Transformations in Cuban art, literature and culture in the post-Fidel era Cuba has been in a state of massive transformation over the past decade, with its historic resumption of diplomatic relations with the United States only the latest development. While the political leadership has changed direction, other forces have taken hold. The environment is under threat, and the culture feels the strain of new forms of consumption. Planet/Cuba examines how art and literature have responded to a new moment, one both more globalized and less exceptional; more concerned with local quotidian worries than international alliances; more threatened by the depredations of planetary capitalism and climate change than by the vagaries of the nation’s government. Rachel Price examines a fascinating array of artists and writers who are tracing a new socio-cultural map of the island.
The Object of the Atlantic is a wide-ranging study of the transition from a concern with sovereignty to a concern with things in Iberian Atlantic literature and art produced between 1868 and 1968. Rachel Price uncovers the surprising ways that concrete aesthetics from Cuba, Brazil, and Spain drew not only on global forms of constructivism but also on a history of empire, slavery, and media technologies from the Atlantic world. Analyzing Jose Marti’s notebooks, Joaquim de Sousandrade’s poetry, Ramiro de Maeztu’s essays on things and on slavery, 1920s Cuban literature on economic restructuring, Ferreira Gullar’s theory of the “non-object,” and neoconcrete art, Price shows that the turn to objects—and from these to new media networks—was rooted in the very philosophies of history that helped form the Atlantic world itself.
The proposed new chemicals policy of the European Community, REACH, is an important new development in environmental protection. Rather than waiting for government or independent researchers to determine that chemicals are hazardous, it will make manufacturers, importers, and professional users of chemicals responsible for the safe use. There is little doubt that REACH will give health and environmental benefits, but there has been little agreement about the resulting costs: -Will European manufacturers be crushed by the economic burden of chemicals regulation, as some industry sources have suggested? -Or, as projected in some public sector studies, will there be a minor cost impact, well within the ability of industry and worth the price? This report offers a new look at these costs. Frank Ackerman and Rachel Massey compare the current EC legislation on chemicals, the European Commission's proposal and an alternative proposal addressing previous versions of REACH. The authors make a bottom-up calculation of the expected registration and testing costs under REACH and provide a new analysis of the indirect economic impacts. Ultimately they evaluate some prominent arguments about the costs of REACH and discuss the expected benefits. In the appendices there is the derivation of their economic impacts analysis and a critique of the best-known industry-oriented study.
Unlock your full potential with these revision guides which focus on the key content and skills you need to know With My Revision Notes for Edexcel A2 Economics you can: Take control of your revision: plan and focus on the areas you need to revise with content summaries and commentary from authors Quintin Brewer and Rachel Cole Show you fully understand key topics by using specific examples to place economic theory in a real-world context Apply economic terms accurately with the help of definitions and key words on all topics Improve your skills to tackle specific exam questions such as data response with self-testing and exam-style questions and answers Get exam-ready with last-minute quick quizzes at www.hodderplus.co.uk/myrevisionnotes
Overconfident: How Economic and Health Fault Lines Left the Middle East and North Africa Ill-Prepared to Face COVID This report examines the region’s economic prospects in 2021, forecasting that the recovery will be both tenuous and uneven as per capita GDP level stays below pre-pandemic levels. COVID-19 was a stress-test for the region’s public health systems, which were already overwhelmed even before the pandemic. Indeed, a decade of lackluster economic reforms left a legacy of large public sectors and high public debt that effectively crowded out investments in social services such as public health. This edition points out that the region’s health systems were not only ill-prepared for the pandemic, but suffered from over-confidence, as authorities painted an overly optimistic picture in self-assessments of health system preparedness. Going forward, governments must improve data transparency for public health and undertake reforms to remedy historical underinvestment in public health systems.
World Bank economists expect GDP growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to continue at a modest pace of 1.5 percent in 2019, slightly down from 1.6 percent in 2018. The declme reflects a contraction in one large economy, which more than offsets growth in other countries. In the medium term, the World Bank expects real GDP in the MENA to grow at 3.4 percent and 2.7 percent in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The expected upswing is partially driven by ongoing policy reforms, as well as reconstruction efforts in some countries. However, MENA's modest recovery will be insufficient to change its historically low growth in per capita GDP. External factors are unlikely to pull the region out of its low-growth equilibrium. In addition, many countries in the region have persistent current account deficits. A recent deterioration in external balances across MENA constrained the region's ability to finance these deficits. Although the region has a low risk of experiencing sudden reversals in capital inflows in the short run, structural reforms capable of raising aggregate labor productivity are urgently needed to gradually reduce external imbalances. The report concludes by providing examples of reforms in fiscal policies, trade-related policies, social protection and labor markets, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in network industries.
A “wildly entertaining” (NPR), “gripping” (The Washington Post) work of historical fiction about an incendiary tragedy that shocked a young nation and tore apart a community in a single night, from the author of Florence Adler Swims Forever. Richmond, Virginia 1811. It’s the height of the winter social season, the General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia’s gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the long and arduous journey to the capital in hopes of whiling away the darkest days of the year. At the city’s only theater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Company puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a populace that’s done looking for enlightenment at the front of a church. On the night after Christmas, the theater is packed with more than six hundred holiday revelers. In the third-floor boxes sits newly widowed Sally Henry Campbell, who is glad for any opportunity to relive the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson doesn’t give a whit about the play but is grateful for a four-hour reprieve from a life that has recently gone from bad to worse. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes that, if he can impress the theater’s managers, he’ll be offered a permanent job with the company. And on the other side of town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt dreams of one day being able to bring his wife to the theater, but he’ll have to buy her freedom first. When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will not only affect their own lives but those of countless others. And in the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined. Based on the true story of Richmond’s theater fire, The House Is on Fire is a “stunning” (Jeannette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle), “all-consuming exploration” (E! News) that offers proof that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy, we are offered our most precious—and fleeting—chances at redemption.
Outsourcing has increased and developed immensely in scope, sophistication and ambition over the last twenty years - and continues to evolve. Information technology outsourcing is potentially highly complex and risk-laden, especially for the fast growing areas of business process and transformational outsourcing, and where whole departments or business areas are outsourced. Decisions taken by the customer at the outset have long term ramifications: they need to ensure that the processes are flexible enough to deal with change, maintain necessary levels of security, avoid abandoning management of key resources and prevent costs spiralling out of control. It is essential to have a good contract to meet such challenges. All these issues and others, such as intellectual property arrangements, the complexities of transferring staff, property and other assets, tendering procedures and performance monitoring, must not be ignored and are addressed in the second edition of Rachel Burnett's successful Outsourcing IT. Whether you are a supplier or a customer, it is vital to have a properly negotiated formal contract if you are entering into an outsourcing arrangement. A good contract needs careful planning and this book provides a comprehensive guide to the whole process. Well-planned and well-structured outsourcing arrangements, by well-informed and well-advised customers, are far more likely to work for both customer and supplier alike and Outsourcing IT - The Legal Aspects: Planning, Contracting, Managing and the Law is the perfect place to start.
How do ordinary people access justice? This book offers a novel socio-legal approach to access to justice, alternative dispute resolution, vulnerability and energy poverty. It poses an access to justice challenge and rethinks it through a lens that accommodates all affected people, especially those who are currently falling through the system. It raises broader questions about alternative dispute resolution, the need for reform to include more collective approaches, a stronger recognition of the needs of vulnerable people, and a stronger emphasis on delivering social justice. The authors use energy poverty as a site of vulnerability and examine the barriers to justice facing this excluded group. The book assembles the findings of an interdisciplinary research project studying access to justice and its barriers in the UK, Italy, France, Bulgaria and Spain (Catalonia). In-depth interviews with regulators, ombuds, energy companies, third-sector organisations and vulnerable people provide a rich dataset through which to understand the phenomenon. The book provides theoretical and empirical insights which shed new light on these issues and sets out new directions of inquiry for research, policy and practice. It will be of interest to researchers, students and policymakers working on access to justice, consumer vulnerability, energy poverty, and the complex intersection between these fields. The book includes contributions by Cosmo Graham (UK), Sarah Supino and Benedetta Voltaggio (Italy), Marine Cornelis (France), Anais Varo and Enric Bartlett (Catalonia) and Teodora Peneva (Bulgaria).
A multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving in community-based organizations using decision models and operations research applications A comprehensive treatment of public-sector operations research and management science, Decision Science for Housing and Community Development: Localized and Evidence-Based Responses to Distressed Housing and Blighted Communities addresses critical problems in urban housing and community development through a diverse set of decision models and applications. The book represents a bridge between theory and practice and is a source of collaboration between decision and data scientists and planners, advocates, and community practitioners. The book is motivated by the needs of community-based organizations to respond to neighborhood economic and social distress, represented by foreclosed, abandoned, and blighted housing, through community organizing, service provision, and local development. The book emphasizes analytic approaches that increase the ability of local practitioners to act quickly, thoughtfully, and effectively. By doing so, practitioners can design and implement responses that reflect stakeholder values associated with healthy and sustainable communities; that benefit from increased organizational capacity for evidence-based responses; and that result in solutions that represent improvements over the status quo according to multiple social outcome measures. Featuring quantitative and qualitative analytic methods as well as prescriptive and exploratory decision modeling, the book also includes: Discussions of the principles of decision theory and descriptive analysis to describe ways to identify and quantify values and objectives for community development Mathematical programming applications for real-world problem solving in foreclosed housing acquisition and redevelopment Applications of case studies and community-engaged research principles to analytics and decision modeling Decision Science for Housing and Community Development: Localized and Evidence-Based Responses to Distressed Housing and Blighted Communities is an ideal textbook for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level courses in decision models and applications; humanitarian logistics; nonprofit operations management; urban operations research; public economics; performance management; urban studies; public policy; urban and regional planning; and systems design and optimization. The book is also an excellent reference for academics, researchers, and practitioners in operations research, management science, operations management, systems engineering, policy analysis, city planning, and data analytics.
From Nobel Prize–winning economist Michael Kremer and fellow leading development economist Rachel Glennerster, an innovative solution for providing vaccines in poor countries Millions of people in the third world die from diseases that are rare in the first world—diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and schistosomiasis. AIDS, which is now usually treated in rich countries, still ravages the world's poor. Vaccines offer the best hope for controlling these diseases and could dramatically improve health in poor countries. But developers have little incentive to undertake the costly and risky research needed to develop vaccines. This is partly because the potential consumers are poor, but also because governments drive down prices. In Strong Medicine, Michael Kremer and Rachel Glennerster offer an innovative yet simple solution to this worldwide problem: "Pull" programs to stimulate research. Here's how such programs would work. Funding agencies would commit to purchase viable vaccines if and when they were developed. This would create the incentives for vaccine developers to produce usable products for these neglected diseases. Private firms, rather than funding agencies, would pick which research strategies to pursue. After purchasing the vaccine, funders could distribute it at little or no cost to the afflicted countries. Strong Medicine details just how these legally binding commitments would work. Ultimately, if no vaccines were developed, such a commitment would cost nothing. But if vaccines were developed, the program would save millions of lives and would be among the world's most cost-effective health interventions.
Rachel B. Herrmann's No Useless Mouth is truly a breath of fresh air in the way it aligns food and hunger as the focal point of a new lens to reexamine the American Revolution. Her careful scrutiny, inclusive approach, and broad synthesis―all based on extensive archival research―produced a monograph simultaneously rich, audacious, insightful, lively, and provocative."―The Journal of American History In the era of the American Revolution, the rituals of diplomacy between the British, Patriots, and Native Americans featured gifts of food, ceremonial feasts, and a shared experience of hunger. When diplomacy failed, Native Americans could destroy food stores and cut off supply chains in order to assert authority. Black colonists also stole and destroyed food to ward off hunger and carve out tenuous spaces of freedom. Hunger was a means of power and a weapon of war. In No Useless Mouth, Rachel B. Herrmann argues that Native Americans and formerly enslaved black colonists ultimately lost the battle against hunger and the larger struggle for power because white British and United States officials curtailed the abilities of men and women to fight hunger on their own terms. By describing three interrelated behaviors—food diplomacy, victual imperialism, and victual warfare—the book shows that, during this tumultuous period, hunger prevention efforts offered strategies to claim power, maintain communities, and keep rival societies at bay. Herrmann shows how Native Americans, free blacks, and enslaved peoples were "useful mouths"—not mere supplicants for food, without rights or power—who used hunger for cooperation and violence, and took steps to circumvent starvation. Her wide-ranging research on black Loyalists, Iroquois, Cherokee, Creek, and Western Confederacy Indians demonstrates that hunger creation and prevention were tools of diplomacy and warfare available to all people involved in the American Revolution. Placing hunger at the center of these struggles foregrounds the contingency and plurality of power in the British Atlantic during the Revolutionary Era. Thanks to generous funding from Cardiff University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
This guide is about the practical issues of the landscape design business. It is intended for students preparing for the professional practice exams and as a reminder for professionals. It is relevant in all countries that practise under UK rules.
This unique compendium provides an insight into the role of emerging marine biorefineries based on macroalgae (seaweeds) in the development of a sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth-blue economy.The useful reference text shows a complete picture on the motivation to develop seaweed technologies, and how the combination of biology, cultivation technologies and downstream processing with economics can address the social challenges through the blue growth.
New farmers, experienced growers, budding environmentalists, and fans of natural, organic produce alike are sure to love All the Dirt. Filled with beautiful photographs and covering a wide variety of topics, from agrofuels and food sovereignty to practical tips about specific tools, All the Dirt is the must-read how-to book about small-scale organic farming. But beyond the practical applications, it is also the inspiring story of three friends who followed their dreams and became successful business partners. Authors Rachel Fisher, Heather Stretch, and Robin Tunnicliffe, co-owners of Saanich Organics, a farmer-run local food distributor, share entertaining stories of three farmers' lives, while also providing practical information about how to start a farm. They relate their personal and collective experiences as women, mothers, and farmers through anecdotes, and discuss the compelling reasons why Canada needs more organic farmers. All the Dirt proves that there is no one right way to start a farm and no single solution to any problem. But that by working together, farmers can create a resilient agriculture that is vibrant and fun, as well as economically viable. Rachel, Heather, and Robin have co-owned Saanich Organics since 2002. The business has been featured in numerous publications, including the Times Colonist, West Jet’s Up! magazine, EAT Magazine, and The Province. It has also been featured in Island on the Edge (a documentary film), as well as on CBC radio. By working cooperatively to grow and distribute top quality produce, the business has earned the respect of the farming community, the restaurant community, organic consumers, and activists. Visit Saanich Organics online at www.saanichorganics.com.
Contemporary legal doctrine holds that corporate managers have obligations, first and foremost, to maximize profits for their shareholders. This doctrine is based on the assumption that shareholders alone bear the financial risks and contribute the equity necessary for production. But what if other groups contribute assets and also risk losing their investments? What if other groups actually shelter shareholders from financial risks? Such is the case with the nation's prime defense contractors. By examining the case of defense contracting, where the federal government and, indirectly, the taxpayers assume most of the risks and costs of producing weaponry, Rachel Weber critiques the assumptions underlying our system of corporate governance.The Department of Defense provides contracts for billions of dollars, specialized components and facilities, interest subsidies, tax breaks, and regulatory relief. These public contributions make the record shareholder returns and executive compensation packages of the early 1990s all the more problematic. This book follows the case of General Dynamics, the nation's largest military shipbuilder and considered a trendsetter in the industry for its explicit shareholder orientation. The behavior of contractors like General Dynamics in the post-Cold War period raises serious concerns about the private stewardship of public funds. How can the government make contractors accountable to other public interests? In Swords into Dow Shares Rachel Weber offers some original suggestions for redirecting defense resources to foster innovation, decrease the tax burden of military spending, and help to retain and create high-wage jobs in a civilian-industrial economy.
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