Role of technology: Podcast in influencing respondents to receive a flu shot

Background and Problem: Studies have demonstrated that flu shots are an effective method to control flu infection. However, statistics reveal that only about 68% of people get vaccinated in the U.S. every year. We wanted to develop and evaluate an intervention to increase influenza vaccination rate. [See PDF for complete abstract]

Educational Systems and Gender Segregation in Education: A Three-Country Comparison of Germany, Norway and Canada

How do institutional settings and their embedded policy principles affect gender-typed enrolment in educational programmes? Based on gender-sensitive theories on career choice, we hypothesised that gender segregation in education is higher with a wider range of offers of vocational programmes. By analysing youth survey and panel data, we tested this assumption for Germany, Norway and Canada, three countries whose educational systems represent a different mix of academic, vocational and universalistic education principles. We found that vocational programmes are considerably more gender-segregated than are academic (e.g. university) programmes. Men, more so than women, can avoid gender-typed programmes by passing on to a university education. This in turn means that as long as their secondary school achievement does not allow for a higher education career, they have a higher likelihood of being allocated to male-typed programmes in the vocational education and training (VET) system. In addition, social background and the age at which students have to choose educational offers impact on the transition to gendered educational programmes. Overall, gender segregation in education is highest in Germany and the lowest in Canada. We interpret the differences between these countries with respect to the constellations of educational principles and policies in the respective countries.

Technology Choice in the IT Industry and Changes of the Trade Structure

In the IT industry, there has been a remarkable increase in the demand for system LSI. A system LSI must be produced, tailor-designed for each electrical appliance. It is said that this production method has made the IC cycle ambiguous in recent years. It can be sought that the choice of whether the economy pursues a development path centering on technology which is tradable or technology which is embodied in labor, depends on the historical background. The relationship between these two types of technologies is changing rapidly every one or two years. In this background, the analysis is focused on the new trend of technology. In the section 2, the newest trend of technology in the field of system LSI is explained. Then, which kind of technology will be developed and how it will have an affect in the near future, is considered.

An export strategy and technology networks in the Republic of Korea

In Korea, trade with Japan has had a deficit since the normalization of Japan-Korea diplomatic relations in 1965. Korea’s trade balance with Japan has remained in deficit since then, although Korean companies have become bigger compared to Japanese companies. My hypothesis is that the problem has been caused because Korea introduced technologies from Japan. However, in recent years Korean companies could not introduce technologies through technical cooperation with Japan like in the 1990s. In addition, the Korean government seemed to encourage domestic production for import substitution. Nevertheless, the deficit has continued. I thought it necessary to check my hypothesis in order to discover whether or not it was persuasive.

Value added trade and structure of high-technology exports in China

This study focuses on the technological intensity of China's exports. It first introduces the method of decomposing gross exports by using the Asian international input–output tables. The empirical results indicate that the technological intensity of Chinese exports has been significantly overestimated due to its high dependency on import content, especially in high-technology exports, an area highly dominated by the electronic and electrical equipment sector. Furthermore, a significant portion of value added embodied in China's high-technology exports comes from services and high-technology manufacturers in neighboring economies, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The Bangladesh gender gap in education : biased intra-household educational expenditures

By investigating the educational expenditure of children over the ten years (2000 to 2010), we evaluate whether there exists any gender specific discrepancy at the household level and the trend of such discrepancy over the years. Using three rounds of nationally representative Household Income & Expenditure Surveys this study reveals that households spend less on education for their school-going girls compared to boys. By disaggregating the total expenditure into fixed and variable components, we find persistent gender imbalance in educational expenditure where households provide better quality of education for boys. Moreover, we find that gender based discrepancy has a very persistent trend and does not show any significant sign of narrowing the gap over the years. Cohort wise difference-in-difference estimation also reveals that the gap has initially widened and later converged but has not diminished beyond the initial level of discrepancy, which may warrant targeted policy intervention.

UBURYO: open source software for managing microcredits in education

One of the major problems in developing countries is minority access to higher education. Traditional scholarships usually focus on paying tuition fees for bringing brilliant students to developed countries (from where they seldom return). But local grants seldom target the more needy students. We propose a system of student loans to pay tuition fees in exchange for technical work. This appears to be a satisfactory and sustainable solution. We also provide UBURYO (a Kirundi word meaning opportunity). UBURYO is the free open source software, that we have developed, to manage this loan system in a simple, trustworthy, fair and efficient way.

Evaluation of an application for managing microcredits in education

One of the major problems in developing countries is minority access to higher education. Traditional scholarships usually focus on paying eventually tuition fees or bringing brilliant students to develop countries. Additionally, these systems used to be opaque and, consequently, a corruption source. We propose a system of student loans to pay tuition fees in exchange for work. We also provide UBURYO. It is the FOSS, that we have developed, to manage this loan system in a simple, trustworthy, fair and efficient way. We deployed the loan system in the University of Ngozi (UNG, Burundi). A shallow evaluation demonstrates that system sustainability is feasible.

Information technology outsourcing in financial services

Regulatory pressures and strong competitiveness, as well as the need to control costs and remain up to date with information technologies have turned outsourcing into a basic tool at the disposal of financial entities. Our paper has as its aim to show the peculiarities of information technology outsourcing in the financial services industry, additionally suggesting a decision framework which can help firms minimise risks.

Attitudes towards disability in education through the SSCI (2000-2011): a topical and bibliometric analysis

Introduction. The purpose of this study is to describe and characterize the international sci-entific output relating to “attitudes towards disability in education”, using a battery of bibliometric indicators that make it possible to analyze and monitor international scientific activity. Method. This ex post facto retrospective study analyzed 925 papers published in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) database during the period 2000-2011. Results. The number of publications increased steadily between 2006 and 2010. The results reported here include the most productive authors, the journals that deal with this topic, and the articles cited most often. An analysis of research types showed a tendency toward empiri-cal studies. A total of 18 categories were identified when considering article content, and the distribution of the research studies across stages of education was found to be uneven. Discussion and Conclusion. The results reveal a topic that is highly current in today’s scien-tific community, and offer us a view of the traits that have characterized research on "attitudes towards disability in education" for the last eleven years.