Bureaucratic delay, local-level monitoring, and delivery of small infrastructure projects: Evidence from a field experiment in Bolivia

This paper examines bureaucratic delay within the allocation of small infrastructure projects by sub-municipal governments in Bolivia, and it presents a randomized eld experiment designed to improve public service delivery by promoting voice, transparency, and accountability among grass- roots organizations. The experiment consists of randomly providing sub-municipal governments with a mailing tracking system, which provides public o cials and grassroots organizations real- time information about the processing of small infrastructure projects requests by sub-municipal governments. The objective of this intervention is twofold. First, is to facilitate the involvement of grassroots organizations in the process of reviewing, tracking, and monitoring small infrastructure project allocations. Second, is to explicitly alter the probability of detecting ine cient adminis- trative practices within district councils and, therefore, to implicitly increase the expected cost of engaging in such practices among public o cials. The ndings of this paper suggest that moni- toring tools that promote access to information by citizens might play a critical role in improving public service delivery outcomes. Yet, in settings where mechanisms of local accountability are subject to be captured by local elites or are weak, monitoring tools might have limited capacity to improve outcomes. In such settings, major transparency related reforms might be needed to improve public service delivery outcomes

Bureaucratic delay, local-level monitoring, and delivery of small infrastructure projects: Evidence from a field experiment in Bolivia

This paper examines bureaucratic delay within the allocation of small infrastructure projects by sub-municipal governments in Bolivia, and it presents a randomized field experiment designed to improve public service delivery by promoting voice, transparency, and accountability among grassroots organizations. The experiment consists of randomly providing sub-municipal governments with a mailing tracking system, which provides public officials and grassroots organizations real- time information about the processing of small infrastructure projects requests by sub-municipal governments. The objective of this intervention is twofold. First, is to facilitate the involvement of grassroots organizations in the process of reviewing, tracking, and monitoring small infrastructure project allocations. Second, is to explicitly alter the probability of detecting inefficient administrative practices within district councils and, therefore, to implicitly increase the expected cost of engaging in such practices among public officials. The findings of this paper suggest that monitoring tools that promote access to information by citizens might play a critical role in improving public service delivery outcomes. Yet, in settings where mechanisms of local accountability are subject to be captured by local elites or are weak, monitoring tools might have limited capacity to improve outcomes. In such settings, major transparency related reforms might be needed to improve public service delivery outcomes

Information Technologies and Provision of National Identification Cards by the Bolivian Police: Evidence from Two Randomized Natural Field Experiments

This paper investigates the potential of information technologies to improve public service delivery and empower citizens in the context of two unusual randomized natural experiments occurring within one particular bureaucratic process: the renewal of a national identification card by the Bolivian Police. The first experiment arises from the random assignment of both police officers and applicants to a manual or digital renewal process, which is identical in all aspects except that the digital renewal process makes use of information technologies as part of the renewal process. The second experiment arises by the existence of technical failures within the digital renewal process, which allows police officers to change from the digital to the manual renewal process randomly across renewal day. The efficiency of public service delivery is measured in terms of both renewal success rates (which average to a strikingly low rate of 72 percent in our sample) and time-it-takes to renew an identification card. We find that information technologies significantly improve the quality of public service delivery. Also, we find that information technologies significantly lower barriers in access to national identification cards by promoting a more equitable provision across the population. We discuss several channels through which technologies might be improving efficiency and promoting equity within this particular bureaucratic process. Overall, our findings suggest that information technologies might be achieving these goals by introducing efficiencies (such as reducing administrative shortcomings and transaction costs), and limiting the exercise of discretion by police officers within the renewal process

Plan de mejoramiento de la planificacion de la produccion y automatizacion de los requerimientos de materiales para Embonor Talca

172 p.Esta memoria se desarrolla en EMBONOR S.A. uno de los representantes legales de The Coca- Cola Company en Chile ubicada en la ruta 5 sur Km. 247 Talca. La continua necesidad de mejorar el servicio genera la aplicación de nuevas prácticas que desencadenarán en un uso eficiente de los recursos con los cuales se cuenta. Para ello el estudio se enfocará en dos problemáticas claras de la empresa que son el mejoramiento de las actividades involucradas en el proceso de Planificación de la Producción y la creación de un programa que permita la automatización de la programación semanal de la producción y los requerimientos de materiales. De forma de solucionar ambos problemas se planteó que las mejoras que se hicieran a la planificación de la producción estén incorporadas al nuevo programa de automatización de los requerimiento de materiales y planificación de producción, es decir el objetivo principal de esta memoria es “Elaborar una propuesta de mejoramiento de las actividades de producción” y por otro lado el segundo objetivo es “ incorporar las mejoras al sistema de automatización de requerimiento de materiales y planificación de la producción”. La metodología que se siguió para resolver el problema de la planificación de la Producción fue primero establecer un diagnóstico de la situación para así realizar el estudio mismo y determinar cuales son las fortalezas y debilidades del proceso. La realización de un diagrama de pareto permite además una visión más amplia de como pequeñas situaciones desencadenan en el problema principal en que se aboca esta memoria. Luego se realizaron propuestas de mejora en base a los pasos para implementar SMED, cuyo objetivo era realizar un estudio de los tiempos de las actividades que existen en las líneas de producción entre el cambio de un producto a otro, se propuso realizar pequeños lotes de producción para una mayor flexibilidad del sistema, además de cada vez que sea posible, seguir un orden determinado en la producción para disminuir los tiempos de actividades de recambio que demandan una mayo cantidad de recursos. Como resultado de la aplicación de una buena práctica de producción se obtuvo una reducción en el tiempo en un 13,7% de uso de la línea One Way en el mes de mayo lo que permite una mayor flexibilidad en los tiempos de producción. Como propuesta de mejoramiento se propuso cambiar el método de proyección de producción que pudiera anticipar la estacionalidad de demanda y también la aplicación del programa que permitirá la normalización y estandarización de los procesos de programación de la producción. Por otro lado se planteó una nueva estrategia de producción, para optimizar los recursos y poder responder de mejor forma al cumplimiento del plan original de producción al contar con stock suficiente que permite suavizar los niveles de demanda traducidos en niveles de producción. Para el desarrollo del programa de producción y MRP debe ir de la mano con objetivos de la empresa y para ello también se realizó un diagnóstico que permitió establecer las herramientas para desarrollar el mecanismo y aplicar la teoría adecuada para el diseño del mismo. Por medio de la programación en Visual Basic para Excel se realizaron las interfaces y aplicaciones de restricciones que se basaron en las recomendaciones que surgieron del mejoramiento de la planificación de producción. De forma que las recomendaciones dadas para el mejoramiento de la producción estén aplicadas al programa de producción y MRP hecho en Excel mediante Visual Basic./ ABSTRACT: The proyect is developed in EMBONOR S.A. Talca one of the legal representatives of The Coca- Cola Company in Chile located on Route 5 Sur km 247 Talca. The continuing need to improve the service generates the implementation of new practices that trigger in an efficient use of resources with which to account. For this reason, the study focuses on two clear issues of the company are the improvement of the activities involved in the process of Production Planning and the creation of a program that allows the automation of the weekly schedule of production and the requirements of materials. Way to solve both problems were raised that improvements be made to the planning of the production are incorporated into the new automation program of the requirement for materials and production planning, that is the main objective of this report is to "develop a proposal improvement of production activities "and on the other side the second goal is “incorporate improvements to the system automation requirement for materials and production planning ". The methodology to be followed to resolve the problem of planning the production was the first to establish a diagnosis of the situation and to conduct the study itself and determine what strengths and weaknesses of the process. The realization of a Pareto chart also allows a wider view of situations as a small trigger in the main problem which this addresses memory. Then they made suggestions for improvement based on the steps to implement SMED, whose goal was to conduct a study of the times of activities in existing production lines between the change from one product to another, it was proposed to make small batches of production for greater flexibility of the system, plus whenever possible, follow a certain order to reduce production in times of activities that require a spare amount of resources in May. As a result of the implementation of good practice in production led to a reduction in time at a 13.7% usage of the One Way line in May which allows greater flexibility in the timing of production. As proposed improvement will be proposed to change the method of projection of production that could anticipate the seasonality of demand and also the implementation of the program that will allow the normalization and standardization of programming processes of production. On the other hand was raised a new production strategy to optimize resources and better able to respond to the fulfillment of the original plan for production to have enough stock that allows to levels of softening demand translated into production levels. For program development and production MRP must go hand in hand with business objectives and we also made a diagnosis that helped establish the tools to develop the mechanism and apply the theory suitable for the design. By programming in Visual Basic for Excel were made interfaces and applications of restrictions that were based on the recommendations that emerged from the improved planning of production. So the recommendations given to the improvement of production are applied to the production schedule and MRP done in Excel using Visual Basic

Effect of Sunflower and Marine Oils on Ruminal Microbiota, In vitro Fermentation and Digesta Fatty Acid Profile

Funding This work has been funded by Consejería de Educación, Junta de Castilla y León (research project LE007A07). Acknowledgments We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI). Support received from CICYT project AGL2005-04760-C02-02 is gratefully acknowledged.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Os exames de qualificação realizados no mestrado profissional em matemática em rede nacional

This article analyzes the nature of the knowledge, especially that of a specialized nature, evoked in the solution of the questions that made up the National Qualification Exams (NQE), developed within the scope of the Professional Master’s Program in Mathematics in the National Network (PROFMAT), between the years 2012 and 2019. The focus of this program was based on the development of a solid education in Mathematics, which contemplates the needs arising from the daily lives of teachers in the school space and their broad needs for development and professional appreciation. Therefore, a qualitative study was developed in which, from the interpretative content analysis, a total of 62 questions were classified in the light of the conceptual-analytical model Mathematics Teachers’ Specialized Knowledge (MTSK), which composed the NQE applied in the first semester of the 8 years analyzed. The analysis carried out showed that: a) more than 70% of the questions focus exclusively on knowledge that appears in only one subdomain of Mathematical Knowledge (MK), the Knowledge of Topics, while only 5% of them address knowledge that appears in all subdomains of MK; b) Absence, in all questions, of knowledge associated with the Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) domain. Thus, it is concluded that the evaluation developed through the NQE privileges knowledge that appears only in one of the six subdomains of knowledge that really support the teacher in his daily work with mathematics, which is opposed to the results of many relevant studies that emphasize the importance and impact of knowledge associated with the PCK domain in teaching.Analisa-se, neste artigo, a natureza dos conhecimentos, especialmente os de cunho especializado, evocados na resolução das questões que compuseram Exames Nacionais de Qualificação (ENQ), desenvolvidos no âmbito do Programa de Mestrado Profissional em Matemática em Rede Nacional (PROFMAT), entre os anos de 2012 e 2019. O foco nesse programa deu-se por pautar-se no desenvolvimento de uma sólida formação em Matemática, que contemple as necessidades provenientes do cotidiano dos professores no espaço da escola e de suas necessidades amplas de desenvolvimento e de valorização profissional. Para tanto, desenvolvemos uma pesquisa de cunho qualitativo em que, a partir da análise de conteúdo interpretativa, foram classificadas, à luz do modelo conceitual-analítico Mathematics Teachers’ Specialized Knowledge (MTSK), um total de 62 questões, que compuseram os ENQ aplicados no primeiro semestre de oito anos. A análise realizada evidenciou que: a) mais de 70% das questões focam exclusivamente em conhecimentos que figuram apenas em um subdomínio do Mathematical Knowledge (MK), o Knowledge of Topics, enquanto somente 5% delas abordam conhecimentos que figuram em todos os subdomínios do MK; b) Ausência, em todas as questões, de conhecimentos associados ao domínio Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). Assim, conclui-se que a avaliação desenvolvida por meio do ENQ privilegia conhecimentos que figuram somente em um dos seis subdomínios do conhecimento que, realmente, ampara o professor em seu trabalho diário junto à matemática e que se contrapõe aos resultados de diversas e relevantes pesquisas que enfatizam a importância e impacto, na prática docente, de conhecimentos associados ao domínio PCK

Plantas frecuentemente utilizadas en zonas rurales de la Región Amazónica centro occidental de Ecuador

El presente estudio aborda aspectos relacionados con el tipo y frecuencia de uso del recurso vegetal en predios ubicados en el occidente de la región amazónica ecuatoriana (provincias de Napo, Pastaza y Morona Santiago). Los datos se generaron en ciento veinte y dos propiedades de dos grupos de finqueros: unos pertenecientes a la iniciativa Socio Bosque y otros no, el trabajo de campo se realizó en dos fases entre febrero a marzo de 2014 y entre febrero a marzo del 2015. En la información recogida, se incluyeron aspectos socioeconómicos y frecuencias de uso de plantas en seis categorías de uso (comestibles, combustibles, para madera, sociales y rituales, tóxicas y/o venenosas, medicinales). Entre otros resultados, se evidencia que, generalmente, los propietarios usan con mayor frecuencia las plantas introducidas más que las nativas; factores como la presencia de habitantes de fuera de la zona unida al desconocimiento del uso de la flora nativa influyen en que ésta termine siendo menos frecuentemente utilizada en la zona &nbsp

Percepcion de FITAL en la Region del Maule.

235 p.El presente estudio que Ileva por nombre "Percepción de FITAL en la Region del Maule", tiene coma finalidad identificar que variables están influyendo en los visitantes de esta feria que los impulsan a concurrir a FITAL, todo esto con el fin de determinar cual es la iniciativa que la dirección de Fundación FIMAULE, debe tomar a objeto de establecer si lo que esta entregando es realmente o que el cliente busca y percibe al visitar la feria. Teóricamente, nuestro estudio se basa en un modelo extraído de la literatura existente, mas específicamente del libro "Comportamiento del Consumidor" de los autores Loudon y Della Bitta, donde se ha conjugado con los modelos que más se adecuan a nuestra investigación. Para la obtención de los datos se construyo un instrumento de medición, aplicado a los visitantes de la feria realizada el presente año, dichos datos fueron analizados a traves de tres niveles de análisis, estos fueron el Univariado, que consistió en la utilización de estadísticos de tendencia central y de dispersión. El segundo tipo de análisis fue a nivel Bivariado, el cual se realizó principalmente por medio de las pruebas Ji-Cuadrado y el análisis de tablas cruzadas. Por ultimo se realizó un análisis de tipo multivariado realizado mediante el uso de conglomerados y análisis factorial. Finalmente, esta investigación muestra la proyección que debiera tener la feria y que alternativas se presentan para Fundación FIMAULE en el futuro, que maximizan el nivel de satisfacción del cliente que visita la feria