The impact of easing labour regulations on the rate of entry of new small and medium industrial enterprises is examined for Indian manufacturing, taking additionally into account the effect of improved infrastructure, particularly augmented power availability, on the entry rate. Econometric analyses are undertaken using state-level panel data for 2006-2018. Inter-regional variations in the entry rate of small and medium enterprises are utilized to establish the causal effect. The results indicate that easing labour regulations in a region (state) significantly enhances the pace of setting up new small and medium industrial enterprises in the region, and the beneficial impact of labour reforms is greater in regions where power availability is relatively abundant. Another finding is that an increased rate of entry of new small and medium industrial enterprises leads to increased growth rate in employment in manufacturing.

The Covid-19 pandemic brought to the fore tensions between the rights of healthcare workers (HCWs) and the patients they care for. Nowhere are these tensions more evident than in debates over the right to autonomy and whether these rights allow HCWs to refuse vaccination. In the following, I argue that while both parties have a right to autonomy, the patients right to autonomy generally overrides that of the HCW. Still, the patient’s rights do not necessarily entail that HCWs possess a duty to be vaccinated. Instead, it entails that HCWs take reasonable actions to respect the autonomy of the patients.

This study assess the relationship between the deficiency of medical care accessibility in rural areas, with a particular focus on the most susceptible and vulnerable segments of the population. The study employed the Enhanced Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (E2SFCA) methodology and examined its implications for the Spatial Mismatch Theory in line with the Central Place Theory. The results indicates that the Central Place Theory appears more suitable for elucidating access levels and that the provision and accessibility of primary care services remain inextricably intertwined with, and dependent upon, the existence of sufficient road infrastructure. As such, individuals residing at substantial distances from the primary road network may experience severely compromised access to such services. This study contributes to our understanding of the challenges facing rural populations in accessing essential medical care and highlights the need for further research and policy interventions to address these issues.

This paper interprets Hannah Arendt’s concept of the right to have rights (RthRs) as the collective right of a people, arguing that it is a right to build relationships equally and freely with other peoples around the world. The paper first reviews the existing literature on the concept and argue against Seyla Benhabib’s reading of it. By reading and interpreting Arendt’s text, I contend that the RthRs is (1) the right to politics, (2) the power of a people, which I refer to the power of a “polity” in Arendt’s sense, and (3) the people’s power to political actions. Such a reading attempts to explore the meaning of the RthRs as what I called the collective right of a people, which refers to neither declaration of sovereign independence nor self-determination but to equal and free collective action, that is, to act as who we are amongst other peoples (including but not limited to existing sovereign states) around the world. The paper finally explicates why such a reading of the RthRs matters to global politics today and concludes my interpretation of Arendt’s concept of the RthRs.

This interview-based study examines how justice-oriented K-12 administrators and teachers in Iowa make sense of the recent state-level education policy, H.F. 802. Synthesizing literature on Critical Policy Analysis and epistemic justice, we introduce Critical Epistemic Policy Analysis to understand the micro-level impact of divisive education legislation on efforts to create just and inclusive schools. Findings highlight a sociopolitical terrain with ambivalent and shallow equity commitments, deteriorating support for equity work in schools, and a need to grapple with questions of divisiveness and solidarity in justice-oriented educational activism.

This paper highlights the importance of defense diplomacy as a peaceful and non-violent instrument for crisis prevention and armed conflict resolution, which is crucial for easing military-political tensions and reducing confrontation. Furthermore, the main functions of defense diplomacy are revealed, and their importance in efforts to de-escalate military-political tensions is explained. This paper explores the role of defense diplomacy activities in conflict prevention and resolution, with a main emphasis on strategic engagement. Then, crisis and conflict prevention are analyzed as part of noncombat military operations conducted to engage the parties involved in the effort to prevent, contain, or terminate a conflict and reconcile belligerent parties. This paper suggests some basic defense diplomacy features and presents a case study of defense diplomacy between Russia and Turkey. Finally, this article concludes that defense diplomacy can be a powerful tool for conducting peaceful, non-violent, and non-coercive operations for crisis prevention and conflict resolution.

To achieve more accurate and robust Differential Item Functioning (DIF) detection, this study introduces a novel approach called Multi-Detectors Combination (MDC). The main innovation of the MDC approach lies in effectively integrating multiple existing single DIF detection methods under observable examination conditions. Four specific supervised learning methods (LR, NB, TAN, and SVM) in MDC are evaluated using simulated data (360 testing conditions). The results indicate that MDC methods outperform single DIF detection in accuracy (AUC: 81.2% to 82.3%), surpassing the AUC values of other methods, which ranged only from 59.4% to 77.4%. Among MDC methods, TAN performed the best, under all observable test conditions. Moreover, MDC methods demonstrate enhanced precision (RMSE: 0.528 to 0.531) in ability estimation. Analysis of actual data further validates the MDC approach’s superior stability in ability estimation, achieved by excluding flagged DIF items.

Previous research has demonstrated a relationship between childhood victimization and negative mental health outcomes among individuals deprived of liberty. However, these studies have generally focused on physical abuse or sexual abuse and have been conducted in developed countries. Based on this background, the present study aimed to explore the associations between different forms of childhood victimization and psychological distress in a sample of individuals deprived of liberty in northern Chile. Data from 229 participants in a high-security prison facility were used. Six modules of victimization were included, such as conventional crimes, caregiver victimization, peer victimization, sexual victimization, and indirect victimization. Correlation analyses and multiple hierarchical regression were conducted to measure the associations between the variables of interest and psychological distress. Overall, different forms of victimization were associated with all evaluated symptomatology. In a more detailed analysis, it was found that gender, caregiver victimization, and sexual victimization had the greatest predictive weight on adult mental health problems among individuals deprived of liberty. From a social reintegration perspective, these findings could provide the necessary theoretical basis for increased investment in mental health for the incarcerated population in Chile. Considering that many of these individuals may have been exposed to experiences of victimization in their childhood, it becomes crucial to prioritize their mental well-being as part of their rehabilitation process. It is necessary to continue deepening the understanding of these phenomena through studies considering the high prevalence of mental health problems among individuals in correctional systems.

I took the Revenue data from the Washington State Department of Revenue, the minimum wage data from the Seattle City Website, and the average/median wage data by special request from the Washington State Employment Security Department via email with an economist.

This case study of Florida International University is part of a 12-year line of research on intentional change in public metropolitan research universities. Using IPEDS data, this study focuses on changes (2011-2020) in 20 intersectional, full-time faculty categories that combine Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Appointment Type. In these results, the analysis explores diversity, equity, and inclusion issues connected to metric-centric faculty hiring policies. The answers to the study’s three research questions are all affirmative: (a) during the study period, 2011-2020, the FIU full-time faculty composition changed in intersectional categories of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Appointment Type; (b) the results reveal patterns of change; and (c) these patterns of change have diversity, equity, and inclusion implications. FIU’s metric-centric policies appear to favor the exchange of full-time Permanent lines (tenured or tenured-track) for full-time Contingent contracts (non-tenure). If gains are made by non-White faculty, they tend to be in Contingent categories rather than Permanent. The discussion situates the results in the Culture Wars currently occurring in Florida that involve attacks on academic freedom and tenure.

The study tries to understand the developing migration patterns that exists among coastal communities in Trivandrum and consequent lifestyle and livelihood changes. The population of the study is both migrants and returned migrants (from the Gulf countries) in the Pozhiyoor fishing community. This research presents findings from a qualitative research where ethnographic approach was used and data was collected through in-depth interviews. The paper gives special emphasis on challenges faced by the fishermen migrants during Covid-19 pandemic and policy failures at the local level. The research provides empirical evidence that the current migration patterns in the coastal fishing hamlets is closely connected to the local livelihood practices (both traditional and modern) and eagerness to improve their social and economic position. It also shows, acquiring better social status, finding new employment opportunities and overcoming economic challenges were the key factors led the fisher migrants to think about international migration.

Introduced in 2007 by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the intervention ladder has become a widely used tool in bioethics and public health policy. By ordering potential interventions from least to most intrusive, the intervention ladder seeks to balance efficacy of interventions with the cost to individual liberty. While the ladder serves as a useful tool for evaluating potential interventions, it also has unintended side-effects. In particular, by orienting itself around how interventions impact individual liberty, the ladder obscures potential interventions that operate on a systemic rather than individual level. As such, I argue that the ladder needs to be broadened into stairs. That is, the ladder needs to be broadened to accommodate multiple parties simultaneously. Whereas a ladder can only accommodate one party at a time, stairs allow for multiple parties to exist at the same level and to pass each other freely.

The advancement of technology has made the development of software applications become unstoppable. The wide use of software applications has increased the threat to cyber security. The recent pandemic required the organization to adapt and manage new threats and cyberattacks due to the rising number of cybercrime activities all around the digital ecosystem. This situation has led to the importance of ensuring that the software is safe to use. Therefore, software development that emphasizes security aspects in every phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC) should be prioritized and practised to minimize cybersecurity problems. In this study, a document survey be conducted to achieve an understanding of secure software development processes and activities. The source of information is retrieved from different reliable resources of scientific research databases such as IEEE, Science Direct and Google Scholar. Moreover, trusted web resources also be referenced to support the argument in the literature study. Findings show that there are several steps of security measures for every phase of SDLC that should be conducted to improve the security performance of the software developed. The author also suggests solutions for dealing with current issues in secure software development which include educating and training the development team on secure coding practices, utilizing automated tools for software testing and implementing continuous automated scanning of threats and vulnerabilities in the system environment.

While dissent is key to successful science, it is clear that it is not always beneficial. By requiring scientists to respond to objections, epistemically detrimental dissent (EDD) consumes resources that could be better devoted to furthering scientific discovery. Moreover, bad-faith dissent can create a chilling effect on certain lines of inquiry and make settled controversies seem open to debate. Such dissent results in harm to scientific progress and the public policy that depends on this science. While Biddle and Leuschner propose four criteria that draw on inductive risk as a method for separating this EDD from beneficial dissent, de Melo-Martín and Intemann reject this approach for failing to capture paradigmatic instances of EDD. Against de Melo-Martín and Intemann’s objections, I propose the inductive risk account can be saved and strengthened through the following modifications: 1) removing the requirement that the four conditions of EDD be jointly satisfied, 2) requiring that each criterion be measured as a matter of degree rather than as a binary, and 3) requiring that the four criteria are measured holistically. These modifications not only mitigate the criticisms but produce five benefits over Biddle and Leuschner’s account, including: 1) capturing paradigmatic instances of EDD, 2) reflecting the degree to which an instance of EDD is problematic, 3) capturing the interactions between criteria, 4) avoiding legitimizing inappropriate dissent, and 5) reflecting changes to the epistemic standing of dissent. As such, I argue that the modified IndRA provides a powerful tool for identifying EDD and strengthening science.

We are… So, to reframe the inquiry: who are we on a metaphysical level? Which aspects of ourselves are the most universally representative of who we are? How do we fare in the face of the passage of time? For decades, philosophers have debated the concept of diachronic personal identity, which focuses on the question of what keeps us alive. An intricate debate has developed between those who hold the body view (animalism) and those who hold the psychological view (memory) on the question of who we are. The two groups will eventually become so firmly set in their views that they will be unable to compromise. Hylomorphic animalism, or the view that humans are rational animals, living bodies made of prime matter and a rational soul, is an alternative answer to this divisive question that I propose in this study, following in the footsteps of Aristotle and Aquinas. We only survive if matter and rational souls do.

The purpose of the research article is to explore the connection between Sri Aurobindo’s educational philosophy and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The article seeks to examine how Aurobindo’s philosophy, which encompasses integral education, self-discovery, harmonious individual-society relationship, recognition of the multidimensional nature of human beings, and the role of spirituality, can enrich the implementation and understanding of the NEP 2020. The significance of exploring this connection lies in the potential for enhancing the transformative impact of the NEP 2020 on the education system. Aurobindo’s philosophy promotes a holistic approach to education, emphasizing the integration of various dimensions of human existence, such as physical, vital, mental, and spiritual. By integrating these principles into the implementation of the NEP 2020, there is an opportunity to foster a more comprehensive and transformative education system.

This paper challenges the prevailing notion that vaccine hesitancy among healthcare workers is an epistemic failing in their capacity as healthcare workers. In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, a significant number of HCWs remain vaccine hesitant, which has triggered strong public response. This hesitancy is characterized as both an ethical and an epistemic failing. In this paper, I focus on the latter response, which assumes that healthcare workers should have a superior understanding of vaccines. In contrast, I argue that healthcare workers epistemic abilities and responsibilities exist on a spectrum determined by their level of rational authority regarding vaccinations and the epistemic resources available to them. As such, I argue that hesitancy on the part of most healthcare workers does not constitute an epistemic failing.

In countries with multiple cultural and ethno-linguistic cleavages, it is often difficult to reach agreements about historical relations. In the Spanish case, a scientific examination of the geographical direction of public investment may shed light on government intentions, for certain historical periods. During the Franco dictatorship, our empirical results point to an early discrimination, during the autarkic period, against the productive interests in Catalonia and the Basque Country. This situation could have been corrected later, for reasons linked both to economic liberalization and to the search for political survival, in the face of a revolutionary threat. In this sense, the significance of the ideological determinants of public investment, at the provincial level, confirms the existence of non-economic incentives behind the territorial allocation of infrastructure.