The improbability of accountability of nongovernmental organisations to their intended beneficiaries: the case of ActionAid

This dissertation examines what happens when NGOs attempt to implement systems to improve their accountability to intended beneficiaries. While NGO accountability is widely discussed in the literature, there has been very little work done on how accountability systems operate in practice. My dissertation aims to address this important gap by providing a detailed case study of one NGO’s initiative in this area using qualitative empirical data. The data relate to the ‘best case’ example of ActionAid, an NGO that has made substantial, high-profile efforts to improve its downward accountability since 2000 through its Accountability Learning and Planning System (ALPS). The case study reconstructs the evolution of ALPS and examines efforts to implement it, both at international level and within a single country setting: Uganda. The data reveal the obstacles which have hindered ActionAid in its attempts to strengthen its downward accountability. Despite positive rhetoric around ALPS and downward accountability, my findings indicate a significant disjuncture between intentions and actual outcomes. Key factors causing this disjuncture include the benefits that the organisation can reap from an appearance of downward accountability, such as enhanced external legitimacy, even if this does not reflect reality. More broadly, my case study suggests that disjuncture between aims and actual practices is a necessary feature of how NGOs function in the aid sector, in terms of accountability and also in other areas. What then can NGOs do to attempt to overcome the negative implications of disjuncture and improve their relationships with intended beneficiaries? My central recommendation is for NGOs to reflect and to recognise their tendencies to promote disjuncture, such as when they over-state achievements to donors. Frank assessments of the actual status of an NGO’s relationships with communities and of the limitations caused by the NGO’s funding structures are important steps to improving these relationships

Safety and volunteer construction workers

The construction industry is dangerous – 39 fatalities were recorded in the UK in 2012/13, with comparable and even larger figures reported worldwide. Yet every year, at least several hundred UK-based people take part in construction activities on a voluntary basis, examples being international development projects using ‘gap-year’ students and the substantial UK heritage railway sector that maintains its permanent way and civil engineering infrastructure using volunteers. Most of these volunteers have limited training and no technical qualification, whilst safety regulation frameworks range from being comparable to professional sectors to zero regulation in some international contexts. This research investigates how these volunteer workers construct safety in their volunteering environment. A series of unstructured interviews have been conducted with members of permanent way gangs at several UK heritage railways and with students who have taken part in development projects including the construction of housing and water infrastructure in Eastern Europe and Africa under the auspices of various charities. Taking a social constructionist perspective, the interviews were explored using discourse analysis to illuminate the master discourses of safety within this unique construction ‘industry’. Those with engineering or technical backgrounds developed more tangible constructions of safety, around risks and hazards, within their activities, yet volunteers without this knowledge also acknowledged this wider context of danger. Volunteers on overseas projects developed discourses of ‘difference’ between safety at home and safety outside of the UK; this discourse closely associated with negative practices overseas yet also with an acceptance of the inevitability of this context as part of their voluntary experience. Further work is proposed to determine whether these insights can contribute to appropriate management of safety in these contexts, relative to practice in the professional construction industry

Optimising the choice of analysis method for all-sky searches for continuous gravitational waves with Einstein@Home

Rapidly rotating neutron stars are promising sources of continuous gravitational waves for the LIGO and Virgo observatories. The majority of neutron stars in our galaxy have not been identified with electromagnetic observations. Blind all-sky searches offer the potential to detect gravitational waves from these unidentified sources. The parameter space of these searches presents a significant computational challenge. Various methods have been designed to perform these searches with available computing resources. Recently, a method called Weave has been proposed to achieve template placement with a minimal number of templates. We employ a mock data challenge to assess the ability of this method to recover signals, and compare its sensitivity with that of the global correlation transform method (GCT), which has been used for searches with the Einstein@Home volunteer computing project for a number of years. We find that the Weave method is 14% more sensitive for an all-sky search on Einstein@Home, with a sensitivity depth of $57.9\pm0.6$ 1/$\sqrt{Hz}$ at 90% detection efficiency, compared to $50.8^{+0.7}_{-1.1}$ 1/$\sqrt{Hz}$ for GCT. This corresponds to a 50% increase in the volume of sky where we are sensitive with the Weave search. We also find that the Weave search recovers candidates closer to the true signal position. In the search studied here the improvement in candidate localisation would lead to a factor of 70 reduction in the computing cost required to follow up the same number of candidates. We assess the feasability of deploying the search on Einstein@Home, and find that Weave requires more memory than is typically available on a volunteer computer. We conclude that, while GCT remains the best choice for deployment on Einstein@Home due to its lower memory requirements, Weave presents significant advantages for the subsequent hierarchical follow-up of interesting candidates.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

How herd best linear unbiased estimates affect the progress achievable from gains in additive and nonadditive genetic merit

peer-reviewedSustainable dairy cow performance relies on coevolution in the development of breeding and management strategies. Tailoring breeding programs to herd performance metrics facilitates improved responses to breeding decisions. Although herd-level raw metrics on performance are useful, implicitly included within such statistics is the mean herd genetic merit. The objective of the present study was to quantify the expected response from selection decisions on additive and nonadditive merit by herd performance metrics independent of herd mean genetic merit. Performance traits considered in the present study were age at first calving, milk yield, calving to first service, number of services, calving interval, and survival. Herd-level best linear unbiased estimates (BLUE) for each performance trait were available on a maximum of 1,059 herds, stratified as best, average, and worst for each performance trait separately. The analyses performed included (1) the estimation of (co)variance for each trait in the 3 BLUE environments and (2) the regression of cow-level phenotypic performance on either the respective estimated breeding value (EBV) or the heterosis coefficient of the cow. A fundamental assumption of genetic evaluations is that 1 unit change in EBV equates to a 1 unit change in the respective phenotype; results from the present study, however, suggest that the realization of the change in phenotypic performance is largely dependent on the herd BLUE for that trait. Herds achieving more yield, on average, than expected from their mean genetic merit, had a 20% greater response to changes in EBV as well as 43% greater genetic standard deviation relative to herds within the worst BLUE for milk yield. Conversely, phenotypic performance in fertility traits (with the exception of calving to first service) tended to have a greater response to selection as well as a greater additive genetic standard deviation within the respective worst herd BLUE environments; this is suggested to be due to animals performing under more challenging environments leading to larger achievable gains. The attempts to exploit nonadditive genetic effects such as heterosis are often the basis of promoting cross-breeding, yet the results from the present study suggest that improvements in phenotypic performance is largely dependent on the environment. The largest gains due to heterotic effects tended to be within the most stressful (i.e., worst) BLUE environment for all traits, thus suggesting the heterosis effects can be beneficial in mitigating against poorer environments.This publication emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (Dublin, Ireland) and the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine on behalf of the Government of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland) under the Grant 16/RC/3835 (VistaMilk) as well as funding from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine STIMULUS research grant MultiRepro (Dublin, Ireland)

Promoting healthier communities through adult education: Learning Connections in action

This presentation will highlight an Adult Education initiative delivered in Cork City through collaboration between members of the Cork Learning Neighbourhoods Project. It will outline the outreach provision of the Certificate in the Mental Health in the Community and how this is delivered in non-traditional settings to achieve successful collaboration, support accessible participation in lifelong learning and build capacity in communities. The process of creating a learning space to achieve transformative learning will be outlined as well as how this programme serves to enable students to address mental health issues on a personal level, community level and beyond

Day surgery in a teaching hospital: identifying barriers to productivity.

Introduction: Ambulatory surgery is a standard of care for many surgical procedures due to cost-effectiveness and benefits to patients including the reduced risk of contracting hospital infection by reducing the hospital stay. However, late cancellations can be costly. We examined the utilisation of the surgical day ward in our institution over a four-year period. Methods: A retrospective study of surgical day ward records from September 2007 to September 2011 in one institution. Parameters investigated included the number of planned admissions. Reasons for cancellations were also collected. Results: A total of 17,461 procedures were intended as a day ward admission during the study interval. There were 3,539 procedures that were cancelled (20.3%). The prevalent proportion of cancellations (n = 1,367) (38.6%) were due to patients not showing up for their procedures (7.8% of planned admissions); 1,188 (33.6%) patients were cancelled by the admissions office due to bed shortages, accounting for 6.8 % of planned admissions and 650 (18.4%) of cases were due to last minute cancellations by patients, accounting for 3.7% of all planned admission. The remaining 334 (9.4%) of cases were cancelled on medical grounds including patients who were considered unfit for the intended procedure, or anti-coagulations not appropriately ceased prior to surgery, accounting for 1.9% of all planned admissions. Conclusion: The cancellation rate in this study was high, mainly due to failure of patients to attend or signal their intentions, inadequate bed capacity and bed closure strategies. The ring fencing and protection of day beds and a more active patient management interaction would have had the greatest impact on increased efficiency

CXCR3A promotes the secretion of the anti-fibrotic decoy receptor sIL-13Rα2 by pulmonary fibroblasts

CXCR3A and its IFN-inducible ligands CXCL9 and CXCL10 regulate vascular remodelling and fibroblast motility. IL‑13 is a pro‑fibrotic cytokine implicated in the pathogenies of inflammatory and fibro-proliferative conditions. Previous work from our lab has shown that CXCR3A is negatively regulated by IL-13 and is necessary for the basal regulation of the IL-13 receptor subunit IL-13Rα2. This study investigates the regulation of fibroblast phenotype, function and downstream IL-13 signalling by CXCR3A in vitro. CXCR3A was overexpressed via transient transfection. CXCR3A-/- lung fibroblastswere isolated for functional analysis. Additionally, the contribution of CXCR3A to tissue remodelling following acute lung injury was assessed in vivo using wild type (WT) and CXCR3-/- mice challenged with IL-13. CXCR3 and IL‑13Rα2 displayed a reciprocal relationship following stimulation with either IL-13 or CXCR3 ligands. CXCR3A reduced expression of fibroblast activation makers, soluble collagen production and proliferation. CXCR3A enhanced the basal expression of pERK1/2 while inducing IL-13 mediated down‑regulation of NFκB‑p65. CXCR3A-/- pulmonary fibroblasts were increasingly proliferative and displayed reduced contractility and α‑smooth muscle actin expression. IL-13 challenge regulated expression of the CXCR3 ligands and soluble IL-13Rα2 levels in lungs and broncho‑alveolar lavage fluid (BALF) of WT mice, this response was absent in CXCR3-/- mice. Alveolar macrophage accumulation and expression of genes involved in lung remodelling was increased in CXCR3-/- mice. We conclude that CXCR3A is a central anti-fibrotic factor in pulmonary fibroblasts, limiting fibroblast activation and reducing ECM production. Therefore targeting of CXCR3A may be a novel approach to regulate fibroblast activity in lung fibrosis and remodelling

Nurses and midwives' experiences with a peer group clinical supervision intervention: A pilot study

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate differences in supervisees' understanding of clinical supervision and their perceptions of organisational functioning before and after engaging in peer-group clinical supervision. Background: Protected reflective time allows discussion of complex issues affecting health care. Peer-group clinical supervision is one model of clinical supervision that could facilitate this, but it is poorly understood. Methods: A preâ post intervention pilot study was performed. The intervention was delivered over a 12-month period. Data were collected using surveys on demographic and work-related factors and experience of clinical supervision pre- and post intervention. Results: Adaptability increased significantly between the pre- and post surveys. The post survey data showed finding time for clinical supervision scoring lowest with open-ended comments reinforcing this. The supervisees found the sessions to offer a safe place despite initial concerns. Conclusion: The peer-group model of clinical supervision allowed supervisees to build a rapport and trust with their colleagues and share experiences. Implications for Nursing Management: The benefits to participating in peer-group clinical supervision traversed the individual and organisation. These data support the implementation of such sessions while addressing workload and time pressures to aid participation

Next generation PCR microfluidic system

Stokes Bio, founded in 2005, develops innovative microfluidic technologies. In 2008 in collaboration with Monsanto, an application driven development for a high-throughput instrument in the detection and characterisation of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in agricultural crops was initiated. Stokes technology is designed to generate aqueous nanolitre scale droplets of reagents and samples, wrapped in a carrier fluid from standard microtitre plates and to mix them using Stokes Bio’s proprietary liquid bridge mixers. Following mixing the complete assay is transferred in the carrier fluid through the use of a continuous flow system, to a flow through thermal cycler and an optical reading station. This poster summarises results collated using the Stokes Bio genotyping platform currently based in Monsanto. Data will be presented to illustrate the dynamic capabilities of the instrument, highlighting the enhanced sensitivity and reproducibility of PCR in droplet format compared to well-based technologies