An innovative investigation of the inner workings of Spotify that traces the transformation of audio files into streamed experience. Spotify provides a streaming service that has been welcomed as disrupting the world of music. Yet such disruption always comes at a price. Spotify Teardown contests the tired claim that digital culture thrives on disruption. Borrowing the notion of "teardown" from…
This is a comprehensive review of evidence on the effect of minimum wages on employment, skills, wage and income distributions, and longer-term labour market outcomes, and concludes that the minimum wage is not a good policy tool.Minimum wages exist in more than one hundred countries, both industrialized and developing. The United States passed a federal minimum wage law in 1938 and has increas…
Outgrowth of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology."Made-Up Minds addresses fundamental questions of learning and concept invention by means of an innovative computer program that is based on the cognitive-developmental theory of psychologist Jean Piaget. Drescher uses Piaget's theory as a source of inspiration for the design of an artificial cognitive system calle…
A group of prominent international economists consider what makes for successful convergence--what policies and economic conditions help poor countries catch up to the living standards of rich countries.The question of convergence, or under what conditions the per capita income levels of developing countries can catch up to those found in advanced economies, is critical for understanding econom…
This book provides an in-depth analysis of one the of most popular medicinal plants—Echinacea a species that is native to only the US and Canada. There are nine Echinacea species and several roots and above-ground portions of these showy wildflowers have been used in herbal medicine as an immune stimulant and to reduce one’s chances of catching a cold. Considerable medical research supports…
Whether and how higher education in Africa contributes to democratisation beyond producing the professionals that are necessary for developing and sustaining a modern political system, remains an unresolved question. This report, then, represents an attempt to address the question of whether there are university specific mechanisms or pathways by which higher education contributes to the develo…
The second volume of the African Higher Education Dynamics Series brings together the research of an international network of higher education scholars with interest in higher education and student politics in Africa. Most authors are early career academics who teach and conduct research in universities across the continent, and who came together for a research project and related workshops and…
Reflections of South African Student Leaders 1994-2017 brings together the reflections of twelve former SRC leaders from across the landscape of South African universities. Each student leader’s reflections are presented in a dedicated chapter that draws closely on an interview conducted in the course of 2018/19 which was followed by an interactive process of co-editing, correcting, and appro…
Smart cities are emerging worldwide, including economic, institutional, social, and technical concepts in interaction with existing infrastructure to achieve sustainability and increase quality of life. Additionally, digitalisation projects in the field of urban water infrastructure (UWI) aim to increase capacity of existing infrastructure to deal with future challenges caused by climate change…
Over the past half century, the behavior of German voters has changed profoundly—at first rather gradually but during the last decade at accelerated speed. Electoral decision-making has become much more volatile, rendering election outcomes less predictable. Party system fragmentation intensified sharply. The success of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) put an end to Germany’s exceptionalit…