1,721,016 research outputs found
The Other Side of the Coin: the Psychological Implications of Microcredit
No full textMicrocredit is an operational and policy instrument turned into a powerful interpretative device. The path-breaking conception of Muhammad Yunus has radically modified standard approaches to economic and social development, primarily by emphasizing the role of trust-enforcing social arrangements, their roots in reciprocal interactions and their influence upon individual trustworthiness. The success of microcredit experiments calls for a rethinking of the theory of social action in connection with economic patterns of interdependence. In particular, microcredit points to the embedding of economic interactions within social and institutional networks, highlights the role of embedding in promoting the functioning of capabilities, and emphasizes that responsible choices pre-suppose an adequate network of mutual influences and constraints. At the same time, microcredit calls attention to freedom of choice and personal initiative in taking full advantage of relational structures, achieving a satisfactory functioning of human capabilities and realizing trustworthiness through civic and social engagement
Inhibition of muscle fibrosis results in increases in both utrophin levels and the number of revertant myofibers in Duchenne muscular dystrophy
No full textDuchenne Muscular Dystrophy is characterized by: near absence of dystrophin in skeletal muscles; low percentage of revertant myofibers; up-regulation of utrophin synthesis; and a high degree of muscle fibrosis. In patient quadriceps femoris biopsies (n = 6, ages between 3-9 years) an inverse correlation was observed between the levels of collagen type I - representing fibrosis - and the levels of utrophin. This correlation was independent of the patient's age and was observed in the entire muscle biopsy sections. In the mdx mice diaphragm (n = 6/group), inhibition of fibrosis by halofuginone resulted in increases in the levels of utrophin. The utrophin/ fibrosis relationships were not limited to collagen type I, but also applied to other constituents of the fibrosis machinery. The inverse correlation was found also in old mdx mice with established fibrosis. In addition, inhibition of collagen type I levels was associated with increases in the numbers of revertant myofibers, both as single myofibers and in clusters in the diaphragm and the gastrocnemius. In summary, our results demonstrate an inverse correlation between the level of muscle fibrosis and the level of utrophin and that of the number of revertant myofibers. These findings may reveal common links between the fibrotic and utrophinsynthesis pathways and offer new insights into the regulation of utrophin synthesis
Psychological effects of Microfinance: a sistematic literature review.
No full textDespite the apparent success and popularity of microfinance, no clear evidence yet exists that microfinance programmes have positive impacts on the borrowers' lives. Furthermore, prior studies have assessed effects of access to credit on traditional economic outcomes for poor borrowers, but effects on psychological well-being have been largely ignored. Therefore, this chapter reports a systematic review of studies published from 1990 to 2011 made by expert researchers on microfinance impact evaluation. I selected and discussed empirical studies focused on psychological issues as empowerment, domestic violence, physical & mental health, and group dynamics. For each investigation area I presented the most frequently used techniques to measure the impact (qualitative and quantitative approaches), research methods and results
Family network and household decision making power: analysis on Grameen Microcredit borrowers in Bangladesh.
No full textMicrocredit, a system of small loans, invests in the creativity of an individual, stimulating the development of their potential. This process leads to the creation of different objectives that, in turn, allow individuals to develop their capabilities.
In addition to providing economic benefits, microfinance may be an effective vehicle for women’s empowerment, and newly acquired business skills may be accompanied by improvements in self-esteem, the ability to resolve conflicts, household decision making power, and improve the quality of family relationships.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of microcredit intervention, in terms of improving the economic well-being of women and their families, and increasing benefits in terms of individual welfare, family and society. It is therefore an impact assessment study that aims to detect a significant change on new women borrowers’ lives from Noakhali District at the South of Bangladesh.
Manova Analysis allowed distinguishing from women with positive or negative outcomes related to the loan performance. Data revealed consistent differences in terms of economical outcomes and psychological well-being amongst the groups of subject analyzed. In this chapter we will present the preliminary results regarding the family well-being detected by two indicators: the household decision-making power and the quality of family relationships. The data gathered in relation to the changes arisen in the individuals should be looked into through future, continuous and systematic, monitoring
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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