Technical Guide for the Analysis of Microenterprise Financial Institutions

The purpose of this technical guide is to provide a standard format for the analysis of institutions that provide financial services to the microenterprise sector. The technical guide outlines the appropriate techniques and scope of analysis for evaluating and designing programs of support to specialized financial institutions. The analytical techniques presented in this guide are structured to facilitate the process of institutional analysis and project design represented in the diagram below. The analytical framework applied in this technical guide is comprised of two basic components. The first part of the analysis, described in chapters 1 through 5, is dedicated to deriving a series of quantitative performance indicators that measure the performance of the institution. The investigation begins with an analysis of financial performance in order to derive general indicators regarding the sustainability of the institution. Credit operations are then analyzed in order to identify sources of inefficiency. The investigation concludes with an assessment of the impact of the credit services on the institution's clients.Social Development, Financial Sector, Microbusinesses & Microfinance, Microenterprise Finance Institutions

Testing the meson cloud in the nucleon in Drell-Yan processes

We discuss the present status of the \bar u-\bar d asymmetry in the nucleon and analize the quantities which are best suited to verify the asymmetry. We find that the Drell-Yan asymmetry is the quantity insensitive to the valence quark distributions and very sensitive to the flavour asymmetry of the sea. We compare the prediction of the meson cloud model with different experimental data including the Fermilab E772 data and recent data of the NA51 Collaboration at CERN and make predictions for the planned Drell-Yan experiments.Comment: written in ReVTeX, 26 pages + 10 PS-figure

\bar u - \bar d asymmetry - a few remarks

We make a few remarks on possible sources of uncertainties of the $\bar d - \bar u$ asymmetry obtained by different methods and comment on its possible verification in the future. In addition we comment on its present understanding.Comment: 3 pages, a talk at the 7th International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and QCD (DIS99), Zeuthen, April 199

Autistic Traits and Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Clinical Validity of Two Measures Presuming a Continuum of Social Communication Skills

Research indicates that autism is the extreme end of a continuously distributed trait. The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and the Social and Communication Disorders Checklist (SCDC) aim to assess autistic traits. The objective of this study was to compare their clinical validity. The SRS showed sensitivities of .74 to .80 and specificities of .69 to 1.00 for autism. Sensitivities were .85 to .90 and specificities .28 to.82 for the SCDC. Correlations with the ADI-R, ADOS and SCQ were higher for the SRS than for the SCDC. The SCDC seems superior to the SRS to screen for unspecific social and communicative deficits including autism. The SRS appears more suitable than the SCDC in clinical settings and for specific autism screening

Light quark distributions in the proton sea

We use the meson cloud model to calculate $\bar{d}(x) - \bar{u}(x)$ and $\bar{d}(x)/\bar{u}(x)$ in the proton. We show that a modification of the symmetric, perturbative part of the light quark sea provides better agreement with the ratio $ \bar{d}(x)/\bar{u}(x).Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX. Talk presented at PANIC 9

Municipal green waste as substrate for the microbial production of platform chemicals

In Germany alone, more than 5·10$^6$ tons of municipal green waste is produced each year. So far, this material is not used in an economically worthwhile way. In this work, grass clippings and tree pruning as examples of municipal green waste were utilized as feedstock for the microbial production of platform chemicals. A pretreatment procedure depending on the moisture and lignin content of the biomass was developed. The suitability of grass press juice and enzymatic hydrolysate of lignocellulosic biomass pretreated with an organosolv process as fermentation medium or medium supplement for the cultivation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis, Ustilago maydis, and Clostridium acetobutylicum was demonstrated. Product concentrations of 9.4 g$_{ethanol}$ L$^{−1}$, 16.9 g$_{lactic}$ acid L$^{−1}$, 20.0 g$_{itaconic acid}$ L$^{−1}$, and 15.5 g$_{solvents}$ L$^{−1}$ were achieved in the different processes. Yields were in the same range as or higher than those of reference processes grown in established standard media. By reducing the waste arising in cities and using municipal green waste as feedstock to produce platform chemicals, this work contributes to the UN sustainability goals and supports the transition toward a circular bioeconomy

Charge symmetry violation: a NNLO study of partonic observables

Charge and isospin symmetry violations to valence and sea distribution functions in the nucleon are evaluated (at low resolution scale) by means of a meson cloud model and light-cone quark wave functions. Their perturbative evolution are implemented at Next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) using an original evolution code in order to include the perturbatively generated strange - anti-strange asymmetry typical of the three loop evolution expansion. Charge symmetry violating QED effects are also added and the distributions, evolved at the experimental scale, are compared with available information. The role of non-perturbative effects is emphasized in the interpretation of the, so called, NuTeV anomaly and new experiments at very-high energy.Comment: revtex4, 7 pages, 3 figures; text improved, new comments and reference

Pion Content of the Nucleon as seen in the NA51 Drell-Yan experiment

In a recent CERN Drell-Yan experiment the NA51 group found a strong asymmetry of $\bar u$ and $\bar d$ densities in the proton at $x\simeq0.18$. We interpret this result as a decisive confirmation of the pion-induced sea in the nucleon.Comment: 10 pages + 3 figures, Preprint KFA-IKP(TH)-1994-14 .tex file. After \enddocument a uu-encodeded Postscript file comprising the figures is appende

Equation of state for systems with Goldstone bosons

We discuss some recent determinations of the equation of state for the XY and the Heisenberg universality class.Comment: 5 pages, Proceedings of the Conference "Horizons in Complex Systems", Messina; in honor of the 60th birthday of H.E. Stanle