Political Challenges of Addressing Climate Change through the ‘Entrepreneurial State’

This article outlines some of the limitations of existing institutions and their inadequacy in bringing about ‘green transformations’ to address climate change in order to explain the need for alternative approaches to institutions. It outlines the ‘entrepreneurial state’ approach, as outlined by Mariana Mazzucato as a promising conceptual approach with potentially transformative policy implications to address the issues of innovation. It identifies some of the political challenges to achieving entrepreneurial state-type institutions in contexts where configurations of power and existing actor networks are unfavourable. It argues that although entrepreneurial state-type institutions are often framed as operating by harnessing high degrees of cooperation between different actors according to commonly-held long-term objectives, achieving the right types of institutions is likely to require a high degree of contestation in order to overcome existing vested interests. Moreover, it discusses the relationship between green transformations and democratic participation

Adapting to Climate Change: Transforming Development?

This article examines the implications of the growing discussion around transformation and adaptation for development policy and practice. While there is increasing agreement that incremental approaches are insufficient to tackle climate change, and that deeper transformative change is also necessary, the ways in which transformation is understood vary significantly, and hence how it is to be operationalised remains unclear. Tracing the emergence of transformation in adaptation debates, and linking them to the intellectual roots of the idea of transformation, we interrogate different approaches that exist towards transformation in terms of moving beyond dominant neoliberal development trajectories. The article discusses some of the conceptual and practical challenges in bringing about transformational change in international development, concluding with some suggestions for the way forward in operationalising transformation for development in line with long-term climate change adaptation goals

Two-stage clustering in genotype-by-environment analyses with missing data

Cluster analysis has been commonly used in genotype-by-environment (G x E) analyses, but current methods are inadequate when the data matrix is incomplete. This paper proposes a new method, referred to as two-stage clustering, which relies on a partitioning of squared Euclidean distance into two independent components, the G x E interaction and the genotype main effect. These components are used in the first and second stages of clustering respectively. Two-stage clustering forms the basis for imputing missing values in the G x E matrix so that a more complete data array is available for other GxE analyses. Imputation for a given genotype uses information from genotypes with similar interaction profiles. This imputation method is shown to improve on an existing nearest cluster method that confounds the G x E interaction and the genotype main effect

What Explains the Allocation of Aid and Private Investment for Electrification?

This paper aims to inform policy looking to step up investment in the electricity sector of developing countries and align it to other development goals such as universal access to energy or sustainability. Three questions guide the analysis: (1) How and why has private and donor finance for electrification changed across time? (2) What are the different motivations of private investors and donors as regards who and what gets financed? (3) Are sustainability and equitable access priorities for private and donor investment? These questions are addressed by describing finance flows during the period 1990–2010 and performing an econometric analysis to explain inter-country allocation.UK Department for International Developmen

An ethnographic study of the relationship between the Renta Dignidad and wellbeing in the Bolivian Altiplano

The objective of this thesis is to study the impacts of Bolivia’s non-contributory pension, the Renta Dignidad, on the wellbeing of older peasants and their families. Literature on social protection has had a tendency to propose social protection policies as contributing to a broad range of objectives, and non-contributory pensions are no exception. Studies have found them to contribute not only to ‘obvious’ needs such as increased consumption and income security but also to investments in productivity, social relationships, health, increased access to credit and savings, while it has become common to claim that they contribute to intangible goals such as dignity and citizenship. Moreover, because they do not impose conditionalities on recipients and are often relatively broader in their coverage than other social protection policies, social pensions have generally avoided critiques that have been aimed at conditional cash transfers and public works programmes. The danger of this literature is that it assumes that wellbeing is heavily responsive to monetary wealth, rather than other areas. To study this, an ethnographic methodology, based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews was employed in two rural communities located in the La Paz department in the highland Altiplano region of Bolivia close to Lake Titicaca. My analysis shows that older persons’ wellbeing depends heavily on a combination of elements, going beyond material wellbeing into areas such as their relationships with their spouses, children, grandchildren, and the other people in the rural communities in which they live, their ability to contribute their labour and maintain their daily (agricultural) work, to participate in collective social political and religious activities, and to maintain good health. For example, older people work hard for as late in life as possible largely because it is meaningful for them to work the land and produce food. This means that health problems, which are often exacerbated by hard work, are particularly damaging to wellbeing because they inhibit older persons’ ability to do this. Meanwhile, ideas and values about how older people should live are continually being negotiated and contested between older people and with their younger family members, often leading to disputes. These are not driven solely by material interests, but concern the ways in which people should live and seek cultural, social and spiritual fulfilment. This is not due to a particular conception of wellbeing held by these people because they are indigenous, as might be inferred through the romantic lens of the vivir bien concept, but because human wellbeing more generally needs to be understood in relational terms, rather than exclusively in terms of peoples’ capacity to satisfy their basic needs. While the Renta Dignidad increases older persons’ ability to consume, maintain livelihood security, and in some case to participate in exchanges of food and gifts with other family members, it does not respond significantly to these other areas of wellbeing, contributing little to healthcare for example. The policy implications of this are that a more integral approach needs to be adopted to older persons’ wellbeing, going beyond cash transfers to greater efforts to bring healthcare services to older people in remote rural areas

Creativity in mathematics assessment

It is often said that to be a good mathematician you need to be creative. However this is not always shown in the assessment of first year Mathematics. So what does happen when encourage students to be creative in an assessment task? In many undergraduate mathematics courses most types of assessment is designed to see if the students understand what has been covered in lectures. Timed examinations and difficult assignments are the mainstay of assessment. This makes Mathematics assessment seem to be a hard slog. Indeed attempts to change this are met with resistance from students who do not believe that you can learn mathematics in other ways. This paper describes an innovative assessment task where students get to show their creative side. This is done by asking students to design objects in three dimensions with the aid of Mathematica. They have the options of using Cartesian, cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems as well as defining curves and surfaces parametrically. The object in the assignment changes each year but the task remains the same

Diagnostic tests in a first year Mathematics subject

In this paper, we explore the issues around diagnostic testing of first year students in mathematics and give an example of the use of such a test in a large first year subject. We compare the scores on the diagnostic test with the end of semester results for 2005. Opinions and insights from students and staff were also collected using open-ended surveys

Verification, Analytical Validation, and Clinical Validation (V3): The Foundation of Determining Fit-for-Purpose for Biometric Monitoring Technologies (BioMeTs)

Digital medicine is an interdisciplinary field, drawing together stakeholders with expertize in engineering, manufacturing, clinical science, data science, biostatistics, regulatory science, ethics, patient advocacy, and healthcare policy, to name a few. Although this diversity is undoubtedly valuable, it can lead to confusion regarding terminology and best practices. There are many instances, as we detail in this paper, where a single term is used by different groups to mean different things, as well as cases where multiple terms are used to describe essentially the same concept. Our intent is to clarify core terminology and best practices for the evaluation of Biometric Monitoring Technologies (BioMeTs), without unnecessarily introducing new terms. We focus on the evaluation of BioMeTs as fit-for-purpose for use in clinical trials. However, our intent is for this framework to be instructional to all users of digital measurement tools, regardless of setting or intended use. We propose and describe a three-component framework intended to provide a foundational evaluation framework for BioMeTs. This framework includes (1) verification, (2) analytical validation, and (3) clinical validation. We aim for this common vocabulary to enable more effective communication and collaboration, generate a common and meaningful evidence base for BioMeTs, and improve the accessibility of the digital medicine field

How much dystrophin is enough: the physiological consequences of different levels of dystrophin in the mdx mouse

Splice modulation therapy has shown great clinical promise in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, resulting in the production of dystrophin protein. Despite this, the relationship between restoring dystrophin to established dystrophic muscle and its ability to induce clinically relevant changes in muscle function is poorly understood. In order to robustly evaluate functional improvement, we used in situ protocols in the mdx mouse to measure muscle strength and resistance to eccentric contraction-induced damage. Here, we modelled the treatment of muscle with pre-existing dystrophic pathology using antisense oligonucleotides conjugated to a cell-penetrating peptide. We reveal that 15% homogeneous dystrophin expression is sufficient to protect against eccentric contraction-induced injury. In addition, we demonstrate a >40% increase in specific isometric force following repeated administrations. Strikingly, we show that changes in muscle strength are proportional to dystrophin expression levels. These data define the dystrophin restoration levels required to slow down or prevent disease progression and improve overall muscle function once a dystrophic environment has been established in the mdx mouse model