Building governance and anti-corruption in the Philippines'conditional cash transfer program

The Philippine social protection notes series aims to summarize the good practices and key findings from the Philippines on the topics related to social protection, covering a variety of types of issues including Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) and targeting, broadening the social protection policy dialogue, analysis on social protection and service delivery. The Philippines is implementing a CCT program, which is called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (PPPP). CCT program provides cash to poorest households as long as the beneficiary households comply with the conditions of the program. Health grants are provided for beneficiary households with children 0-14 years old and/or with pregnant women with the conditions that all children 0-5 years old and the pregnant women visit health centers and receive services according to Department of Health (DOH) protocol, all children 6-14 years old undergo de-worming protocol at schools, and the household grantees (mainly women) attend family development sessions at least once a month. Education grants are provided for beneficiary households with children 6-14 years old with the conditions that the children are enrolled in primary or secondary school and maintain a class attendance rate of 85 percent every month.Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,National Governance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Governance Indicators

Strengthening the Bank's population work in the nineties

This paper argues that the Bank should give renewed priority to population matters and accelerate the current upward trend in lending for family planning programs in the 1990s. It is timely for two reasons. First, the need for bank action in population will increase in the 1990s as a result of growing unmet demand for family planning and stagnant bilateral assistance levels. Second, there is evidence that the initial effects of the 1987 World Bank reorganization have been to strengthening the potential for population work by integrating it more fully with economic analysis and overall country programming, but some further adjustments would assure that the potential could be realized. As the largest and most influential international development organization, there is an important leadership role for the Bank in promoting population policy analysis, dialogue, and in financing family planning programs.Adolescent Health,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Agricultural Research,Reproductive Health,Early Child and Children's Health

A Study of Accomodation of Prosodic and Temporal Features in Spoken Dialogues in View of Speech Technology Applications

Inter-speaker accommodation is a well-known property of human speech and human interaction in general. Broadly it refers to the behavioural patterns of two (or more) interactants and the effect of the (verbal and non-verbal) behaviour of each to that of the other(s). Implementation of thisbehavior in spoken dialogue systems is desirable as an improvement on the naturalness of humanmachine interaction. However, traditional qualitative descriptions of accommodation phenomena do not provide sufficient information for such an implementation. Therefore, a quantitativedescription of inter-speaker accommodation is required. This thesis proposes a methodology of monitoring accommodation during a human or humancomputer dialogue, which utilizes a moving average filter over sequential frames for each speaker. These frames are time-aligned across the speakers, hence the name Time Aligned Moving Average (TAMA). Analysis of spontaneous human dialogue recordings by means of the TAMA methodology reveals ubiquitous accommodation of prosodic features (pitch, intensity and speech rate) across interlocutors, and allows for statistical (time series) modeling of the behaviour, in a way which is meaningful for implementation in spoken dialogue system (SDS) environments.In addition, a novel dialogue representation is proposed that provides an additional point of view to that of TAMA in monitoring accommodation of temporal features (inter-speaker pause length and overlap frequency). This representation is a percentage turn distribution of individual speakercontributions in a dialogue frame which circumvents strict attribution of speaker-turns, by considering both interlocutors as synchronously active. Both TAMA and turn distribution metrics indicate that correlation of average pause length and overlap frequency between speakers can be attributed to accommodation (a debated issue), and point to possible improvements in SDS “turntaking” behaviour. Although the findings of the prosodic and temporal analyses can directly inform SDS implementations, further work is required in order to describe inter-speaker accommodation sufficiently, as well as to develop an adequate testing platform for evaluating the magnitude ofperceived improvement in human-machine interaction. Therefore, this thesis constitutes a first step towards a convincingly useful implementation of accommodation in spoken dialogue systems

Dialogue and the machine: an interactional perspective on computer dialogue models, mediation and artifacts

The topic of this thesis is the notion of dialogue and how machines have not only influenced the development of our understanding of this fundamental human social activity but also the possibilities for engaging in mediated dialogue. In particular, the concern is with its adoption and distortion from a computational point of view. An interactional perspective is developed that provides insight into the problems and limitations of computer dialogue models, motivates the investigation of the achievement of dialogue mediated 'through' machines, and informs the conception and design of computer systems (or artifacts) that support the metaphor of dialogue 'with' machines. To motivate a reconstruction of the notion of dialogue and a different understanding of the status of machines in terms of action, a critical analysis of computer models of dialogue, concerning theory, data and implementation, is given. In general, computer models lack a consideration of interaction as a constitutive domain, assume the interchange model of dialogue, promote a sanitised view of data, and are a poor foundation for the design of machines that are to engage in dialogue-like behaviour with a user. An alternative interactional perspective is derived from hermeneutics and ethnomethodology in which it is argued that the machine is an intelligible - not intelligent - artifact, and communicative activity is circumstantial, situated and interactively constituted. Instead of reifying dialogue as the repeated exchange of discrete messages between isolated cognitive processors (the interchange model), dialogue is understood here to be the collection of practices in which parties are mutually engaged in coordinating communicative actions and achieving shared understanding out of the materials at hand. The empirical methodology of the thesis comes from conversation analysis and forms the basis for the investigation of the achievement of dialogue 'through' machines. A detailed audio-visual study of a particular computer-mediated communication modality is presented. Parties engaged in cooperatively constructing mutual orientation in dialogue (in a virtual dialogue space) were recorded and features of their conduct were rendered for analysis with the aid of a notation system specially developed for this study. The findings are that the computer-mediated dialogue activity is a skilled, interactive accomplishment in which dialogic presence, monitoring and participation are contingently created and maintained. An emergent transformation of the dialogue activity demonstrates the situated work of constructing participation, a process that is shaped by the dynamics of that activity. A brief study of copresent collaboration documents two further features: the embodiment of actions and their complementarity. The consequences of the interactional perspective and the empirical study for computer models and dialogue 'with' machines are discussed. Suggestions are also made about an alternative use of computer modelling for dialogue 'between' machines, and about the future of dialogue mediation and artifacts

Strengthening America's Best Idea: An Independent Review of the National Park Service's Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate

NRSS requested that an independent panel of the National Academy conduct a review of its effectiveness in five core functions, its relationships with key internal stakeholders, and its performance measurement system. Among other things, the National Park Service's Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate (NRSS) is responsible for providing usable natural and social science information throughout the National Park Service (NPS). NRSS leadership requested this review of the directorate's performance on five core functions, its relationships with key internal NPS stakeholders, and its performance measurement system.Main FindingsThe panel determined that NRSS is a highly regarded organization that provides independent, credible scientific expertise and technical information. The panel also found that NRSS and NPS have additional opportunities to advance natural resource stewardship throughout the Service. If implemented, the panel's eight major recommendations will: (1) help the Service respond to the parks' environmental challenges while raising public awareness about the condition of these special places; (2) strengthen NRSS as an organization; (3) promote scientifically based decision-making at the national, regional, and park levels; and (4) improve the existing performance measurement system

Development Partner Group-Health Retreat

Following the publication of the draft Tanzanian Joint Assistance Strategy (JAS) in July 2005 which outlined a medium-term framework for enhancing aid effectiveness through the rationalisation and alignment of development partner approaches, a series of consultations on this draft strategy took place both within government agencies and among Development Partners. The Development Partner Group in Health (DPG-H) took this opportunity to hold a two-day workshop in late September with the first day devoted to discussing the implications of the JAS for Development Partners, Ministry of Health and President's Office Regional Administration and Local Government. The second day was used as a time to internally reflect on the present functioning of the DPG-H Group, identifying ways of enhancing the work of the group in response to the changing environment. Discussions on the first day of the Retreat were structured around the five key elements of the JAS, i.e., Sector Dialogue, Aid Modalities, TA and Capacity Building, Division of Labour and Monitoring & Evaluation. Presentations were made by Development Partners with input/comments and clarification given by the Ministry of Health, President's Office Regional Administration and Local Government; and Ministry of Finance. Group work was undertaken in the afternoon to further address pertinent issues that were raised from the plenary discussions in the morning session. This resulted in a number of recommendations that included the following: supporting an effective division of labour; harmonising support with government plans and priorities irrespective of the funding modality; complementarity and coordination enhanced between the various aid modalities; basket funding to continue as a transition towards General Budget Support (GBS); demand driven technical assistance; and over time developing an agreed competency/profile skills mix of health development partners. The second day was an opportunity for members of the DPG-H to come together and reflect on the work of the group - where it had come from, the current functioning of the group (strengths/challenges) and looking forward. A number of presentations were made that covered the background of the group; the history of the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) and the role of development partners; the sector dialogue structures, the expectations and challenges with respect to communication; strengthening the ways of working as a group and the development of an activity plan for prioritising activities. During the plenary sessions a number of recommendations were agreed that included better structuring of the DPG-H meetings; regularity of meetings (once month but more frequently when required); enhancing the coherency and linkages with the overall Development Partner Group; developing and agreeing a work plan and communication strategy; re-visiting the division of labour in terms of roles and responsibilities; putting in place a fully staffed DPG-H Secretariat and organising a troika chairing structure for the group. Moreover, a number of critical suggestions and recommendations were made for further strengthening sector dialogue that centred around revising the structure of the SWAp. As they had implications beyond the mandate of the DPG-H, it was concluded that this would require further discussions, elaboration and agreement by the Ministry of Health/PORALG.\u

A corpus-based analysis of route instructions in human-robot interaction

This paper investigates how users employ spatial descriptions to navigate a speech-enabled robot. We created a simulated environment in which users gave route instructions in a dialogic real-time interaction with a robot, which was operated by naïve participants. The ability of robot monitoring was also manipulated in two experimental conditions. The results provide evidence that the content of the instructions and strategies of the users vary depending on the conditions and demands of the interaction. As expected, the route instructions frequently were underspecified and arbitrary. The findings of this study elucidate the complexity in interpreting spatial language in HRI. However, they also point to the need for endowing mobile robots with richer dialogue resources to compensate for the uncertainties arising from language as well as the environment

Coleridge: A computer tool for assisting musical reflection and self‐explanation

This paper examines some of the problems involved when learning how to compose music. A prototype computer‐based music tool called Coleridge is described. Coleridge was used in a study that investigated the dialogues that took place when a mentor attempted to encourage creative reflection in students. Results of dialogue analysis suggested that because learners seem unable to make accurate predictions about how a musical phrase will sound, there is a real need for a computer‐based learning assistant. Finally, the paper reports on how these findings were used to motivate the design of a mentor's assistant in a new version of Coleridge