A study of human resource competencies required to implement community rehabilitation in less resourced settings.

BACKGROUND: It is estimated that over one billion persons worldwide have some form of disability. However, there is lack of knowledge and prioritisation of how to serve the needs and provide opportunities for people with disabilities. The community-based rehabilitation (CBR) guidelines, with sufficient and sustained support, can assist in providing access to rehabilitation services, especially in less resourced settings with low resources for rehabilitation. In line with strengthening the implementation of the health-related CBR guidelines, this study aimed to determine what workforce characteristics at the community level enable quality rehabilitation services, with a focus primarily on less resourced settings. METHODOLOGY: This was a two-phase review study using (1) a relevant literature review informed by realist synthesis methodology and (2) Delphi survey of the opinions of relevant stakeholders regarding the findings of the review. It focused on individuals (health professionals, lay health workers, community rehabilitation workers) providing services for persons with disabilities in less resourced settings. RESULTS: Thirty-three articles were included in this review. Three Delphi iterations with 19 participants were completed. Taken together, these produced 33 recommendations for developing health-related rehabilitation services. Several general principles for configuring the community rehabilitation workforce emerged: community-based initiatives can allow services to reach more vulnerable populations; the need for supportive and structured supervision at the facility level; core skills likely include case management, social protection, monitoring and record keeping, counselling skills and mechanisms for referral; community ownership; training in CBR matrix and advocacy; a tiered/teamwork system of service delivery; and training should take a rights-based approach, include practical components, and involve persons with disabilities in the delivery and planning. CONCLUSION: This research can contribute to implementing the WHO guidelines on the interaction between the health sector and CBR, particularly in the context of the Framework for Action for Strengthening Health Systems, in which human resources is one of six components. Realist syntheses can provide policy makers with detailed and practical information regarding complex health interventions, which may be valuable when planning and implementing programmes

A case-based reasoning approach to improve risk identification in construction projects

Risk management is an important process to enhance the understanding of the project so as to support decision making. Despite well established existing methods, the application of risk management in practice is frequently poor. The reasons for this are investigated as accuracy, complexity, time and cost involved and lack of knowledge sharing. Appropriate risk identification is fundamental for successful risk management. Well known risk identification methods require expert knowledge, hence risk identification depends on the involvement and the sophistication of experts. Subjective judgment and intuition usually from par1t of experts’ decision, and sharing and transferring this knowledge is restricted by the availability of experts. Further, psychological research has showed that people have limitations in coping with complex reasoning. In order to reduce subjectivity and enhance knowledge sharing, artificial intelligence techniques can be utilised. An intelligent system accumulates retrievable knowledge and reasoning in an impartial way so that a commonly acceptable solution can be achieved. Case-based reasoning enables learning from experience, which matches the manner that human experts catch and process information and knowledge in relation to project risks. A case-based risk identification model is developed to facilitate human experts making final decisions. This approach exploits the advantage of knowledge sharing, increasing confidence and efficiency in investment decisions, and enhancing communication among the project participants

Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Community Based Rural Tourism (CBRT) Development: the case of East Coast Economic Region (ECER), Malaysia

The launch of sustainable community based rural tourism (CBRT) programs in 1996 by the Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia (MOTOUR) indicated the government's commitment to incorporate sustainable development principles into the national tourism planning and development framework. Since then, the programs have been widely promoted by the government through various agencies and strongly embraced by the rural communities. Although the programs promise much potential such as job creations, provide an alternative of income for the rural household while promoting culture preservation and environment protection, recent studies showed that there was an issue of lack of monitoring of performance and progress of the programs due to the absence of criteria and indicators. From this research point of view, the absence of monitoring tools such as indicators could create obstacles and challenges, especially for the government and other donor agencies, in assessing the return on their investment in the programs and other impacts on the communities involved. Through extensive review of literature, a sufficient number of a preliminary list of criteria and indicators were identified. Each criteria and indicators were assigned into different category of sustainable CBRT namely economic, socio-cultural, environment and institutional. 64 preliminary indicators covered by eight criteria were identified by brought forward for the next stage: formulation of survey questionnaire. The identification and selection of a set of indicators using questionnaire survey was carried out using a Delphi exercise with experts and survey of local stakeholders. For the Delphi exercise, 20 experts were identified (academics, government officials, NGOs and tourism consultants) and consulted during the Stage One of Delphi consultation (selection of importa!lt indicators). However, due to the unavoidable issue of experts' dropout, a smaller number of 11 experts were maintained for Stage Two (ranking of indicators). The surveys of local stakeholders were carried out during the Stage Two involving 85 respondents from three selected villages as case studies (Le. Kuala Medang, Teluk Ketapang and Seterpa) located in the East Coast Economic Region (BCER). As a result, out of 64 indicators initially listed in the survey questionnaire, 47 indicators were selected both by the experts and by local stakeholders and included in the final list of indicators. The fieldwork results indicate that both the experts and local stakeholders are interested to support the idea of indicators formulation for monitoring the CBRT progress. At the final stage of the research, the proposed list of 47 indicators was put to test to assess the applicability and measurability of indicators for monitoring CBRT performances in the three villages i.e. Kuala Medang, Teluk Ketapang and Seterpa where 50 respondents participated in the survey. The field test intended to measure the uptake of sustainable economic, socio-cultural, environment and institution practices of CBRT program in all three villages. The outcomes for the analysis on uptake of CBRT economic and institution practices has shown a moderate success level with both 54% and 76% of an overall achievement while the analysis on uptake of CBRT socio-cultural and environment practices has shown a high success level with both 72% and 52% of an overall achievement. The field test revealed that the proposed indicators have been shown to be useful for measuring CBRT performance in the three case study villages. Furthermore, the achievement of CBR T practices could be determined as either low, or moderate or highly sustainable using index score approach. The results from quantitative and qualitative data collection processes could provide vital information to researchers, local hosts and other stakeholders about the current performance in the CBR T program from all major categories of indicators: economic, social-cultural, and environment and institution. In conclusion, the results from field test of indicators could inform decision makers and the CBRT participants in general about "where they are", i.e. based on the current level of sustainability practices, and "where they want to go", i.e. the local hosts' go~l or target setting for development of CBRT program. More importantly, indicators could also reveal to local hosts and other stakeholders "how far they are from achieving their goal/target"

Imagining the future of cross border management within the Fraser Lowland: a Delphi analysis of environmental issues.

Fraser Lowland, a unified bio-region divided between Whatcom County, Washington and lower mainland British Columbia, challenges development of consistent and effective environmental resource management. The recent impasse over a proposed power plant on the US side is a case in point. The main stumbling block was expected trans-border air-shed stress levels. In the absence of established cross-border institutional structures for air quality, the issue has evolved in an apparently makeshift and somewhat chaotic manner. This research drawing upon recent literature involving cross border regions [CBRs] and new forms of governance engendered in them will investigates current cross border perceptions on common environmental issues exploring whether necessary conditions are present for the emergence of cross border regional governance. The Delphi methodology using key government and non-government actors on both sides of the border was used to explore this question by addressing the specific issue do respondents have a similar sense of the most pressing cross border environmental issues and to the same relative degree. Results of the study this in the affirmative, but do raise additional questions of meeting sufficient conditions for CBR activity

The Trade-off between Fertility and Education: Evidence from before the Demographic Transition

The trade-off between child quantity and education is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed before the demographic transition, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Estimating two separate instrumental-variable models that instrument education by landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg and fertility by previous-generation fertility and sex-imbalance ratio, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways. Furthermore, education in 1849 predicts the fertility transition in 1880-1905.schooling, fertility transition, unified growth theory, 19th-century Prussia

The Trade-off between Fertility and Education: Evidence from before the Demographic Transition

The trade-off between child quantity and education is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed before the demographic transition, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Estimating two separate instrumental-variable models that instrument education by landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg and fertility by previous-generation fertility and sex-imbalance ratio, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways. Furthermore, education in 1849 predicts the fertility transition in 1880-1905.schooling, fertility transition, unified growth theory, 19th-century Prussia

An Experimental Comparison of Three Machine Learning Techniques for Web Cost Estimation

Many comparative studies on the performance of machine learning (ML) techniques for web cost estimation (WCE) have been reported in the literature. However, not much attention have been given to understanding the conceptual differences and similarities that exist in the application of these ML techniques for WCE, which could provide credible guide for upcoming practitioners and researchers in predicting the cost of new web projects. This paper presents a comparative analysis of three prominent machine learning techniques – Case-Based Reasoning (CBR), Support Vector Regression (SVR) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) – in terms of performance, applicability, and their conceptual differences and similarities for WCE by using data obtained from a public dataset (www.tukutuku.com). Results from experiments show that SVR and ANN provides more accurate predictions of effort, although SVR require fewer parameters to generate good predictions than ANN. CBR was not as accurate, but its good explanation attribute gives it a higher descriptive value. The study also outlined specific characteristics of the 3 ML techniques that could foster or inhibit their adoption for WCE

Expert judgement in resource forecasting : insights from the application of the Delphi method

Through application in a world-leading automotive business, this paper explores the practicalities of applying a new method for forecasting resource requirements in the absence of data. The method involves a one off effort to capture expert knowledge in a very structured fashion leading to the formation of regression equations for prediction. Creating such models creates a new conundrum: how can quantitative forecasting models, constructed through structured expert estimations, be validated and accepted in the absence of data? We employ Delphi and find that, with adaptation, it can lead to acceptance of the models generated using the new data-less method

Expert judgement in resource forecasting : insights form the application of the Delphi method

Through application in a world-leading automotive business, this paper explores the practicalities of applying a new method for forecasting resource requirements in the absence of data. The method involves a one off effort to capture expert knowledge in a very structured fashion leading to the formation of regression equations for prediction. Creating such models creates a new conundrum: how can quantitative forecasting models, constructed through structured expert estimations, be validated and accepted in the absence of data? We employ Delphi and find that, with adaptation, it can lead to acceptance of the models generated using the new data-less method

An Investigation into Software Estimation Methods

There are currently no fully validated estimation approaches that can accurately predict the effort needed for developing a software system (Kitchenham, et al, 1995). Information gathered at the early stages of system development is not enough to provide precise effort estimates, even though similar software systems may have been developed in the past. Where similar systems have been developed, there are often inherent differences in the features of these systems and in the development process used. These differences are often sufficient to significantly reduce estimation accuracy. Historically, cost estimation focuses on project effort and duration. There are many estimation techniques, but none is consistently ‘best’ (Shepperd, 2003). Software project management has become a crucial field of research due to the increasing role of software in today’s world. Improving the functions of project management is a main concern in software development organisation. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a new model which incorporates cultural and leadership factors in the cost estimation model, and is based on Case-Based Reasoning. The thesis defines a new knowledge representation “ontology” to provide a common understanding of project parameters. The associated system uses a statistically simulated bootstrap method, which helps in tuning the analogy approach before application to real projects. This research also introduces a new application of Profile Theory, which takes a formal approach to the measurement of leadership capabilities. A pilot study was performed in order to understand the approaches used for cost estimation in the Gulf region. Based on this initial study, a questionnaire was further refined and tested. Consequently, further surveys were conducted in the United Arab Emirates. It was noticed that most of the software development projects failed in terms of cost estimate. This was due to the lack of a precise software estimation model. These studies also highlighted the importance of leadership and culture in software cost estimation. Effort was estimated using regression and analogy. The Bootstrap method was used to refine the estimate of effort based on analogy, with correction for bias. Due to the very different nature of the core and support systems, a separate model was developed for each of them. As a result of the study, a new model for identifying and analysing was developed. The model was then evaluated, and conclusions were drawn. These show the importance of the model and the factors of organisational culture and leadership in software project development and in cost estimation. Potential areas for future research were identified