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This review was prepared jointly by the World Bank Group and the World Food Programme (WFP), building on the comparative advantages of both organizations. It examines the evidence base for school feeding programs with the objective of better understanding how to develop and implement effective school feeding programs in two contexts: a productive safety net, as part of the response to the social shocks of the global food, fuel and financial crises, and a fiscally sustainable investment in human capital, as part of long-term global efforts to achieve Education for All and provide social protection to the poor.

This report finds that in developing countries over the past 15 years, high priority was accorded to increasing enrolments in primary schools, but much less attention was directed to the crucial issue of whether children are learning adequately. The report recommends that countries, the World Bank and development partners give the same emphasis to learning outcomes as to access, so that the world's increasing investments in primary education have a far greater impact on poverty reduction and national development. The World Bank is the largest provider of external financial support to education in developing world. Since 1963, it has transferred about US$36.5 billion for education, over $14 billion of which has been for primary education. Its current lending portfolio consists of about 143 operations in 88 countries amounting to US$8.4 billion. (DIPF/Orig.).

This title provides a comprehensive analysis of education development in Singapore since 1965, giving particular attention to the strategic management that has enabled Singapore to transform its education and training system from one similar to many Sub-Saharan African countries four decades ago into one of the world's best-performing systems.

This study is based on research on secondary textbook and school library provision in Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Togo, as well as existing recent country reports on textbook provision and an extensive desk research. Considerable variations exist in Sub-Saharan African textbook requirements needed to meet secondary curriculum specifications just as significant differences exist between and within countries in regard to the average price of recommended textbooks. Some countries have no approved textbooks list. This World Bank Working Paper aims to discuss the textbook situation in Sub-Saharan Africa with a special focus on secondary textbook availability, cost and financing, distribution and publishing, and the status of school libraries. Its objective is to analyze the issues in secondary textbook and school library provision and to provide some options and strategies for improvement.

'Developing Science, Mathematics and ICT in Secondary Education' is based on country studies from ten Sub-Saharan African countries: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, and a literature review. It reveals a number of huge challenges in science, mathematics and ICT (SMICT) education in sub-Saharan Africa: poorly-resourced schools; large classes; a curriculum hardly relevant to the daily lives of students; a lack of qualified teachers; and inadequate teacher education programs. Through examining country case studies, this paper discusses the lessons for improvement of SMICT in secondary education in Africa.

The modeling of stochastic dependence is fundamental for understanding random systems evolving in time. When measured through linear correlation, many of these systems exhibit a slow correlation decay--a phenomenon often referred to as long-memory or long-range dependence. An example of this is the absolute returns of equity data in finance. Selfsimilar stochastic processes (particularly fractional Brownian motion) have long been postulated as a means to model this behavior, and the concept of selfsimilarity for a stochastic process is now proving to be extraordinarily useful. Selfsimilarity translates into the equality in distribution between the process under a linear time change and the same process properly scaled in space, a simple scaling property that yields a remarkably rich theory with far-flung applications. After a short historical overview, this book describes the current state of knowledge about selfsimilar processes and their applications. Concepts, definitions and basic properties are emphasized, giving the reader a road map of the realm of selfsimilarity that allows for further exploration. Such topics as noncentral limit theory, long-range dependence, and operator selfsimilarity are covered alongside statistical estimation, simulation, sample path properties, and stochastic differential equations driven by selfsimilar processes. Numerous references point the reader to current applications. Though the text uses the mathematical language of the theory of stochastic processes, researchers and end-users from such diverse fields as mathematics, physics, biology, telecommunications, finance, econometrics, and environmental science will find it an ideal entry point for studying the already extensive theory and applications of selfsimilarity.

The availability of e-textbooks is increasing along with the variety of electronic readers. According to the “2010 Horizon Report,” adoption of this technology will be widespread in academia in two to three years as it will “… reduce costs, save students from carrying pounds of textbooks and contribute to the environmental efforts…” (Johnson, Levine, Smith, & Stone, 2010, p.6). Will e-textbooks become favored by faculty in higher education? This paper will examine the benefits and limitations of e-textbooks and the attitudes of faculty and students towards using this radical alternative to the centuries-old standard of education. An exploratory case study of faculty attitudes and usages of e-textbooks at a small liberal arts university was performed.

The modeling of stochastic dependence is fundamental for understanding random systems evolving in time. When measured through linear correlation, many of these systems exhibit a slow correlation decay--a phenomenon often referred to as long-memory or long-range dependence. An example of this is the absolute returns of equity data in finance. Selfsimilar stochastic processes (particularly fractional Brownian motion) have long been postulated as a means to model this behavior, and the concept of selfsimilarity for a stochastic process is now proving to be extraordinarily useful. Selfsimilarity translates into the equality in distribution between the process under a linear time change and the same process properly scaled in space, a simple scaling property that yields a remarkably rich theory with far-flung applications. After a short historical overview, this book describes the current state of knowledge about selfsimilar processes and their applications. Concepts, definitions and basic properties are emphasized, giving the reader a road map of the realm of selfsimilarity that allows for further exploration. Such topics as noncentral limit theory, long-range dependence, and operator selfsimilarity are covered alongside statistical estimation, simulation, sample path properties, and stochastic differential equations driven by selfsimilar processes. Numerous references point the reader to current applications.

O principal objetivo deste estudo é apresentar o ‘mínimo paremiológico’ do português europeu, isto é, a lista dos provérbios mais conhecidos e mais frequentemente utilizados pela generalidade dos falantes da comunidade linguística do português europeu. Para o estabelecimento do ‘mínimo paremiológico’ do português europeu foram utilizados diferentes procedimentos metodológicos ao longo de cinco anos. Numa primeira fase, coligiu-se uma base de dados digital com mais de 114.000 entradas (provérbios e variantes) e fez-se uma primeira seleção manual dos provérbios considerados mais usuais, tendo-se depois calculado a concordância entre anotadores, que foi bastante elevada. Procedeu-se também ao cálculo da frequência de provérbios e variantes (n. de ocorrências) em várias fontes: (1) em dicionários e coletâneas de provérbios; (2) num corpus de textos jornalísticos (CETEMPúblico, Santos & Rocha, 2001); (3) em manuais escolares de Português e de Português Língua não Materna; e (4) em dois motores de busca (Google e Bing). Procedeu-se ainda à aplicação de dois questionários distintos, online. Obteve-se assim uma lista de 318 provérbios – o mínimo paremiológico do português europeu. A lista dos 318 provérbios poderá́ ter diversas aplicações, quer para o desenvolvimento de instrumentos de diagnóstico ou terapia de certas patologias da linguagem, quer para a aprendizagem de português como língua estrangeira.

PurposeSolar photovoltaic (PV) is commonly used as a renewable energy source to provide electrical power to customers. This research establishes a method for testing the performance reliability of large grid-connected PV power systems. Solar PV can turn unrestricted amounts of sunlight into energy without releasing carbon dioxide or other contaminants into the atmosphere. Because of these advantages, large-scale solar PV generation has been increasingly incorporated into power grids to meet energy demand. The capability of the installation and the position of the PV are the most important considerations for a utility company when installing solar PV generation in their system. Because of the unpredictability of sunlight, the amount of solar penetration in a device is generally restricted by reliability constraints. PV power systems are made up of five PV modules, with three of them needing to be operational at the same time. In other words, three out of five. Then there is a charge controller and a battery bank with three batteries, two of which must be consecutively be in operation. i.e. two out of three. Inverter and two distributors, all of which were involved at the same time. i.e. two out of two. In order to evaluate real-world grid-connected PV networks, state enumeration is used. To measure the reliability of PV systems, a collection of reliability indices has been created. Furthermore, detailed sensitivity tests are carried out to examine the effect of various factors on the efficiency of PV power systems. Every module's test results on a realistic 10-kW PV system. To see how the model works in practice, many scenarios are considered. Tables and graphs are used to show the findings.Design/methodology/approachThe system of first-order differential equations is formulated and solved using Laplace transforms using regenerative point techniques. Several scenarios were examined to determine the impact of the model under consideration. The calculations were done with Maple 13 software.FindingsThe authors get availability, reliability, mean time to failure (MTTF), MTTF sensitivity and gain feature in this research. To measure the reliability of PV systems, a collection of reliability indices has been created. Furthermore, detailed sensitivity tests are carried out to examine the effect of various factors on the efficiency of PV power systems.Originality/valueThis is the authors' original copy of the paper. Because of the importance of the study, the references are well-cited. Nothing from any previously published articles or textbooks has been withdrawn.