An internet of laboratory things

By creating “an Internet of Laboratory Things” we have built a blend of real and virtual laboratory spaces that enables students to gain practical skills necessary for their professional science and engineering careers. All our students are distance learners. This provides them by default with the proving ground needed to develop their skills in remotely operating equipment, and collaborating with peers despite not being co-located. Our laboratories accommodate state of the art research grade equipment, as well as large-class sets of off-the-shelf work stations and bespoke teaching apparatus. Distance to the student is no object and the facilities are open all hours. This approach is essential for STEM qualifications requiring development of practical skills, with higher efficiency and greater accessibility than achievable in a solely residential programme

Climate change: a new avenue for IWMI?

Climate change, Assessment, Drought, Models

External impact assessment of IFPRI's 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture and the Environment Initiative:

The 2020 Vision initiative of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was launched late in 1993, at a time of growing global complacency regarding international food security questions. The first phase of the 2020 Vision initiative (1993–96) featured the development of an innovative forward-looking partial equilibrium model of the international food and agriculture sector; the hosting of an extensive series of high profile conferences, workshops, and regional meetings; the publication and distribution of numerous substantive discussion papers, policy briefs, and regional synthesis papers; and the regular publication of a topical newsletter. The goal was to refocus attention on current and future challenges in areas such as food security, agricultural development, rural poverty, and environmental protection; to catalyze a new consensus on these issues within the international policy community; and to encourage policy leaders—both in the donor community and in the developing world—to commit more energy and resources to resolve food security concerns. The present report is an independent effort, commissioned by IFPRI, to measure the actual impact, to date, of this ongoing 2020 Vision initiative. The impacts examined include impacts on three different audiences: researchers and educators, international policy leaders, and developing-country policy leaders. For each of these audiences, an assessment is given as to whether the 2020 Vision initiative significantly “reached” the audience in question with its materials and messages; whether 2020 had an impact on the policy thinking of this audience; and whether 2020 actually catalyzed any new policy actions by this audience. 2020 activities, from materials published by other organizations working in the food security and agricultural development area, and from materials gathered from donors, international organizations, and the nongovernmental organization (NGO) community.Food security., Environmental protection., agricultural development, poverty, Developing countries., Impact assessment,

Transforming teaching & learning in higher education: Stories of impact from the Aga Khan University

https://ecommons.aku.edu/books/1130/thumbnail.jp

Video in development : filming for rural change

This book is about using video in rural interventions for social change. It gives a glimpse into the many creative ways in which video can be used in rural development activities. Capitalising on experience in this field, the books aims to encourage development professionals to explore the potential of video in development, making it a more coherent, better understood and properly used development tool - in short, filming for rural change

Understanding Disaster Recovery Planning through a Theatre Metaphor: Rehearsing for a Show that Might Never Open

Disaster recovery planning for organizations is fundamental and often urgent. Planning supports the firm\u27s ability to recover the core business functionality of its software, data, and systems after the occurrence of a natural or man-made disaster. Organizations must take steps to protect their software, systems and data backups from natural disasters, power outages, and even terrorist attacks. However the issue of disaster recovery is often awash in checklists or marooned in mundane statistics. Such sterile approaches tend to lead key managers, CEOs, and CIOs to relegate disaster recovery planning to a lower priority when they become overwhelmed with planning minutiae or bored with staid presentations. This paper introduces a theatre metaphor to enable a lively discussion and deeper understanding of disaster recovery planning. Specifically, we introduce the concept of workshopping a play. We explore this new approach from the world of theatrical productions to illuminate and deepen understanding of the importance of testing, evaluation, and reworking of scenarios for each potential disaster

Payments for Environmental Services: Some Nuts and Bolts

Payments for environmental services (PES) are part of a new and more direct conservation paradigm, explicitly recognizing the need to bridge the interests of landowners and outsiders. Eloquent theoretical assessments have praised the absolute advantages of PES over traditional conservation approaches. Some pilot PES exist in the tropics, but many fi eld practitioners and prospective service buyers and sellers remain skeptical about the concept. This paper aims to help demystify PES for non-economists, starting with a simple and coherent defi nition of the term. It then provides practical 'how-to' hints for PES design. It considers the likely niche for PES in the portfolio of conservation approaches. This assessment is based on a literature review, combined with fi eld observations from research in Latin America and Asia. It concludes that service users will continue to drive PES, but their willingness to pay will only rise if schemes can demonstrate clear additionality vis-à-vis carefully established baselines, if trust-building processes with service providers are sustained, and PES recipients' livelihood dynamics is better understood. PES best suits intermediate and/or projected threat scenarios, often in marginal lands with moderate conservation opportunity costs. People facing credible but medium-sized environmental degradation are more likely to become PES recipients than those living in relative harmony with Nature. The choice between PES cash and in-kind payments is highly context-dependent. Poor PES recipients are likely to gain from participation, though their access might be constrained and non-participating landless poor could lose out. PES is a highly promising conservation approach that can benefi t buyers, sellers and improv

THE DEATH RATTLE OF OPEN ACCESS AND THE ADVENT OF PROPERTY RIGHTS REGIMES IN FISHERIES

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,