Africa's power infrastructure [[electronic resource] ] : investment, integration, efficiency / / Anton Eberhard ... [et al.]

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910456668703321
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Washington, D.C, : World Bank, c2011
• ISBN: 1-283-10004-5; 9786613100047; 0-8213-8652-2
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (352 p.)
• Collana: Directions in development (Washington, D.C.). Infrastructure
• Altri autori (Persone): EberhardAnton A
• Disciplina: 333.793/20967
• Soggetti: Rural electrification - Government policy - Africa, Sub-Saharan; Energy policy - Social aspects - Africa, Sub-Saharan; Capital investments - Africa, Sub-Saharan; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Africa unplugged -- The region's underdeveloped energy resources -- The lag in installed generation capacity -- Stagnant and inequitable access to electricity services -- Unreliable electricity supply -- The prevalence of back-up generators -- Increasing use of leased emergency power -- A power crisis exacerbated by drought, conflict, and high oil prices -- High power costs that generally do not cover costs -- Deficient power infrastructure constrains social and economic development -- The promise of regional power trade -- Uneven distribution and poor economies of scale -- Despite power pools, low regional power trade -- The potential benefits of expanded regional power trading -- What regional patterns of trade would emerge? -- Water resources management and hydropower development -- Who gains most from power trade? -- How will less hydropower development influence trade flows? -- What are the environmental impacts of trading power? -- Technology choices and the clean development mechanism -- How might climate change affect power investment patterns? -- Meeting the challenges of regional integration of infrastructure -- Building a political consensus -- Strengthening ; regional institutions -- Setting priorities for regional infrastructure -- Facilitating project preparation and cross-border finance -- Developing regional regulatory frameworks -- Investment requirements -- Modeling investment needs -- Estimating supply needs -- Overall cost requirements -- The sapp -- Constant access rates under trade expansion -- Regional target for access rate : electricity access of 35 percent on average -- National targets for electricity access -- The EAPP/Nile Basin -- Constant access rates under trade expansion -- Regional target for access rate : electricity access of 35 percent on average -- National targets for electricity access -- WAPP -- Constant access rates under trade expansion -- Regional target rate : electricity access of 54 percent on average -- National targets for electricity access -- CAPP -- Constant access rates under trade expansion -- Regional target for access rate : electricity access of 44 percent on average -- National targets for electricity access -- Strengthening sector reform and planning -- Power sector reform in sub-Saharan Africa -- Private management contracts : winning the battle, losing the war -- Sector reform, sector performance -- The search for effective hybrid markets -- Regulatory institutions may need to be redesigned -- The challenges of independent regulation -- Regulation by contract -- Outsourcing regulatory functions -- Toward better regulatory systems -- A model to fit the context -- Widening connectivity and reducing inequality -- Low electricity connection rates -- Mixed progress, despite many agencies and funds -- Inequitable access to electricity -- Affordability of electricity : subsidizing the well off -- Policy challenges for accelerating service expansion -- Don't forget the demand side of the equation -- Take a hard-headed look at affordability -- Target subsidies to promote service expansion -- Systematic planning needed for periurban and rural electrification -- Recommitting to the reform of state-owned enterprises -- Hidden costs in underperforming state-owned enterprises -- Driving down operational inefficiencies and hidden costs -- Effect of better governance on performance of state-owned utilities -- Making state-owned enterprises more effective -- Defined roles and responsibilities -- Altering the political economy around the utility -- Practical tools for improving the performance of state-owned utilities -- Closing Africa's power funding gap -- Existing spending in the power sector -- How much more can be done within the existing resource envelope? -- Increasing cost recovery -- On budget spending : raising capital budget execution -- Improving utility performance -- Savings from efficiency-oriented reforms -- Annual funding gap -- How much additional finance can be raised? -- Little scope for raising more domestic finance -- Official development assistance : sustaining the scale-up -- Non-OECD financiers will growth continue? -- Private investors : over the hill -- Local capital markets : a possibility in the medium term -- Bank lending -- Equity -- Corporate bonds -- The most promising ways to increase funds -- What else can be done? -- Taking more time -- Lowering costs through regional integration -- The way forward.
• Sommario/riassunto: Africa?s chronic power problems have escalated in recent years into a crisis affecting 30 countries, taking a heavy toll on economic growth and productivity. The region has inadequate generation capacity, limited electrification, low power consumption, unreliable services, and high costs. It also faces a power sector financing gap on the order of 21 billion a year. It spends only about a quarter of what it needs to spend on power, much of this on operating expenditure required to run the continent?s high-cost power systems, leaving little for the huge investments needed to provide a long-term

Immigration and Ethnic Formation in a Deeply Divided Society : The Case of the 1990s Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel / / Majid Al-Haj

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910450112003321
• Autore: Al-Haj Majid
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Leiden; ; Boston : , : BRILL, , 2004
• ISBN: 1-280-46523-9; 9786610465231; 1-4237-1176-9; 90-474-0283-9
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (265 p.)
• Collana: International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology ; ; 91
• Disciplina: 305.892/4047
• Soggetti: Immigrants - Israel; Jews, Soviet - Israel - Social conditions; Social adjustment - Israel; Social surveys - Israel; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction. -- Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel -- Methodology -- Immigrants' Survey -- Survey of the General Population -- Students' Survey -- Focus Groups -- Chapter 1. Theoretical Framework -- Definitions of "Ethnic Group" -- Immigration and Ethnic Formation -- Ethnic Mobilization -- The Reactive Perspective -- The Competitive Model of Ethnic Mobilization -- Criticism of the Reactive and Competitive Approaches -- Rational Choice Theory -- The Role of the State -- Chapter 2. Israeli Society: A Background -- Immigration and the Construction of Social Boundaries -- Unique vs. Typical Immigration -- An Ideological Value or a Means to Achieve Political Goals -- Immigration and Ethnic Formation in Israel -- Background of Jewish Ethnicity -- Ethnic Composition over Time -- Ethnicity as a Socio-Cultural Rift -- The Modernization-Establishment Approach -- The Melting Pot Ideology -- Counter-approaches to Ethnic Relations -- Ethnic mobilization -- Ethnicity and the Religious-Nonreligious Divide ; -- The Jewish-Arab Divide -- Background -- Policy toward the Palestinians in Israel -- Social Change -- Economic Deterritorialization -- Political Territorialization -- Multiculturalism vs. Tribalism in Israeli Society -- Chapter 3. The Jews of Russia and the Former Soviet Union: Background and -- Waves of Immigration -- Emigration by Russian/Soviet/FSU Jews -- The First Waves to Palestine -- Immigrants from the Soviet Union in the 1970s -- Ethiopia: A New Reservoir of Immigrants -- Aspirations for Aliya from the West -- The 1990s Wave -- Main Trends -- Differences between the 1970s and the 1990s Waves -- Chapter 4. Identity Patterns and Ethnic Formation -- Communal Ethnic Organizations -- Sources of Information, Russian-Language Media -- Motivation for Migration and Connection with the Home Country -- Self-Identification -- Non-Jewish immigrants -- The Other - Definition: How Veteran Israelis Perceive the Immigrants -- Chapter 5. Attitudes toward Civil Society and Freedom of Expression -- Character of Israel -- Attitudes toward Peace -- Freedom of Expression -- Communication Environments -- Permissiveness -- The Ranking of Rights -- Chapter 6. Political Organization -- Voting Patterns in the Knesset Elections -- Collective vs. Individual Factors behind the Voting Patterns -- Factors behind the Voting for Prime Minister -- The Elections of 2003 -- Local Elections -- Chapter 7. Immigrants versus Israeli Society -- Adjustment Patterns -- Residential Adjustment -- Economic Adjustment -- Social Adjustment -- Mutual Influence -- Immigrants' Social Distance from Other Groups in Israel -- Social Distance from Arabs -- Social Distance from other Jewish Groups -- Chapter 8. Attitudes of Veteran Groups toward Immigrants -- Attitudes in the Early 1990s -- Jewish Leadership -- Jewish Public -- The Arab Leadership -- Arab Public -- Trends over Time: A Decade later -- Internal Divisions within Jewish Populations -- Tolerance of Separate Immigrant Organizations -- Social Distance -- The Attitudes of the Younger Generation -- Social Distance as Felt by the Younger Generation -- Concluding Remarks -- References -- List of tables -- List of Figures.
• Sommario/riassunto: This book deals with the ethnic formation among the 1990s immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel, in light of both domestic changes, and developments in the Israel- Arab conflict. Based on a broad variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, the book presents a detailed analysis of identity patterns among these immigrants, their orientation in matters of religion, society, culture and politics, and their relationships with all the constituent groups in Israeli society - including the Palestinian minority. The book provides a new critical perspective on questions of immigration, ethnicity and society in Israel. The analysis is placed in a global theoretical context that challenges the dominant approach in the sociology of immigration in Israel, which is based on the Zionist paradigm.

Robot brains [[electronic resource] ] : circuits and systems for conscious machines / / Pentti O. Haikonen

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910143716603321
• Autore: Haikonen Pentti O
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Chichester, England, : John Wiley, 2007
• ISBN: 1-280-97414-1; 9786610974146; 0-470-51787-5; 0-470-51786-7
• Edizione: [1st edition]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (225 p.)
• Disciplina: 629.8/9263
• Soggetti: Robotics; Conscious automata
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-207) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Robot Brains; Contents; Preface; 1 Introduction; 1.1 General intelligence and conscious machines; 1.2 How to model cognition?; 1.3 The approach of this book; 2 Information, meaning and representation; 2.1 Meaning and the nonnumeric brain; 2.2 Representation of information by signal vectors; 2.2.1 Single signal and distributed signal representations; 2.2.2 Representation of graded values; 2.2.3 Representation of significance; 2.2.4 Continuous versus pulse train signals; 3 Associative neural networks; 3.1 Basic circuits; 3.1.1 The associative function; 3.1.2 Basic neuron models; 3.1.3 The Haikonen associative neuron3.1.4 Threshold functions; 3.1.5 The linear associator; 3.2 Nonlinear associators; 3.2.1 The nonlinear associative neuron group; 3.2.2 Simple binary associator; 3.2.3 Associator with continuous weight values; 3.2.4 Bipolar binary associator; 3.2.5 Hamming distance binary associator; 3.2.6 Enhanced Hamming distance binary associator; 3.2.7 Enhanced simple binary associator; 3.3 Interference in the association of signals and vectors; 3.4 Recognition and classification by the associative neuron group; 3.5 Learning; 3.5.1 Instant Hebbian learning; 3.5.2 Correlative Hebbian learning3.6 Match, mismatch and novelty; ; 3.7 The associative neuron group and noncomputable functions; 4 Circuit assemblies; 4.1 The associative neuron group; 4.2 The inhibit neuron group; 4.3 Voltage-to-single signal (V/SS) conversion; 4.4 Single signal-to-voltage (SS/V) conversion; 4.5 The 'Winner-Takes-All' (WTA) circuit; 4.6 The 'Accept-and-Hold' (AH) circuit; 4.7 Synaptic partitioning; 4.8 Serial-to-parallel transformation; 4.9 Parallel-to-serial transformation; 4.10 Associative Predictors and Sequencers; 4.11 Timing circuits; 4.12 Timed sequence circuits; 4.13 Change direction detection5 Machine perception; 5.1 General principles; 5.2 Perception and recognition; 5.3 Sensors and preprocesses; 5.4 Perception circuits; the perception/response feedback loop; 5.4.1 The perception of a single feature; 5.4.2 The dynamic behaviour of the perception/response feedback loop; 5.4.3 Selection of signals; 5.4.4 Perception/response feedback loops for vectors; 5.4.5 The perception/response feedback loop as predictor; 5.5 Kinesthetic perception; 5.6 Haptic perception; 5.7 Visual perception; 5.7.1 Seeing the world out there; 5.7.2 Visual preprocessing; 5.7.3 Visual attention and gaze direction5.7.4 Gaze direction and visual memory; 5.7.5 Object recognition; 5.7.6 Object size estimation; 5.7.7 Object distance estimation; 5.7.8 Visual change detection; 5.7.9 Motion detection; 5.8 Auditory perception; 5.8.1 Perceiving auditory scenes; 5.8.2 The perception of separate sounds; 5.8.3 Temporal sound pattern recognition; 5.8.4 Speech recognition; 5.8.5 Sound direction perception; 5.8.6 Sound direction detectors; 5.8.7 Auditory motion detection; 5.9 Direction sensing; 5.10 Creation of mental scenes and maps; 6 Motor actions for robots; 6.1 Sensorimotor coordination
• Sommario/riassunto: Haikonen envisions autonomous robots that perceive and understand the world directly, acting in it in a natural human-like way without the need of programs and numerical representation of information. By developing higher-level cognitive functions through the power of artificial associative neuron architectures, the author approaches the issues of machine consciousness. Robot Brains expertly outlines a complete system approach to cognitive machines, offering practical design guidelines for the creation of non-numeric autonomous creative machines. It details topics such as component