainable development in North Cameroon.

Purpose This paper aims to compare the prepaid card laws/regulations in Nigeria, the UK, the USA and India with the aim of determining the best approach to regulating prepaid cards, that is the approach that promotes financial inclusion and also makes the product less attractive for money laundering. Design/methodology/approach This paper relies mainly on primary and secondary data drawn from the public domain. It also relies on documentary research. Findings This paper makes the following findings and recommendations: Nigeria has the best approach to regulating providers of prepaid cards. Nigeria’s approach could foster financial inclusion and at the same time mitigate the money laundering risks associated with prepaid cards. Nigeria’s approach is not too strict like the Indian approach and it is not too relaxed like the UK and the USA approach. Operators, including mobile/telecommunications operators, wishing to operate money transfer schemes in Nigeria are allowed to do so with approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria and in strict conjunction with licensed deposit-taking banks or financial institutions. The UK, the USA and India are recommended to adopt Nigeria’s approach. The UK and the USA have the best approach to regulating agents of prepaid cards. Both countries require prepaid card providers to maintain a current list of agents and make it available to the relevant authorities upon request. The approach allows regulatory agencies to effectively monitor and supervise prepaid card agents. India and Nigeria are advised to clarify their approach regarding the regulation of prepaid card agents. The prepaid card laws/regulations of those countries should be modified to specify if the agent of a prepaid card provider is required to be licensed or registered by a competent authority or if the prepaid card provider (the principal) is required to maintain an updated list of agents which must be made accessible to a designated competent authority, when requested. The new changes will afford regulatory authorities the opportunity to effectively monitor and supervise prepaid card agents. India’s approach to thresholds would preclude most individuals in the intended target market from accessing basic financial products, as most people typically do not have residential addresses that could be confirmed by reference to formal documentation. India should adopt the “risk-based approach” and not the “wholesale de-risking approach”. Research limitations/implications Given their low-risk characteristics, closed-loop cards, specifically cards which do not allow reloads or withdrawals, remain outside the scope of this paper. Originality/value Although there have been researchers who adopted the comparative approach like Jean J Luyat and Will Cain, the comparative approach adopted by those researchers was not detailed enough and also was not aimed at seeking to answer the research question in Section 1 of this paper. Both writers focused on only the aspect of financial inclusion making the whole research a one-sided approach. Jean J Luyat focused on “how regulation had an impact on the development of prepaid cards in Japan and Europe”. He was able to discover that prepaid cards were growing rapidly in Japan but not gaining acceptance as a payment method in the European Union (EU) and France. He aligned such growth in Japan to different factors including regulation. He stated that Japan had a simple and flexible regulatory framework compared to the EU and France which have a complex regulatory system with strict prudential requirements. Nothing was said about the money laundering aspect of such regulation and neither was anything said about thresholds and other optional recommendations canvased by the Financial Action Task Force. The Electronic Money Directive referred to by Jean J Luyat has already been repealed and a second Electronic Money Directive is in place. A comparative approach is adopted in this research seeking to compare the approach in Nigeria with that of the UK, the USA and India. Each of these countries adopted different approaches. The results are to help answer the research question in Section 1 of this paper. The countries were selected on the basis of how strict their regulatory regime is. India’s regulatory regime is the strictest while the UK and the USA are the most lenient. Nigeria is caught in between strict/lenient.

The Regional Rural Banks are government-owned, regionally based and rurally oriented financial institutions specialized in catering to the credit needs of the neglected and weaker sections of the society. In the recent past, RRBs have become a potent mediator for financial inclusion in rural areas. This paper summarizes the innovative methods used by the employees of these banks in deposit mobilizations, credit expansion and recovery of the loan. The primary purpose of the research is to find the problems faced by officials of these banks in marketing their services to the rural customer. The opinions of these bank officials regarding the above factors and the functioning of these banks and their impact on society have also been studied. For this purpose, a sample of 96 bank officials of Aryavart bank and Purvanchal Bank have been taken from the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh. Methodological tools of the research methods were Frequency and Chi-square test of independence which have been used to test the hypotheses developed in the study. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that the employees and staff of these two regional rural banks in the state are making their earnest effort to channelize the savings of rural people by mobilization of deposits by motivating them to deposit their surplus money in the regional rural banks. The bank officials are making efforts to extend credit facilities in rural areas to uplift the people economically. The bank officials are facing problems in deposit mobilization, and credit expansion in the rural areas of the state and they are managing these problems very efficiently. Some political interference was found in the functioning of these banks. In the opinion of these bank officials, the overall working of these regional rural banks is proper. The results of the research can be useful for policymakers in the government to understand the hurdles faced by regional rural banks in reaching to the poor and needy sections of the society. The insights from this paper can help the policymakers to craft innovative schemes which enable these banks to reach the most inaccessible customers in rural areas. Keywords Regional Rural Banks, deposit mobilizations, credit expansion, financial inclusion, loan recovery.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to draw lessons to investors from the conduct of a hedge fund manager who according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint made false and misleading statements before and after an auditor’s reports, misappropriated for personal benefit over $1m, misappropriated clients’ assets, failed to conduct due diligence on third-party buyer, instructed an employee to mislead investors and satisfied some investors’ redemptions with other investors’ subscriptions (Ponzi scheme) without disclosing it to investors. Ironically, the scheme was unveiled by the economic crises and not the investors, their advisers or third-party hedge fund vendors. Corey Ribotsky set up the investment adviser NIR Group to manage four AJW Funds that invested in private equity in public companies in 1999. Through manipulation of financial statements, he also managed to collect about $136m in management and incentive fees over an eight-year period. The SEC complaint alleged the AJW Funds’ assets to be $876m in 2007, yet this figure was not verified, and no assets were traced. Ribotsky did not pay any monies to SEC, as ordered by court settlement, and hence the victims did not recover any of their monies. The SEC could not produce criminal charges; hence, Ribotsky did not go to jail. This case highlights sterility of law enforcement when confronted with brazen fraud. Findings Investors fail to monitor hedge fund managers. Fraud was detected late and not through investors. Fraud was unraveled by the economic crises of 2008. The SEC had sued the fund manager. The fund manager consented to making payment to the SEC but did not make any payments. The SEC could not bring evidence to criminally charge the fund manager. Research limitations/implications The findings based on the case study are valuable to investors and hedge fund industry stakeholders. The findings are not based on an empirical study. Practical implications Investors need to carefully vet all hedge fund managers before allocating and funds and understand how managers make money through the claimed strategy. Also, there are limitations to law enforcement even with confronted with profound fraud schemes. Originality/value The case was built up from public sources to benefit investors considering making allocations to hedge fund managers. The public information about the case is of either legalistic or journalistic in nature.

Problem setting. An important condition for the financial security of any state is full control over the monetary system, which allows not only to perform tasks in the field of regulation of social processes, but also to predict their further development, to determine priorities. Legislation regulated such types of financial security as budget, tax, banking, monetary, currency, investment, debt and others. Legal relations within these areas of financial activity of the state are clear to its participants, they function in the material "physical" world and the state only corrects them by making changes and additions to existing legal norms and laws. The rapid development of information technology (digital revolution) has penetrated and continues to affect all spheres of society. In IT, there is a direction that works to improve financial technologies. The creation of a virtual currency or cryptocurrency, i.e. virtual money, can be considered a revolutionary discovery in the field of financial technologies. Money is the main component of the state's financial sovereignty, the basis of its existence. The monopoly on the issuance of money and control over its circulation has always belonged to the state represented by central banks and other financial regulators (Ministry of Finance). In essence, the state has an objective need to issue, control and supervise its currency (one of the features of the state in general is the collection of taxes, i.e. money in the form of taxes). Therefore, the issue of protecting financial security in the circulation of virtual currencies is important for any state. The purpose of the research is to analyze the legal regulation of virtual currency in the areas of banking, tax, budget activities of the state and activities related to combating and preventing money laundering. Analysis of resent researches and publications. The essence of such a new financial phenomenon as virtual currency, its functionality, types and principles of operation were studied in the works of domestic scientists M. Kucheryavenko, A. Kud, E. Smychok, A. Ovcharenko, O. Glushchenko, S. Khvalinsky and foreign - Fredrik Schneider, E. Gots. At the same time, there is a separate aspect of this problem – these are the challenges and threats that arise and tend to increase in the financial security of any state, namely - in the banking system, tax and budgetary relations, in the field of money laundering by criminal means. Articles main body. The emergence of a new virtual currency, money that is emerging, existing and disappearing forever in cyberspace - this is in the full sense of the word a new challenge to financial security. Legislatively regulating the circulation of virtual currency in detail is a difficult task, because the very algorithm of its operation, originally laid down by the founders - provides for the purpose of avoiding such regulation. The circulation and operation of virtual currency is based on mathematical schemes and formulas, which gives it stability to any state and centralized regulation. The main advantage of virtual currency is its anonymity. The personal data of the e-wallet owner is kept secret. Sometimes the transactions themselves contain such a complex and confusing pattern of movement, which generally disappears in cyberspace. The circulation of virtual currency is not controlled by the state. Does this pose a threat to the financial security of the state? Really, and serious. After all, an alternative currency and a payment system operating in cyberspace have been created, improved and are gaining momentum. Cryptocurrency becomes a competitor to the national currency of any state. Therefore, it should be noted that the state has grounds to interfere in the regulation of cryptocurrency circulation. What are the direct threats and risks from the existence of a virtual decentralized cryptocurrency system? These threats can be divided into areas of financial activity of the state and identify the most important of them. These are the banking sector, the monetary sphere, the tax and related budget sphere, the legal relations in the field of financial monitoring, the debt sphere. The introduction of digital currencies and blockchain technologies threatens to destroy the banking system in its traditional form. The fact is that virtual currencies and the blockchain allow any entity (physical and legal, etc.) to communicate economically directly, bypassing any intermediaries. And modern banks are such classic intermediaries, in addition to the monopoly type. Problems also arise in the field of tax evasion with the help of virtual currency. Such activity can be taxed only if one condition is met - if users of this network (real taxpayers) will be willing to declare and keep records of their transactions with virtual currencies. And will there be many such people? It is clear that the risks of tax evasion in the circulation of virtual currencies pose threats first in the tax sphere, destroying the state's ability to protect its economic interests, the ability to realize and develop the country's tax potential, and then create threats to budget security. Virtual currencies that can be exchanged for real money pose a threat of their illegal use for money laundering and terrorist financing. They may allow for anonymous transfers if the sender's and recipient's identities are not properly established. In this situation, there is no control body with which to track and detect suspicious transactions. Today, we can give examples of services designed to hide sources of virtual currency, transactions with them and complete anonymity. Yes, anonymizer means "dark networks" and "mixers", which are designed for these types of operations. Their types are the Tor network (anonymous network), Dark Wallet (anonymous network service), Bitcoin Laundry (mixer), Cold Storage, Hot Storage. Conclusions. The emergence of Fintech in information and telecommunication technologies, on the basis of which a system of virtual currencies and decentralized payment systems was developed and implemented, has created a number of serious threats and risks for the world. The main principle of the virtual currency is anonymity, which allows users to completely prevent government and financial control by the authorities, which is a very attractive prospect for many of them. Unregulated cryptocurrency market threatens the financial security of the state in the banking, tax, budgetary spheres and legal relations in the field of money laundering. The only way to counter these threats is to take full control and supervision of the decentralized system of virtual currency circulation. Unfortunately, the creation of an alternative centralized system of virtual currencies, which is subordinated to state and financial institutions, is not able to completely solve this problem.

Problem setting. An important condition for the financial security of any state is full control over the monetary system, which allows not only to perform tasks in the field of regulation of social processes, but also to predict their further development, to determine priorities. Legislation regulated such types of financial security as budget, tax, banking, monetary, currency, investment, debt and others. Legal relations within these areas of financial activity of the state are clear to its participants, they function in the material "physical" world and the state only corrects them by making changes and additions to existing legal norms and laws. The rapid development of information technology (digital revolution) has penetrated and continues to affect all spheres of society. In IT, there is a direction that works to improve financial technologies. The creation of a virtual currency or cryptocurrency, i.e. virtual money, can be considered a revolutionary discovery in the field of financial technologies. Money is the main component of the state's financial sovereignty, the basis of its existence. The monopoly on the issuance of money and control over its circulation has always belonged to the state represented by central banks and other financial regulators (Ministry of Finance). In essence, the state has an objective need to issue, control and supervise its currency (one of the features of the state in general is the collection of taxes, i.e. money in the form of taxes). Therefore, the issue of protecting financial security in the circulation of virtual currencies is important for any state. The purpose of the research is to analyze the legal regulation of virtual currency in the areas of banking, tax, budget activities of the state and activities related to combating and preventing money laundering. Analysis of resent researches and publications. The essence of such a new financial phenomenon as virtual currency, its functionality, types and principles of operation were studied in the works of domestic scientists M. Kucheryavenko, A. Kud, E. Smychok, A. Ovcharenko, O. Glushchenko, S. Khvalinsky and foreign - Fredrik Schneider, E. Gots. At the same time, there is a separate aspect of this problem – these are the challenges and threats that arise and tend to increase in the financial security of any state, namely - in the banking system, tax and budgetary relations, in the field of money laundering by criminal means. Articles main body. The emergence of a new virtual currency, money that is emerging, existing and disappearing forever in cyberspace - this is in the full sense of the word a new challenge to financial security. Legislatively regulating the circulation of virtual currency in detail is a difficult task, because the very algorithm of its operation, originally laid down by the founders - provides for the purpose of avoiding such regulation. The circulation and operation of virtual currency is based on mathematical schemes and formulas, which gives it stability to any state and centralized regulation. The main advantage of virtual currency is its anonymity. The personal data of the e-wallet owner is kept secret. Sometimes the transactions themselves contain such a complex and confusing pattern of movement, which generally disappears in cyberspace. The circulation of virtual currency is not controlled by the state. Does this pose a threat to the financial security of the state? Really, and serious. After all, an alternative currency and a payment system operating in cyberspace have been created, improved and are gaining momentum. Cryptocurrency becomes a competitor to the national currency of any state. Therefore, it should be noted that the state has grounds to interfere in the regulation of cryptocurrency circulation. What are the direct threats and risks from the existence of a virtual decentralized cryptocurrency system? These threats can be divided into areas of financial activity of the state and identify the most important of them. These are the banking sector, the monetary sphere, the tax and related budget sphere, the legal relations in the field of financial monitoring, the debt sphere. The introduction of digital currencies and blockchain technologies threatens to destroy the banking system in its traditional form. The fact is that virtual currencies and the blockchain allow any entity (physical and legal, etc.) to communicate economically directly, bypassing any intermediaries. And modern banks are such classic intermediaries, in addition to the monopoly type. Problems also arise in the field of tax evasion with the help of virtual currency. Such activity can be taxed only if one condition is met - if users of this network (real taxpayers) will be willing to declare and keep records of their transactions with virtual currencies. And will there be many such people? It is clear that the risks of tax evasion in the circulation of virtual currencies pose threats first in the tax sphere, destroying the state's ability to protect its economic interests, the ability to realize and develop the country's tax potential, and then create threats to budget security. Virtual currencies that can be exchanged for real money pose a threat of their illegal use for money laundering and terrorist financing. They may allow for anonymous transfers if the sender's and recipient's identities are not properly established. In this situation, there is no control body with which to track and detect suspicious transactions. Today, we can give examples of services designed to hide sources of virtual currency, transactions with them and complete anonymity. Yes, anonymizer means "dark networks" and "mixers", which are designed for these types of operations. Their types are the Tor network (anonymous network), Dark Wallet (anonymous network service), Bitcoin Laundry (mixer), Cold Storage, Hot Storage. Conclusions. The emergence of Fintech in information and telecommunication technologies, on the basis of which a system of virtual currencies and decentralized payment systems was developed and implemented, has created a number of serious threats and risks for the world. The main principle of the virtual currency is anonymity, which allows users to completely prevent government and financial control by the authorities, which is a very attractive prospect for many of them. Unregulated cryptocurrency market threatens the financial security of the state in the banking, tax, budgetary spheres and legal relations in the field of money laundering. The only way to counter these threats is to take full control and supervision of the decentralized system of virtual currency circulation. Unfortunately, the creation of an alternative centralized system of virtual currencies, which is subordinated to state and financial institutions, is not able to completely solve this problem.

The article summarizes the theoretical aspects and practice of the development of offshore jurisdictions in the world economy. Despite the fact that national governments and international organizations are making more and more attempts to counter offshore schemes, the outflow of capital to offshore is quite stable. This is due to the advantages of offshore zones in the form of special tax, currency and customs tariff conditions. An overview of the preconditions required to obtain offshore status was presented. Political stability, the presence of authoritative banking structures and qualified personnel, and a favorable economic and geographical position were listed as the main ones. The classification of offshore jurisdictions, compiled according to certain characteristics, is presented. The article discusses the issues of further deepening the economic development of offshore zones at the stage of economic integration, further improvement of the investment climate in offshore centers due to the inflow of foreign direct investments. In addition, the main positive and negative consequences of the influence of offshore zones on the economy of countries are determined. The essence of the offshore zone, its contradictory nature, and also the classification and types of offshore zones based on various characteristics are given. The role of de-offshoreization carried out by various countries was revealed, as well as the role of international organizations in the fight against money laundering, tax evasion and corruption. On the basis of official documents and scientific literature, the trends of the development of offshore centers, their influence on the movement of global capital, and the state of offshore business in the world were examined. The need for offshore is due to objective prerequisites, in particular, elementary economic competition. World finances are tied to offshore, and some respectable countries earn from the services of offshore companies. The imperfection of the global financial system is compensated by offshore as an element of financial freedom of entrepreneurial capital. It is established that offshores will continue to develop in conditions of constant increased of political pressure, since there is a demand for them and they have clients, including among those who are fighting against them, despite the instability of the financial system, financial crises, international cooperation and anti-offshore rhetoric. The study of the offshore phenomenon will continue as it evolves.

RESUMENEste artículo presenta un nuevo enfoque para determinar El Modelo Funcional de Negocio que se requiere parael modelo de datos del futuro sistema automatizado. El alcance de este nuevo esquema cubre la típica actividadempresarial que requiere de sistemas de información para la toma de decisiones empresariales. Se analizan lospatrones de las áreas funcionales de toda empresa, llegando a presentar los esquemas estándar para cada unade ellas. Estos patrones son demostrados y sustentados debidamente. Los Sistemas Informáticos durante su vidaútil sufren una serie de ajustes vía mantenimiento. Estos cambios generan muchos costos en tiempo y dinero.La estratégia para evitar esta situación es tomar como base un modelo de negocio estándar, el cual pueda serpersonalizado vía parâmetros de acuerdo a los requerimentos particulares del usuário. Con el objetivo de encontrarel Modelo estándar de negocio se demuestra que son cuatro las Macro funciones básicas que de manera universaldeben estar presentes en toda área de Negocios. Estas macro funciones son presentadas y detalladas. Para llegar aeste esquema se demuestra que el servicio entregado por todas las áreas que forman la empresa son Productos tipoServicio y por lo tanto deben cumplir de manera holística con el Ciclo de Vida de Producto (cuatro etapas del Ciclo).Los modelos se presentan tanto de manera gráfica como analítica. En base a este modelo de negocio estándar,se determinarán los requerimientos de información, imprescindibles para la etapa de análisis de los Sistemas deInformación.Palabras clave.- Etapa estudio del sistema, Análisis de sistemas, Requerimientos funcionales, Modelo de negocios, Diagramafuncional.ABSTRACTThis paper presents a new approach for determining the functional business model required for the datamodel of the future automated system. The scope of this new scheme covers the typical business that requiresinformation systems for business decision making. Patterns of functional areas of any enterprise are analyzed,reaching present standard schemes for each. These patterns are displayed and properly supported. InformationSystems for life undergo a series of adjustments via maintenance. These changes generate many costs in timeand money. The strategy to avoid this situation is to build on standard business models, which can be customizedaccording to parameters in particular. In order to find the standard business model there are four basic functionsMacro universally must be present in all areas of business. These macro functions are presented and detailed. Toreach this scheme shows that the service provided by all areas that form the company are type Service Productsand therefore must comply holistically with the product life-cycle management (four stages of the cycle). Themodels are presented both graphically and analytically. They are determined iOn requirements, essential for theanalysis stage of the Information Systems based on this standard model businessKey words.- Stage study system, System analysis, Functional requirements, Business model, Functional diagram.

Este artículo presenta un nuevo enfoque para determinar El Modelo Funcional de Negocio que se requiere parael modelo de datos del futuro sistema automatizado. El alcance de este nuevo esquema cubre la típica actividadempresarial que requiere de sistemas de información para la toma de decisiones empresariales. Se analizan lospatrones de las áreas funcionales de toda empresa, llegando a presentar los esquemas estándar para cada unade ellas. Estos patrones son demostrados y sustentados debidamente. Los Sistemas Informáticos durante su vidaútil sufren una serie de ajustes vía mantenimiento. Estos cambios generan muchos costos en tiempo y dinero.La estratégia para evitar esta situación es tomar como base un modelo de negocio estándar, el cual pueda serpersonalizado vía parâmetros de acuerdo a los requerimentos particulares del usuário. Con el objetivo de encontrarel Modelo estándar de negocio se demuestra que son cuatro las Macro funciones básicas que de manera universaldeben estar presentes en toda área de Negocios. Estas macro funciones son presentadas y detalladas. Para llegar aeste esquema se demuestra que el servicio entregado por todas las áreas que forman la empresa son Productos tipoServicio y por lo tanto deben cumplir de manera holística con el Ciclo de Vida de Producto (cuatro etapas del Ciclo).Los modelos se presentan tanto de manera gráfica como analítica. En base a este modelo de negocio estándar,se determinarán los requerimientos de información, imprescindibles para la etapa de análisis de los Sistemas deInformación.Palabras clave.- Etapa estudio del sistema, Análisis de sistemas, Requerimientos funcionales, Modelo de negocios, Diagramafuncional.ABSTRACTThis paper presents a new approach for determining the functional business model required for the datamodel of the future automated system. The scope of this new scheme covers the typical business that requiresinformation systems for business decision making. Patterns of functional areas of any enterprise are analyzed,reaching present standard schemes for each. These patterns are displayed and properly supported. InformationSystems for life undergo a series of adjustments via maintenance. These changes generate many costs in timeand money. The strategy to avoid this situation is to build on standard business models, which can be customizedaccording to parameters in particular. In order to find the standard business model there are four basic functionsMacro universally must be present in all areas of business. These macro functions are presented and detailed. Toreach this scheme shows that the service provided by all areas that form the company are type Service Productsand therefore must comply holistically with the product life-cycle management (four stages of the cycle). Themodels are presented both graphically and analytically. They are determined iOn requirements, essential for theanalysis stage of the Information Systems based on this standard model business.Keywords.- Stage study system, System analysis, Functional requirements, Business model, Functional diagram.

This paper aims to portray the overall picture of poverty in the world and mentions the key solution to overcome poverty from a critical perspective. The data and figures were quoted from a number of researchers and organizations in the field of poverty around the world. Simultaneously, the information strengthens the correlations among poverty and lack of education. Only appropriate philosophies of education can improve the country’s socio-economic conditions and contribute to effective solutions to worldwide poverty. In the 21st century, despite the rapid development of science and technology with a series of inventions brought into the world to make life more comfortable, human poverty remains a global problem, especially in developing countries. Poverty, according to Lister (2004), is reflected by the state of “low living standards and/or inability to participate fully in society because of lack of material resources” (p.7). The impact and serious consequences of poverty on multiple aspects of human life have been realized by different organizations and researchers from different contexts (Fraser, 2000; Lister, 2004; Lipman, 2004; Lister, 2008). This paper will indicate some of the concepts and research results on poverty. Figures and causes of poverty, and some solutions from education as a key breaker to poverty will also be discussed. Creating a universal definition of poverty is not simple (Nyasulu, 2010). There are conflicts among different groups of people defining poverty, based on different views and fields. Some writers, according to Nyasulu, tend to connect poverty with social problems, while others focus on political or other causes. However, the reality of poverty needs to be considered from different sides and ways; for that reason, the diversity of definitions assigned to poverty can help form the basis on which interventions are drawn (Ife and Tesoriero, 2006). For instance, in dealing with poverty issues, it is essential to intervene politically; economic intervention is very necessary to any definition of this matter. A political definition necessitates political interventions in dealing with poverty, and economic definitions inevitably lead to economic interventions. Similarly, Księżopolski (1999) uses several models to show the perspectives on poverty as marginal, motivation and socialist. These models look at poverty and solutions from different angles. Socialists, for example, emphasize the responsibilities of social organization. The state manages the micro levels and distributes the shares of national gross resources, at the same time fighting to maintain the narrow gap among classes. In his book, Księżopolski (1999) also emphasizes the changes and new values of charity funds or financial aid from churches or organizations recognized by the Poor Law. Speaking specifically, in the new stages poverty has been recognized differently, and support is also delivered in limited categories related to more specific and visible objectives, with the aim of helping the poor change their own status for sustainable improvement. Three ways of categorizing the poor and locating them in the appropriate places are (1) the powerless, (2) who is willing to work and (3) who is dodging work. Basically, poverty is determined not to belong to any specific cultures or politics; otherwise, it refers to the situation in which people’s earnings cannot support their minimum living standard (Rowntree, 1910). Human living standard is defined in Alfredsson & Eide’s work (1999) as follows: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” (p. 524). In addition, poverty is measured by Global Hunger Index (GHI), which is calculated by the International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI) every year. The GHI measures hunger not only globally, but also by country and region. To have the figures multi-dimensionally, the GHI is based on three indicators: 1. Undernourishment: the proportion of the undernourished as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient calorie intake). 2. Child underweight: the proportion of children under age 5 who are underweight (low weight for their age, reflecting wasting, stunted growth or both), which is one indicator of child under-nutrition. 3. Child mortality: the mortality rate of children under 5 (partially reflecting the fatal synergy of inadequate dietary intake and unhealthy environments). Apart from the individual aspects and the above measurement based on nutrition, which help partly imagine poverty, poverty is more complicated, not just being closely related to human physical life but badly affecting spiritual life. According to Jones and Novak (1999 cited in Lister, 2008), poverty not only characterizes the precarious financial situation but also makes people self-deprecating. Poverty turns itself into the roots of shame, guilt, humiliation and resistance. It leads the poor to the end of the road, and they will never call for help except in the worst situations. Education can help people escape poverty or make it worse. In fact, inequality in education has stolen opportunity for fighting poverty from people in many places around the world, in both developed and developing countries (Lipman, 2004). Lipman confirms: “Students need an education that instills a sense of hope and possibility that they can make a difference in their own family, school, and community and in the broader national and global community while it prepare them for multiple life choices.” (p.181) Bradshaw (2005) synthesizes five main causes of poverty: (1) individual deficiencies, (2) cultural belief systems that support subcultures of poverty, (3) economic, political and social distortions or discrimination, (4) geographical disparities and (5) cumulative and cyclical interdependencies. The researcher suggests the most appropriate solution corresponding with each cause. This reflects the diverse causes of poverty; otherwise, poverty easily happens because of social and political issues. From the literature review, it can be said that poverty comes from complex causes and reasons, and is not a problem of any single individual or country. Poverty has brought about serious consequences and needs to be dealt with by many methods and collective effort of many countries and organizations. This paper will focus on representing some alarming figures on poverty, problems of poverty and then the education as a key breaker to poverty. According to a statistics in 2012 on poverty from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), nearly half the world's population lives below the poverty line, of which is less than $1.25 a day . In a statistics in 2015, of every 1,000 children, 93 do not live to age 5 , and about 448 million babies are stillborn each year . Poverty in the world is happening alarmingly. According to a World Bank study, the risk of poverty continues to increase on a global scale and, of the 2009 slowdown in economic growth, which led to higher prices for fuel and food, further pushed 53 million people into poverty in addition to almost 155 million in 2008. From 1990 to 2009, the average GHI in the world decreased by nearly one-fifth. Many countries had success in solving the problem of child nutrition; however, the mortality rate of children under 5 and the proportion of undernourished people are still high. From 2011 to 2013, the number of hungry people in the world was estimated at 842 million, down 17 percent compared with the period 1990 to 1992, according to a report released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) titled “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2013” . Although poverty in some African countries had been improved in this stage, sub-Saharan Africa still maintained an area with high the highest percentage of hungry people in the world. The consequences and big problems resulting from poverty are terrible in the extreme. The following will illustrate the overall picture under the issues of health, unemployment, education and society and politics ➢ Health issues: According a report by Manos Unidas, a non- government organization (NGO) in Spain , poverty kills more than 30,000 children under age 5 worldwide every day, and 11 million children die each year because of poverty. Currently, 42 million people are living with HIV, 39 million of them in developing countries. The Manos Unidas report also shows that 15 million children globally have been orphaned because of AIDS. Scientists predict that by 2020 a number of African countries will have lost a quarter of their population to this disease. Simultaneously, chronic drought and lack of clean water have not only hindered economic development but also caused disastrous consequences of serious diseases across Africa. In fact, only 58 percent of Africans have access to clean water; as a result, the average life expectancy in Africa is the lowest in the world, just 45 years old (Bui, 2010). ➢ Unemployment issues: According to the United Nations, the youth unemployment rate in Africa is the highest in the world: 25.6 percent in the Middle East and North Africa. Unemployment with growth rates of 10 percent a year is one of the key issues causing poverty in African and negatively affecting programs and development plans. Total African debt amounts to $425 billion (Bui, 2010). In addition, joblessness caused by the global economic downturn pushed more than 140 million people in Asia into extreme poverty in 2009, the International Labor Organization (ILO) warned in a report titled The Fallout in Asia, prepared for the High-Level Regional Forum on Responding to the Economic Crisis in Asia and the Pacific, in Manila from Feb. 18 to 20, 2009 . Surprisingly, this situation also happens in developed countries. About 12.5 million people in the United Kingdom (accounting for 20 percent of the population) are living below the poverty line, and in 2005, 35 million people in the United States could not live without charity. At present, 620 million people in Asia are living on less than $1 per day; half of them are in India and China, two countries whose economies are considered to be growing. ➢ Education issues: Going to school is one of the basic needs of human beings, but poor people cannot achieve it. Globally, 130 million children do not attend school, 55 percent of them girls, and 82 million children have lost their childhoods by marrying too soon (Bui, 2010). Similarly, two-thirds of the 759 million illiterate people in total are women. Specifically, the illiteracy rate in Africa keeps increasing, accounting for about 40 percent of the African population at age 15 and over 50 percent of women at age 25. The number of illiterate people in the six countries with the highest number of illiterate people in the world - China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Bangladesh and Egypt - reached 510 million, accounting for 70 percent of total global illiteracy. ➢ Social and political issues: Poverty leads to a number of social problems and instability in political systems of countries around the world. Actually, 246 million children are underage labors, including 72 million under age 10. Simultaneously, according to an estimate by the United Nations (UN), about 100 million children worldwide are living on the streets. For years, Africa has suffered a chronic refugee problem, with more than 7 million refugees currently and over 200 million people without homes because of a series of internal conflicts and civil wars. Poverty threatens stability and development; it also directly influences human development. Solving the problems caused by poverty takes a lot of time and resources, but afterward they can focus on developing their societies. Poverty has become a global issue with political significance of particular importance. It is a potential cause of political and social instability, even leading to violence and war not only within a country, but also in the whole world. Poverty and injustice together have raised fierce conflicts in international relations; if these conflicts are not satisfactorily resolved by peaceful means, war will inevitably break out. Obviously, poverty plus lack of understanding lead to disastrous consequences such as population growth, depletion of water resources, energy scarcity, pollution, food shortages and serious diseases (especially HIV/AIDS), which are not easy to control; simultaneously, poverty plus injustice will cause international crimes such as terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and money laundering. Among recognizable four issues above which reflected the serious consequences of poverty, the third ones, education, if being prioritized in intervention over other issues in the fighting against poverty is believed to bring more effectiveness in resolving the problems from the roots. In fact, human being with the possibility of being educated resulted from their distinctive linguistic ability makes them differential from other beings species on the earth (Barrow and Woods 2006, p.22). With education, human can be aware and more critical with their situations, they are aimed with abilities to deal with social problems as well as adversity for a better life; however, inequality in education has stolen opportunity for fighting poverty from unprivileged people (Lipman, 2004). An appropriate education can help increase chances for human to deal with all of the issues related to poverty; simultaneously it can narrow the unexpected side-effect of making poverty worse. A number of philosophies from ancient Greek to contemporary era focus on the aspect of education with their own epistemology, for example, idealism of Plato encouraged students to be truth seekers and pragmatism of Dewey enhanced the individual needs of students (Gutex, 1997). Education, more later on, especially critical pedagogy focuses on developing people independently and critically which is essential for poor people to have ability of being aware of what they are facing and then to have equivalent solutions for their problems. In other words, critical pedagogy helps people emancipate themselves and from that they can contribute to transform the situations or society they live in. In this sense, in his most influential work titled “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (1972), Paulo Freire carried out his critical pedagogy by building up a community network of peasants- the marginalized and unprivileged party in his context, aiming at awakening their awareness about who they are and their roles in society at that time. To do so, he involved the peasants into a problem-posing education which was different from the traditional model of banking education with the technique of dialogue. Dialogue wasn’t just simply for people to learn about each other; but it was for figuring out the same voice; more importantly, for cooperation to build a social network for changing society. The peasants in such an educational community would be relieved from stressfulness and the feeling of being outsiders when all of them could discuss and exchange ideas with each other about the issues from their “praxis”. Praxis which was derived from what people act and linked to some values in their social lives, was defined by Freire as “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (p.50). Critical pedagogy dialogical approach in Pedagogy of the Oppressed of Freire seems to be one of the helpful ways for solving poverty for its close connection to the nature of equality. It doesn’t require any highly intellectual teachers who lead the process; instead, everything happens naturally and the answers are identified by the emancipation of the learners themselves. It can be said that the effectiveness of this pedagogy for people to escape poverty comes from its direct impact on human critical consciousness; from that, learners would be fully aware of their current situations and self- figure out the appropriate solutions for their own. In addition, equality which was one of the essences making learners in critical pedagogy intellectually emancipate was reflected via the work titled “The Ignorant Schoolmaster” by Jacques Rancière (1991). In this work, the teacher and students seemed to be equal in terms of the knowledge. The explicator- teacher Joseph Jacotot employed the interrogative approach which was discovered to be universal because “he taught what he didn’t know”. Obviously, this teacher taught French to Flemish students while he couldn’t speak his students’ language. The ignorance which was not used in the literal sense but a metaphor showed that learners can absolutely realize their capacity for self-emancipation without the traditional teaching of transmission of knowledge from teachers. Regarding this, Rancière (1991, p.17) stated “that every common person might conceive his human dignity, take the measure of his intellectual capacity, and decide how to use it”. This education is so meaningful for poor people by being able to evoking their courageousness to develop themselves when they always try to stay away from the community due the fact that poverty is the roots of shame, guilt, humiliation and resistance (Novak, 1999). The contribution of critical pedagogy to solving poverty by changing the consciousness of people from their immanence is summarized by Freire’s argument in his “Pedagogy of Indignation” as follows: “It is certain that men and women can change the world for the better, can make it less unjust, but they can do so from starting point of concrete reality they “come upon” in their generation. They cannot do it on the basis of reveries, false dreams, or pure illusion”. (p.31) To sum up, education could be an extremely helpful way of solving poverty regarding the possibilities from the applications of studies in critical pedagogy for educational and social issues. Therefore, among the world issues, poverty could be possibly resolved in accordance with the indigenous people’s understanding of their praxis, their actions, cognitive transformation, and the solutions with emancipation in terms of the following keynotes: First, because the poor are powerless, they usually fall into the states of self-deprecation, shame, guilt and humiliation, as previously mentioned. In other words, they usually build a barrier between themselves and society, or they resist changing their status. Therefore, approaching them is not a simple matter; it requires much time and the contributions of psychologists and sociologists in learning about their aspirations, as well as evoking and nurturing the will and capacities of individuals, then providing people with chances to carry out their own potential for overcoming obstacles in life. Second, poverty happens easily in remote areas not endowed with favorable conditions for development. People there haven’t had a lot of access to modern civilization; nor do they earn a lot of money for a better life. Low literacy, together with the lack of healthy forms of entertainment and despair about life without exit, easily lead people into drug addiction, gambling and alcoholism. In other words, the vicious circle of poverty and powerlessness usually leads the poor to a dead end. Above all, they are lonely and need to be listened to, shared with and led to escape from their states. Community meetings for exchanging ideas, communicating and immediate intervening, along with appropriate forms of entertainment, should be held frequently to meet the expectations of the poor, direct them to appropriate jobs and, step by step, change their favorite habits of entertainment. Last but not least, poor people should be encouraged to participate in social forums where they can both raise their voices about their situations and make valuable suggestions for dealing with their poverty. Children from poor families should be completely exempted from school fees to encourage them to go to school, and curriculum should also focus on raising community awareness of poverty issues through extracurricular and volunteer activities, such as meeting and talking with the community, helping poor people with odd jobs, or simply spending time listening to them. Not a matter of any individual country, poverty has become a major problem, a threat to the survival, stability and development of the world and humanity. Globalization has become a bridge linking countries; for that reason, instability in any country can directly and deeply affect the stability of others. The international community has been joining hands to solve poverty; many anti-poverty organizations, including FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), BecA (the Biosciences eastern and central Africa), UN-REDD (the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), BRAC (Building Resources Across Communities), UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), WHO (World Health Organization) and Manos Unidas, operate both regionally and internationally, making some achievements by reducing the number of hungry people, estimated 842 million in the period 1990 to 1992, by 17 percent in 2011- to 2013 . The diverse methods used to deal with poverty have invested billions of dollars in education, health and healing. The Millennium Development Goals set by UNDP put forward eight solutions for addressing issues related to poverty holistically: 1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. 2) Achieve universal primary education. 3) Promote gender equality and empower women. 4) Reduce child mortality. 5) Improve maternal health. 6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. 7) Ensure environmental sustainability. 8) Develop a global partnership for development. Although all of the mentioned solutions carried out directly by countries and organizations not only focus on the roots of poverty but break its circle, it is recognized that the solutions do not emphasize the role of the poor themselves which a critical pedagogy does. More than anyone, the poor should have a sense of their poverty so that they can become responsible for their own fate and actively fight poverty instead of waiting for help. It is not different from the cores of critical theory in solving educational and political issues that the poor should be aware and conscious about their situation and reflected context. It is required a critical transformation from their own praxis which would allow them to go through a process of learning, sharing, solving problems, and leading to social movements. This is similar to the method of giving poor people fish hooks rather than giving them fish. The government and people of any country understand better than anyone else clearly the strengths and characteristics of their homelands. It follows that they can efficiently contribute to causing poverty, preventing the return of poverty, and solving consequences of the poverty in their countries by many ways, especially a critical pedagogy; and indirectly narrow the scale of poverty in the world. In a word, the wars against poverty take time, money, energy and human resources, and they are absolutely not simple to end. Again, the poor and the challenged should be educated to be fully aware of their situation to that they can overcome poverty themselves. They need to be respected and receive sharing from the community. All forms of discrimination should be condemned and excluded from human society. When whole communities join hands in solving this universal problem, the endless circle of poverty can be addressed definitely someday. More importantly, every country should be responsible for finding appropriate ways to overcome poverty before receiving supports from other countries as well as the poor self-conscious responsibilities about themselves before receiving supports from the others, but the methods leading them to emancipation for their own transformation and later the social change.

Should girls get a formal education? Should women earn? And who should handle the money they earn, if at all? Can a woman’s personality be tied to learning and earning? These questions may be easily overlooked in the 21st century, when women have forayed into almost all possible careers. However, these and more questions related to women’s education, employment and empowerment find clear answers in the so-called moral stories in Hindi and other Indian languages, one finds on YouTube these days. The paper analyzes a selection of such stories centered on women and argues how these ‘moral stories’ ultimately emerge as schemes to keep the patriarchal structure alive by creating an easily accessible digital repository, and end up patronizing women in the pretext of empowering them. The paper focuses particularly on the idea of ‘moral’ these stories contain and argues that the moral messages they convey are actually detrimental to the empowerment of women as their deep structures work to cement the foundations of patriarchy.

Women are the most vulnerable section of our society and their agony in Jammu and Kashmir is more intensified during the last three decades due to prevailing militancy. They work round the clock but lack decision making powers in household affairs as well as in the society. The central and state government has launched several schemes for women empowerment and National Rural Livelihood Mission is one among them. Under this self-employment scheme, the rural women are organized in Self Help Groups (SHGs) and are provided funds for their upliftment. To understand the success in the performance of Jammu & Kashmir Rural Livelihood Mission (JKSRLM) in terms of enhancing income of the women, a total of 80 beneficiaries selected through multi-stage sampling were interviewed by giving equal weightage to two districts of Doda and Jammu respectively. The results reflected that SHGs have played a significant role in the life of rural women in terms of enhancing income and employment. The JKSRLM is a great tool for concerted efforts to improve the economic conditions of the people, and the importance of education must not be overstated, since it influences the choices women and girls make about employment and income generation increasingly.

Abstract Background Care services in industrialized nations are increasingly moving towards individualized funding models, which aim to increase individuals’ flexibility, choice and control over their services and supports. Recent research suggests that such schemes have the potential to exacerbate inequalities, however none has explored gendered dimensions of inequality. The Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a major individualized funding reform, and has a female participation rate of only 37%, despite women and girls making up half of the disability population. Methods The objective of the study is to explore possible gendered barriers to applying for and receiving adequate support through the NDIS, and to suggest directions for future research. We report on semi-structured interviews with 30 women with disability and explore their experiences with the NDIS and their perspectives on challenges associated with being a woman seeking disability support in Australia. We analyse the results using thematic analysis. Results Most women in our sample reported differences between the experiences of men and women seeking disability support in Australia. Commonly reported gendered barriers to women being able to access the right supports for their disability involve a) confidence, negotiation and self-advocacy, b) gendered discrimination in diagnosis and the medical system, which has implications for disability support access, and c) support for and recognition of caring roles. Conclusions These results suggest that women are not receiving equitable treatment with regard to the NDIS, and that further research and policy reform are needed to ensure that women with disability are not further disadvantaged as a result of the move toward individualized funding models.

Bar-el, Dan. That One Spooky Night. Toronto: Kids Can Press. 2012. Print. Especially appealing during the Halloween season or for those students who appreciate a good semi-scary story any time of the year, That One Spooky Night delivers three off-the-wall short and spooky tales. Child protagonists who are all far from pillars of good behaviour set the stage for a more comedic and less truly scary approach to the zany horrors that happen to them. In Broom With A View, a young girl chooses a witch costume for Halloween but accidentally switches brooms with a real witch. On Halloween night, the broom whisks her away to its real owner, a cheeky but good-hearted witch who shows her younger counterpart how to really have fun on Halloween night without being a brat. In 10,000 Tentacles Under the Tub, two mischievous brothers, who, after a night of getting into trouble and almost overwhelming their father with their misbehaviour, find themselves locked in an epic battle in the underwater world they discover at the bottom of their bathtub. In The Fang Gang, four girls terrorize local children until they find themselves facing a foursome of real vampires in disguise who give them a dose of their own medicine. Illustrator David Huyck’s use of muted colours and soft edges throughout the book serve to both unify the stories and transmit an ethereal quality to the images. The different colour schemes used in each story are particularly effective for transporting the reader into foreign, underwater worlds and sinister vampire lairs. Wordless panels are interspersed throughout, further drawing the reader into sullen moods which effectively contrast the zany storyline making That One Spooky Night an entertaining read for upper primary and intermediate readers. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Annabelle Pendry Annabelle Pendry loves her job as Teacher Librarian at Mount Pleasant Elementary in Vancouver, BC.

Numerous persons are inclined to take a risk by making short-term investments that promise substantial profit returns within the shortestpossible time. In this respect people take a gamble and try their luck at whatever opportunity that presents itself. With this growing trend has also arisen fraudsters, whose business is to prey on possible investors by making investments in non-existent business ventures, and large numbers of “investors” have lost vast amounts of money in these get-rich quick schemes. One such example is found in the recent SCA decision of The Trustees of the Insolvent Estate of Grahame Ernest John Whitehead v Dumas (The Trustees of the Insolvent Estate of Grahame Ernest John Whitehead v Dumas GNP (unreported) 2013-03-20 Case no 323/12). The case involved a specialist medical practitioner, Dumas, who made an investment into a fraudulent scheme, having been misled through a misrepresentation by an agent of Whitehead, mastermind behind thefraudulent Ponzi scheme. As a result thereof, Dumas lost a couple of million Rands into the insolvent estate of Whitehead. As illustrated by this case note and the age-old adage that says “a fool and his money are soon parted”, unwary persons could easily lose their hard-earned money. Hence, this case note seeks to enlighten would-be investors of the pitfalls of Ponzi schemes, such as huge financial loss as was experienced by Dumas, and encourage vigilance in making financial transactions. This it does through a critical examination of the Dumas judgment. It especially concerns the legal principles pertaining to monies that are transferred from one bank account to another bank account owing to fraudulent misrepresentation. Primarily, the case note takes a critical view of the manner in which the court applied theselegal principles. While the court, in the authors’ view, properly set out the legal framework, which is sound and correct, it nevertheless went wrong in its application of the law. Therefore, the authors contend that, judged from these very legal principles that the court set out, it nevertheless came to an incorrect conclusion. If left unchallenged, the effect of the judgment will be to set a precedent inappropriately and wrongly that could amount to an unwarranted curtailment of legal protection afforded to persons who are induced by fraud and misrepresentation to transfer money into other people’s bank accounts. In this case note the authors examine the canards of the judges’ reasoning leading up to their decision. As a starting point we examine the factual background of the case, then we move on to the critique and we conclude with the advice.

AbstractSociety is more digitised than ever and there is an urgent need to train people in these sectors, where women are still under-represented. A quantitative descriptive, correlational and explanatory descriptive design was used to identify barriers, supports and gender gaps in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Secondary Education by analysing the interest and perception of 1562 students and 432 teachers. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square and Lambda test and Crame’s V or Phi test were performed together with a qualitative analysis. The results show that fewer female students want to pursue STEM studies, with girls preferring health and education professions and boys preferring engineering and computer science. Indeed, their motivation is different since we found correlations between being a girl and choosing STEM for helping people and society, while earning money is important for boys. Girls believe more necessary than boys to have qualities to study STEM and less often perceive themselves as intelligent and courageous. Our study revealed that families and teachers encourage more boys than girls towards STEM activities. Teachers believe that girls are influence by preconceived ideas, lack of STEM knowledge and lower self-esteem. Regarding gender equality, almost half state that no objectives are included in the curricula, 43.85% do not include it in subjects and only 30% received training. Consequently, female vocations need to be promoted by teaching how STEM solves real-life problems, fostering creativity, increasing self-confidence, promoting STEM activities and making female role models visible. Teachers should receive more gender training and promote gender-sensitive STEM education.