Business Training for Microfinance Clients: How it Matters and for Whom?

We measure the impact of a business training program for female microentrepreneur clients of a group banking program in Peru. Using the credit with education model, we assigned clients randomly to either treatment or control groups. Treatment groups received thirty to sixty minute entrepreneurship training sessions during their normal weekly group banking meeting. These lasted between one to two years. Control groups remained as they were before, meeting weekly with the group banking program solely for making loan and savings payments. We find that intention to treat (ITT) led to higher repayment and client retention rates for the microfinance institution, improved business knowledge, and practices. More importantly, average business sales revenues also increase while revenues fluctuations were reduced. In addition, we find significant heterogeneity in the exposure of clients within the treatment group. Treatment on the treated (TOT) estimates, obtained using ITT as instrumental variable, show substantially larger effects.Microfinance, business training, adult education

The global warming hiatus: Slowdown or redistribution?

Global mean surface temperatures (GMST) exhibited a smaller rate of warming during 1998-2013, compared to the warming in the latter half of the 20th Century. Although, not a "true" hiatus in the strict definition of the word, this has been termed the "global warming hiatus" by IPCC (2013). There have been other periods that have also been defined as the "hiatus" depending on the analysis. There are a number of uncertainties and knowledge gaps regarding the "hiatus." This report reviews these issues and also posits insights from a collective set of diverse information that helps us understand what we do and do not know. One salient insight is that the GMST phenomenon is a surface characteristic that does not represent a slowdown in warming of the climate system but rather is an energy redistribution within the oceans. Improved understanding of the ocean distribution and redistribution of heat will help better monitor Earth's energy budget and its consequences. A review of recent scientific publications on the "hiatus" shows the difficulty and complexities in pinpointing the oceanic sink of the "missing heat" from the atmosphere and the upper layer of the oceans, which defines the "hiatus." Advances in "hiatus" research and outlooks (recommendations) are given in this report

The U.S. Law of Client Confidentiality: Framework for an International Perspective

In this Article, I will consider two general areas of the U.S. law of confidentiality. In Part I, I will reflect briefly upon what I call “the U.S. culture of lawyer-client confidentiality.” I say “culture” rather than “cult,” and one must guard against temptations to confuse those concepts. Those reflections will serve as background—by way of both match and contrast—to my sketch of the U.S. law of confidentiality in Part II

The Algerian War of Independence in Algerian bande dessin�e

The Algerian War of Independencein Algerian bande dessin�ebyVeronica Katherine DeanDoctor of Philosophy in French and Francophone StudiesUniversity of California, Los Angeles, 2020Professor Lia N. Brozgal, Chair“The Algerian War of Independence in Algerian bande dessin�e” is animated by the question of how bande dessin�e from Algeria represent the nation’s struggle for independence from France. Although the war is represented extensively in bande dessin�e from France and Algeria, French texts are more well-known than their Algerian counterparts among scholars and b�d�philes alike. Catalysts behind this project are the disproportionate awareness and study of French bande dessin�e on the war and the fact that critical studies of Algerian bande dessin�e are rare and often superficial. This project nevertheless builds upon existing scholarship by problematizing its assumptions and conclusions, including the generalization that Algerian bande dessin�e that depict the war are in essence propagandistic in nature. Employing tools of comics analysis and inflecting my research with journalistic work coming out of Algeria, this project attempts to rectify the treatment of Algerian bande dessin�e in critical scholarship by illustrating the rich tradition of historical representation in the medium. Using the theoretical lens of genre theory, this project establishes and explores what I call the Algerian War Genre as a way to understand the corpus of texts on the war and to elevate Algerian bande dessin�e to the status of art that merits analysis. Each of the three chapters examine examples of the Algerian War Genre. The flexible and mutable criterion of the Algerian War Genre is a strength of this study because it encourages diversity among texts in terms of format, decade of publication, and content. The framework of genre spans the project, while individual chapters engage with genre theory and comics theory to different extents. The chapters are organized by b�d�iste in order to draw attention to their individual contributions to the medium and the genre as its pioneers

Guidelines for pre-operative cardiac risk assessment and perioperative cardiac management in non-cardiac surgery : the Task Force for Preoperative Cardiac Risk Assessment and Perioperative Cardiac Management in Non-cardiac Surgery of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and endorsed by the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA)

Non-cardiac surgery; Pre-operative cardiac risk assessment; Pre-operative cardiac testing; Pre-operative coronary artery revascularization; Perioperative cardiac management; Renal disease; Pulmonary disease; Neurological disease; Anaesthesiology; Post-operative cardiac surveillanc

Guidelines on the management of valvular heart disease: The Task Force on the Management of Valvular Heart Disease of the European Society of Cardiology.

80These guidelines focus on valvular heart disease in adults and adolescents, are oriented towards management, and will not deal with endocarditis and congenital valve diseases in adults and adolescents, since recent guidelines have been produced by the ESC on these topics. Although valvular heart disease is less common in industrialized countries than coronary disease, heart failure, or hypertension, guidelines are needed in this field for several reasons: valvular heart disease is common and often requires intervention; substantial advances have been made in the understanding of its pathophysiology; the patient population has changed with a continuous decline of acute rheumatic fever and an increased incidence of degenerative valvular diseases in industrialized countries. The incidence of endocarditis remains stable and other causes of valve disease are rare. Because of the predominance of degenerative valve disease, the two most frequent valve diseases are now calcific aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation. Aortic regurgitation and mitral stenosis have become less common. Diagnosis is now dominated by echocardiography, which has become the standard to evaluate valve structure and function. Treatment has not only developed through the continuing progress in prosthetic valve technology, but has also been reoriented by the development of conservative surgical approaches and the introduction of percutaneous interventional techniques.openopenVahanian, A; Baumgartner, ; H, ; Bax, ; J, ; Butchart, ; E, ; Dion, ; R, ; Filippatos, ; G, ; Flachskampf, ; F, ; Hall, ; R, ; Iung, ; B, ; Kasprzak, ; J, ; Nataf, ; P, ; Tornos, ; P, ; Torracca, ; L, ; Wenink, ; A, ; Silvia, ; Priori, G.; Blanc, Jean-Jacques; Andrzej, ; Budaj, ; John, ; Camm, ; Veronica, ; Dean, ; Jaap, ; Deckers, ; Kenneth, ; Dickstein, ; John, ; Lekakis, ; Keith, ; Mcgregor, ; Marco, ; Metra, ; João, ; Morais, ; Ady, ; Osterspey, ; Juan, ; Tamargo, ; Luis, José; Zamorano, ; Annalisa, ; Angelini, ; Manuel, ; Antunes, ; Angel, Miguel; Fernandez, Garcia; Christa, ; Gohlke-Baerwolf, ; Gilbert, ; Habib, ; John, ; Mcmurray, ; Catherine, ; Otto, ; Luc, ; Pierard, ; Josè, ; Pomar, L.; Bernard, ; Prendergast, ; Raphael, ; Rosenhek, ; Sousa, Miguel; Uva, ; Juan, ; Tamargo,Vahanian, A; Baumgartner, ; H, ; Bax, ; J, ; Butchart, ; E, ; Dion, ; R, ; Filippatos, ; G, ; Flachskampf, ; F, ; Hall, ; R, ; Iung, ; B, ; Kasprzak, ; J, ; Nataf, ; P, ; Tornos, ; P, ; Torracca, ; L, ; Wenink, ; A, ; Silvia, ; Priori, G.; Blanc, Jean Jacques; Andrzej, ; Budaj, ; John, ; Camm, ; Veronica, ; Dean, ; Jaap, ; Deckers, ; Kenneth, ; Dickstein, ; John, ; Lekakis, ; Keith, ; Mcgregor, ; Marco, ; Metra, Marco; João, ; Morais, ; Ady, ; Osterspey, ; Juan, ; Tamargo, ; Luis, José; Zamorano, ; Annalisa, ; Angelini, ; Manuel, ; Antunes, ; Angel, Miguel; Fernandez, Garcia; Christa, ; Gohlke, Baerwolf; Gilbert, ; Habib, ; John, ; Mcmurray, ; Catherine, ; Otto, ; Luc, ; Pierard, ; Josè, ; Pomar, L.; Bernard, ; Prendergast, ; Raphael, ; Rosenhek, ; Sousa, Miguel; Uva, ; Juan, ; Tamargo