Transforming gender relations in rural Ethiopia through community conversations

Poster prepared for a share fair, Addis Ababa, May 201

Integrating research with NHS clinical practice: Unwelcome intrusion or constructive triangulation?

When embarking on research into the effectiveness of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the NHS or the application of psychoanalytic principles, researchers come up against a number of hurdles: many clinicians still see empirical research as antithetical or disruptive to the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy; psychoanalytic psychotherapy has previously fared poorly in evidence-based policy guidelines and this can discourage ambition, and there are technical problems of research design, measurement and standardization. Nevertheless, in a political climate which stresses service evaluation, measurable outcomes and empirical evidence, psychoanalytic psychotherapy must participate to survive. There may be gains from conducting research beyond simply meeting the requirement to provide evidence of effectiveness. Research may be viewed by some clinicians as an unwelcome intruder but it may have the potential to offer triangulation, the perspective of the 'third', and so strengthen the foundations of clinical practice and the development of psychoanalytic thought

Effective Building Modelling for Energy Performance Contracting

Energy Performance Contracts (EPC) are contractual agreements between beneficiaries and energy service providers, where budgets are established in relation to a determined level of energy performance. Hence, the problem of forecasting the energy performance of buildings in the EPC tendering phase becomes relevant for the reliability of the overall contract. Unfortunately, fuzziness and incompleteness often characterize the technical information supporting EPC call for tenders. Furthermore, buildings that are the subjects of EPCs are normally quite complex public buildings (hospitals, schools, etc.) usually relatively old and not technically well known. Gathering information about such buildings is a time consuming and expensive process within the usually short time frame of EPC call for tenders. This paper investigates the application of Grey-Box modelling to the energy performance forecast of complex buildings, in perfectly and poorly informed operational cases. The proposed methodology offers a potential solution to the EPC operational requirements since it requires a substantially reduced parameter set. Results show that the proposed Grey-Box modelling can be used to arrange a calibration set-up with good forecasting performance. Furthermore, Grey-Box modelling allows an effective management of the information uncertainty usually present in the EPC context

Assessing the efficiency of sweet potato producers in the southern region of Ethiopia

Article purchased; Published online: 27 June 2017Applying stochastic frontier Cobb–Douglas production function, the study assessed the efficiency of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) producers in the Southern region of Ethiopia. The study revealed the existence of fairly large technical inefficiency in sweet potato production. The technical efficiency ranged from 12.6 to 93.7%, with more than half of the producers above the mean efficiency level (66.1%). This suggests that there is room for output gains through technical efficiency improvement. If the average producers in the study region are to achieve the technical efficiency level of the most efficient producer in the sample (93.7%), they can realize nearly 30% output gains. The analysis of allocative efficiency also revealed that sweet potato producers were producing sweet potato with sub-optimal utilization of production inputs, suggesting that potential for output gains remains to be exploited through reconfiguration of the existing resource use. They can make more value out of their sweet potato production by reconfiguring their current utilization of production inputs in favour of more land and manure but less seed rate. Furthermore, age and education are important determinants of the efficiency of sweet potato production. In view of these findings, it is advisable to put in place appropriate extension intervention programmes that enable sweet potato producers to exploit the potential gains in sweet potato output through technical and allocative efficiency improvement

Assessment of Feed Resource Availability and Quality in Kedida Gamela District, Southern Ethiopia

Availability of major livestock feed resources, their chemical composition and balance between available feed resources and requirements of existing tropical livestock units (TLU) in Kedida Gamela district (Southern Ethiopia) were assessed. A survey was conducted on 100 sample households (HH) and data collected using group discussions, structured questionnaire and personal observations. Furthermore, chemical composition and in vitro dry matter (DM) digestibility (IVDMD) of major feed resources identified (natural pasture and crop residues) were also determined. A total of 28,675 tonnes of DM were produced annually for a total of 40,080 TLU which satisfies only 31.4% of their maintenance requirement. Maize stover and wheat straw contain lowest ash and from agro-industrial by-products noug cake and wheat bran the highest ash content. The highest (p0.05) between the agro-industrial by-products. The highest acid detergent lignin content for roughage feed was recorded from maize stover to natural pasture and the highest from agro-industrial by-products was recorded from wheat bran to noug cake. Differences in IVDMD for major feed resources were not significant (P>0.05). The differences in nutrient composition and IVDMD of the feed resources in midland and highland followed similar trend, although there were slight differences in nutrient content and IVDMD of similar feedstuffs from the two altitudinal zones. In conclusion, the main feed resource is crop residues which are of low quality with high fiber content, low digestibility which may result in reduced livestock productivity and disease resistance. Chopping followed by soaking or ammonaition or urea treatment could be suggested to improve quality of the roughages