The 2011 Famine in Somalia: lessons learnt from a failed response?

The 2011 famine in Somalia was predicted and could have been mitigated or prevented if the humanitarian response had been timely and more effective. To improve responsiveness to early warnings, action is required to better insulate the humanitarian system from political agendas.Abaarta ka dhacday Soomaaliya 2011 waxay ahayd mid horay loo saadaaliyay, waana laga tabaabasheysan karay ama laga hortegi karay haddii falgalka samafalku uu ahaan lahaa mid degdeg ah oo waxtar leh. Si loo hagaajiyo falgalka habka qayladhaanta, waxaa loo baahanyahay in samafalka, gebi ahaan, laga saaro siyaasadda.La carestia del 2011 in Somalia era stata prevista e avrebbe potuto essere attenuata o evitata se la risposta umanitaria fosse stata tempestiva ed efficace. Per migliorare la risposta ai sistemi di preallarme, è necessario isolare maggiormente il sistema umanitario dall'agenda politica

On trial: agricultural biotechnology in Africa

Increasing agricultural productivity and adapting farming to climate change are central to Africa’s development prospects. There are important opportunities to enhance yields and increase resilience through the adoption of improved crop varieties. In some cases, biotechnology, and in particular genetic modification (GM), offers advantages over conventional plant-breeding approaches. Accordingly there are a various projects under way to develop new GM varieties for African farmers, ranging from drought-resistant maize to varieties of cassava, banana, sorghum, cowpea and sweet potato with resistance to pests and disease. In addition to government funds, these projects have also attracted the support of influential donor agencies and philanthropic foundations. However, despite the expenditure of considerable resources, the potential of GM in Africa is not being realized. So far no GM trait developed for African farmers has been put to use. Multiple barriers inhibit the development and adoption of pro-poor GM varieties in Africa. On the demand side, farmers may be reluctant to adopt GM varieties owing to a lack of export opportunities and distrust of the technology among local consumers. Farmers may also be concerned about exploitation by transnational seed companies (despite the fact that development of new GM technologies in Africa is dominated by the public sector). On the supply side, donor funding struggles to match the long timescales of research and development, while incentives among research scientists may be poorly aligned with farmer outcomes. Non-existent, poorly functioning or overly punitive regulatory regimes discourage investment. The most important barriers – such as regulatory constraints, consumer distrust and weak farmer demand – must be understood in the context of wider social and political dynamics surrounding GM, typified by misinformation, polarized public discourse, and dysfunctional and opportunistic politics. The result is most GM projects becoming ‘stuck’ at the field trial stage without ever progressing to release. This ‘convenient deadlock’ of continual field trials allows governments to manage political risks by effectively balancing the demands of pro-GM and anti-GM lobbies – proponents of GM have a pipeline of technologies, while opponents are appeased by the failure of any to gain approval. The disabling socio-political environment for GM development in Africa greatly reduces the efficacy of investment in this technology. This has two important implications. First, technology development needs to be located within a wider project of transformation that engages key actors – most notably politicians, policy-makers and farmers – as stakeholders from the outset, and includes strategies to address multiple demand- and supply-side barriers. Second, successful adoption is more likely in countries with less disabling political conditions, characterized by lower levels of consumer distrust and opposition, genuine farmer demand and demonstrable commitment from government. Focusing efforts and resources on a small number of ‘best bet’ countries will also allow donors and technology providers to support more ambitious, transformational projects led by national governments

Rationalisation of long-term high-dose opioids for chronic pain: Development of an intervention and conceptual framework

There has been a large increase in the number of prescriptions for opioid drugs in the United Kingdom over the last 20 years or more and the prescribing of opioids in high doses continues to increase. Much opioid prescribing is for chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) despite serious doubts about the long-term effectiveness of opioids for this indication. Clinical experience is that there are increasing numbers of patients who are on high dosages of opioid drugs over sustained periods which provide limited or no pain relief while having significant negative effects on functioning and quality of life. The aim of this article is to bring readers’ attention to some clinical observations of the CNCP population with high doses and to describe an intervention to reduce these doses. Many of these patients have no clinical features of addiction; we suggest that those who show little or no substance misuse behaviours are best understood as a distinct clinical population who have different treatment needs. In order to understand and treat these patients, a model is required which, rather than seeing the problem as lying solely with the patient, focuses on the interaction between the individual and his or her environment and seeks a change in what the patient does every day, rather than a simple, and largely unattainable, goal of symptom elimination. The clinician authors worked together to develop an intervention based upon approaches taken from both pain management and psychiatric practice. A detailed description of this rapid opioid reduction intervention (RORI) is provided along with some preliminary outcome data

UK hotel industry brand equity : Its meaning and uses for brand management.

Brand equity has been put forward as an important concept in contemporary brand management. However, it suffers from a lack of agreement over its meaning and uses. A particular lack of clarity exists within the context of the hotel industry. Against this backdrop, the research presented in this thesis sought to explore and evaluate critically the meaning and uses of the brand equity concept in UK hotel industry brand management. The literature review identified a variety of different definitions and operationalisations of brand equity. Even though there are multiple definitions of brand equity (which has led to much confusion), an overriding principle appears to be that brands, through the benefits they offer, can provide value to consumers. If brands provide value to consumers, loyalty will be created and consumers may be willing to pay a price premium for the brand. Brand equity has been viewed from both the consumer perspective (e.g., perceptions that consumers have of brands, and how this influences behaviour), and from the company viewpoint (e.g., the financial value created by the brand). Whilst the hotel industry branding and brand equity literature is limited to a small number of empirical research studies, the available evidence suggests a relationship between consumer-based brand equity and a brand's financial performance. During the literature review, a conceptual framework was developed to illustrate proposed concepts and potential relationships between the stages integral to strategic brand management in the hotel industry. The framework also provided the direction and structure for the empirical research stages of the study.In order to gain a deeper understanding of the meanings and uses of hotel industry brand equity, two stages of empirical research were completed. The purpose of the empirical research was to investigate the interpretations which senior UK hotel industry practitioners gave in relation to different aspects of branding and brand equity management and measurement. The research focused on meanings attributed to the concepts, potential uses and operational challenges. The first stage of empirical research involved an open-ended questionnaire completed by a sample of 11 senior hotel industry management consultants.The second stage involved a qualitative case study which was used to explore, in some depth, the hotel industry brand equity concept. The subject of the case study was Thistle Hotels; one of the UK's largest brand-owning hotel companies. Multiple methods were utilised during the case study, including in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 12 of Thistle's senior managers, and reviews of relevant corporate documents. This study's findings indicate that brand equity can be a useful concept for UK hotel industry brand management, although there is evidence to suggest that the concept has yet to be commonly-accepted in the UK hotel industry. This study forged a new multi-faceted definition and operationalisation of brand equity that can be used by hotel companies to build and manage the performance of their brands. The study posits that hotel brand value can be measured using a range of attitudinal and behavioural measures that seek to investigate consumer perceptions and behaviour towards hotel brands, and measures intended to capture operational and financial performance. This study makes an original contribution to knowledge in a number of areas including the following: it has created new definitions of the hotel brand equity concept and the core hotel brand concept; and a Hotel Industry Brand Equity Management Framework has been developed to assist hotel companies better manage the equity of their brands. This framework also provides an agenda for necessary future research that will further develop the findings and conclusions from this study and enhance the development of hotel brand equity theory

Reinterpretation and Long-Term Preservation of Data and Code

Careful preservation of experimental data, simulations, analysis products, and theoretical work maximizes their long-term scientific return on investment by enabling new analyses and reinterpretation of the results in the future. Key infrastructure and technical developments needed for some high-value science targets are not in scope for the operations program of the large experiments and are often not effectively funded. Increasingly, the science goals of our projects require contributions that span the boundaries between individual experiments and surveys, and between the theoretical and experimental communities. Furthermore, the computational requirements and technical sophistication of this work is increasing. As a result, it is imperative that the funding agencies create programs that can devote significant resources to these efforts outside of the context of the operations of individual major experiments, including smaller experiments and theory/simulation work. In this Snowmass 2021 Computational Frontier topical group report (CompF7: Reinterpretation and long-term preservation of data and code), we summarize the current state of the field and make recommendations for the future.Comment: Snowmass 2021 Computational Frontier CompF7 Reinterpretation and long-term preservation of data and code topical group repor