Developmental Evaluation in Practice: Lessons from Evaluating a Market-Based Employment Initiative

Developmental evaluation (DE) has emerged as an approach that is well suited to evaluating innovative early-stage or market-based initiatives that address complex social issues. However, because DE theory and practice are still evolving, there are relatively few examples of its implementation on the ground. This paper reviews the practical experience of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team in conducting a developmental evaluation of a Rockefeller Foundation initiative in the field of digital employment for young people, and offers observations and advice on applying developmental evaluation in practice.Through its work with The Rockefeller Foundation's team and its grantees, the M&E team drew lessons relating to context, intentional learning, tools and processes, trust and communication, and adaption associated with developmental evaluation. It was found that success depends on commissioning a highly qualified DE team with interpersonal and communication skills and, whenever possible, some sectoral knowledge. The paper also offers responses to three major criticisms frequently leveled against developmental evaluation, namely that it displaces other types of evaluations, is too focused on "soft" methods and indicators, and downplays accountability.Through its reporting of lessons learned and its response to the challenges and shortcomings of developmental evaluation, the M&E team makes the case for including developmental evaluation as a tool for the evaluation toolbox, recommending that it be employed across a wide range of geographies and sectors. With its recommendation, it calls for future undertakings to experiment with new combinations of methods within the DE framework to strengthen its causal, quantitative, and accountability dimensions

Assessing Market-Based Solutions: Lessons from Evaluating a Youth Employment Initiative

Over the last few years, The Rockefeller Foundation – working with other funders, industry associations, governments and networks – has supported a portfolio of grantees to test a range of models for training, employing, and supporting low-income youth to carry out digital work. The Foundation funded an evaluation for its work in digital employment and the experience from the initial phase - which focused on impact sourcingprovided instrumental lessons on how one might think about assessing youth digital employment programs that embed market-based approaches

Electrical properties of BaTiO3 based ferroelectric capacitors grown on oxide sacrificial layers for micro-cantilevers applications

An investigation of all oxides ferroelectric capacitors based on $SrRuO_3/BaTiO_3/SrRuO_3$ multi-layers grown on sacrificial oxide layers of $YBa_2Cu_3O_7$\ud and MgO for Micro-Electo-Mechanical systems applications is reported. By insertion of additional MgO or $SrTiO_3$ buffer layers the orientation of the $BaTiO_3$ film can be controlled allowing the fabrication of suspended cantilevers using the 31 and the 33 piezoelectric modes. The electrical properties of $SrRuO_3/BaTiO_3/SrRuO_3$ capacitors are changed compared with those grown directly on a single crystal substrate by the introduction of sacrificial layers. Circuit modeling of the electrical characteristics of these devices shows that a reduction of the deposition pressure for $BaTiO_3$ produces a decrease of the parasitic shunting conductance (modeled with a resistor in parallel to the capacitance of the device) which reduces the resistive loss present in the $BaTiO_3$ film. However for extremely low deposition pressure the quality of the polarization hysteresis loops is compromised.\ud Particulates present on the surface of the $YBa_2Cu_3O_7$increases the parasitic conductance at low frequency in the capacitive structure grown on this sacrificial layer. Good electrical properties are obtained for the capacitive structures grown on top of the MgO sacrificial layers at pressures equal or lower than 8 Pa.\u

Shape-sorting of aromatic molecules by porous organic cages

Porous organic cages are organic molecules containing discrete internal cavities, which can self-assemble to form extended pore networks in the solid-state. Numerous uses have been proposed for these molecules, including in the separation of gases and chiral aromatic molecules. Amorphous membranes have also been formed from porous organic cages, a process which takes advantage of the cages' solution processability. In this project, selected porous organic cages are studied to see whether they can be used for the shape-selective separation of para-xylene from its structural isomers meta-xylene, ortho-xylene and ethylbenzene. Many widely used polymers have para-xylene as a precursor, so its separation is a crucial industrial process, for which membrane separations are an active area of research. Two porous organic cages which have been successfully used to formulate amorphous membranes, CC3 and CC13, were initially studied. Molecular dynamics simulations were used to gain a qualitative idea of the C8 aromatics' diffusion rates, and metadynamics in single cages was used to quantify the most significant energetic barriers to this diffusion. The metadynamics calculations indicated that both cages would be able to separate para-xylene from meta- and ortho-xylene and CC3 may also be able to separate para-xylene and ethylbenzene with lower selectivity. This difference in selectivity was rationalised based on the greater flexibility of the window of CC13. A model separation process using a CC3 membrane was designed and analysed, in order to estimate the purity of the para-xylene produced if the membrane performs as predicted. The model separation process indicated that, while the membrane would not be able to achieve sufficient purity of para-xylene by itself, combining the membrane with the currently used separation processes could result in significant capital and utility savings. Additionally, the cost of the CC3 raw material is predicted to be a negligible cost in the production of such a membrane, although the membrane's mechanical stability and lifetime are still not known. Finally, an evolutionary algorithm was used to search for other porous organic cages that could carry out the separation, based on the factors that gave CC3 a higher predicted performance than CC13. The top candidates produced by the evolutionary algorithm included CC3, which indicated that the setup was valid, and synthesis of the top two cages has already been reported in the literature. These results provide a starting point for future research in this area.Open Acces

Knee injections

This issue of eMedRef provides information to clinicians on the indications and procedure for giving knee injections