front cover of The City Electric
The City Electric
Infrastructure and Ingenuity in Postsocialist Tanzania
Michael Degani
Duke University Press, 2022
Over the last twenty years of neoliberal reform, the power supply in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s metropolis, has become less reliable even as its importance has increased. Though mobile phones, televisions, and refrigerators have flooded the city, the electricity required to run these devices is still supplied by the socialist-era energy company Tanesco, which is characterized by increased fees, aging infrastructure, and a sluggish bureaucracy. While some residents contemplate off-grid solutions, others repair, extend, or tap into the state network with the assistance of freelance electricians or moonlighting utility employees. In The City Electric Michael Degani explores how electricity and its piracy has become a key site for urban Tanzanians to enact, experience, and debate their social contract with the state. Moving from the politics of generation contracts down to the street-level experience of blackouts and disconnection patrols, he reveals the logics of infrastructural modification and their effects on everyday life. As politicians, residents, electricians, and utility inspectors all redistribute flows of payment and power, they reframe the energy grid both as a technical system and as an ongoing experiment in collective interdependence.
[more]

front cover of The Imperative of Reliability
The Imperative of Reliability
Russian Prose on the Eve of the Novel, 1820s-1850s
Victoria Somoff
Northwestern University Press, 2015

The Imperative of Reliability examines the development of nineteenth-century Russian prose and the remarkably swift emergence of the Russian novel. Victoria Somoff identifies an unprecedented situation in the production and perception of the utterance that came to define nascent novelistic fictionality both in European and Russian prose, where the utterance itself—whether an oral story or a “found” manuscript—became the object of representation within the compositional format of the frame narrative. This circumstance generated a narrative perspective from which both the events and their representation appeared as concomitant in time and space: the events did not precede their narration but rather occurred and developed along with and within the narration itself. Somoff establishes this story-discourse convergence as a major factor in enabling the transition from shorter forms of Russian prose to the full-fledged realist novel.

 

[more]

front cover of Making the Most of Mess
Making the Most of Mess
Reliability and Policy in Today's Management Challenges
Emery Roe
Duke University Press, 2013
In Making the Most of Mess, Emery Roe emphasizes that policy messes cannot be avoided or cleaned up; they need to be managed. He shows how policymakers and other professionals can learn these necessary skills from control operators who manage large critical infrastructures such as water supplies, telecommunications systems, and electricity grids. The ways in which they prevent major accidents and failures offer models for policymakers and other professionals to manage the messes they face.

Throughout, Roe focuses on the global financial mess of 2008 and its ongoing aftermath, showing how mismanagement has allowed it to morph into other national and international messes. More effective management is still possible for this and many other policy messes but that requires better recognition of patterns and formulation of scenarios, as well as the ability to translate pattern and scenario into reliability. Developing networks of professionals who respond to messes is particularly important. Roe describes how these networks enable the avoidance of bad or worse messes, take advantage of opportunities resulting from messes, and address societal and professional challenges. In addition to finance, he draws from a wide range of case material in other policy arenas. Roe demonstrates that knowing how to manage policy messes is the best approach to preventing crises.

[more]

front cover of Offshore Wind Power
Offshore Wind Power
Reliability, availability and maintenance
Peter Tavner
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2021
The development of offshore wind power has become a pressing energy issue, driven by the need to find new electrical power sources and to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Offshore wind farms can harness tremendous wind resources without annoying citizens and with a comparatively low environmental impact. They are thus becoming a central pillar of a carbon free energy system. However offshore turbines and wind farms are costly to install and maintain, making reliability and cost-effectiveness key issues. This work covers reliability of offshore wind farms as a whole, starting from weather and wind conditions, dealing with wind turbine technology, farm layout, monitoring, safety and maintenance. The thoroughly revised second edition additionally covers turbines of up to 10 MW, turbine design changes, turbine converters, HVDC converter stations and DC links, offshore sub-sea collector and export cables, and the structures supporting large offshore wind farms.
[more]

front cover of Offshore Wind Turbines
Offshore Wind Turbines
Reliability, availability and maintenance
Peter Tavner
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2012
The development of offshore wind power has become a pressing modern energy issue in which the UK is taking a major part, driven by the need to find new electrical power sources, avoiding the use of fossil fuels, in the knowledge of the extensive wind resource available around our islands and the fact that the environmental impact of offshore wind farms is likely to be low.
[more]

logo for The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Performance, Modelling and Reliability of Photovoltaic Systems
George E. Georghiou
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2020
This book provides a comprehensive range of topics for monitoring, modelling and assessing the performance of photovoltaic plants, and enabling effective asset management. Using real-world data, the book emphasises practical usability, systematically covering the knowledge needed to perform these tasks, from the basics all the way through to the evaluation of key performance indicators. Source code used to perform data analysis is also included. This book is ideal for anyone working with photovoltaic systems or plants.
[more]

logo for The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Principles of Performance Engineering for Telecommunication and Information Systems
M. Ghanbari
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1997
The term 'teletraffic engineering' has been used since the early days of the century to describe the design of switched telecommunications networks in terms of probabilities. More recent advances in queuing theory, and the growing realisation that the basic techniques can be applied to many other aspects of system design, has led to an extension of the subject and to the term 'performance engineering'.
[more]

front cover of Reliability of Power Electronic Converter Systems
Reliability of Power Electronic Converter Systems
Henry Shu-hung Chung
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2016
The main aims of power electronic converter systems (PECS) are to control, convert, and condition electrical power flow from one form to another through the use of solid state electronics. This book outlines current research into the scientific modeling, experimentation, and remedial measures for advancing the reliability, availability, system robustness, and maintainability of PECS at different levels of complexity.
[more]

front cover of Reliability of Power Electronics Converters for Solar Photovoltaic Applications
Reliability of Power Electronics Converters for Solar Photovoltaic Applications
Ahteshamul Haque
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2021
The importance of power electronic converters for electricity grid equipment is increasing due to the growing distribution-level penetration of renewable energy sources. The performance of the converters mostly depends on interactions between sources, loads, and their state of operation. These devices must be operated with safety and stability under normal conditions, fault conditions, overloads, as well as different operation modes. Therefore, enhanced control strategies of power electronic converters are necessary to improve system stability.
[more]

front cover of Reputation
Reputation
Studies in the Voluntary Elicitation of Good Conduct
Daniel B. Klein, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 1997
"Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that have not wit enough to be honest," wrote Benjamin Franklin. This volume explores ways in which the honest establish trust and enjoy good fortune, even without policing. The central mechanism at work is reputation. To work, information about the individual's conduct must be observed, interpreted, recorded, stored, and transmitted. Different forms of "seals of approval" develop to communicate the quality of an individual's reputation to others.
The studies in this volume reveal how vast information systems like Dun & Bradstreet and TRW generate reputation and beneficial exchange, and how brand names, middlemen, and dealers give their own sort of seal of approval. One chapter describes the origins of Underwriters' Laboratories, an organization that sells its inspection services and mark of approval for product safety. Another argues that J. P. Morgan's investment banking service was in large part applying astute judgment in granting the Morgan seal of approval to firms in need of capital. Other, less formal, reputational mechanisms such as gossip, customary law, and written correspondence are also explored. Contexts range from trust among merchants in Medieval Europe, social control in small communities, and good conduct in a vast anonymous society such as our own.
Throughout these broad-ranging studies, the central theme of the volume emerges: in an open, competitive environment, honesty can recruit cleverness to assert itself and to drive out the dishonest. Contributors include Bruce Benson, Harry Chase Brearly, J. Benson De Long, Avner Greif, Benjamin Klein, Keith B. Leffler, Sally Engle Merry, Paul R. Milgrom, J. Wilson Newman, Douglass C. North, Marc Ryser, Adam Smith, Gordon Tullock, and Barry R. Weingast.
Daniel B. Klein is Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, Irvine.
[more]

front cover of Trust and Trustworthiness
Trust and Trustworthiness
Russell Hardin
Russell Sage Foundation, 2002
What does it mean to "trust?" What makes us feel secure enough to place our confidence—even at times our welfare—in the hands of other people? Is it possible to "trust" an institution? What exactly do people mean when they claim to "distrust" their governments? As difficult as it may be to define, trust is essential to the formation and maintenance of a civil society. In Trust and Trustworthiness political scientist Russell Hardin addresses the standard theories of trust and articulates his own new and compelling idea: that much of what we call trust can be best described as "encapsulated interest." Research into the roles of trust in our society has offered a broad range of often conflicting theories. Some theorists maintain that trust is a social virtue that cannot be reduced to strategic self-interest; others claim that trusting another person is ultimately a rational calculation based on information about that person and his or her incentives and motivations. Hardin argues that we place our trust in persons whom we believe to have strong reasons to act in our best interests. He claims that we are correct when we assume that the main incentive of those whom we trust is to maintain a relationship with us—whether it be for reasons of economic benefit or for love and friendship. Hardin articulates his theory using examples from a broad array of personal and social relationships, paying particular attention to explanations of the development of trusting relationships. He also examines trustworthiness and seeks to understand why people may behave in ways that violate their own self-interest in order to honor commitments they have made to others. The book also draws important distinctions between vernacular uses of "trust" and "trustworthiness," contrasting, for example, the type of trust (or distrust) we place in individuals with the trust we place in institutions Trust and Trustworthiness represents the culmination of important new research into the roles of trust in our society; it offers a challenging new voice in the current discourse about the origins of cooperative behavior and its consequences for social and civic life. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust
[more]

front cover of Whom Can We Trust?
Whom Can We Trust?
How Groups, Networks, and Institutions Make Trust Possible
Karen S. Cook
Russell Sage Foundation, 2009
Conventional wisdom holds that trust is essential for cooperation between individuals and institutions—such as community organizations, banks, and local governments. Not necessarily so, according to editors Karen Cook, Margaret Levi, and Russell Hardin. Cooperation thrives under a variety of circum-stances. Whom Can We Trust? examines the conditions that promote or constrain trust and advances our understanding of how cooperation really works. From interpersonal and intergroup relations to large-scale organizations, Whom Can We Trust? uses empirical research to show that the need for trust and trustworthiness as prerequisites to cooperation varies widely. Part I addresses the sources of group-based trust. One chapter focuses on the assumption—versus the reality—of trust among coethnics in Uganda. Another examines the effects of social-network position on trust and trustworthiness in urban Ghana and rural Kenya. And a third demonstrates how cooperation evolves in groups where reciprocity is the social norm. Part II asks whether there is a causal relationship between institutions and feelings of trust in individuals. What does—and doesn't—promote trust between doctors and patients in a managed-care setting? How do poverty and mistrust figure into the relations between inner city residents and their local leaders? Part III reveals how institutions and networks create environments for trust and cooperation. Chapters in this section look at trust as credit-worthiness and the history of borrowing and lending in the Anglo-American commercial world; the influence of the perceived legitimacy of local courts in the Philippines on the trust relations between citizens and the government; and the key role of skepticism, not necessarily trust, in a well-developed democratic society. Whom Can We Trust? unravels the intertwined functions of trust and cooperation in diverse cultural, economic, and social settings. The book provides a bold new way of thinking about how trust develops, the real limitations of trust, and when trust may not even be necessary for forging cooperation. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter