Disequilibrium in development finance: the contested politics of institutional accountability and transparency at the World Bank inspection panel

This article examines the dynamic nature with which independent accountability mechanisms operate. Focusing on the World Bank, the authors argue that its Inspection Panel evolves according to internal and external pressures. In seeking to achieve equilibrium, and protect its authority and independence, the Panel has gone through several distinct phases: negotiation, emergence, protracted resistance, assertion of independence and authority, renewed tension, and contestation. The core novelty of the article is its application of concepts from outside the field of development studies — notably institutional accountability from the governance literature, and judicialization from the legal studies literature — to the topic of the Inspection Panel. Examining the Panel in this way demonstrates that accountability mechanisms represent a hybrid of transnational governance influenced by a range of actors including project-affected peoples, national governments, managers and development donors. Accountability in development finance is about competing interests as well as competing conceptions and expectations of accountability. In such a complex and multi-scalar system, the Panel is not only concerned with delivering well-researched investigation reports; it is also an entity seeking to ensure its own survival, as well as an arbiter of its own brand of legitimacy and accountability. © 2018 The Authors. Development and Change published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Social Studie

CUBES: a UV spectrograph for the future

In spite of the advent of extremely large telescopes in the UV/optical/NIR range, the current generation of 8-10m facilities is likely to remain competitive at ground-UV wavelengths for the foreseeable future. The Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) has been designed to provide high-efficiency (>40%) observations in the near UV (305-400 nm requirement, 300-420 nm goal) at a spectral resolving power of R>20,000, although a lower-resolution, sky-limited mode of R ~ 7,000 is also planned. CUBES will offer new possibilities in many fields of astrophysics, providing access to key lines of stellar spectra: a tremendous diversity of iron-peak and heavy elements, lighter elements (in particular Beryllium) and light-element molecules (CO, CN, OH), as well as Balmer lines and the Balmer jump (particularly important for young stellar objects). The UV range is also critical in extragalactic studies: the circumgalactic medium of distant galaxies, the contribution of different types of sources to the cosmic UV background, the measurement of H2 and primordial Deuterium in a regime of relatively transparent intergalactic medium, and follow-up of explosive transients. The CUBES project completed a Phase A conceptual design in June 2021 and has now entered the Phase B dedicated to detailed design and construction. First science operations are planned for 2028. In this paper, we briefly describe the CUBES project development and goals, the main science cases, the instrument design and the project organization and management

CRIS: A new method in isomeric beam production

The Collinear Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy (CRIS) experiment at ISOLDE, CERN, uses laser radiation to stepwise excite and ionize an atomic beam for the purpose of ultra-sensitive detection of rare isotopes, and hyperfine-structure measurements. The technique also offers the ability to purify an ion beam that is heavily contaminated with radioactive isobars, including the ground state of an isotope from its isomer, allowing decay spectroscopy on nuclear isomeric states to be performed. The isomeric ion beam is selected by resonantly exciting one of its hyperfine structure levels, and subsequently ionizing it. This selectively ionized beam is deflected to a decay spectroscopy station (DSS). This consists of a rotating wheel implantation system for alpha- and beta-decay spectroscopy, and up to three germanium detectors around the implantation site for gamma-ray detection. Resonance ionization spectroscopy and the new technique of laser assisted nuclear decay spectroscopy have recently been performed at the CRIS beam line on the neutron-deficient francium isotopes. Here an overview of the two techniques will be presented, alongside a description of the CRIS beam line and DSS

High-resolution laser spectroscopy with the Collinear Resonance Ionisation Spectroscopy (CRIS) experiment at CERN-ISOLDE

The Collinear Resonance Ionisation Spectroscopy (CRIS) experiment at CERN has achieved high-resolution resonance ionisation laser spectroscopy with a full width at half maximum linewidth of 20(1) MHz for 219,221Fr, and has measured isotopes as short lived as 5 ms with 214Fr. This development allows for greater precision in the study of hyperfine structures and isotope shifts, as well as a higher selectivity of single-isotope, even single-isomer, beams. These achievements are linked with the development of a new laser laboratory and new data-acquisition systems

High-resolution laser spectroscopy with the Collinear Resonance Ionisation Spectroscopy (CRIS) experiment at CERN-ISOLDE

International audienceThe Collinear Resonance Ionisation Spectroscopy (CRIS) experiment at CERN has achieved high-resolution resonance ionisation laser spectroscopy with a full width at half maximum linewidth of 20(1) MHz for 219,221219,221Fr, and has measured isotopes as short lived as 5 ms with 214214Fr. This development allows for greater precision in the study of hyperfine structures and isotope shifts, as well as a higher selectivity of single-isotope, even single-isomer, beams. These achievements are linked with the development of a new laser laboratory and new data-acquisition systems