Examining the Autocracy-Gender-Family Nexus

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Admissible evidence in the court of development evaluation? : the impact of CARE's SHOUHARDO Project on child stunting in Bangladesh

Along with the rise of the development effectiveness movement of the last few decades, experimental impact evaluation methods – randomised controlled trials and quasiexperimental techniques – have emerged as a dominant force. While the increased use of these methods has contributed to improved understanding of what works and whether specific projects have been successful, their ‘gold standard’ status threatens to exclude a large body of evidence from the development effectiveness dialogue. In this paper we conduct an evaluation of the impact on child stunting of CARE’s SHOUHARDO project in Bangladesh, the first large-scale project to use the rights-based, livelihoods approach to address malnutrition. In line with calls for a more balanced view of what constitutes rigor and scientific evidence, and for the use of more diversified and holistic methods in impact evaluations, we employ a mixed-methods approach. The results from multiple data sources and methods, including both non-experimental and quasi-experimental, are triangulated to arrive at the conclusions. We find that the project had an extraordinarily large impact on stunting among children 6–24 months old – on the order of a 4.5 percentage point reduction per year. We demonstrate that one reason the project reduced stunting by so much was because, consistent with the rights-based, livelihoods approach, it relied on both direct nutrition interventions and those that addressed underlying structural causes including poor sanitation, poverty, and deeply-entrenched inequalities in power between women and men. These findings have important policy implications given the slow progress in reducing malnutrition globally and that the widely-supported Scaling Up Nutrition initiative aimed at stepping up efforts to do so is in urgent need of guidance on how to integrate structural cause interventions with the direct nutrition interventions that are the initiative’s main focus. The evaluation also adds to the evidence that targeting the poor, rather than employing universal coverage, can help to accelerate reductions in child malnutrition. The paper concludes that, given the valuable policy lessons generated, the experience of the SHOUHARDO project merits solid standing in the knowledge bank of development effectiveness. More broadly, it illustrates how rigorous and informative evaluation of complex, multi-intervention projects can be undertaken even in the absence of the randomisation, nonproject control groups and/or panel data required by the experimental methods. Keywords: development effectiveness; impact evaluation; experimental methods; child malnutrition; Bangladesh

Clinical effectiveness of restorative materials for the restoration of carious primary teeth without pulp therapy: a systematic review.

PURPOSE To systematically search the available evidence and evaluate the clinical effectiveness of restorative materials for restoration of carious primary teeth. The findings aimed to support the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry (EAPD) guidelines development. METHODS Literature search was performed by searching 4 electronic databases for eligible randomised controlled clinical trials (RCTs) comparing restorative materials for the restoration of carious primary teeth up to December 28th, 2020. Quality assessment was performed with the revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2). RESULTS Of 1685 identified articles 29 RCTs were finally deemed as eligible for inclusion. Annual failure rates were: Amalgam 1-28%; atraumatic restorative treatment 1.2-37.1%; glass-ionomer cement (GIC) 7.6-16.6%, metal-reinforced GIC 29.9%, resin-modified GIC 1.9-16.9%, high-viscosity GIC 2.9-25.6%; glass carbomer ≤ 46.2%; compomer 0-14.7%; composite resin (CR) 0-19.5%, bulk-fill CR 0-16.9%; zirconia crowns 3.3%, composite strip crowns 15%, and preformed metal crowns (Hall-Technique) 3.1%. Secondary caries, poor marginal adaptation, loss of retention, and fracture of restoration were reported as reasons for failure. Four studies were evaluated at unclear and 25 at high risk of bias. Clinical and methodological heterogeneity, and the diversity of tested materials across included studies did not allow for meta-analyses. CONCLUSIONS Within the limitations of this systematic review, namely, the heterogeneity and the overall high risk of bias among included studies, clear recommendations based on solid evidence for the best restorative approach in primary teeth cannot be drawn. There is a need for future thoroughly implemented RCTs evaluating restorations in primary teeth to close this knowledge gap

Clinical effectiveness of restorative materials for the restoration of carious lesions in pulp treated primary teeth: a systematic review.

PURPOSE To systematically review the clinical performance of restorative materials after pulp therapy of carious primary teeth. It is part 2 of a systematic review on the clinical effectiveness of restorative materials for the management of carious primary teeth supporting the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry (EAPD) guideline development. METHODS Four electronic databases were systematically searched up to December 28th, 2020. Randomised controlled clinical trials (RCTs) on restorative materials for the restoration of carious primary teeth after pulp therapy were included. Failure rate, annual failure rate (AFR) and reasons for failure were recorded. Studies were sorted by restorative materials. The Cochrane Risk of bias tool for randomised trials (RoB 2.0) was used for quality assessment. RESULTS After identification of 1685 articles and screening of 41 papers from EAPD review group 1, 5 RCTs were included. Restored primary molars with pulpotomy presented the following AFRs: composite resin (CR) 0%, preformed metal crowns (PMCs) 2.4-2.5%, resin-modified glass-ionomer cement combined with CR 3.8%, compomer 8.9%, and amalgam 14.3%. Maxillary primary incisors receiving pulpectomy exhibited AFRs of 0-2.3% for composite strip crowns (CSCs) depending on the post chosen. Reasons for failure were secondary caries, poor marginal adaptation, loss of retention and fracture of restoration. All studies were classified as high risk of bias. Meta-analyses were not feasible given the clinical/methodological heterogeneity amongst studies. CONCLUSION Considering any limitations of this review, CR and PMCs can be recommended for primary molars after pulpotomy, and CSCs for primary incisors receiving pulpectomy. However, a need for further well-designed RCTs was observed

Deducing in Vivo Toxicity of Combustion-Derived Nanoparticles from a Cell-Free Oxidative Potency Assay and Metabolic Activation of Organic Compounds

BACKGROUND: The inhalation of combustion-derived nanoparticles (CDNPs) is believed to cause an oxidative stress response, which in turn may lead to pulmonary or even systemic inflammation. OBJECTIVE AND METHODS: In this study we assessed whether the in vivo inflammatory response-which is generally referred to as particle toxicity-of mice to CDNPs can be predicted in vitro by a cell-free ascorbate test for the surface reactivity or, more precisely, oxidative potency (Ox(Pot),) of particles. RESULTS: For six types of CDNPs with widely varying particle diameter (10-50 nm), organic content (OC; 1-20%), and specific Brunauer, Emmett, and Teller (BET) surface area (43-800 m(2)/g), Ox(Pot) correlated strongly with the in vivo inflammatory response (pulmonary polymorphonuclear neutrophil influx 24 hr after intratracheal particle instillation). However, for CDNPs with high organic content, Ox(Pot) could not explain the observed inflammatory response, possibly due to shielding of the Ox(Pot) of the carbon core of CDNPs by an organic coating. On the other hand, a pathway-specific gene expression screen indicated that, for particles rich in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs), cytochrome P450 1A1 (CYP1A1) enzyme-mediated biotransformation of bioavailable organics may generate oxidative stress and thus enhance the in vivo inflammatory response. CONCLUSION: The compensatory nature of both effects (shielding of carbon core and biotransformation of PAHs) results in a good correlation between inflammatory response and BET surface area for all CDNPs. Hence, the in vivo inflammatory response can either be predicted by BET surface area or by a simple quantitative model, based on in vitro Ox(Pot) and Cyp1a1 induction

The Pond 2 selenium volatilization study: A synthesis of five years of experimental results, 1990--1995

Microbial volatilization is a potential remedial measure to decrease the selenium inventory in Kesterson Reservoir soils. Past studies in both the field and the laboratory suggest that a significant percentage of the selenium inventory may be removed in this fashion. The objectives of this study include the quantification of selenium losses and a test of a pilot-scale design which in the future may be used in other parts of the Reservoir

Food system resilience measurement: principles, framework and caveats

There is growing recognition that a better understanding of how food systems respond to crises is critical to build and protect the food security of local populations. But rigorous and reliable methods to measure food system resilience are still missing. In this paper, we build on the current literature to develop an analytical framework aimed at assessing the resilience of food systems at local level. The novel element of the analysis lies in the levels at which resilience is considered. Combining the individual actor level with the notion of 'emergent properties' of food systems, we argue that the overall resilience of food system results from processes that take place – and need to be measured – at both individual and system levels. The framework is structured around three components: (i) the mapping of the actors and the local food system; (ii) the assessment of the resilience of these actors and that of the food system, and (iii) the outcomes of this resilience, assessed in term of local population’s food security. For each of those components, indicators are proposed and the ways to collect them are discussed. The paper then presents the types of analyses that would be necessary to complete to gain a better understanding of the situation regarding the resilience of the local food system under consideration, including the analysis of “positive deviance” among food system actors. The paper concludes with a series of reflections about the caveats and challenges that one may face when attempting to assess food system resilience