A Hidden Resource: Household-led Rural Water Supply in Ethiopia

Self supply as a strategy for WASH is defined as "improvement to water supplies delivered largely or wholly through user investment usually at household level." The two research studies reported on in this paper examined self supply in rural Ethiopia, gaining insights on the performance of existing family wells, factors that affect the decision of families to build their own wells and the way they use them, and elements of the enabling environment that can be targeted to promote self supply

Assessing Opportunities for Livelihood Enhancement and Diversification in Coastal Fishing Communities of Southern India

"The United Nations Team for Tsunami Recovery Support (UNTRS) based in Chennai,India, is facilitating the process of tsunami recovery in the region through specific interventions in strategic areas. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of United Nations (FAO) as a part of the UNTRS team aims to set clear directions to ensure sustainable livelihoods for fishers. It has a pro-poor focus. With the fisheries sector suffering from both over-capitalization and resource depletion, the livelihoods of poor fishers and fisherfolk communities have been badly hit, and the tsunami has aggravated their misery. While relief measures have helped, what's essential for the long term is to improve livelihood opportunities. They need to be enhanced and diversified. Many development interventions have been attempted. But what's needed is a viable people-centric approach that taps the strengths of coastal fisheries and draws on them. Hence this study on ""Assessing opportunities for livelihood enhancement and diversification in coastal fishing communities of southern India."" carried out by Integrated Coastal Management, Kakinada. The study covers tsunami-affected areas in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The study has analysed a number of inherent strategies of the fishers to enhance and diversify livelihoods, both past and present. It has come out with a planning framework for livelihoods enhancement and diversification. Stakeholders in fisheries can make use of the framework, validate its usefulness, and decide and further develop appropriate tool box. They may then spell out the support and co-operation necessary from other stakeholders.

A Comparative Study of Coq and HOL

This paper illustrates the differences between the style of theory mechanisation of Coq and of HOL. This comparative study is based on the mechanisation of fragments of the theory of computation in these systems. Examples from these implementations are given to support some of the arguments discussed in this paper. The mechanisms for specifying definitions and for theorem proving are discussed separately, building in parallel two pictures of the different approaches of mechanisation given by these systems

Reasoning about causality in games

Causal reasoning and game-theoretic reasoning are fundamental topics in artificial intelligence, among many other disciplines: this paper is concerned with their intersection. Despite their importance, a formal framework that supports both these forms of reasoning has, until now, been lacking. We offer a solution in the form of (structural) causal games, which can be seen as extending Pearl's causal hierarchy to the game-theoretic domain, or as extending Koller and Milch's multi-agent influence diagrams to the causal domain. We then consider three key questions: i) How can the (causal) dependencies in games – either between variables, or between strategies – be modelled in a uniform, principled manner? ii) How may causal queries be computed in causal games, and what assumptions does this require? iii) How do causal games compare to existing formalisms? To address question i), we introduce mechanised games, which encode dependencies between agents' decision rules and the distributions governing the game. In response to question ii), we present definitions of predictions, interventions, and counterfactuals, and discuss the assumptions required for each. Regarding question iii), we describe correspondences between causal games and other formalisms, and explain how causal games can be used to answer queries that other causal or game-theoretic models do not support. Finally, we highlight possible applications of causal games, aided by an extensive open-source Python library

Establishing knowledge and skill in a novel system-supervisory task: an application to automated mail sorting

This thesis aims to establish methods for identifying and training the knowledge and skills of operating a novel automated system still undergoing final design and construction. The absence of operating experience requires the characteristics of the system to be examined so that the future tasks of supervisors can be anticipated in order to address human factors design. This work is carried out in the context of an 'Integrated Mail Processor' (IMP)—a highly automated letter sorting machine being developed by Royal Mail. [Continues.

The provision of humanitarian aid in complex emergencies: a case study of Somalia

This thesis examines the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Somalia at the turn of the 21st Century. Humanitarian assistance is considered as an ideal and the key question is, can it be effective in a chronic emergency? Humanitarian assistance itself is examined in detail and placed in a broader context of ideas of vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity in response to disasters. The thesis is grounded on evidence based evaluation to generate conclusions for programme and project management. The method taken is one of using conventional social science methods to come to evaluative judgement. The nature of evaluative judgement requires an understanding of the purpose and content of evaluation itself, which is extensively discussed in the methods chapter. The ethics of work in disaster situations is also addressed. The case material comes from two evaluations namely for Action by Churches Together and Norwegian Church Aid conducted in Somalia in 2006-07. The key findings from the case material is that humanitarian projects in chronic emergencies must be delivered within the cultural context i.e. religion supported delivery. The reasons for this are that such delivery pays attention to the critical role of beneficiaries in ensuring effective and sustainable project implementation. This raises key issues about the validity of the top down delivery of humanitarian assistance as well as an understanding of chronic emergency as development rather than disaster projects. The thesis concludes with observations on the limitations of evaluation in the context of humanitarian assistance. It reinforces the central directive of humanitarian delivery as ‘do no harm’ and shows that there are opportunities to ‘do some good’

Report of inception workshop on globalisation and seafood trade legislation: The impact on poverty in India

DFID’s Post Harvest Fisheries Research Programme seeks to develop strategies and management systems to improve post harvest utilisation of fish in ways that will make an impact on lives of poor producers, processors, traders and consumers. “Globalisation & Seafood Trade Legislation – The Impact On Poverty In India” is the title of a project funded by DFID under the Post Harvest Fisheries Research Programme (PHFRP). Prior to finalisation of the project proposal, the collaborators – the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), Catalyst Management Services (CMS) and South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS) – decided to meet with various possible stakeholders and key informants. An inception workshop was organised in Visakhapatnam, India, on 21 and 22 June 2001, of which this document is the record. The workshop started with a series of presentations including one on a related PHFRP project – “Changing Fish Utilisation and Its Impact on the Poor in India” by Integrated Marine Management Ltd (IMM). That was followed by identification of key issues. Against the background of these key issues, further short presentations were made (by selected workshop participants with relevant knowledge), based on which a shortlist of researchable issues was produced. Finally, it was agreed that no conclusive statements could be made on researchable issues and specific research sites for the fieldwork, given the limited information available. By end of October 2001, the research collaborators (SIFFS, CMS and NRI) will produce literature reviews to make full use of secondary information sources available to generate ideas about the key research issues and to avoid duplication of previous work. In addition, it was felt vital that fieldwork research activities should be co-ordinated and linked to the related PHFRP project “Changing Fish Utilisation and Its Impact on the Poor in India”. The key findings and recommendations from the scoping studies, conducted in the selected states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Orissa, should feed into the final formulation of research issues and sites, to ensure integration and linkages given the limited resources available. The workshop ended with agreement among project collaborators on the ways forward, especially with regard to the literature reviews and initial fieldwork, to be finalised by the end of October 2001): a) Report on the Workshop (CMS, with inputs from NRI and SIFFS); b) An overview of international seafood legislation (NRI); c) A literature review of globalisation and sustainable livelihoods, with particular reference to the fishery sector (NRI); d) An analysis of trends in Indian seafood exports and trends in major markets (NRI); e) A review of the 1997 EU import ban on shrimp exports from India (SIFFS); f) Indian actions and re-actions to external Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary regulations and legislation, including a history of fish inspection in recent times (SIFFS); g) A review of export supply chains in Andhra Pradesh (SIFFS); h) A review of export supply chains in Kerala (SIFFS); and i) A review of export supply chains in Orissa (CMS). On completion of these studies, further detailed fieldwork will be undertaken in three selected states, beginning in Andhra Pradesh, followed by fieldwork in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, Kerala