Things as they are : mission work in southern India / by Amy Wilson-Carmichael ; with preface by Eugene Stock.

http://www.archive.org/details/thingsastheyarem00wilsuoft

The story of the Fuh-Kien mission of the Church missionary society, by Eugene Stock ...

http://www.archive.org/details/thestoryofthefuh00stocuoft

The Private Sector and HIV/AIDS in Africa: Taking Stock of Six Years of Applied Research

Background: Until recently, little was known about the costs of the HIV/AIDS epidemic to businesses in Africa and business responses to the epidemic. This paper synthesizes the results of a set of studies conducted between 1999 and 2006 and draws conclusions about the role of the private sector in Africa’s response to AIDS. Methods: Detailed human resource, financial, and medical data were collected from 14 large private and parastatal companies in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, and Ethiopia. Surveys of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were conducted in South Africa, Kenya, and Zambia. Large companies’ responses or potential responses to the epidemic were investigated in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, and Rwanda. Results: Among the large companies, estimated workforce HIV prevalence ranged from 5%¬37%. The average cost per employee lost to AIDS varied from 0.5-5.6 times the average annual compensation of the employee affected. Labor cost increases as a result of AIDS were estimated at anywhere from 0.6%-10.8% but exceeded 3% at only 2 of 14 companies. Treatment of eligible employees with ART at a cost of $360/patient/year was shown to have positive financial returns for most but not all companies. Uptake of employer-provided testing and treatment services varied widely. Among SMEs, HIV prevalence in the workforce was estimated at 10%-26%. SME managers consistently reported low AIDS-related employee attrition, little concern about the impacts of AIDS on their companies, and relatively little interest in taking action, and fewer than half had ever discussed AIDS with their senior staff. AIDS was estimated to increase the average operating costs of small tourism companies in Zambia by less than 1%; labor cost increases in other sectors were probably smaller. Conclusions: Although there was wide variation among the firms studied, clear patterns emerged that will permit some prediction of impacts and responses in the future.

Using Markets and Spam to Combat Malware

We propose an economic mechanism to reduce the incidence of malware that delivers spam. Earlier research proposed attention markets as a solution for unwanted messages, and showed they could provide more net benefit than alternatives such as filtering and taxes. Because it uses a currency system, Attention Bonds faces a challenge. Zombies, botnets, and various forms of malware might steal valuable currency instead of stealing unused CPU cycles. We resolve this problem by taking advantage of the fact that the spam-bot problem has been reduced to financial fraud. As such, the large body of existing work in that realm can be brought to bear. By drawing an analogy between sending and spending, we show how a market mechanism can detect and prevent spam malware. We prove that by using a currency (i) each instance of spam increases the probability of detecting infections, and (ii) the value of eradicating infections can justify insuring users against fraud. This approach attacks spam at the source, a virtue missing from filters that attack spam at the destination. Additionally, the exchange of currency provides signals of interest that can improve the targeting of ads. ISPs benefit from data management services and consumers benefit from the higher average value of messages they receive. We explore these and other secondary effects of attention markets, and find them to offer, on the whole, attractive economic benefits for all – including consumers, advertisers, and the ISPs.