The Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances 2013

The 2013 Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances breaks new ground by measuring and analyzing the financial flows of emerging economies to the developing world, including philanthropy, remittances, government aid, and private investment. This year’s Index, sponsored by the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, Canada, is the first attempt to systematically capture this information. The research will add to the ongoing work of the Center for Global Prosperity (CGP) at Hudson Institute. Over the last decade, CGP has demonstrated how the landscape of international development has changed. Of the total financial flows The Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances 2013 from developed to developing countries, over 80 percent are private. Government aid, at less than 20 percent, is now a minority shareholder, the opposite of 40 years ago

The Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances 2010

Philanthropy to the developing world remained steady in 2008 and remittances continued to grow—despite the global recession and dire forecasts—providing a much needed lifeline to poor people throughout the world. And they were more resilient to the downturn than private capital flows to developing countries, which fell dramatically in 2008. Despite this, private flows still accounted for three-quarters of the developed world’s economic dealings with developing countries in 2008, proving that this innovative, diverse new foreign aid architecture is here to stay in good times and in bad

The Index of Global Philanthropy 2008

Provides an annual update on the sources and scope of U.S. and international private giving to the developing world. Highlights trends in government aid, private philanthropy and investment, public-private partnerships, and social entrepreneurship

The Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances 2010

Philanthropy to the developing world remained steady in 2008 and remittances continued to grow—despite the global recession and dire forecasts—providing a much needed lifeline to poor people throughout the world. And they were more resilient to the downturn than private capital flows to developing countries, which fell dramatically in 2008. Despite this, private flows still accounted for three-quarters of the developed world’s economic dealings with developing countries in 2008, proving that this innovative, diverse new foreign aid architecture is here to stay in good times and in bad

The auditory anatomy of the minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) : a potential fatty sound reception pathway in a baleen whale

Author Posting. © John Wiley & Sons, 2012. This article is posted here under terms and conditions set forth in the Wiley Online Library. The definitive version was published in The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology 295 (2012): 991-998, doi:10.1002/ar.22459.Cetaceans possess highly derived auditory systems adapted for underwater hearing. Odontoceti (toothed whales) are thought to receive sound through specialized fat bodies that contact the tympanoperiotic complex, the bones housing the middle and inner ears. However, sound reception pathways remain unknown in Mysticeti (baleen whales), which have very different cranial anatomies compared to odontocetes. Here, we report a potential fatty sound reception pathway in the minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), a mysticete of the balaenopterid family. The cephalic anatomy of seven minke whales was investigated using computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, verified through dissections. Findings include a large, well-formed fat body lateral, dorsal, and posterior to the mandibular ramus and lateral to the tympanoperiotic complex. This fat body inserts into the tympanoperiotic complex at the lateral aperture between the tympanic and periotic bones and is in contact with the ossicles. There is also a second, smaller body of fat found within the tympanic bone, which contacts the ossicles as well. This is the first analysis of these fatty tissues' association with the auditory structures in a mysticete, providing anatomical evidence that fatty sound reception pathways may not be a unique feature of odontocete cetaceans

The Index of Global Philanthropy 2007

The 2007 index presents a comparison of all developed countries' aid -- government as well as private -- to the developing world. The new index reveals that U.S. private giving in 2005 (latest available data), in the form of money, volunteer time, goods, and expertise to the developing world was at least $95 billion, compared with$27.6 billion in U.S. government aid abroad

Environmental and Parental Influences on Offspring Health and Growth in Great Tits (Parus major)

PMCID: PMC3728352This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Optimal Conservation of Migratory Species

Background. Migratory animals comprise a significant portion of biodiversity worldwide with annual investment for their conservation exceeding several billion dollars. Designing effective conservation plans presents enormous challenges. Migratory species are influenced by multiple events across land and sea-regions that are often separated by thousands of kilometres and span international borders. To date, conservation strategies for migratory species fail to take into account how migratory animals are spatially connected between different periods of the annual cycle (i.e. migratory connectivity) bringing into question the utility and efficiency of current conservation efforts. Methodology/Principal Findings. Here, we report the first framework for determining an optimal conservation strategy for a migratory species. Employing a decision theoretic approach using dynamic optimization, we address the problem of how to allocate resources for habitat conservation for a Neotropical-Nearctic migratory bird, the American redstart Setophaga ruticilla, whose winter habitat is under threat. Our first conservation strategy used the acquisition of winter habitat based on land cost, relative bird density, and the rate of habitat loss to maximize the abundance of birds on the wintering grounds. Our second strategy maximized bird abundance across the entire range of the species by adding the constraint of maintaining a minimum percentage of birds within each breeding region in North America using information on migratory connectivity as estimated from stable-hydrogen isotopes in feathers. We show that failure to take into account migratory connectivity may doom some regional populations to extinction, whereas including information on migratory connectivity results in the protection of the species across its entire range. Conclusions/Significance. We demonstrate that conservation strategies for migratory animals depend critically upon two factors: knowledge of migratory connectivity and the correct statement of the conservation problem. Our framework can be used to identify efficient conservation strategies for migratory taxa worldwide, including insects, birds, mammals, and marine organisms

The Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances 2009

In the ever-changing world of international development, the Center for Global Prosperity (CGP) has made its own changes, among them a new name for its premier publication. It has become the Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances to highlight the critical role remittances play in alleviating poverty abroad. Total remittances from industrial countries to the developing world were $145 billion dollars in 2007—nearly one and one-half times larger than all governments’ Official Development Assistance at$103.5 billion and three times larger than private philanthropy at $49.1 billion

A New Acoustic Portal into the Odontocete Ear and Vibrational Analysis of the Tympanoperiotic Complex

Global concern over the possible deleterious effects of noise on marine organisms was catalyzed when toothed whales stranded and died in the presence of high intensity sound. The lack of knowledge about mechanisms of hearing in toothed whales prompted our group to study the anatomy and build a finite element model to simulate sound reception in odontocetes. The primary auditory pathway in toothed whales is an evolutionary novelty, compensating for the impedance mismatch experienced by whale ancestors as they moved from hearing in air to hearing in water. The mechanism by which high-frequency vibrations pass from the low density fats of the lower jaw into the dense bones of the auditory apparatus is a key to understanding odontocete hearing. Here we identify a new acoustic portal into the ear complex, the tympanoperiotic complex (TPC) and a plausible mechanism by which sound is transduced into the bony components. We reveal the intact anatomic geometry using CT scanning, and test functional preconceptions using finite element modeling and vibrational analysis. We show that the mandibular fat bodies bifurcate posteriorly, attaching to the TPC in two distinct locations. The smaller branch is an inconspicuous, previously undescribed channel, a cone-shaped fat body that fits into a thin-walled bony funnel just anterior to the sigmoid process of the TPC. The TPC also contains regions of thin translucent bone that define zones of differential flexibility, enabling the TPC to bend in response to sound pressure, thus providing a mechanism for vibrations to pass through the ossicular chain. The techniques used to discover the new acoustic portal in toothed whales, provide a means to decipher auditory filtering, beam formation, impedance matching, and transduction. These tools can also be used to address concerns about the potential deleterious effects of high-intensity sound in a broad spectrum of marine organisms, from whales to fish