421 research outputs found
A journey to Beresford Hall, the seat of Charles Cotton, esq., the celebrated author and angler.
No full text"Memoir of the author": l. [5]-[6].A facsimile of Alexander's ms. account, written in 1815.Mode of access: Internet
Investigating the effect of modulation on the structures and properties of rare-earth metal-organic frameworks
No full textAbstract not currently available
Risk - adjusted rates of return for project appraisal
No full textIncorporating risk assessment into public project appraisal makes sense when project risk is significantly correlated with uncertainty about national income. It is especially important in countries that specialize in particular agricultural or resource sectors. This report presents the following conclusions: (a) risk corrections can be substantial; (b) the intuition that risk is great for further investment in a crop or sector that constitutes a large part of a country's GNP is not invalid, but the effect may be offset by other forces in operation; (c) risk corrections can be negative because of a negative correlation between project return and GNP; (d) risk premia vary greatly across countries and sectors - so recognizing the risk correction needed for each project on its own merits makes more sense than including a common general risk premium in the rate of return required for all lending; (e) risk corrections are small for many sectors and countries - so efforts can be concentrated on the other categories, where the proposed treatment of risk makes a big difference; (f) risk affects investment projects in many different, subtle ways; and (g) resource requirements for this are not great.Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences,Crops&Crop Management Systems
1st international round robin test on safety characteristics of hybrid mixtures
No full textThere is no applicable existing standard for the determination of safety characteristics for hybrid mixtures. While developing a new standard in a joint research project in Germany first results from parameter studies led to a standard procedure that can be adopted by laboratories that are already testing dusts in the so called 20L-sphere with as little additional effort as necessary. In fact, one of the main objectives of this research project was to keep modifications and adjustments from the generally accepted dust testing procedures as easy and minimal as possible so as to limit potential deviations from one laboratory to another. In this first round robin test on hybrid mixtures ever, with methane as gas component and a specific corn starch as dust sample, the practicality of the whole procedure, the scattering of the results and the deviation between the testing apparatuses is investigated. This paper summarizes the experimental procedure adopted and objectives of the first round-robin phase involving three of the four original German companies, plus volunteering laboratories from Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Poland and P.R. China. The results will have an impact on the new standard and may lead to robust data for later simulation purposes.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Fluid Mechanic
A classical problem in linear regression or how to estimate the mean of a univariate normal distribution with known variance
No full textAn exploration of the psychosocial factors affecting the development and delivery of school-based sex and relationships education in Tanzania
No full textEmploying a mixed methods research design, in which both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used, the research in this thesis has explored the feasibility for the development and implementation of school-based sex and
relationships education (SRE) in Tanzania by (a) assessing the attitudes of parents, teachers and students towards the provision of SRE in schools and (b) analysing national school policy and curriculum frameworks with a view to identifying the
status and place of SRE in the national school curriculum.The results show that a majority of parents (more than 70%), teachers (more than 90%) and students (more than 80%) supported the provision of SRE in schools and, despite resistance to a few controversial topics, the inclusion of a wide range of SRE topics in a school-based SRE curriculum. These results suggest that, contrary to popular belief that, particularly among policy makers, parents and other stakeholders are opposed to the provision of SRE in schools, it is not the opposition itself, but the unfounded fear of opposition that has thwarted the provision of school-based SRE in Tanzania.The results of the content analysis of the national school curriculum revealed a limited and somewhat disorganised representation of SRE, with more focus on the biological
facts and information about HIV transmission and prevention than other aspects of sexual health, such as attitudes, skills and relationships. It has been argued, however, that putting HIV/AIDS in the national school curriculum provides the possibility of
opening the way for a wider provision of SRE in schools in future (Harrison, 2000). In light of the results of this research, the author has recommended several steps to be considered in introducing SRE in schools, as well as future research directions in the field of sexual health, and SRE in particular, in Tanzania
Small and medium-size enterprises in economic development : possiblities for research and policy
No full textThe World Bank's most important long-term advantage in promoting development, says the author, may lie in opportunities to address related obstacles simultaneously. It could mount concurrent efforts to address the problems of small and medium-size enterprises in a particular sector, region, or economy, for example. It could address the conditions of founding new firms, providing finance or technical assistance, developing mutual support institutions, resolving disputes, and perhaps reducing counterproductive government interventions. Were the Bank to follow such a coordinated approach, programs could be designed to generate data to illuminate the impacts and interactions of various elements of policy. These data could be exploited, then, in research designs, or even the design of management information systems, shaped by program evaluation. The author proposes four general issues for research (plus a series of topics for each issue). (1) Can Bank initiatives involving small and medium-size enterprises in developing countries facilitate the entry of these enterprises into similar learning relationships with other firms - foreign firms, larger firms in their own countries, or each other? (2) The economic significance of high"turbulence"(entry and exit rates) in small-firm populations is poorly understood. The fact of high turbulence is well-documented in industrial countries; it is not for developing countries, but available data suggest a broadly similar pattern. Are high failure rates for small businesses symptomatic of an important shortcoming in the system of economic organization itself? Or should the unit of analysis be the enterprise, the entrepreneur, or the entrepreneur's family? (3) Is the apparent trend favoring a larger economic role for smaller production units autonomous rather than induced by other changes? Does it depend on general operating factors such as the declining costs of communication and computation? (4) The rate of learning by a small firm may depend on the nature of its transacting partner. Certain multinational enterprises make good teachers, for example, but certain local labor markets or markets for consumer goods and services may not be well-positioned for relevant learning. They may learn well how to adjust to local circumstances but not to the international diffusion of technology and ways of organizing (the main source of hope for developing countries). Perhaps Bank policy should be more concerned with transaction patterns.General Technology,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,ICT Policy and Strategies,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,Environmental Economics&Policies,General Technology,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,ICT Policy and Strategies,Small Scale Enterprise
Forecasting, uncertainty, and public project appraisal
No full textUncertainty in project planning and appraisal is still topical in the World Bank and other lending and development agencies although it is certainly not a new issue. It is appropriate to reconsider the issue now because more than a decade of active research on risk analysis has transpired without, however, the seeming emergence of agreed procedures and practice. In particular, the implications for what information price forecasters should provide for risky project appraisers have yet to be clarified. In Section 2, theoretical arguments about the proper role of uncertainty in appraisal are reviewed, and this section is closed by discussion of the various'practical'methods that have been proposed, in and outside the World Bank. Further procedures for quantifying uncertainty in both forecasting and appraisal are considered in Section 3. Section 4 presents a set of procedures that seem workable and retain some theoretical defensibility. These are illustrated through an example. Finally, conclusions and implications are drawn out in Section 5.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences,Insurance&Risk Mitigation
Transient observations : the textualizing of St Helena through five hundred years of colonial discourse
No full textThis thesis explores the textualizing of the South Atlantic island of St Helena (a
British Overseas Territory) through an analysis of the relationship between
colonizing practices and the changing representations of the island and its
inhabitants in a range of colonial 'texts', including historiography, travel writing,
government papers, creative writing, and the fine arts.
Part I situates this thesis within a critical engagement with post-colonial
theory and colonial discourse analysis primarily, as well as with the recent
'linguistic turn' in anthropology and history. In place of post-colonialism's rather
monolithic approach to colonial experiences, I argue for a localised approach to
colonisation, which takes greater account of colonial praxis and of the continuous
re-negotiation and re-constitution of particular colonial situations.
Part II focuses on a number of literary issues by reviewing St Helena's
historiography and literature, and by investigating the range of narrative tropes
employed (largely by travellers) in the textualizing of St Helena, in particular
with respect to recurrent imaginings of the island in terms of an earthly Eden.
Part III examines the nature of colonial 'possession' by tracing the island's
gradual appropriation by the Portuguese, Dutch and English in the sixteenth and
early seventeenth century and the settlement policies pursued by the English
East India Company in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.
Part IV provides an account of the changing perceptions, by visitors and
colonial officials alike, of the character of the island's inhabitants (from the late
eighteenth to the early twentieth century) and assesses the influence that these
perceptions have had on the administration of the island and the political status of
its inhabitants (in the mid- to late twentieth century).
Part V, the conclusion, reviews the principal arguments of my thesis by
addressing the political implications of post-colonial theory and of my own
research, while also indicating avenues for further research.
A localised and detailed exploration of colonial discourse over a period of
nearly five hundred years, and a close analysis of a consequently wide range of
colonial 'texts', has confirmed that although colonising practices and
representations are far from monolithic, in the case of St Helena their continuities
are of as much significance as their discontinuities
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