Characteristics and performance of settlement programs : a review

The studies and cases reviewed by the authors suggest that settlement programs are too often designed on the assumption that all settlers will or can succeed. This had led to too much centralized administration and rigid designs, rather than reliance on decentralized approaches, flexibility in implementation, support for spontaneous settlement, and reliance on the settler's own investment capacity. Collective forms of crop production have not worked. Cropland is best allocated to individual families whose land rights must be clearly defined as ownership or long-term leases. Farm sizes must be flexibly adjusted to skills, the availability of family labor, and the families'capital ownership. Settlers should therefore be allowed to sell or rent the land to other beneficiaries. If poor settlers are to benefit or succeed, settlement cannot be based on credit finance but must include grants. Paternalistic constraints on the choice of crops or technologies, marketing, or participation in the labor force have usually not been enforceable or have had negative effects.Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Urban Housing,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Housing&Human Habitats

The Role of an International Institute in Farming Systems Research

This note is intended to serve as a basis for a thorough discussion about the role of an International Institute such as ICRISAT in the area of Farming Systems Research. As such it is very tentative and the ideas expressed need scrutiny, qualification and amplification by researchers inside and outside of the International system. However the issues involved are of extreme importance for the successful allocation of research resources and research tasks within the international system and between the national and international systems

Efficiency and equity issues in ex ante allocation of research resources

The paper discusses economic factors in making ex ante decisions about the allocation of resources to research. A proper balance between basic and applied adaptive research is required. This ensures that possibilities for further advances on the basic scientific frontier continue to occur, from which applied research can draw. Agronomic and cropping systems research can have their highest pay-offs in large homogeneous zones rather than in small, heterogeneous ones. In the latter, farmers' own informal experimental methods may often be preferred. Varietal research is less location-specific and can have wider applicability, even in relatively heterogeneous regions. Publicly-funded research should complement and not compete with private research. The latter generally concentrates on research where the benefits can be appropriated such as in fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, mechanical equipment and hybrid seeds. Generally speaking, resources should be allocated to research on production factors in such a way that the results will increase the productivity of those factors in relatively short supply more than the productivity of those in relatively abundant supply. On these grounds labour-saving innovations in India, which has low and relatively stagnant wage rates, cannot be justified on either efficiency or equity grounds. If research is to be aimed at helping the poorest consumers it should stress commodities with low price and income elasticities. This also helps small subsistence producers relative to large commercial farmers. If it is to help maximize producer incomes and/or agricultural employment, resources could be concentrated on commodities with high elasticities. Expected regional impacts of research can be analyzed using the simple tools of benefit-cost and partial equilibrium analysis to assist decision-makers in all the issue

Predictors of Hospitalization for Injection Drug Users Seeking Care for Soft Tissue Infections

BACKGROUND: Soft tissue infections (STIs) from injection drug use are a common cause of Emergency Department visits, hospitalizations, and operating room procedures, yet little is known about factors that may predict the need for these costly medical services. OBJECTIVE: To describe a cohort of injection drug users seeking Emergency Department care for STIs and to identify risk factors associated with hospitalization. We hypothesized that participants who delayed seeking care would be hospitalized more often than those who did not. DESIGN: Cohort study using in-person structured interviews and medical record review. Logistic regression assessed the association between hospital admission and delay in seeking care as well as other demographic, clinical, and psychosocial factors. PARTICIPANTS: Injection drug users who sought Emergency Department care for STIs from May 2001 to March 2002. RESULTS: Of the 136 participants, 55 (40%) were admitted to the hospital. Delay in seeking care was not associated with hospital admission. Participants admitted for their infection were significantly more likely to be living in a shelter (P = .01) and to report being hospitalized 2 or more times in the past year (P < .01). CONCLUSIONS: We identified a subpopulation of injection drug users, mostly living in shelters, who were hospitalized frequently in the past year and who were more likely to be hospitalized for their current infections compared to others. As members of this subpopulation can be easily identified and located, they may benefit from interventions to reduce the health care utilization resulting from these infections

Supply Response and Investment in Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh

The study explored the response of aggregate farm output, input use, and farm investment decisions to output and input prices, wages, technological change, public investments, and climatic factors using district-level panel data of over 39 years from Andhra Pradesh. It confirms the low, short-run aggregate output supply elasticity of Indian agriculture as found in the literature. It validates the hypothesis that the relationships between public investment, financial institutions, and farm investment of labor and capital in agriculture have not changed over the years. The empirical estimates of aggregate output supply elasticity with respect to output price (0.2), roads (0.2), markets (0.11), and net irrigated area (0.05) are higher than previous findings for selected states in India. Aggregate agricultural output responds positively to credit availability (represented by banks) and canal irrigation, each with an elasticity of 0.01. The wage elasticity (0.3) on aggregate output is higher than price elasticity (0.2), indicating that the effects of rising wages outweigh the incentives offered by output price support. Climatic factors (e.g., rainfall) significantly affect fertilizer use and aggregate output while deviation from normal rainfall adversely affects aggregate output. The study substantiates previous findings that public investment in infrastructure and financial institutions respond to the agriculture potential and agro-climatic endowments of an area. A renewed focus, therefore, is required for better targeting of public investments in areas that are relatively resource poor and have harsh agro-climatic conditions for a more inclusive growth and rural poverty reduction

The acute-to-chronic workload ratio:An inaccurate scaling index for an unnecessary normalisation process?

BACKGROUND: Problematic use of alcohol and other drugs (AOD) is highly prevalent among people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (PLWH), and untreated AOD use disorders have particularly detrimental effects on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) outcomes. The Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures of treatment initiation and engagement are important benchmarks for access to AOD use disorder treatment. To inform improved patient care, we compared HEDIS measures of AOD use disorder treatment initiation and engagement and health care utilization among PLWH and patients without an HIV diagnosis. METHODS: Patients with a new AOD use disorder diagnosis documented between October 1, 2014, and August 15, 2015, were identified using electronic health records (EHR) and insurance claims data from 7 health care systems in the United States. Demographic characteristics, clinical diagnoses, and health care utilization data were also obtained. AOD use disorder treatment initiation and engagement rates were calculated using HEDIS measure criteria. Factors associated with treatment initiation and engagement were examined using multivariable logistic regression models. RESULTS: There were 469 PLWH (93% male) and 86,096 patients without an HIV diagnosis (60% male) in the study cohort. AOD use disorder treatment initiation was similar in PLWH and patients without an HIV diagnosis (10% vs. 11%, respectively). Among those who initiated treatment, few engaged in treatment in both groups (9% PLWH vs. 12% patients without an HIV diagnosis). In multivariable analysis, HIV status was not significantly associated with either AOD use disorder treatment initiation or engagement. CONCLUSIONS: AOD use disorder treatment initiation and engagement rates were low in both PLWH and patients without an HIV diagnosis. Future studies need to focus on developing strategies to efficiently integrate AOD use disorder treatment with medical care for HIV

Supply Response and Investments in Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh

This study examines how farm output, farm inputs and farm investment have responded to changes in prices of output, factor prices (wages), technical change, and public investments

Beyond energy efficiency in evaluating sustainable development in planning and the built environment

The EU has set the policy target of reducing energy use by 20% by the year 2020. Therefore, a substantial consumption decrease is needed in the built environment sector. Despite the great energy efficiency improvements in households, recent energy consumption data analyses show that these targets will unlikely be reached. The general aim of this study is to point out the need to define new indicators and evaluation approaches in urban planning and the built environment which are based on the concept of ‘energy subsidiarity', focusing on local renewable resources rather than on current approaches based on energy efficiency. This concept correlates energy consumption with the energy supply from local renewable resources and is here proposed as the new urban planning evaluation approach toward a sustainable built environment. In the paper, the ‘Jevons Paradox' concept and the ‘energy rebound effect' phenomenon are used to demonstrate how current approaches based on energy efficiency, alone, cannot lead to a remarkable reduction of energy consumption. This is also supported by data on European energy consumption and European energy efficiency in the built environment. Finally, a number of well-known European ecological districts (‘eco-districts') are analysed in terms of sustainable energy strategy as well as energy efficiency and energy balance. This study shows that there is a contradiction between the purpose of some of the eco-districts to be low consumption (or low impacts), and the district renewable energy balance. Only a few of the analysed eco-districts are able to cover energy needs by using renewable energy obtained in the surrounding area. In most of the cases, the focus of the districts' activities is on energy efficiency. According to the ‘Jevons Paradox' and ‘energy rebound effect' paradigm, energy efficiency alone will unlikely lead to an effective reduction in resources' consumption. These results point out the need for a radical shift toward the development of new approaches in the assessment and management of the built environment for sustainabilit