Earnings/Verdienste/Gains 1995: Industry and Services, Produzierendes Gewerbe Und Dienstleistungen, Industrie Et Services

Book Description

Since the 1980s when the microfinance revolution began, much has been accomplished, but the field became more refined in the 1990s as a result of shifts in paradigms, strategies, and development practices. This volume addresses the three policy objectives that now occupy those who wish to use credit as a development tool: financial sustainability of microfinance institutions, outreach to the poor, and welfare impact.

Inevitable tradeoffs exist among these objectives, and the book advances an analytical framework that assists students of and experts in microfinance to identify the tradeoffs and synergies at the institutional level and in the policy environment. The book features a wealth of empirical data and innovative analytical studies, and critically discusses the role of public support for microfinance institutions (MFIs) in light of the social costs and benefits generated by such financial systems.

The book is organized into five parts. The first discusses the demand for and access to financial services by the poor, emphasizing that demand-oriented, pro-poor financial services are crucial in reaching the poor. The second is concerned with two of the criteria used to evaluate MFIs -- outreach and financial sustainability. The third features innovative econometric studies seeking to evaluate the impact of MFIs at the household level. The fourth looks at the role of both public- and private-sector institutions in developing sustainable financial systems. And the fifth summarizes implications for policy and research.

Given the lack of sound, empirical literature on microfinance, this volume is sure to advance knowledge and research methodology in the field.

The Triangle of Microfinance: Financial Sustainability, Outreach, and Impact.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of the American Planning Association

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The Triangle of Microfinance: Financial Sustainability, Outreach, and Impact.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of the American Planning Association
Michael Schubert
Manufacturer: American Planning Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00082DK70
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of the American Planning Association, published by American Planning Association on March 22, 2004. The length of the article is 1459 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Triangle of Microfinance: Financial Sustainability, Outreach, and Impact.(Book Review)
Author: Michael Schubert
Publication: Journal of the American Planning Association (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2004
Publisher: American Planning Association
Volume: 70 Issue: 2 Page: 230(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description

This book discusses some of those ethical and political questions that puzzled several of the great minds of the twentieth century, such as Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Jacques Maritain, and John Finnis: the question of natural law and its relationship to a teaching of individual freedom and rights.

The main aim of the book is to interpret anew the relationship between law and rights in Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, two important founders of modern rights doctrines. But in order to put their teachings into the right perspective, Syse also portrays and discusses other models of law and rights, from Aristotle, through Thomas Aquinas, to John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, with detours to the teachings of Plato, Cicero, and Augustine. Throughout the discussion, the role of religion and revelation is given center stage as a complex, yet fascinating picture of the relationship between natural law, religion, and rights emerges - one which is neither as simple nor as complicated as often imagined.

Natural Law, Religion, and Rights should be of interest both to students struggling with the meaning and contents of the natural law tradition, as well as to teachers and researchers working on the many-faceted problems of natural law and natural rights.

Book Description

This is the first book which deals with cyanobacterial nitrogen metabolism exclusively. It combines both environmental and biotechnological aspects. The chapters are contributed by leading researchers of the subject area.

Book Description

Of value to the general scientific public, this is the first book in the world scientific literature devoted to the Casimir effect. This topic has important applications in the fields of elementary particle physics, statistical physics, quantum field theory, gravitation and cosmology.

Casimir Effect and Its Applications, The

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Casimir Effect and Its Applications, The
Vladimir; Trunov, N.R. Mostepanenko
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OOJPYY

Book Description

Uniquely bridging all levels of neurobiological analysis, this book describes and explains step-by-step the concepts, methods, findings and conclusions of modern learning research. The text starts with a treatment of simple nervous systems and molecular mechanisms, proceeds to more complex learning and development, and concludes with the functional organization of highly complex memory systems in the human brain and their disintegration in amnesia. The book, supplemented by 1100 references and many illustrations, is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as for neuroscientists who seek a comprehensive overview of the field. It should also be of interest to scientists from other disciplines and to other readers who wish to learn about the new neurobiology of learning.

The Neurobiology of Memory: Concepts, Findings, Trends

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The Neurobiology of Memory: Concepts, Findings, Trends
Yadin Dudai
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKQY4W

Book Description

Andrew Dimarogonas Home Page
Email: add@mecf.wustl.edu
Synopsis is an electronic and print index to scholarly publications on Greek Studies. Consisting of a PC or Macintosh formatted disk, a print edition of the index, a copy of Euretes, the search program, and a user's manual that will aid in record retrieval and conversion of information contained in the database, the annual is compiled out of over 950 scholarly journals and other publications, and out of the holdings of major US libraries, the Library of Congress and the National Library of Greece.
Indexing nearly 5,100 journal paper titles and 3,100 book titles, Synopsis covers the areas of Classical, Hellenistic, Biblical, Byzantine, Medieval and Modern Greek Studies. The volume of collected material has been compiled in three indexes: 1) the general listing and the author index; 2) the list of the indexed scholarly jou

Book Description

Written by eminent psychologist Bernard J. Baars, this book brings us to the frontlines of the consciousness debate, offering the general reader a fascinating overview of how top scientists currently understand the processes underlying conscious experience. The study of conscious experience has seen remarkable strides in the last ten years, reflecting important technological breakthroughs and the enormous efforts of researchers in disciplines as varied as neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy. Scientists are just now beginning to find common ground in their understanding of consciousness, which may pave the way for a unified explanation of how and why we experience and understand the world around us. This book offers an invaluable introduction to the field, brilliantly weaving together the various theories that have emerged as scientists continue their quest to uncover the profound mysteries of the mind--and of human nature itself.

Customer Reviews:

Thank You, Dr. Baars.......2007-10-08

I became interested in "philosophy of mind" several years ago and have since read a variety of books dealing with the mind-body-consciousness problem. "In The Theater of Consciousness" was my first read from the field of cognitive psychology. And a good read it was. It provides a concise yet comprehensive review of what can be said about human consciousness from the empirical perspective. This book is ten years old now and obviously misses a decade of new research. But I suspect that most of what Bernard Baars presents is still relevant, and provides a good foundation for what cognitive psychology is doing these days. It also helps to enhance one's understanding of what the neuroscientists and artificial intelligence people are up to.

In evaluating a technical book intended for a lay audience, the author's attitude towards his or her readership is very important to me. Dr. Baars displays a very considerate attitude. He provides a lot of drawings, conceptual diagrams, try-it-yourself exercises, and even a few brain scan photos (quite impressive for 1997; were the book to be re-issued today, it could include a lot more of these, given the progress made in neuro-scanning since then). In the Epilogue, Dr. Baars expresses his gratitude "to the reader who has come this far on our shared journey". My goodness, an academic doyen who actually thanks the layman for reading his book! That's quite rare (and quite refreshing).

Dr. Baars' "theater spotlight" and "global workspace" metaphors for consciousness and its relationship to unconscious processes (and even to neuron-level workings) are indeed very useful and thought-provoking. This book will indeed help you to understand why your mind does what it does. For example, the section on "attention" as the funnel of consciousness and "absorption" as the mind's focus upon a subject absorbing all of its limited capacity to be conscious, helps to explain how we often "suspend our disbelief" when watching TV or a movie. It also helps to explain how commercials and sales pitches work - if someone wants to sell you something and they can absorb all of your attention through entertainment, there's not enough room left for your skeptical facilities to operate. So you buy, and only later on does your critical/analytical component get back "on stage" within your conscious mind - "gee, I wonder if that was really worth the money?" (But then the ego-rationalization "actor" appears, saying "of course it was worth it, we don't make mistakes, it's gonna be great").

Another important concept is "mental contexts". Dr. Baars gives a much better explanation than I can, but in a nutshell, mental contexts are sub-conscious tendencies or "primers" that shape one's interpretations of sensory inputs. They basically help you decide just what it is that you are seeing or hearing or smelling or feeling or reading. They are changeable -- think about how you interpret the word "flies" in the lines "time flies like an arrow" and "fruit flies like a banana". Time and fruit change the contexts here. Contexts can be applied on a higher level too, and help to explain how great intellectual discoveries come about. E.g., Einstein managed to derive and apply a unique context regarding what was widely known about space, time, motion and gravity. As a result, relativity was born.

This book and its like do not close the "explanatory gap" regarding the nature of consciousness. That will require a major, high-level "context shift" akin to what Einstein did with physics. But Dr. Baars does provide a good summary of what will certainly need to be accounted for if and when that context-shift does arise. In the mean time, I feel obliged to return Dr. Baar's gratitude for reading his book. Thank you, Dr. Baars, for writing a very good summary of what cognitive psychology offers to the field of consciousness studies. Your book clearly does help the non-specialist to understand what cognitive researchers are up to, and indeed to help the layman better understand her or his own conscious mind. Your book was very much worth the money and time that I invested into it.

Highly readable.......2007-01-24

Bernard Baars presents a highly readable account of his Global Workspace (GW) theory of consciousness. The GW is a cognitive architecture model that is based on a simple, theater metaphor. Briefly, it imagines that consciousness occurs on a center stage. The stage is equivalent to a working memory buffer. Conscious experience consists of a spotlight area on this stage. The spotlight is shifted, to illuminate various contents, according to both involuntary and voluntary forms of attentional control. The players that compete (and cooperate) for access to the stage include the variety of exteroceptive senses, interoceptive senses, and more abstract ideas. The theater stage has a limited capacity, but it creates vast access, by broadcasting information to a variety of unconscious routines and effectors (the audience). A variety of context operators also work `behind the scenes' to provide the necessary stage backdrops.

In this short and concise book, Baars devotes a chapter to each of the components of the theater metaphor. While the GW theory of consciousness is a cognitive model, Baars also delves a little into brain anatomy. He pays some attention, for example, to the Extended Reticular-Thalamic Activating System (ERTAS).

One of the things not fully addressed by Baars in his model is the subjective nature of consciousness. For example, with any conscious experience, there is a sense of self in the act of knowing. Baars makes no mention of the work of Damasio on the primitive self-representational mechanisms in the brain, though he does develop to some extent, his own idea of `self as deep context'.

Baars believes that the way to make progress on the issue of consciousness is by gathering empirical evidence. Once consciousness can be treated as a variable, we can begin to make some headway in understanding it. One way of treating consciousness as a variable is through the method of contrastive phenomenology in which a single experimental task is performed under both conscious and unconscious conditions, with the differences between the two being closely tracked.

Overall, the theater metaphor has considerable heuristic value - it allows for a considerable amount of information to be packaged in a very simple manner. It turns out that the general mechanism (a limited-capacity center stage which creates vast access to specialized control systems) is a sound design solution for complex nervous systems.

Seminal work........2002-02-02

I think it is fair to say that Baar's global workspace model is the most influential cognitive model of consciousness out there. The theoretical work is simply outstanding. Few would today contest the main idea behind the model -that the function of consciousness is to broadcast information to separate functional modules all arround the brain-. Some recent papers by Baars, available on line, summarize all the emirical evidence that has appeared the last decade in favour of the model. Baars is currently at the neurosciences institute, headed by Gerald Edelman, and it is no surprise his latest views seem to include reentrant connectivity and Edelman and Tononis concept of complexity. However, although this is clearly a step forward, it is far from being a THE answer consciousness studies is looking for. Baars himself sees a gap between the cognitive model and the neurophysiological machanisms involved. He has presented the ERTAS model, but it is not clear how it has stood to recent neuroscience. I'm not saying i'ts been falsified, but it has been deprived of supremacy. However, the global workspace is still a brilliant contribution to the study of consciousness. Some philosophical nuances are still roaming, however. There is no qualia in the theather, and it is not clear how the audience could be conscious..how would they enjoy the show?.

Baars delves in to the theater theory in a practical way........1999-02-22

Baars allows any reader to follow his tour through the theater theory of consciousness in an easy readable approach. He makes sure the reader has adequate examples of real life events and situations in order to better understand an interesting theory. Where does the human species go from here?

In the tradition of William James.......1998-08-25

What is consciousness? Or at least how does it work? Historically, the last individual to seriously address these questions was the great American philosopher William James, who in his seminal tome 'Principles of Psychology' (1890) outlined the essentials of a fairly comprehensive 'stream of consciousness' theory. But for most of the twentieth century the hard-problem of consciousness was either studiously avoided or redefined as something else. But in recent years with the demise of Behaviorism and its repressive dogma, groups calling themselves Cognitivist Psychologists have emerged who are resurrecting the pioneering work begun by James over 100 years ago. For serious readers interested in 'getting their feet wet' in the relatively new field of Cognitivism, Dr. Bernard Baars' highly readable book 'In the Theater of Consciousness' would serve as an excellent introduction. I have to rate it 5 STARS. Also, if this book whets your appetite for more, you may want to consider Baars' more rigorous 'A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness' where his global workspace theory is more fully developed.

In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind

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In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind
Bernard J. Baars
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OK9Q6A

Book Description

This digital document is an article from World Watch, published by Worldwatch Institute on November 1, 2002. The length of the article is 779 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The paradox of Biophilia. (Note from a World Watcher).
Author: Ed Ayres
Publication: World Watch (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2002
Publisher: Worldwatch Institute
Volume: 15 Issue: 6 Page: 3(1)

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