Strengthening housing finance in emerging markets: the savings and credit cooperative organisation (SACCO) model in Kenya

Abstract

Savings have long been an essential source of funding for credit. Whether in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia or Latin America, community-based financial institutions have relied on deposits to make financial services accessible to moderate-income borrowers. Despite the foundational role savings and loans have had in financial sector development, emerging markets have largely overlooked the important role these institutions can have in providing shelter credit in their own contexts. Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs) in the Republic of Kenya illustrate the potential model for deposit-based lending to deliver housing finance for many of the country’s underserved prospective borrowers. This study draws upon the experiences of several savings and loan associations in the industrialized world with applications towards improving the Kenyan SACCO model that provides the most extensive credit union loans on the African continent. The article concludes community finance institutions merit strong consideration towards helping overcome the housing finance sector underdevelopment too often experienced in the developing world.     

66—A COMPARISON OF THREE MODES OF CARPET WEAR

An account is given of the testing of twelve carpets of different constructions in a corridor, on stairs, and by a turning trial. There are differences in ranking by the three modes. None of the rankings correlates very strongly with the results obtained on the Wira Carpet Abrasion Machine or the Tetrapod Walker for this range of tufted and woven carpets.     

Computation of the Transmission Line Inductance and Capacitance Matrices from the Generalized Capacitance Matrix

In a recent paper [1], a method for computing the per-unitlength generalized capacitance matrix of a system of dielectric-insulated wires was given. In this-paper, a method for computing the per-unitlength inductance and capacitance matrices used in multiconductor transmission-line models in terms of the elements of the generalized capacitance matrix is given. Certain approximate formulas for large wire separations are also given. Rome Air Development Center.     

Automatic Generation of Test Oracles—From Pilot Studies to Application

We describe a progression from pilot studies to development and use of domain-specific verification and validation (V&V) automation. Our domain is the testing of an AI planning system that forms a key component of an autonomous spacecraft. We used pilot studies to ascertain opportunities for, and suitability of, automating various analyses whose results would contribute to V&V in our domain. These studies culminated in development of an automatic generator of automated test oracles. This was then applied and extended in the course of testing the spacecraft's AI planning system.Richardson et al. (1992, In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Software Engineering, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 105–118), presents motivation for automatic test oracles, and considered the issues and approaches particular to test oracles derived from specifications. Our work, carried through from conception to application, confirms many of their insights. Generalizing from our specific domain, we present some additional insights and recommendations concerning the use of test oracles for V&V of knowledge-based systems.     

Constructing specifications by combining parallel elaborations

An incremental approach to construction is proposed, with the virtue of offering considerable opportunity for mechanized support. Following this approach one builds a specification through a series of elaborations that incrementally adjust a simple initial specification. Elaborations perform both refinements, adding further detail, and adaptations, retracting oversimplifications and tailoring approximations to the specifics of the task. It is anticipated that the vast majority of elaborations can be concisely described to a mechanism that will then perform them automatically. When elaborations are independent, they can be applied in parallel, leading to diverging specifications that must later be recombined. The approach is intended to facilitate comprehension and maintenance of specifications, as well as their initial construction     

Representation and presentation of requirements knowledge

The approach to representation and presentation of knowledge used in ARIES, an environment to experiment with support for analysts in modeling target domains and in entering and formalizing system requirements, is described. To effectively do this, ARIES must manage a variety of notations so that analysts can enter information in a natural manner, and ARIES can present it back in different notations and from different viewpoints. To provide this functionality, a single, highly expressive internal representation is used for all information in the system. The system architecture separates representation and presentation, in order to localize consistency and propagation issues. The presentation architecture is tailored to be flexible enough so that new notations can be easily introduced on top of the underlying representation. Presentation knowledge is coupled to specification evolution knowledge thereby leveraging common representations for both in order to provide automated focusing support to users who need informative guidance in creating and modifying specifications     

Reactions to penalties for offenses committed by the police and public citizens: Testing a social–cognitive process model of retributive justice.

This research investigated situations involving the police and public citizens in which both committed offenses and were punished. Participants responded to either a scenario describing police violence against a "green" protester (n?=?177) or one describing dangerous driving by detectives leading to injury of juveniles in a car chase (n?=?149). Results showed that information about following orders mitigated participants' reactions to offenses committed by authority figures. The perceived seriousness of the offenses committed by police authorities was negatively related to participants' level of right-wing authoritarianism and positively related to the importance participants assigned to universalism values. These relations were opposite in direction for the public offenders who refused to obey a police order. Other relations supported a social-cognitive process model in which values, responsibility, seriousness, and deservingness are key variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Towards a derivational style of distributed system design — An example

Rederivation of the train signalling protocol developed in the 19th century is used to illustrate the application of several formal techniques to assist in the derivation of an implementation of a simple distributed system from its specification. It was this train signalling protocol that gave rise to the now-familiar concept ofsemaphore. However, a study of the train system shows that there is much more to its protocol than simply the instantiation of the semaphore concept.The derivation makes use of several formal techniques including weakest precondition calculation, finite differencing, generalization, and weakening of invariants. Informal reasoning is used to treat concerns of availability of information, and availability of control. Opportunities for inserting additional robustness into the derived implementation are identified during the process.The objective is to demonstrate the degree to which an implementation can bederived, rather than merely verified after some unknown invention process.     

Some correlates of structure and purpose in the use of time.

Reports findings from studies that used the Time Structure Questionnaire (TSQ), an instrument designed to measure the degree to which individuals perceive their use of time as structured and purposive. Results from 3 samples of university students showed that the TSQ has acceptable psychometric properties. They also showed that TSQ total scores were positively correlated with a sense of purpose in life, self-esteem, reported health, present standing and optimism about the future, Type A behavior, and more efficient study habits, and were negatively correlated with depression, psychological distress, anxiety, neuroticism, physical symptoms, hopelessness, and anomie. Perceived use of time also varied with role demands, such as whether a person was single or married, employed or unemployed, or a part-time or full-time student. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)