Contested relationships: Women's economic and social empowerment, insights from the transfer of material assets in Bangladesh

This article examines the relationship between women's economic and social empowerment in the context of extreme poverty. It is based on the findings of primary fieldwork on the char islands of north-west Bangladesh, investigating the processes resulting from the implementation of the Chars Livelihoods Programme (CLP). The first phase of the CLP, funded by the UK government's Department for International Development (DFID), operated from 2004-2010. Its central activity was the transfer of approximately £100s' worth of investment capital to targeted extremely poor households. This investment capital was given specifically to a woman within that household and the majority of these female beneficiaries used it to purchase cattle. This article argues that interventions which adopt primarily an economic entry point can contribute to women's empowerment beyond the economic realm, including in terms of changing intra-household relationships and increasing women's self-esteem. Clearly interventions beyond the economic sphere are needed to ensure that this empowerment is sustainable and can contribute to changing social norms. However, the contribution which practical gender needs make in providing a basis for extremely poor women to achieve their future strategic gender needs should not be underestimated

Transfers for extreme poverty reduction: Implications for patron-client relationships in the context of Bangladesh's agricultural reformation

This paper investigates how a development intervention which targets extremely poor households with investment capital influences relationships between those households and the landowning elite. It places this investigation in the context of the agricultural reformation of rural Bangladesh, whereby the growth of the non-farm economy and increased connectivity of rural areas are eroding the historical rigid position of the landowning elite at the top of the rural hierarchy. The paper is based on the findings of primary fieldwork on the char islands of north-west Bangladesh which examined the processes resulting from implementation of the Chars Livelihoods Programme (CLP). In weakening the economic dependence of extremely poor households on the landowning elite, this paper argues that the CLP is swimming with the tide with respect to the wider social processes operating in rural Bangladesh. Because of this, the activities of the CLP have the potential to be transformative-by-stealth. Short-term material gains and reduced insecurity provide a platform for changing inter-household relationships, particularly those with the elite. The activities of the CLP have had valuable short and medium term impacts as well as contributing to, and providing a basis for, longer-term transformation in society

Feeding back to feed forward:formative assessment as a platform for effective learning

Students construct meaning through relevant learning activities (Biggs, 2003) which are largely determined by the type, amount, and timing of feedback (Carless, 2006). The aim of the present study was to develop a greater awareness and understanding of formative assessment and feedback practices and their relationship with learning. During 2011 five focus group discussions were undertaken with students and academic staff involved with a range of modules and degree pathways at a UK University. Three of the focus groups were with undergraduate students (one at each level of study), and one was with taught postgraduate students. Discussions focussed on integration of formative assessment and feedback into modules, as well as an exploration of the effectiveness of feedback on future learning. The findings revealed that in order to emphasise continuous learning – feeding back to feed forward (Rushton, 2005) – and to encourage self-regulated learning (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006), students need to have opportunities to make mistakes and to learn from them prior to summative assessment (through formative assessment and feedback). There was also firm evidence of different approaches to learning, emphasising in particular the transitional importance of the first year of study as the foundation upon which future achievement is built

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

In the matter of DE (an adult patient) …. and JE v (1) DE (by his litigation friend, the Official Solicitor) (2) Surrey County Council[2006] EWHC Fam 3459 (Munby J

Capacity choice and compulsion

The cases of Harold C, David Bennett and John Wilkinson are discussed in the context of compulsion applied in the course of psychiatric care

Biomarker development for gastrointestinal and ovarian cancer: a proteomic approach

The development of new biomarkers for cancer patients would be advantageous in population screening for the early detection of cancers, pathological diagnosis, assessment of prognosis, tailoring treatment to individuals, and assessment of treatment response. With this in mind different proteomic approaches were used to identify biomarkers which could potentially aid prognosis and predict response in gastrointestinal and ovarian cancer. Raf Kinase Inhibitor Protein (RKIP) was originally purified from bovine brain extracts and named phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP). It has subsequently been shown to be a widely expressed and highly conserved protein. Several recent studies have suggested that RKIP may suppress metastasis in melanoma, prostate, and breast cancer, as reduction or loss of RKIP expression was observed in metastatic cell lines and metastatic tissue. In this part of the project RKIP expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays (TMA) from patients with colorectal and ovarian cancer. The results confirmed the findings of earlier studies and suggest that the level of RKIP expression is significantly and inversely associated with metastatic disease and can predict the risk of metastatic relapse in patients with no evidence of metastases at presentation. The level of RKIP expression as a prognostic factor was independent of sex, age, tumour site, mitotic index, lymphovascular invasion and tumour stage. Cytokeratin 18 (CK18) is an epithelial-specific cytokeratin that undergoes cleavage by caspases during apoptosis. Measurement of caspase-cleaved (CK18-NE) or total cytokeratin 18 (CK18) from epithelial-derived tumours could be a simple, non-invasive way to monitor or predict responses to treatment. Soluble plasma CK18-NE and CK18 were measured by ELISA from 73 patients with advanced gastrointestinal adenocarcinomas before treatment and during chemotherapy, as well as 100 healthy volunteers. Both CK18-NE and total CK18 plasma levels were significantly higher in patients compared to the healthy volunteers (p=0.015, p<0.001). The total CK18 baseline plasma levels prior to treatment were significantly higher (p=0.009) in patients who develop progressive disease than those who achieve partial response or stable disease and this correlation was confirmed in an independent validation set. The peak plasma levels of CK18 occurring in any cycle following treatment were also found to be associated with tumour response, but peak levels of CK18-NE did not reach significance (p=0.01, and p=0.07, respectively). A surface-enhanced laser desorption-ionisation mass spectrometry (SELDI-MS) pilot study on serum from 8 oesophageal cancer patients and 8 healthy volunteers revealed a novel biomarker, ~4kDa, downregulated in patients (p=0.012). An expanded 30 tumour/normal study was performed for validation which confirmed the down-regulation of this potential biomarker (p<0.0001). Attempts to identify tentatively suggested that the peptide may be inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain H4 precursor, which was interesting as a cleavage fragment of inter-alpha -trypsin inhibitor heavy chain H4 had been previously found to be up-regulated in patients with ovarian cancer, and down-regulated in patients with breast cancer. However, it was not possible to confidently confirm this identification. In a further part of this study, haptoglobin was found to be significantly more abundant in the serum from patients with oesophageal cancer compared to healthy volunteers. It was straightforward to isolate and identify and would be amenable to immunoassay as there are good antibodies available for confirmation. In conclusion, with the current lack of effective markers of metastatic relapse in colorectal cancer, a straightforward test like RKIP expression in the primary tumour may be a very cost-effective way to identify which patients may derive greater benefit from adjuvant treatment and closer post-operative surveillance, and in patients with advanced gastrointestinal malignancy levels of plasma CK18 are a potential marker of tumour response

The role of herbivores as ecosystem engineers in Great Barrier Reef seagrass meadows

Abigail Scott studied how herbivore grazing can modify seagrass meadows in the Great Barrier Reef. She found that herbivores act as ecosystem engineers in these seagrass meadows, particularly green turtles and dugong. Abigail's results will be used to inform seagrass monitoring on the Great Barrier Reef

Exploring how different modes of governance act across health system levels to influence primary healthcare facility managers' use of information in decisionmaking: experience from Cape Town, South Africa

BACKGROUND: Governance, which includes decision-making at all levels of the health system, and information have been identified as key, interacting levers of health system strengthening. However there is an extensive literature detailing the challenges of supporting health managers to use formal information from health information systems (HISs) in their decision-making. While health information needs differ across levels of the health system there has been surprisingly little empirical work considering what information is actually used by primary healthcare facility managers in managing, and making decisions about, service delivery. This paper, therefore, specifically examines experience from Cape Town, South Africa, asking the question: How is primary healthcare facility managers’ use of information for decision-making influenced by governance across levels of the health system? The research is novel in that it both explores what information these facility managers actually use in decision-making, and considers how wider governance processes influence this information use. METHODS: An academic researcher and four facility managers worked as co-researchers in a multi-case study in which three areas of management were served as the cases. There were iterative cycles of data collection and collaborative analysis with individual and peer reflective learning over a period of three years. RESULTS: Central governance shaped what information and knowledge was valued – and, therefore, generated and used at lower system levels. The central level valued formal health information generated in the district-based HIS which therefore attracted management attention across the levels of the health system in terms of design, funding and implementation. This information was useful in the top-down practices of planning and management of the public health system. However, in facilities at the frontline of service delivery, there was a strong requirement for local, disaggregated information and experiential knowledge to make locally-appropriate and responsive decisions, and to perform the people management tasks required. Despite central level influences, modes of governance operating at the subdistrict level had influence over what information was valued, generated and used locally. CONCLUSIONS: Strengthening local level managers’ ability to create enabling environments is an important leverage point in supporting informed local decision-making, and, in turn, translating national policies and priorities, including equity goals, into appropriate service delivery practices.ISIScopu

Gender mainstreaming in Nordic development agencies: Seventeen years after the Beijing conference

The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, was critical in making gender equality a development goal and adopted gender-mainstreaming as its primary mechanism to achieve this. Effective implementation of gender-mainstreaming involves changing both the internal organization and the external operations of development agencies to ensure that gender is integrated throughout the life cycle of all policies, programmes and practices. This paper assesses gender-mainstreaming in the development co-operation strategies and activities of three Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, and Sweden - in two aspects. The first aspect focuses on the central level of development agencies in terms of strategies, operations, and structures while the second component examines gender-mainstreaming at the embassy level, in terms of gender-mainstreaming in implementation and interventions for advancing gender equality