Poverty and Human Development in India: Getting Priorities Right

human development, poverty, empowerment

Report on the 2010 external review of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Evaluation Unit

This report presents the assessment by an external review panel of key aspects of the performance of IDRC’s Evaluation Unit (EU) from 2005 to 2010, with an overview of findings and observations followed by relevant contextual factors. It provides the external review panel’s identification of questions and issues that should be considered by IDRC as it maps out its direction, strategic intent and priorities for the coming five years. The review panel considers that the provision of financial accountability information internally is a management responsibility rather than part of the evaluation unit mandate

A ZVT–ZCT PWM synchronous buck converter with a simple passive auxiliary circuit for reduction of losses and efficiency enhancement

In this paper, a Zero-Voltage-Transition (ZVT)–Zero-Current Transition (ZCT) Pulse-width Modulated (PWM) synchronous buck converter (SBC), with a simple passive auxiliary circuit is proposed, which reduces the stresses and improves the efficiency by pacifying the conduction losses compared to a traditional PWM converter, typically suitable for photovoltaic applications. The important design feature of ZVT–ZCT PWM SBC converters is placement of resonant components that mollifies the conduction losses. Due to the ZVT–ZCT, the resonant components with low values are used, thereby resulting in the increase of switching frequency. The ZVT–ZCT operation of the proposed converter is presented through theoretical analysis. The characteristics of the proposed converter are verified with the simulation in the PSIM co-simulated with MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and implemented experimentally