Large-scale Development Program Research Articles

Can Rice Farming through the National Strategy Food Estate Increase Regional Production?

Food estate is a large-scale food development program that is carried out in an integrated manner. This includes agriculture, plantations and livestock within an area. This research aims to (1) analyze the production factors of lowland rice farming as an effort to increase rice production in the national food estate strategy program in Central Kalimantan; (2) analyze the technical efficiency of lowland rice farming in an effort to increase rice production in the national food estate strategy program in Central Kalimantan. This research was carried out at the Siam Village Food Estate (COE). The sampling method used a random sampling method with a total sample of 89 people. The analysis method uses Cobb-Douglas production function analysis and Frontier Stochastic technical efficiency analysis. Research results: (1) land (X1), seeds (X2), lime (X3), and fertilizer (X4) have a significant effect (α<0.05) on lowland rice production results in the Balanti Siam village food estate, while pesticides (X5), labor (X6), machinery (X7), planting system dummy (D1), and planting pattern dummy (D2) do not have a significant effect on lowland rice production results on food aesthetic land in Balanti Siam village; (2) Farmers in Balanti Siam village are classified as technically efficient with an average technical efficiency of 96.5% (cut-off > 0.70), while individually there are 88 farmers who are classified as technically efficient. The production factors used in rice farming play an important role in production results. By using production factors efficiently, this can increase maximum rice production yields.

Advances in nucleic acid-targeted therapies for cardiovascular disease prevention.

Nucleic acid-based therapies are being rapidly developed for prevention and management of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Remarkable advancements have been achieved in the delivery, safety, and effectiveness of these therapeutics in the past decade. These therapies can also modulate therapeutic targets that cannot be sufficiently addressed using traditional drugs or antibodies. Among the nucleic acid-targeted therapeutics under development for CVD prevention are RNA-targeted approaches, including antisense oligonucleotides (ASO), small interfering RNAs (siRNA), and novel genome editing techniques. Genetic studies have identified potential therapeutic targets that are suggested to play a causative role in development and progression of CVD. RNA- and DNA-targeted therapeutics can be particularly well delivered to the liver, where atherogenic lipoproteins and angiotensinogen (AGT) are produced. Current targets in lipid metabolism include proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9), apolipoprotein A (ApoA), apolipoprotein C3 (ApoC3), angiopoietin-like 3 (ANGPTL3). Several large-scale clinical development programs for nucleic acid-targeted therapies in cardiovascular prevention are under way, which may also be attractive from a therapy adherence point of view, given the long action of these therapeutics. In addition to genome editing, the concept of gene transfer is presently under assessment in preclinical and clinical investigations as a potential approach for addressing low-density lipoprotein receptor deficiency. Furthermore, ongoing research is exploring the use of RNA-targeted therapies to treat arterial hypertension by reducing hepatic angiotensinogen (AGT) production. This review summarizes the rapid translation of siRNA and ASO therapeutics as well as gene editing into clinical studies to treat dyslipidemia and arterial hypertension for CVD prevention. It also outlines potential innovative therapeutic options that are likely relevant to the future of cardiovascular medicine.

Becoming a professional supervisor: Doctoral supervisors’ development in a mandatory, large-scale development programme

High-quality supervision is crucial for doctoral researchers’ progression, attrition rates, well-being, and experience of their doctoral journeys. New requirements in higher education have actualised the professional development of doctoral supervisors’ praxis, both as an institutional responsibility and academic field. However, there is a lack of literature exploring doctoral supervisors’ perspectives on professional development. This paper explores what doctoral supervisors find essential for their professional development when attending a mandatory programme for doctoral supervisors. Drawing on a longitudinal case study on the professional development of supervisors, five core aspects essential for the professional development of doctoral supervisors’ praxis are identified: institutional responsibility and support; transformational learning; building a broader repertoire of approaches to supervision; learning to balance complexity, and interaction and identity formation within supervisors’ communities. Based on these findings, a set of institutional recommendations for the professional development of doctoral is suggested.

Responding to change over time: A longitudinal case study on changes in coordination mechanisms in large-scale agile

ContextResponding to change and continuously improving processes, practices, and products are core to agile software development. It is no different in large-scale agile, where multiple software development teams need to respond both to changes in their external environments and to changes within the organization.ObjectiveWith this study, we aim to advance knowledge on coordination in large-scale agile by developing a model of the types of organizational changes that influence coordination mechanisms.MethodWe conducted a longitudinal case study in a growing large-scale agile organization, focusing on how external and internal changes impact coordination over time. We collected our data through 62 days of fieldwork across one and a half years. We conducted 37 interviews, observed 118 meetings at all organizational levels, collected supplementary material such as chat logs and presentations, and analyzed the data using thematic analysis.ResultsOur findings demonstrate how external events, such as onboarding new clients, and internal events, such as changes in the team organization, influence coordination mechanisms in the large-scale software development program. We find that external and internal change events lead to the introduction of new coordination mechanisms, or the adjustment of existing ones. Further, we find that continuous scaling requires continuous change and adjustment. Finally, we find that having the right mechanisms in place at the right time strengthens resilience and the ability to cope with change in coordination needs in complex large-scale environments.ConclusionsOur findings are summarized in an empirically based model that provides a practical approach to analyzing change, aimed at supporting both researchers and practitioners dealing with change in coordination mechanisms in large-scale agile development contexts.

Baikal Zone as a Sub-Region: Methodological Approaches to Development

The object of the study is the Baikal zone allocated by the authors as a set of territorial, economic and environmental resources of the subjects of the Federation adjacent to Baikal – the Irkutsk Region, the Republic of Buryatia. The objective contradiction between the environmental component and the need for socio-economic development limits the possibilities of territorial development and provokes conflicts of regional interests between trans-Baikal subjects. In order to harmonize environmental, economic and administrative-organizational trends in the effective use of territorial resources, a draft methodological justification for the allocation of the Baikal zone to the trans-Baikal subregion with a special ecological, economic and administrative status is proposed. Based on the analysis of domestic and foreign experience in the development and implementation of large-scale regional development programs, methodological recommendations are formulated for modeling the administrative and management system of the subregion. As for the formation of an environmentally oriented optimal sectoral structure of the territory, possible sources of financing for the projected Concept of socio-economic transformation of the Baikal zone are proposed.

Enhanced women’s decision-making power after the Suchana intervention in north-eastern Bangladesh: a cluster randomised pre-post study

ObjectivesWomen’s decision-making power is a dimension of empowerment and is crucial for better physical and psychosocial outcomes of mothers. Suchana, a large-scale development programme in Bangladesh, actively provided social interventions...

An Intersectional Approach to DIF: Comparing Outcomes across Methods

ABSTRACT Recent research provides evidence that an intersectional approach to defining reference and focal groups results in a higher percentage of comparisons flagged for potential DIF. The study presented here examined the generalizability of this pattern across methods for examining DIF. While the level of DIF detection differed among the four methods examined, the pattern in which the intersectional approach yielded a substantially larger percentage of flagged comparisons compared to the traditional approach was consistent across three of the four methods. The study explores implications that an intersectional approach to examining differential item functioning has for use by large-scale test development programs and identifies further research needed to support the adoption of an intersectional approach to DIF analyses.

Capacities of local maize seed enterprises in Mexico: Implications for seed systems development

Where maize plays a critical role in food security, governments and donors have invested heavily in support of local, privately owned, often small and medium sized, maize seed enterprises (maize SMEs). Underpinning these investments are strong assumptions about maize SMEs’ capacity to produce and distribute seed to smallholders. This study assesses the capacities of 22 maize SMEs in Mexico that engaged with MasAgro—a large-scale development program initiated in 2011 that has provided maize SMEs with improved genetic material and technical assistance. Data were collected onsite from in-depth interviews with enterprise owners and managers and complemented with other primary and secondary sources. Overall, maize SMEs showed high levels of absorptive capacity for seed production, but limited signs of learning and innovation in terms of business organization and strategic seed marketing. Asset endowments varied widely among the SMEs, but generally they were lowest among the smaller enterprises, and access to business development services beyond MasAgro was practically nonexistent. Results highlighted the critical role of MasAgro in reinvigorating the portfolios of seeds produced by maize SMEs, as well as the challenges ahead for maize SMEs to scale the new technologies in a competitive market that has long been dominated by multinational seed enterprises. Among these challenges were limited investment in seed marketing, weak infrastructure for seed production, and limited experience in business management. Achieving the food security goals through maize SMEs will require making national maize seed industry development a strategic imperative.

A Stakeholder Analysis of the Development of a Large-Scale Professional Development Program

Abstract The development of a large-scale professional development project for Swedish mathematics teachers is retrospectively examined. By referring to documentation produced by stakeholders in the development process, the stakeholder’s design recommendations and underlying assumptions on teacher development are described. Seeing the development as a co-determination process explains how research-based principles appearing early in the process gradually change to become something different in the end, without the reasons for this shift ever being explicitly discussed in stakeholders’ documentations. It is discussed whether the distributed way of constructing the program might cause difficulties in sticking to an explicit theory of change. The impact sheet to this article can be accessed at 10.6084/m9.figshare.16610113.

Covariate selection for generalizing experimental results: Application to a large-scale development program in Uganda

AbstractGeneralizing estimates of causal effects from an experiment to a target population is of interest to scientists. However, researchers are usually constrained by available covariate information. Analysts can often collect many fewer variables from population samples than from experimental samples, which has limited applicability of existing approaches that assume rich covariate data from both experimental and population samples. In this article, we examine how to select covariates necessary for generalizing experimental results under such data constraints. In our concrete context of a large-scale development program in Uganda, although more than 40 pre-treatment covariates are available in the experiment, only 8 of them were also measured in a target population. We propose a method to estimate a separating set—a set of variables affecting both the sampling mechanism and treatment effect heterogeneity—and show that the population average treatment effect (PATE) can be identified by adjusting for estimated separating sets. Our algorithm only requires a rich set of covariates in the experimental data, not in the target population, by incorporating researcher-specific constraints on what variables are measured in the population data. Analysing the development experiment in Uganda, we show that the proposed algorithm can allow for the PATE estimation in situations where conventional methods fail due to data requirements.

"Cabbage strategy" as a method of ensuring China’s sovereignty on the China-Indian border

In May 2020, one of the largest conflicts in recent decades occurred on the Sino-Indian border. Against the background of discussion of heated armed clashes, observers have also noted that in the past years China has been using hybrid tactics as means of ensuring its control over the Line of actual control on the border with India. This article examines the hybrid tactics of the Chinese side to ensure sovereignty on the border with India the PRC's policy of installing military and civilian infrastructure in disputed and border areas. In the areas claimed by India and Bhutan, Chinese objects for various purposes appear - from camouflaged barracks and installations of unclear purpose to residential villages. These installations testify to the application by China of the so-called "сabbagestrategy" - the gradual "surrounding" the enemy with its infrastructure in order to establish de facto Chinese military and economic control over the disputed territories. In addition, Beijing has launched a large-scale development program for the border Tibet Autonomous Region in order to strengthen its borders. Such actions are hybrid tactics used by China in other territorial disputes, for example, around the islands in the South China Sea. They allow the PRC to have a military superiority over the opponent, to intimidate him with its economic and military influence in the region. Such actions fit into the framework of one of the priorities declared by the current Chinese leadership: the protection of national borders and the restoration of sovereignty over the territories “lost” during the so-called century of humiliation.

Impacts and social implications of landuse-environment conflicts in a typical Mediterranean watershed

In coastal watersheds, services and landuse favour coastal tourism and urbanization, depriving rural upstream of infrastructure and attention. This unbalanced management leads to an intensification of socioeconomic changes that generate a structural heterogeneity of the landscape and a reduction in the livelihoods of the rural population. The incessant dissociation between the objectives of the stakeholders triggers landuse-environment-economy conflicts which threaten to mutate large-scale development programs. Here, we used multi-assessment techniques in a Mediterranean watershed from Morocco to evaluate the effects of landuse change on water, vegetation, and perception of the rural population towards environmental issues. We combined complementary vegetation indexes (NDVI and EVI) to study long-term landuse change and phenological statistical pixel-based trends. We assessed the exposure of rural households to the risk of groundwater pollution through a water analysis supplemented by the calculation of an Integrated Water Quality Index. Later, we contrasted the findings with the results of a social survey with a representative sample of 401 households from 7 villages. We found that rapid coastal linear urbanization has resulted in a 12-fold increase in construction over the past 35 years, to the detriment of natural spaces and the lack of equipment and means in rural areas upstream. We show that the worst water qualities are linked to the negative impact of anthropogenic activities on immediately accessible water points. We observe that rural households are aware of the existence and gravity of environmental issues but act confusedly because of their low education level which generates a weak capacity to understand cause and effect relationships. We anticipate the pressing need to improve the well-being and education of the population and synergistically correct management plans to target the watershed as a consolidated system. Broadly, stakeholders should restore lost territorial harmony and reallocate landuse according to a sustainable environment-socioeconomic vision.

Report of the 2019-2020 AACP Academic Affairs Committee: Developing the Pharmacist Workforce for Society’s Medication Use Needs in 2030

The 2019-2020 Academic Affairs Committee was charged with identifying promising practices in academic-practice partnerships and professional pharmacy organization initiatives that are accelerating the transformation of a workforce prepared to assume responsibility for society's medication use needs in 2030 and determining the role AACP can plan in supporting these partnerships and initiatives. The committee identified a set of ideal principles, characteristics, and design elements of a high-quality, large-scale workforce development program. The committee also categorized current mechanisms for professional workforce development, in addition to identifying their strengths and weaknesses, with the realization that novel approaches are needed to accomplish the goal of large-scale workforce transformation. This report also highlights two existing initiatives aligned with accelerating the transformation of the workforce (ie, the Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network (CPESN) ACT (Academia-CPESN Transformation) Pharmacy Collaborative and the American Pharmacists Association ADVANCE platform) and is proposing a policy statement affirming AACP's support. Furthermore, the committee is proposing another policy statement supporting colleges and schools of pharmacy taking an active role in implementing innovative and novel approaches for the development of the current workforce. In order to truly understand the many factors influencing large-scale workforce transformation, the committee is also proposing a stakeholder conference with a wide range of participants and a targeted set of questions focused on current and future needs.

The evaluation of Suchana, a large-scale development program to prevent chronic undernutrition in north-eastern Bangladesh

Evidence of the impact of community-based nutrition programs is uncommon for two main reasons: the lack of untreated controls, and implementation does not account for the evaluation design. Suchana is a large-scale program to prevent malnutrition in children in Sylhet division, Bangladesh by improving the livelihoods and nutrition knowledge of poor and very poor households. Suchana is being implemented in 157 unions, the smallest administrative unit of government, in two districts of Sylhet. Suchana will deliver a package of interventions to poor people in about 40 randomly selected new unions annually over 4 years, until all are covered. All beneficiaries will receive the normal government nutrition services. For evaluation purposes the last 40 unions will act as a control for the first 40 intervention unions. The remaining unions will receive the program but will not take part in the evaluation. A baseline survey was conducted in both intervention and control unions; it will be repeated after 3 years to estimate the impact on the prevalence of stunted children and other indicators. This stepped wedge design has several advantages for both the implementation and evaluation of services, as well as some disadvantages. The units of delivery are randomized, which controls for other influences on outcomes; the program supports government service delivery systems, so it is replicable and scalable; and the program can be improved over time as lessons are learned. The main disadvantages are the difficulty of estimating the impact of each component of the program, and the geographical distribution of unions, which increases program delivery costs. Stepped implementation allows a cluster randomized trial to be achieved within a large-scale poverty alleviation program and phased-in and scaled-up over a period of time. This paper may encourage evaluators to consider how to estimate attributable impact by using stepped implementation, which allows the counterfactual group eventually to be treated.

From traditional pharmacological towards nucleic acid-based therapies for cardiovascular diseases.

Nucleic acid-based therapeutics are currently developed at large scale for prevention and management of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), since: (i) genetic studies have highlighted novel therapeutic targets suggested to be causal for CVD; (ii) there is a substantial recent progress in delivery, efficacy, and safety of nucleic acid-based therapies; (iii) they enable effective modulation of therapeutic targets that cannot be sufficiently or optimally addressed using traditional small molecule drugs or antibodies. Nucleic acid-based therapeutics include (i) RNA-targeted therapeutics for gene silencing; (ii) microRNA-modulating and epigenetic therapies; (iii) gene therapies; and (iv) genome-editing approaches (e.g. CRISPR-Cas-based): (i) RNA-targeted therapeutics: several large-scale clinical development programmes, using antisense oligonucleotides (ASO) or short interfering RNA (siRNA) therapeutics for prevention and management of CVD have been initiated. These include ASO and/or siRNA molecules to lower apolipoprotein (a) [apo(a)], proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9), apoCIII, ANGPTL3, or transthyretin (TTR) for prevention and treatment of patients with atherosclerotic CVD or TTR amyloidosis. (ii) MicroRNA-modulating and epigenetic therapies: novel potential therapeutic targets are continually arising from human non-coding genome and epigenetic research. First microRNA-based therapeutics or therapies targeting epigenetic regulatory pathways are in clinical studies. (iii) Gene therapies: EMA/FDA have approved gene therapies for non-cardiac monogenic diseases and LDL receptor gene therapy is currently being examined in patients with homozygous hypercholesterolaemia. In experimental studies, gene therapy has significantly improved cardiac function in heart failure animal models. (iv) Genome editing approaches: these technologies, such as using CRISPR-Cas, have proven powerful in stem cells, however, important challenges are remaining, e.g. low rates of homology-directed repair in somatic cells such as cardiomyocytes. In summary, RNA-targeted therapies (e.g. apo(a)-ASO and PCSK9-siRNA) are now in large-scale clinical outcome trials and will most likely become a novel effective and safe therapeutic option for CVD in the near future. MicroRNA-modulating, epigenetic, and gene therapies are tested in early clinical studies for CVD. CRISPR-Cas-mediated genome editing is highly effective in stem cells, but major challenges are remaining in somatic cells, however, this field is rapidly advancing.

Development programs, security, and violence reduction: Evidence from an insurgency in India

Abstract India has employed a variety of military, political and economic measures to combat the long running insurgency in Kashmir with little evidence on what contributes to stability in the region. This paper uses a variety of tests to detect structural breaks in the time series for violence over the period 1998–2017. We identify a transition from a high violence regime to a low violence regime that coincides with (i) the fencing of the border with Pakistan (ii) the implementation of a large-scale development program, and (iii) the phasing in of the Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Panel data analysis using district-level data further corroborate these findings. Our results highlight the complementary roles of development programs and security in reducing violence.

CUBES: A practical toolkit to measure enablers and barriers to behavior for effective intervention design.

A pressing goal in global development and other sectors is often to understand what drives people's behaviors, and how to influence them. Yet designing behavior change interventions is often an unsystematic process, hobbled by insufficient understanding of contextual and perceptual behavioral drivers and a narrow focus on limited research methods to assess them. We propose a toolkit (CUBES) of two solutions to help programs arrive at more effective interventions. First, we introduce a novel framework of behavior, which is a practical tool for programs to structure potential drivers and match corresponding interventions. This evidence-based framework was developed through extensive cross-sectoral literature research and refined through application in large-scale global development programs. Second, we propose a set of descriptive, experimental, and simulation approaches that can enhance and expand the methods commonly used in global development. Since not all methods are equally suited to capture the different types of drivers of behavior, we present a decision aid for method selection. We recommend that existing commonly used methods, such as observations and surveys, use CUBES as a scaffold and incorporate validated measures of specific types of drivers in order to comprehensively test all the potential components of a target behavior. We also recommend under-used methods from sectors such as market research, experimental psychology, and decision science, which programs can use to extend their toolkit and test the importance and impact of key enablers and barriers. The CUBES toolkit enables programs across sectors to streamline the process of conceptualizing, designing, and optimizing interventions, and ultimately to change behaviors and achieve targeted outcomes.

Studying Professional Development as Part of the Complex Ecosystem of STEM Higher Education

Professional development in teaching is a critical component of ongoing work to improve student learning outcomes in higher education, especially STEM education. While there are many large-scale professional development programs designed to help participants change the way STEM is taught, few have thoroughly evaluated the outcomes to determine whether faculty members have adopted new techniques and transferred what they learned to their teaching practice. Importantly, without substantive assessment of long-term professional development outcomes, we are left with little evidence of program effectiveness. In this article we examine the current state of professional development evaluation in STEM higher education, propose possible study design elements to use when investigating the impact of professional development on instructors, and describe a novel longitudinal research design for the evaluation of professional development activities.

THE ILLINOIS ONLINE NETWORK IS MAKING THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM A REALITY: STUDY OF AN EXEMPLARY FACULTY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

The Illinois Online Network (ION) is a faculty development partnership between all forty-eight community colleges in the state of Illinois and the University of Illinois. The goals of the ION program are to help faculty to develop and deliver courses in a completely online format, and also to produce online courses that incorporate best practices for engaging students in discussion and critical thinking. ION accomplishes its goals with a variety of programs, such as the Making the Virtual Classroom a Reality series of online faculty development courses. Evaluation surveys indicate that ION activities have had an impact on the satisfaction and confidence of faculty teaching online courses. This paper examines the programs and resources that ION provides, the effectiveness of the program as a whole, and the lessons ION has learned about providing a large-scale faculty development program.

CUBES: A practical toolkit to measure enablers and barriers to behavior for effective intervention design

A pressing goal in global development and other sectors is often to understand what drives people’s behaviors, and how to influence them. Yet designing behavior change interventions is often an unsystematic process, hobbled by insufficient understanding of contextual and perceptual behavioral drivers and a narrow focus on limited research methods to assess them. We propose a toolkit (CUBES) of two solutions to help programs arrive at more effective interventions. First, we introduce a novel framework of behavior, which is a practical tool for programs to structure potential drivers and match corresponding interventions. This evidence-based framework was developed through extensive cross-sectoral literature research and refined through application in large-scale global development programs. Second, we propose a set of descriptive, experimental, and simulation approaches that can enhance and expand the methods commonly used in global development. Since not all methods are equally suited to capture the different types of drivers of behavior, we present a decision aid for method selection. We recommend that existing commonly used methods, such as observations and surveys, use CUBES as a scaffold and incorporate validated measures of specific types of drivers in order to comprehensively test all the potential components of a target behavior. We also recommend under-used methods from sectors such as market research, experimental psychology, and decision science, which programs can use to extend their toolkit and test the importance and impact of key enablers and barriers. The CUBES toolkit enables programs across sectors to streamline the process of conceptualizing, designing, and optimizing interventions, and ultimately to change behaviors and achieve targeted outcomes.