Small-Dollar Lending: Is There A Responsible Path Forward?

This report examines the problem of access to credit for low- and moderate- income households. It notes that this problem has two dimensions. On the one hand, there are millions of consumers without access to mainstream sources of consumer credit. On the other hand, many of these same consumers do obtain high-cost credit that ends up harming rather than helping them

Prospects for Gulf Region with closed greenhouse

In countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, water is scarce as rainfall is minimal. Growers in the Gulf Region rely on groundwater for evaporative cooling and irrigation. This source of water is running out and growers are deciding to end production. The governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates want to create new possibilities for horticulture in the region by developing more sustainable and water-efficient technique

Automated drug identification system

System speeds up analysis of blood and urine and is capable of identifying 100 commonly abused drugs. System includes computer that controls entire analytical process by ordering various steps in specific sequences. Computer processes data output and has readout of identified drugs

Towards a low emission greenhouse horticulture

For the pilot crop tomato, business concepts of low emission greenhouses for the midterm (10 year) have been designed. The study is carried out in cooperation with innovators in the horticultural sector, suppliers and extension services. The business concepts are evaluated for different indicators in the field of planet and compared to the current situation. The focus is on the reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emission for the cultivation with and without supplementary lighting. The energy concepts differ in the way the heat and power are produced or supplied on business level. The results show that the energy concepts without supplementary lighting have a lower environmental impact and have a better energy efficiency than the energy concepts with lighting. The energy concepts without supplementary lighting show that simultaneous production of heat and power on business level and the delivery of electricity to the public grid is most favorable looking at the energy use and CO2 emission on a national level. Second best is the conditioned greenhouse. In this energy concept solar energy is collected in summertime, stored and re-used in wintertime. Conditioned greenhouses also have good perspectives in reducing the use and emission of pesticides

In vitro compression of a soft tissue layer on a rigid foundation

In vitro compression studies have been performed on layers of porcine skin and fat. The tissue layers have been loaded by means of various indentors. Indentor displacements and interstitial fluid pressures have been measured. The results have been compared to finite element calculations with mixture elements. A qualitative agreement between calculations and measurements is found. The results support the hypothesis that skin and fat behave like solid/fluid mixtures

Liquid sample processor

Processor is automatic and includes series of extraction tubes packed with fibrous absorbent material of large surface area. When introduced into these tubes, liquid test samples become completely absorbed by packing material as thin film

A Spatial Mathematical Model Analysis of the Linkage between Agricultural Trade and Deforestation

Like agricultural trade, deforestation has increased tremendously throughout the past five decades. We analyse the linkage between both factors by applying trade and forest policy scenarios to the global land-use model MAgPIE ("Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment"). The model predicts global landuse patterns in a spatially explicit way and uses endogenously derived technological change and land expansion rates. Our study is the first which combines global trade analysis with a spatially explicit mapping of deforestation. By implementing self-sufficiency rates in the regional demand and supply equations, we are able to simulate different trade settings. Our baseline scenario fixes current trade patterns until the year 2045. The three liberalisation scenarios assume a path of increasing trade liberalisation which ends with no trade barriers in 2045 and they differ by applying different forest protection policies. Regions with comparative advantages like Latin America for oilcrops and China for cereals will export more. Whereas, Latin America will buy this competitiveness by converting large parts of its Amazonian rainforest into cropland, China will benefit most due to its decreasing food demand after 2025. In contrast, regions like the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia face the highest increases of imports. Forest protection policies lead to higher technological change rates. In absence of such policies, investments in agricultural Research & Development are the most effective way for protecting the forest.International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,