Why does capitalism triumph in the West but fail almost everywhere else? Elegantly, and with rare clarity, Hernando de Soto revolutionizes our understanding of what capital is and why it has failed to benefit four-fifths of mankind -- and explains the solution. 'A revolutionary book ...may not be in the class of Das Kapital, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Keynes's General Theory. But if the criteria for joining that exclusive club is a capacity not only to change permanently the way we look at the world, but also to change the world itself, then there are good grounds for thinking that this book is surely a contender.' Donald Macintyre, The Independent 'Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto ...but The Mystery of Capital has already led the cognoscenti to put him in the pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age.' Mark Leonard, New Statesman 'A crucial contribution. A new proposal for change that is valid for the whole world' - Javier Perez de Cuellar (Former Secretary United Nations)
Entrepreneurship can be fulfilling and enhance wellbeing, but also highly stressful and diminish wellbeing. This meta-analytical review synthesizes 319 effect sizes from 94 studies and 82 countries to establish whether individuals derive greater wellbeing from working for themselves or for someone else. The answer is partly positive in favor of entrepreneurship but depends on the components of wellbeing under investigation (positive wellbeing or negative wellbeing/mental illbeing) and the institutional context (especially the rule of law). We contribute by developing the component view of wellbeing as an organizing framework and by advancing an institutional perspective to guide research on entrepreneurs’ wellbeing.
We Are Everywhere is a whirlwind collection of writings, images and ideas for direct action by people on the frontlines of the global anticapitalist movement. This is a movement of untold stories, because those from below are not those who get to write history, even though we are the ones making it. We Are Everywhere wrenches our history from the grasp of the powerful and returns it to the streets, fields and neighbourhoods where it was made.
ABSTRACT This article explores the links between social media and public space within the #Occupy Everywhere movements. Whereas listservs and websites helped give rise to a widespread logic of networking within the movements for global justice of the 1990s–2000s, I argue that social media have contributed to an emerging logic of aggregation in the more recent #Occupy movements—one that involves the assembling of masses of individuals from diverse backgrounds within physical spaces. However, the recent shift toward more decentralized forms of organizing and networking may help to ensure the sustainability of the #Occupy movements in a posteviction phase. [ social movements, globalization, political protest, public space, social media, new technologies, inequality ]
"Difficult concepts are introduced in a clear fashion with excellent diagrams and graphs." - Alan E. Wessel, Santa Clara University"The style of writing is technically excellent, informative, and entertaining." - Robert McCartyThis new edition of a highly successful text constitutes one of the most influential books on fractal geometry. An exploration of the tools, methods, and theory of deterministic geometry, the treatment focuses on how fractal geometry can be used to model real objects in the physical world. Two sixteen-page full-color inserts contain fractal images, and a bonus CD of
ABSTRACT We find consistent value and momentum return premia across eight diverse markets and asset classes, and a strong common factor structure among their returns. Value and momentum returns correlate more strongly across asset classes than passive exposures to the asset classes, but value and momentum are negatively correlated with each other, both within and across asset classes. Our results indicate the presence of common global risks that we characterize with a three‐factor model. Global funding liquidity risk is a partial source of these patterns, which are identifiable only when examining value and momentum jointly across markets. Our findings present a challenge to existing behavioral, institutional, and rational asset pricing theories that largely focus on U.S. equities.
This paper introduces the Everywhere Displays projector, a device that uses a rotating mirror to steer the light from an LCD/DLP projector onto different surfaces of an environment. Issues of brightness, oblique projection distortion, focus, obstruction, and display resolution are examined. Solutions to some of these problems are deschbed, together with a plan to use a video camera to allow device-free interaction with the projected images. The EDprojector is a practical way to create ubiquitous graphical interfaces to access computational power and networked data. In particular, it is envisioned as an alternative to the carrying of laptops and to the installation of displays in furniture, objects, and walls. In addition, the use of ED-projectors to augment reality without the use of goggles is examined and illustrated with examples.
The purpose of this paper is the proof of an almost everywhere version of the classical central limit theorem (CLT). As is well known, the latter states that for IID random variables Y 1 , Y 2 , … on a probability space (Ω, , P ) with we have weak convergence of the distributions of to the standard normal distribution on ℝ. We recall that weak convergence of finite measures μ n on a metric space S to a finite measure μ on S is defined to mean that for all bounded, continuous real functions on S . Equivalently, one may require the validity of (1·1) only for bounded, uniformly continuous real functions, or even for all bounded measurable real functions which are μ-a.e. continuous.
Abstract. Developing integrated environmental models of everywhere such as are demanded by the requirements of, for example, implementing the Water Framework Directive in Europe, is constrained by the limitations of current understanding and data availability. The possibility of such models raises questions about system design requirements to allow modelling as a learning and data assimilation process in the representation of places, which might well be treated as active objects in such a system. Uncertainty in model predictions not only poses issues about the value of different types of data in characterising places and constraining predictive uncertainty but also about how best to present the pedigree of such uncertain predictions to users and decision-makers.
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The science of consciousness has made great strides by focusing on the behavioural and neuronal correlates of experience. However, while such correlates are important for progress to occur, they are not enough if we are to understand even basic facts, for example, why the cerebral cortex gives rise to consciousness but the cerebellum does not, though it has even more neurons and appears to be just as complicated. Moreover, correlates are of little help in many instances where we would like to know if consciousness is present: patients with a few remaining islands of functioning cortex, preterm infants, non-mammalian species and machines that are rapidly outperforming people at driving, recognizing faces and objects, and answering difficult questions. To address these issues, we need not only more data but also a theory of consciousness-one that says what experience is and what type of physical systems can have it. Integrated information theory (IIT) does so by starting from experience itself via five phenomenological axioms: intrinsic existence, composition, information, integration and exclusion. From these it derives five postulates about the properties required of physical mechanisms to support consciousness. The theory provides a principled account of both the quantity and the quality of an individual experience (a quale), and a calculus to evaluate whether or not a particular physical system is conscious and of what. Moreover, IIT can explain a range of clinical and laboratory findings, makes a number of testable predictions and extrapolates to a number of problematic conditions. The theory holds that consciousness is a fundamental property possessed by physical systems having specific causal properties. It predicts that consciousness is graded, is common among biological organisms and can occur in some very simple systems. Conversely, it predicts that feed-forward networks, even complex ones, are not conscious, nor are aggregates such as groups of individuals or heaps of sand. Also, in sharp contrast to widespread functionalist beliefs, IIT implies that digital computers, even if their behaviour were to be functionally equivalent to ours, and even if they were to run faithful simulations of the human brain, would experience next to nothing.
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Our textbook image of organelles has changed. Instead of revealing isolated cellular compartments, the picture now emerging shows organelles as largely interdependent structures that can communicate through membrane contact sites (MCSs). MCSs are sites where opposing organelles are tethered but do not fuse. MCSs provide a hybrid location where the tool kits of two different organelles can work together to perform vital cellular functions, such as lipid and ion transfer, signaling, and organelle division. Here, we focus on MCSs involving the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), an organelle forming an extensive network of cisternae and tubules. We highlight how the dynamic ER network regulates a plethora of cellular processes through MCSs with various organelles and with the plasma membrane.
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Blockchains are on the top of the Gartner Hype Cycle 2016 and many start-ups are integrating blockchains into their technology portfolio. While blockchains have emerged in the context of financial applications, non-financial application areas are of interest as well. In this paper, modum.io is presented, a start-up that uses IoT (Internet of Things) sensor devices leveraging blockchain technology to assert data immutability and public accessibility of temperature records, while reducing operational costs in the pharmaceutical supply-chain. The medical industry has many complex and strict environmental control process (e.g., temperature and humidity) to ensure quality control and regulatory compliance over the transport of medical products. The sensor devices monitor the temperature of each parcel during the shipment to fully ensure GDP regulations. All data is transferred to the blockchain where a smart contract assesses against the product attributes. As modum.io is not the only non-financial start-up working with blockchains, a list of areas and other start-ups is provided that aim to reduce bureaucracy, distribute the infrastructure, and saving costs using blockchains.
A vector field in n-space determines a competitive (or cooperative) system of differential equations provided all of the off-diagonal terms of its Jacobian matrix are nonpositive (or nonnegative). The main results in this article are the following. A cooperative system cannot have nonconstant attracting periodic solutions. In a cooperative system whose Jacobian matrices are irreducible the forward orbit converges for almost every point having compact forward orbit closure. In a cooperative system in 2 dimensions, every solution is eventually monotone. Applications are made to generalizations of positive feedback loops.
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