At the end of the 1970s, the prospect of privatising public enterprises which operated in sectors such as water, telecommunications, railways or air transportation seemed a thoroughly unappealing one in political terms. Not even the future privatisation champion, the British Conservative Party, envisaged this kind of reform when it came to power in 1979. with the EU region at the forefront of these developments. What are the factors that explain this shift? This text rejects the two dominant explanations provided in literature, which include a simple Americanisation of policy and a varied privatisation experience without a common driving force. country from the 1980s to the beginning of the twenty first century, the authors show how the process of European integration and the need for internationally competitive industries have constituted key driving forces in the quest for privatisation across the EU. As privatisation slows down at the turn of the millennium, what future can citizens expect for public enterprises?

Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and public enterprises have been perceived as organisations evolving in separate, even antagonistic, business, economic and ideological spheres. Yet, at the beginning of the 21st Century, utilities in energy, telecommunications, transport and water unexpectedly emerged as leading TNCs. How and why did this remarkable and unprecedented transition occur? What are the consequences for competition, regulation, public services and consumers? Leading authorities from Europe, Russia, Canada, Mexico and the United States analyse the business, economic and historical contexts that have influenced these changes.

The two volume set LNCS 6854/6855 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, CAIP 2011, which took place in Seville, Spain, August 29-31, 2011. The 138 papers presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 286 submissions. The papers are organized in topical section on: motion analysis, image and shape models, segmentation and grouping, shape recovery, kernel methods, medical imaging, structural pattern recognition, Biometrics, image and video processing, calibration; and tracking and stereo vision.

Judith Clifton, Francisco Com n and Daniel D az Fuentes in Privatisation in the European Union reject the two dominant explanations provided in literature, which include a simple 'Americanisation' of policy and a 'varied' privatisation experience without a common driving force. Using a systematic comparative analysis of privatisation experiences in each country from the 1980s to the beginning of the twenty first century, the authors show how the process of European integration and the need for internationally competitive industries have constituted key driving forces in the quest for privatisation across the EU. As privatisation slows down at the turn of the millennium, what future can citizens expect for public enterprises?
Privatisation in the European Union is essential reading for researchers, students and policy-makers interested in privatisation, EU policy and the history of public enterprises.

The two volume set LNCS 6854/6855 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, CAIP 2011, which took place in Seville, Spain, August 29-31, 2011. The 138 papers presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 286 submissions. The papers are organized in topical section on: motion analysis, image and shape models, segmentation and grouping, shape recovery, kernel methods, medical imaging, structural pattern recognition, Biometrics, image and video processing, calibration; and tracking and stereo vision.

How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does this influence our children? More than we wish to believe. While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, "The Son Also Rises" proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries. Using a novel technique--tracking family names over generations to measure social mobility across countries and periods--renowned economic historian Gregory Clark reveals that mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies. The good news is that these patterns are driven by strong inheritance of abilities and lineage does not beget unwarranted advantage. The bad news is that much of our fate is predictable from lineage. Clark argues that since a greater part of our place in the world is predetermined, we must avoid creating winner-take-all societies.

Clark examines and compares surnames in such diverse cases as modern Sweden, fourteenth-century England, and Qing Dynasty China. He demonstrates how fate is determined by ancestry and that almost all societies--as different as the modern United States, Communist China, and modern Japan--have similarly low social mobility rates. These figures are impervious to institutions, and it takes hundreds of years for descendants to shake off the advantages and disadvantages of their ancestors. For these reasons, Clark contends that societies should act to limit the disparities in rewards between those of high and low social rank.

Challenging popular assumptions about mobility and revealing the deeply entrenched force of inherited advantage, "The Son Also Rises" is sure to prompt intense debate for years to come.

The main themes of this book are to establish the triple formula without any hypotheses on the genericity of the morphism, and to develop a theory of complete quadruple points, which is a first step towards proving the quadruple point formula under less restrictive hypotheses.
This book should be of interest to graduate students and researchers in the field of algebraic geometry. The reader is expected to have some basic knowledge of enumerative algebraic geometry and pointwise Hilbert schemes.

Regional development banks (RDB) have become increasingly important in the world economy, but have also been relatively under-researched to date. This timely volume addresses this lack of attention by providing a comprehensive, comparative, and empirically informed analysis of their origins, evolution, and contemporary role in the world economy through to the second decade of the twenty-first century. In Regional Development Banks in the World Economy, the editors provide an analytical framework that includes a revised categorisation of RDB by geographic operation and function. Part one offers detailed analyses of the origins, evolution, and contemporary role of the major RDB, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Central American Bank, the Andean Development Corporation, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Part two offers comparative analyses of key topics on RDB, examining their initial design and their changing business models, their shifting role in promoting policies supported by the United States as hegemon and the private sector. The volume ends with a critical reflection on the role played by RDB to date and a strong defence of the need for these banks in an increasingly complex world economy.

How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does it influence our children? More than we wish to believe. While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, The Son Also Rises proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries. Using a novel technique--tracking family names over generations to measure social mobility across countries and periods--renowned economic historian Gregory Clark reveals that mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies. Clark examines and compares surnames in such diverse cases as modern Sweden and Qing Dynasty China. He demonstrates how fate is determined by ancestry and that almost all societies have similarly low social mobility rates. Challenging popular assumptions about mobility and revealing the deeply entrenched force of inherited advantage, The Son Also Rises is sure to prompt intense debate for years to come.

(English, Paperback Version) ISBN 978-0-9887176-4-0 Finally, a book written for official Nerds with no fluff, just the real stuff. Time for you to become the hero. Wrap your mind around event driven web programming and application development. With all learnings focused to Visual C#. If you don't need every step from A to Z spelled out to you then you might want to check under this cover of this read. You will like what you find. Remember what you can't be taught from this book can be learned from the Internet. You just need to know what to search for. Language: English Format: Paperback Published by Nerd Guide. A Nerd Certified work. Find us on the web at nerdguide.org to learn more.

The purpose of this research was to identify factors which promote interest in solar photovoltaic generation systems for facility use within the United States Air Force. The construct model was developed based on past literature on Diffusion of Innovation Theory. The model consisted of measures defined as motivation, knowledge, experience, and familiarity as well as contextual variables. These measures were then used to determine whether any significant relationship existed between the measures and the overall dependent variable, interest. A phone interview was conducted with 28 Air Force energy managers from 61 active duty bases within the continental U.S. The methods of correlation and regression analysis were used to evaluate the objectives and hypotheses identified. Results indicate that there is a positive, significant relationship between the motivation to seek new energy technologies for reducing load demands and interest in solar photovoltaic generation systems.