High-impact Projects Research Articles

A case study of community-based distribution and use of Misoprostol and Chlorhexidine in Sokoto State, Nigeria

ABSTRACTThe United States Agency for International Development/Targeted States High Impact Project supported Sokoto State, Nigeria government in the development of a community-based intervention aimed at preventing post-partum haemorrhage (PPH) and cord infection among women and children, respectively. This paper describes the innovative intervention within the Nigeria health delivery system. It then explains the case study approach to assessing this intervention and summarises findings. Ultimately, the intervention was received well in communities and both drugs were added to the procurement list of all health facilities providing maternity services in the State. Key factors leading to such success include early advocacy efforts at the state-level, broad stakeholder engagement in designing the distribution system, early community engagement about the value of the drugs and concerted efforts to monitor and ensure availability of the drugs. Implementation challenges occurred in some areas, including shortage of community-based health volunteers (CBHVs) and drug keepers, and socio-cultural barriers. To maximise and sustain the effectiveness of such interventions, state government needs to ensure constant drug supply and adequate human resources at the community level, enhance counselling and mobilisation efforts, establish effective quality improvement strategies and implement a strong M&E system.

Constructing a Social Justice Tour: Pedagogy, Race, and Student Learning through Geography

This article describes a high-impact learning project that combines geography, history, and ethnic studies. It describes the construction of the course, student outcomes, and the final and publicly presented collaborative project: the Social Justice Tour of Corvallis. Based on work in a small largely white town, this project presents a reproducible model for student learning and actively engaging with questions of race and geography.

THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN SELECTED BARANGAYS AT THE MUNICIPALITY OF CORON, PALAWAN PROVINCE, PHILIPPINES

The Municipality of Coron in northern Palawan is one of the five municipalities where the Malampaya Natural Gas Project (MNGP) pipeline passes through from El Nido, Palawan to Batangas City. Seven barangays in the municipality were chosen by Malampaya Foundation Inc. (MFI) as the focus of its social development (SD) projects in the immediate future. These are barangays I and VI in the “poblacion” and the far-flung barangays of Marcilla, Bulalacao, Banuang Daan, Cabugao, and Malawig. As commissioned by MFI, the Palawan State University‟s Center for Strategic Policy and Governance undertook an integrated threats analysis to identify critical needs and propose a package of high impact projects. It uses a rapid rural appraisal (RRA) approach and relies on primary data gathered through field reconnaissance, household interviews, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. Fieldwork was on 21-28 February 2013 while the validation of results with stakeholders was held on 27 May 2013. The top problems and threats in all seven barangays pertain to limited employment opportunities, inadequate educational infrastructure, poor access to potable water, and food insecurity. Other identified problems include inflation, unemployment, natural disasters (including climate change impacts), juvenile delinquency, and garbage and waste management. While tourism has improved the municipality‟s economy in recent years, it also contributed threats and problems that may adversely affect the environment and lives of the residents. Investments in public services must therefore be provided to upgrade delivery of the needed basic services and facilitate movement of people and products to the town center. The barangays have bio-physical, economic and livelihood, and institutional/governance capital that can be tapped to support these investments. The bigger challenge is how to influence the local government sector and he political leaders to have a stronger commitment and participation in providing solutions.

Assessment of Efficiency of Capital Investment Project Implementation of Resource-saving Technology for the Real Sector of the Economy in Tatarstan Republic

The timeliness of the problem under study stems from the fact that realization of resource-saving technologies requires in its turn the implementation of innovative technologies in different branches of industry of Tatarstan Republic. The object of an article includes the statement of need of high-impact projects implementation in the area of field facilities construction by making use of pipes with cathodic protection, which is verified by accounting results of economic efficiency.The principle method of investigation of this problem is a method of assessment of efficiency of capital investment project with the use of discounted methods of calculation that will allow take into account asynchronical cash inflow and outflow of implementing project. The results of the investigation that is focused on assessment of efficiency of plant establishment for the production of resource-saving technologies in the oil industry confirm practicability of such project investment. The plan that allows realizing the pipes with cathodic protection guarantee investors and project parties’ acceptable performance measurements. Information in article could be useful in realization of similar projects; they include the methodological tools for project evaluation and accounting results that confirm the conclusions of the authors. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s3p155

The association for surgical education CESERT grant program: the first 15 years

BackgroundThe Association for Surgical Education established the Center for Excellence in Surgical Education Research and Training (CESERT) program in 1999 to support innovative research and education projects and programs that will advance surgical education. We sought to examine scholarly outcomes of the projects during the first 15 years of the program. MethodsE-mail surveys were sent to the 24 researchers who were awarded CESERT grants. Data collection focused on recipient professional experiences, publications, and presentations stemming from CESERT-funded research and impact on career development. For grant recipients who were unable to complete the survey, we obtained publication information on studies authored by the grant recipients that described the same grant-funded topic, described similar methods, and fell within the study timeline. ResultsComplete survey data were obtained from 18 of the 24 grant recipients. Grants were most commonly awarded to General Surgeons (40%) and Education and Psychology PhDs (24%). Overall, 23 of the 25 projects had reached completion at the time of contact, and from these, 70 articles were published or in press. Abstract presentations were more common, with respondents documenting 84 projects locally, nationally, and internationally. Grant awards ranged from $8,122 to $97,000, with an average of $39,026. In total, the Association for Surgical Education Foundation distributed $988,000 in grant funding from 1999 to 2013. Respondents reported that CESERT funding was critical to their career as it legitimized their pursuit of educational research, helped them establish multidisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations, provided greater visibility for their research, and helped them develop an understanding of educational principles and grant writing skills. ConclusionsOverall, the CESERT program has produced remarkable results. The careful review process and monitoring protocol have ensured that high-potential studies are funded and successful. These data support continued efforts to garner resources such that CESERT grants may be awarded to fund high-quality, high-impact projects.

Infosys nurtures the talent of tomorrow

Purpose – The paper aims to describe how the Infosys leadership institute is preparing a pool of talent to take over running the company in the years ahead. Design/methodology/approach – It examines the priorities at the institute, considers other development initiatives in the firm and describes the company’s policies in the areas of employee well-being and engagement. Findings – It highlights the importance of communication, work-life balance, equal opportunities and employee engagement. Practical implications – It details the ways in which InStep, the company’s global internship program, draws students from business, technology and the liberal arts to work on high-impact projects involving strategy and cutting-edge research. Social implications – It reveals that the company’s stock-options program has helped to create some of India’s first salaried millionaires. Originality/value – It provides an insight into the engagement of talent at a major international organization.

Do African and European energy stakeholders agree on key energy drivers in Africa? Using Q methodology to understand perceptions on energy access debates

This paper uses Q methodology to reveal stakeholder perceptions on how best to address energy issues in Africa. We sampled a group of stakeholders involved in various energy sub-sectors to uncover perspectives on how to achieve and promote access to modern energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy in Africa, whether the perceptions could be correlated to educational or geographical background and implications such patterns could have on policies and current dialogues.We found that all stakeholders agree on the need to prioritise sustainability but had different views on how to achieve sustainable energy for all in Africa, depending on the relevance given to each energy driver. Stakeholders could be categorised into four groups: (I) preference of large-scale high-impact projects; (II) supporters of targeted sectoral solutions with preference for small-scale technology and microfinance; (III) supporters of centralised solutions with preference for grid extension, and (IV) supporters of local entrepreneurship with scepticism about centralised solutions. The results show that differences in stakeholders’ perceptions can be associated with respondents’ educational but not geographical background. This implies that dialogues on energy in Africa should focus on inter-disciplinary understanding while further examining the trans-continent consensus that appears to have been established.

The Impingement Factors of the Rural Library Services Usage among Rural Youth in Malaysia

Developing the rural community is one of the main government agendas. One of the methods used by the government to develop the rural community is by ensuring continuous delivery of information. In tandem with this, many high impact projects for the rural community have been introduced particularly on ICT. Nonetheless, besides ICT, the government also has rural library to rely on. In a number of local and international studies, rural library has been proven to benefit the rural community. The main query of this study is to identify the impingement factors of the rural library usage among rural youth and the findings obtained are expected to contribute to the existing literatures. Using a qualitative method, focus group discussions (FGDs) have been carried out among two groups, one of the FGDs was conducted with six librarians and another FGD was conducted among six rural library users. The FGDs were conducted in Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia. Data gained were later transcribed verbatim and analysed. Based on the analysis done, a total of eight main factors that can impinge their usage of rural library services have been identified. In order to further enhance the usage of rural library services among youth, this study suggests that issues such as relevant sources and activities, youth involvement in the planning process, a better way of promotion and roles of librarians should be highly considered.

Perceived Usefulness of ICT Usage among JKKK Members in Peninsular Malaysia

Information and communication technology (ICT) is indeed an important tool to expose the rural community to development. Realizing the importance of ICT, a number of high impact ICT programs and projects have been introduced by the government. However, do the rural community especially their leaders which are the Village Development and Security Committee members (JKKK) use ICT? And more importantly do they perceive ICT as useful in their daily activities and tasks? This question brings us to the main objective of this paper which is to know the factors that influence the perceived usefulness towards ICT usage among the JKKK members in Peninsular Malaysia. Besides, this paper intends to investigate the level of perceived usefulness towards ICT usage among JKKK members and to reveal the most significant contributors for perceived usefulness towards ICT usage. This is a quantitative study whereby data were gathered using a questionnaire. Based on the multi stage random sampling, a total of 240 JKKK members have been selected as the respondents. Based on the analyses done, it can be concluded that respondents studied do have a high level of perceived usefulness towards ICT usage. All of the four factors studied have a positive and significant relationship towards ICT usage. Attitude was identified as the most significant contributor for perceived usefulness towards ICT usage while the four predictor variables explain about 60.0% of the variance/variation in perceived usefulness towards ICT usage.

What weight should be assigned to future environmental impacts? A probabilistic cost benefit analysis using recent advances on discounting

Cost–benefit analysis is a standard methodological platform for public investment evaluation. In high environmental impact projects, with a long-term effect on future generations, the choice of discount rate and time horizon is of particular relevance, because it can lead to very different profitability assessments. This paper describes some recent approaches to environmental discounting and applies them, together with a number of classical procedures, to the economic evaluation of a plant for the desalination of irrigation return water from intensive farming, aimed at halting the degradation of an area of great ecological value, the Mar Menor, in South Eastern Spain. A Monte Carlo procedure is used in four CBA approaches and three time horizons to carry out a probabilistic sensitivity analysis designed to integrate the views of an international panel of experts in environmental discounting with the uncertainty affecting the market price of the project's main output, i.e., irrigation water for a water-deprived area. The results show which discounting scenarios most accurately estimate the socio-environmental profitability of the project while also considering the risk associated with these two key parameters. The analysis also provides some methodological findings regarding ways of assessing financial and environmental profitability in decisions concerning public investment in the environment.

Scientific program construction principles and time allocation scheme for the World Space Observatory—Ultraviolet mission

We present scientific program construction principles and a time allocation scheme developed for the World Space Observatory-Ultraviolet (WSO-UV) mission, which is an international space observatory for observation in UV spectral range 100-300 nm. The WSO-UV consists of a 1.7 m aperture telescope with instrumentation designed to carry out high resolution spectroscopy, long-slit low resolution spectroscopy and direct sky imaging. The WSO-UV Ground Segment is under development by Spain and Russia. They will coordinate the Mission and Science Operations and provide the satellite tracking stations for the project. The WSO-UV will work as a targeted scientific observatory. Three scientific programs will be carried out at the observatory. Core Program of scientific observations, which deserves large amounts of observing time, will be defined by the WSO-UV Science Committee to allow the conduction of high impact or legacy scientific projects. Funding Bodies Program is the guaranteed time granted to each one of the national bodies funding the WSO-UV project. Guest observer program for everyone, or Open Program, consists of astronomical observations obtained with the WSO-UV by astronomers who may or may not belong to the WSO-UV international consortium. It is open to excellent scientific projects from the world-wide community and occupies up to 40% of total observational time. Apart from the particularities associated to a science mission, this new mission will be affected by a new concept of observations management, trying to maximize the scientific return of this mission, and the shared operations between the two sites located in Spain and Russia. A brief summary of the algorithmic strategies analyzed for scheduling optimization is also given in the paper.

Maternal and Child Health Supercourse for the Former Soviet Union Countries

Maternal and child health (MCH) is a growing concern among the countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) where economic issues and changing infrastructures are seriously deteriorating the public health system. Moreover, in the past decade, lack of primary prevention programs coupled with a shortage of well-trained public health professionals are having an increasingly negative impact on MCH outcomes. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the current state of MCH, health care and public health education in the FSU. We suggest that indices could be improved by developing new inexpensive information exchange systems, and that system is Supercourse (accessible at www.pitt.edu/ approximately super1). Supercourse is an Internet-based library of public health lectures in PowerPoint format that are accessible, free of charge to anyone, anywhere, who has Internet access including scientists, doctors, and, specifically, educators. As of April 2007, Supercourse has more than 3,200 public health lectures, a network of more than 42,000 faculty members across 151 countries, with Nobel Prize winners and the former head of the CDC being among the lectures' authors. Supercourse lectures are aimed at the educator with the goal of improving public health training through timely and customizable lectures. The distinguishing features of Supercourse are ease of access in low-bandwidth lecture, minimal cost, a distribution system for lectures in CD format, high-quality content, and the capacity to create and sustain a global network of public health professionals. Additionally, statistical process control procedures for industry developed by W. Edwards Deming are utilized to ensure the quality of Supercourse lectures. Papers on Supercourse already have been published in the British Medical Journal, Nature, and Lancet, and are having a wide impact in the field of public health. Currently, an increasing number of lectures in the Supercourse library are dedicated to the theme of MCH. Low cost, high impact projects such as Supercourse are needed to improve and deploy MCH education worldwide.

Address of the President, Lord Rees of Ludlow Kt FRS, given at the Anniversary Meeting on 30 November 2006

Address of the President, Lord Rees of Ludlow Kt FRS, given at the Anniversary Meeting on 30 November 2006

Operations Research applications: Opportunities and accomplishments

About fifty years have passed since the birth of Operations Research (OR) during World War II. As a relatively young, evolving discipline, the fierce debates in our journals and conferences regarding the future of OR are of no surprise and even healthy. Although OR has penetrated into a wide range of application areas, it is still often viewed as an esoteric academic discipline — certainly not a ‘household name’. In this paper, we attempt to demonstrate the impressive impact OR has had since World War II, and to highlight the unprecedented opportunities for OR in future years. First, we discuss opportunities for OR in a sample of diverse application areas, including telecommunications, air transportation, energy, health care, and others. Next, we review significant contributions of OR to numerous, high-impact projects, using the Edelman Award Competition as a data source. Finally, we present OR activities in several corporations that won the ORSA Prize (as of 1995, the INFORMS Prize), in recognition of their effective use of OR through all levels of management decision making.

A Procedure to Link Evaluation and Funding Decisions

Davis and Salasin (1975) have summarized many of the issues in the use of evaluation results, including statements by evaluators that their findings are not used and those by administrators that evaluation findings are not available when decisions have to be made. Although there is much discussion of the need to relate evaluation and decision making, there have been few efforts to specify the manner in which this might occur. Edwards, Guttentag, and Snapper (1975) proposed and applied a method called multiattribute utility measurement to assist the Office of Child Development in defining the major dimensions of importance in developing priorities for funding research projects. The multiattribute utility measurement method is one of a set of methods classified as decision aids by Slovic, Fischoff, and Lichtenstein (1977), as opposed to formal behavioral decision theory models. One framework for the present study is provided by the procedures used to aid decisions. A second framework is the problem of defining for the diverse set of programs funded under the basic grants given in the Vocational Education Act of 1976 (VEA). Bernstein and Freeman (1975) define impact evaluation as movement or change toward the desired objectives of a project, that is, prespecified, operationally defined goals and criteria of success. In the current work, these definitions are established externally to the individual projects. Projects will have varying goals and any one project may not meet all the priorities of the funding program. By operationally defining the set of variables that define impact, developing a scale or distribution of these variables, and summing scale values for each grant application or funded project, individual projects can be evaluated as high or low impact projects. A related study has been conducted by Ory, Harris, Dueitt, and Clark (1978). They developed and field tested a vocational education evaluation model for programs at the community college level, based on subjectively and objectively derived data. Weights for six criteria were derived from paired comparison ratings by state and local educators, legislators, college The research reported herein was supported under VEA Grant No. 78-3A-540 of the Division of Occupational Education Supervision of the New York State Education Department to the Institute for Research and Development in Occupational Education of the Center for Advanced Study in Education of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.