Download or read book The Puppet Masters written by Emile van der Does de Willebois and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the use of these entities in nearly all cases of corruption. It builds upon case law, interviews with investigators, corporate registries and financial institutions and a 'mystery shopping' exercise to provide evidence of this criminal practice.
Download or read book Aid that Works written by James Manor and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research in recent years on aid effectiveness shows that significant obstacles in fragile states - insecurity, poor governance and weak implementation capacity - usually prevent aid from achieving the desired results in these environments. This study investigates the attributes and effectiveness of donor-supported programmes and projects that worked well under difficult conditions in fragile states. Presented in this study are nine development initiatives in six less developed countries - Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Timor Leste and Uganda. The cases show that development initiatives, which engage local communities and local level governments, are often able to have significant impact. However, for more substantial improvements to take places, localized gains need to be scaled up either horizontally (other localities) or vertically (to higher levels). Given the advantages of working at the local level and the difficulty of working through mainstream bureaucratic agencies at higher levels in these countries, donors often prefer to create 'parallel-agencies' to reach out to larger numbers of beneficiaries. However, this may in the long run weaken the legitimacy of mainstream government institutions, and donor agencies may therefore choose to work as closely as possible with government officials from the beginning to build trust and demonstrating that new initiatives are non-threatening and help prepare the eventual mainstreaming of 'parallel agencies'.
Download or read book STRUCTURED COMPUTER ORGANIZATION written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 573 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Child poverty evidence and policy written by Jones, Nicola A. and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2011-02-23 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is about the opportunities and challenges involved in mainstreaming knowledge about children in international development policy and practice. It focuses on the ideas, networks and institutions that shape the development of evidence about child poverty and wellbeing, and the use of such evidence in development policy debates. It also pays particular attention to the importance of power relations in influencing the extent to which children's voices are heard and acted upon by international development actors. The book weaves together theory, mixed method approaches and case studies spanning a number of policy sectors and diverse developing country contexts in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It therefore provides a useful introduction for students and development professionals who are new to debates on children, knowledge and development, whilst at the same time offering scholars in the field new methodological and empirical insights.
Download or read book The Housing Challenge in Emerging Asia written by Matthias Helbe and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Housing Challenge in Emerging Asia: Options and Solutions provides new insights and ideas to best design and implement housing policies aimed at improving access to affordable and adequate housing. The book offers an innovative theoretical framework to conceptualize and analyze various housing policies. It also critically reviews housing policies of various countries and draws lessons for others. The countries studied include advanced economies within and outside Asia, such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as emerging countries within Asia, such as the People's Republic of China and India.
Download or read book Homer Economicus written by Joshua Hall and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Homer Economicus a cast of lively contributors takes a field trip to Springfield, where the Simpsons reveal that economics is everywhere. By exploring the hometown of television's first family, this book provides readers with the economic tools and insights to guide them at work, at home, and at the ballot box. Since The Simpsons centers on the daily lives of the Simpson family and its colorful neighbors, three opening chapters focus on individual behavior and decision-making, introducing readers to the economic way of thinking about the world. Part II guides readers through six chapters on money, markets, and government. A third and final section discusses timely topics in applied microeconomics, including immigration, gambling, and health care as seen in The Simpsons. Reinforcing the nuts and bolts laid out in any principles text in an entertaining and culturally relevant way, this book is an excellent teaching resource that will also be at home on the bookshelf of an avid reader of pop economics.
Download or read book The Hidden Potential of Sustainable Neighborhoods written by Harrison Fraker and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you achieve effective low-carbon design beyond the building level? How do you create a community that is both livable and sustainable? More importantly, how do you know if you have succeeded? Harrison Fraker goes beyond abstract principles to provide a clear, in-depth evaluation of four first generation low-carbon neighborhoods in Europe, and shows how those lessons can be applied to the U.S. Using concrete performance data to gauge successes and failures, he presents a holistic model based on best practices. The four case studies are: Bo01 and Hammarby in Sweden, and Kronsberg and Vauban in Germany. Each was built deliberately to conserve resources: all are mixed-used, contain at least 1,000 units, and have aggressive goals for energy and water efficiency, recycling, and waste treatment. For each case study, Fraker explores the community's development process and goals and objectives as they relate to urban form, transportation, green space, energy, water and waste systems, and a social agenda. For each model, he looks at overall performance and lessons learned. Later chapters compare the different strategies employed by the case-study communities and develop a comprehensive model of sustainability, looking specifically at how these lessons can be employed in the United States, with a focus on retrofitting existing communities. This whole-systems approach promises not only a smaller carbon footprint, but an enriched form of urban living. The Hidden Potential of Sustainable Neighborhoods will be especially useful for urban designers, architects, landscape architects, land use planners, local policymakers and NGOs, citizen activists, students of urban design, planning, architecture, and landscape architecture.
Download or read book The president s fiscal year 2006 budget request written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Small Business and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Virtual Reality written by Melanie Chan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-01-16 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of virtual realities has a long and complex historical trajectory, spanning from Plato's concept of the cave and the simulacrum, to artistic styles such as Trompe L'oeil, and more recently developments in 3D film, television and gaming. However, this book will pay particular attention to the time between the 1980s to the 1990s when virtual reality and cyberspace were represented, particularly in fiction, as a wondrous technology that enabled transcendence from the limitations of physical embodiment. The purpose of this critical historical analysis of representations of virtual reality is to examine how they might deny, repress or overlook embodied experience. Specifically, the author will contend that embodiment is a fundamental aspect of immersion in virtual reality, rather than something which is to be transcended. In this way, the book aims to challenge distorted ideas about transcendence and productively contribute to debates about embodiment and technology.
Download or read book Enhancing Agricultural Innovation written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006-11-03 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovation system can be defined as a network of organizations, enterprises, and individuals demanding and supplying knowledge and bringing it into a social and economic use. This book's primary aim, therefore, is to focus on the largely unexplored operational aspects of the innvoation systems concept and to explore its potential for agriculture. 'Enhancing Agricultural Innovation' evaluates real-world innovation systems and assesses the usefulness of the concept in guiding investments to support knowledge-intensive, sustainable agricultural development. A typology of innovation systems is developed; strategies to guide investments for strengthening innovation capacity are drawn up; and concrete interventions options defined. In its conclusions, the book emphasizes the importance of mechanisms for collaboration and interaction. Intermediary organizations, innovation councils, farmer organizations, and other means to strengthen collaboration are central to creating the exchange of knowledge and perspectives that will convert knowledge into valuable new social and economic products and services.
Download or read book Quantum Computing written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-04-27 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quantum mechanics, the subfield of physics that describes the behavior of very small (quantum) particles, provides the basis for a new paradigm of computing. First proposed in the 1980s as a way to improve computational modeling of quantum systems, the field of quantum computing has recently garnered significant attention due to progress in building small-scale devices. However, significant technical advances will be required before a large-scale, practical quantum computer can be achieved. Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects provides an introduction to the field, including the unique characteristics and constraints of the technology, and assesses the feasibility and implications of creating a functional quantum computer capable of addressing real-world problems. This report considers hardware and software requirements, quantum algorithms, drivers of advances in quantum computing and quantum devices, benchmarks associated with relevant use cases, the time and resources required, and how to assess the probability of success.
Download or read book The Leap of Faith written by Sven H. Steinmo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-25 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Why are citizens in some countries more willing to pay taxes than in other countries? This book examines the history of the relationship between citizens and their states in five countries, (Sweden, Britain, Italy, Romania, and the United States), and demonstrates how and why people in in some countries have come to trust the government with their money while in other countries they do not. The book explores the evolution of this relationship in detail, in each case showing how some governments developed the fiscal and technical capacity to tax their citizens fairly and deliver public services efficiently. In short, how and why some countries became more trustworthy than others. The volume concludes by examining the implications of these five cases for developing countries today and the lessons that can be learned.
Download or read book The Second Law of Economics written by Reiner Kümmel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-06-24 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nothing happens in the world without energy conversion and entropy production. These fundamental natural laws are familiar to most of us when applied to the evolution of stars, biological processes, or the working of an internal combustion engine, but what about industrial economies and wealth production, or their constant companion, pollution? Does economics conform to the First and the Second Law of Thermodynamics? In this important book, Reiner Kümmel takes us on a fascinating tour of these laws and their influence on natural, technological, and social evolution. Analyzing economic growth in Germany, Japan, and the United States in light of technological constraints on capital, labor, and energy, Professor Kümmel upends conventional economic wisdom by showing that the productive power of energy far outweighs its small share of costs, while for labor just the opposite is true. Wealth creation by energy conversion is accompanied and limited by polluting emissions that are coupled to entropy production. These facts constitute the Second Law of Economics. They take on unprecedented importance in a world that is facing peak oil, debt-driven economic turmoil, and threats from pollution and climate change. They complement the First Law of Economics: Wealth is allocated on markets, and the legal framework determines the outcome. By applying the First and Second Law we understand the true origins of wealth production, the issues that imperil the goal of sustainable development, and the technological options that are compatible both with this goal and with natural laws. The critical role of energy and entropy in the productive sectors of the economy must be realized if we are to create a road map that avoids a Dark Age of shrinking natural resources, environmental degradation, and increasing social tensions.
Download or read book The President s FY 2006 Budget Request for the Small Business Administration written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology written by Anoop Singh and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-23 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides up-to-date information on the state of the art in applications of biotechnological and microbiological tools for protecting the environment. Written by leading international experts, it discusses potential applications of biotechnological and microbiological techniques in solid waste management, wastewater treatment, agriculture, energy and environmental health. This first volume of the book “Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology,” covers three main topics: Solid waste management, Agriculture utilization and Water treatment technology, exploring the latest developments from around the globe regarding applications of biotechnology and microbiology for converting wastes into valuable products and at the same time reducing the environmental pollution resulting from disposal. Wherever possible it also includes real-world examples. Further, it offers advice on which procedures should be followed to achieve satisfactory results, and provides insights that will promote the transition to the sustainable utilization of various waste products.
Download or read book Department of the Interior and related agencies appropriations for 1990 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Department of the Interior and Related Agencies and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Biodiesel Handbook written by Gerhard Knothe and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2015-08-13 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of this invaluable handbook covers converting vegetable oils, animal fats, and used oils into biodiesel fuel. The Biodiesel Handbook delivers solutions to issues associated with biodiesel feedstocks, production issues, quality control, viscosity, stability, applications, emissions, and other environmental impacts, as well as the status of the biodiesel industry worldwide. - Incorporates the major research and other developments in the world of biodiesel in a comprehensive and practical format - Includes reference materials and tables on biodiesel standards, unit conversions, and technical details in four appendices - Presents details on other uses of biodiesel and other alternative diesel fuels from oils and fats
