Trade and the Competitiveness Agenda

The global economic crisis has forced a major rethinking of the respective roles of governments and markets in the processes of trade and growth. Indeed, industrial policy seems to be back in fashion—or, at least, talking about it is. But a renewed “activism” by government in the trade and growth agenda need not mean a return to old-style policies of import substitution and “picking winners.” Instead, it may mean a stronger focus on competitiveness by unlocking the constraints to private sector–led growth. This note discusses the renewed role of government in trade and growth policy from the competitiveness angle, and it suggests some priorities for the new competitiveness agenda.trade, competitiveness, financial crisis, growth, industrial policy, import substitution, picking winners, trade policy, exports, imports

Distinguishing cause from effect - many deficits associated with developmental dyslexia may be a consequence of reduced and suboptimal reading experience

The cause of developmental dyslexia is still unknown despite decades of intense research. Many causal explanations have been proposed, based on the range of impairments displayed by affected individuals. Here we draw attention to the fact that many of these impairments are also shown by illiterate individuals who have not received any or very little reading instruction. We suggest that this fact may not be coincidental and that the performance differences of both illiterates and individuals with dyslexia compared to literate controls are, to a substantial extent, secondary consequences of either reduced or suboptimal reading experience or a combination of both. The search for the primary causes of reading impairments will make progress if the consequences of quantitative and qualitative differences in reading experience are better taken into account and not mistaken for the causes of reading disorders. We close by providing four recommendations for future research

Analyzing trade competitiveness : a diagnostics approach

Trade has proven to be a powerful engine of growth worldwide. But not all countries have benefited equally. Despite much effort to use trade policy to catalyze exports, many developing countries have failed to achieve successful, sustainable export and economic growth. Even with the benefit of preferential market access, many developing country exporters face a broad and diverse set of constraints that limit their potential to compete in export markets. This paper discusses the concept of"competitiveness"with respect to trade and the various dimensions on which trade competitiveness might be assessed. It argues there is a need for a framework by which trade competitiveness can be assessed in a systematic way. Inspired by the"growth diagnostics"approach, it outlines a possible framework for assessing factors that facilitate or constrain trade competitiveness.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,E-Business,Currencies and Exchange Rates

Building an Organization to Last: Reflections and Lessons Learned From SeaChange

Shares an important case study of best practices of grantmaking and organizational effectiveness. Contains lessons about leadership, governance, management and accountability

e-Philanthropy v2.001: From Entrepreneurial Adventure to an Online Community

Looks at interactive online services for philanthropy and volunteerism. Identifies, describes and anticipates the changing and maturing structure of Internet-facilitated information and services that support the various dimensions of the social sector

A Geometric Model for the Coiling of an Elastic Rod Deployed Onto a Moving Substrate

We report results from a systematic numerical investigation of the nonlinear patterns that emerge when a slender elastic rod is deployed onto a moving substrate; a system also known as the elastic sewing machine (ESM). The discrete elastic rods (DER) method is employed to quantitatively characterize the coiling patterns, and a comprehensive classification scheme is introduced based on their Fourier spectrum. Our analysis yields physical insight on both the length scales excited by the ESM, as well as the morphology of the patterns. The coiling process is then rationalized using a reduced geometric model (GM) for the evolution of the position and orientation of the contact point between the rod and the belt, as well as the curvature of the rod near contact. This geometric description reproduces almost all of the coiling patterns of the ESM and allows us to establish a unifying bridge between our elastic problem and the analogous patterns obtained when depositing a viscous thread onto a moving surface; a well-known system known as the fluid-mechanical sewing machine (FMSM).National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CMMI-1129894

Unleashing New Resources and Entrepreneurship for the Common Good: A Scan, Synthesis, and Scenario for Action

Presents an overview of changes and corresponding opportunities related to how philanthropy and social change organizations and leaders are integrating market concepts into their work, value sets, and organizational structures

Towards a New Science of a Clinical Data Intelligence

In this paper we define Clinical Data Intelligence as the analysis of data generated in the clinical routine with the goal of improving patient care. We define a science of a Clinical Data Intelligence as a data analysis that permits the derivation of scientific, i.e., generalizable and reliable results. We argue that a science of a Clinical Data Intelligence is sensible in the context of a Big Data analysis, i.e., with data from many patients and with complete patient information. We discuss that Clinical Data Intelligence requires the joint efforts of knowledge engineering, information extraction (from textual and other unstructured data), and statistics and statistical machine learning. We describe some of our main results as conjectures and relate them to a recently funded research project involving two major German university hospitals.Comment: NIPS 2013 Workshop: Machine Learning for Clinical Data Analysis and Healthcare, 201

The use of different dispersive Raman spectrometers for the analysis of uranium compounds

This paper provides a summary of a previous article (published in Vibrational Spectroscopy) to Spectroscopy Solutions.org . It addresses the initiated at ITU to compare the performance of three rather different Raman dispersive spectrometers in the measurement of an important class of uranium compound (uranium ore concentrates (UOC) and UO2 powder and UO2 nuclear fuel pellet). This study is important for the application of Raman spectroscopy to nuclear forensics.JRC.E.7 - Nuclear Safeguards and Forensic