International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., of "188 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world."[1] Formed in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference, it came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international payment system. Functions[edit] According to the IMF itself, it works to foster global growth and economic stability by providing policy, advice and financing to members, by working with developing nations to help them achieve macroeconomic stability and reduce poverty.[8] The rationale for this is that private international capital markets function imperfectly and many countries have limited access to financial markets. The IMF's role was fundamentally altered by the floating exchange rates post-1971.
Science & Environment - Why everyone must understand science Many people feel excluded by science, but philosopher AC Grayling says this makes us slaves to technology. The less we know the more likely we are to be manipulated by others. Science is undoubtedly humanity’s greatest achievement, says AC Grayling, Master of the New College of the Humanities . People have to wake up to the fact that they have to be part of the story in thinking about science, and thinking about the meaning of science as it applies to our world. People feel excluded by science and debates about science, they use laptops, they fly in planes, use appliances in the home and they don’t know what’s behind this technology. People are aware that there are lots of problems with the environment and the climate. We have to start this at school. We have to have a healthy scepticism, says Grayling, people can’t just shut their eyes to things that are important.
World Bank The World Bank is a United Nations international financial institution that provides loans[3] to developing countries for capital programs. The World Bank is a component of the World Bank Group, and a member of the United Nations Development Group. Composition[edit] World Bank[edit] The World Bank is composed of two institutions: World Bank Group[edit] The World Bank should not be confused with the United Nations World Bank Group, a member of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to poor countries which is comprised of the:[6] History[edit] The World Bank was created at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, along with three other institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although many countries were represented at the Bretton Woods Conference, the United States and United Kingdom were the most powerful in attendance and dominated the negotiations.[8]:52–54 1944–1968[edit] 1968–1980[edit]
Epigenetics One example of an epigenetic change in eukaryotic biology is the process of cellular differentiation. During morphogenesis, totipotent stem cells become the various pluripotent cell lines of the embryo, which in turn become fully differentiated cells. In other words, as a single fertilized egg cell – the zygote – continues to divide, the resulting daughter cells change into all the different cell types in an organism, including neurons, muscle cells, epithelium, endothelium of blood vessels, etc., by activating some genes while inhibiting the expression of others.[5] Historical usage of "epigenetics"[edit] The term "epigenetics" has also been used in developmental psychology to describe psychological development as the result of an ongoing, bi-directional interchange between heredity and the environment.[13] Interactivist ideas of development have been discussed in various forms and under various names throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Contemporary usage of "epigenetics"[edit]
Bank for International Settlements The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial institution[2] owned by central banks which "fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks".[3] The BIS carries out its work through its meetings, programmes and through the Basel Process – hosting international groups pursuing global financial stability and facilitating their interaction. It also provides banking services, but only to central banks and other international organizations. It is based in Basel, Switzerland, with representative offices in Hong Kong and Mexico City. History[edit] BIS main building in Basel, Switzerland The BIS was established in 1930 by an intergovernmental agreement between Germany, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, the United States, and Switzerland.[4][5] It opened its doors in Basel, Switzerland, on 17 May 1930. The BIS's original task of facilitating World War I reparation payments quickly became obsolete.
Watson (computer) Watson is an artificially intelligent computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language,[2] developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM's first CEO and industrialist Thomas J. Watson.[3][4] The computer system was specifically developed to answer questions on the quiz show Jeopardy![5] In 2011, Watson competed on Jeopardy! against former winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.[3][6] Watson received the first place prize of $1 million.[7] Watson had access to 200 million pages of structured and unstructured content consuming four terabytes of disk storage[8] including the full text of Wikipedia,[9] but was not connected to the Internet during the game.[10][11] For each clue, Watson's three most probable responses were displayed on the television screen. The high-level architecture of IBM's DeepQA used in Watson[14] When playing Jeopardy! The Jeopardy!
Central bank The primary function of a central bank is to manage the nation's money supply (monetary policy), through active duties such as managing interest rates, setting the reserve requirement, and acting as a lender of last resort to the banking sector during times of bank insolvency or financial crisis. Central banks usually also have supervisory powers, intended to prevent bank runs and to reduce the risk that commercial banks and other financial institutions engage in reckless or fraudulent behavior. Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally designed to be independent from political interference.[4][5] Still, limited control by the executive and legislative bodies usually exists.[6][7] The chief executive of a central bank is normally known as the Governor, President or Chairman. History[edit] Prior to the 17th century most money was commodity money, typically gold or silver. Bank of England[edit] The sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694). Spread around the world[edit]
Peter Joseph responde: El activismo ético dentro del sistema no es la solución. Fractional-reserve banking Fractional-reserve banking is the practice whereby a bank holds reserves in an amount equal to only a portion of the amount of its customers' deposits to satisfy potential demands for withdrawals. Reserves are held at the bank as currency, or as deposits reflected in the bank's accounts at the central bank. Because bank deposits are usually considered money in their own right, fractional-reserve banking permits the money supply to grow to a multiple (called the money multiplier) of the underlying reserves of base money originally created by the central bank.[1][2] Fractional-reserve banking is the current form of banking in all countries worldwide.[3] History[edit] Fractional-reserve banking predates the existence of governmental monetary authorities and originated many centuries ago in bankers' realization that generally not all depositors demand payment at the same time.[4] How it works[edit] In most legal systems, a bank deposit is not a bailment. Economic function[edit] Formula[edit]
Andy Beckett: The forgotten story of Chile's 'socialist internet' | Technology During the early 70s, in the wealthy commuter backwater of West Byfleet in Surrey, a small but rather remarkable experiment took place. In the potting shed of a house called Firkins, a teenager named Simon Beer, using bits of radios and pieces of pink and green cardboard, built a series of electrical meters for measuring public opinion. His concept - users of his meters would turn a dial to indicate how happy or unhappy they were with any political proposal - was strange and ambitious enough. And it worked. Yet what was even more jolting was his intended market: not Britain, but Chile. Unlike West Byfleet, Chile was in revolutionary ferment. Stafford Beer attempted, in his words, to "implant" an electronic "nervous system" in Chilean society. When the Allende administration was deposed in a military coup, the 30th anniversary of which falls this Thursday, exactly how far Beer and his British and Chilean collaborators had got in constructing their hi-tech utopia was soon forgotten.
Rothschild family A house formerly belonging to the Viennese branch of the family (Schillersdorf Palace). Schloss Hinterleiten, one of the many palaces built by the Austrian Rothschild dynasty. Donated to charity by the family in 1905. Beatrice de Rothschild's villa on the Côte d'Azur, France The Rothschild family is a family descending from Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a court Jew to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, in the Free City of Frankfurt, who established his banking business in the 1760s.[1] Unlike most previous court Jews, Rothschild managed to bequeath his wealth, and established an international banking family through his five sons.[2] Five lines of the Austrian branch of the family have been elevated to Austrian nobility, being given five hereditary titles of Barons of the Habsburg Empire by Emperor Francis II in 1816. Family overview[edit] The first member of the family who was known to use the name "Rothschild" was Izaak Elchanan Rothschild, born in 1577. Families by country: Wine[edit]
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