Working in decentralised service systems: challenges and choices for the Australian aid program

The report examined Australia’s support for service systems in decentralised contexts - the evaluation focussed on the health, education and infrastructure (water, sanitation and roads) sectors. Foreword Public services have been decentralised in most countries where Australia provides aid. This means Australia, like other donors, must be willing and able to engage effectively with developing country governments at all levels to improve service delivery. To ensure sustainable improvements, this engagement should carefully coordinate support for governance reforms with assistance to strengthen or expand service delivery systems. As the World Bank has observed, done well, decentralisation can result in more efficient and effective services for communities. However, done poorly, or where the context is inappropriate, decentralisation may have negative effects. This evaluation builds on the Office of Development Effectiveness’s 2009 evaluation of Australian aid for service delivery. It answers important questions about whether Australian aid has appropriately considered the role of subnational authorities, including specific issues identified in 2009. It assesses how well Australian aid has addressed the challenges of decentralisation, with a focus on the major sectors of education, health and infrastructure. This evaluation utilised a clear methodology, applied it consistently, and draws together a range of evidence to provide a balanced account of Australian aid performance. It concludes that Australian aid is beginning to respond to the challenges of supporting service delivery in decentralised contexts, but notes that results are mixed and there is room for further improvement. The evaluation suggests Australia needs to improve its country-level analysis, program planning and design to better address decentralisation. In particular, there is a need to carefully assess short-term service delivery needs against long-term structures and incentives for governments to achieve sustainable service delivery and meet sovereign responsibilities. Australia needs to get the right balance of engagement with different levels of government, and appropriately address both supply and demand aspects of service delivery, especially to improve equity.   &nbsp

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

CCDC 671492: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination

An entry from the Cambridge Structural Database, the world’s repository for small molecule crystal structures. The entry contains experimental data from a crystal diffraction study. The deposited dataset for this entry is freely available from the CCDC and typically includes 3D coordinates, cell parameters, space group, experimental conditions and quality measures

Undergraduate student nurses’ experience of mental health simulation pre-clinical placement: a pre/post-test survey

Undertaking a mental health clinical placement can be anxiety-provoking for nursing students at times. There is a need to adequately prepare undergraduate nursing students for clinical placement in a mental health setting in relation to their skills and confidence. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of a mental health simulation workshop on the skills and confidence of nursing students in providing care to consumers living with a mental illness. The study also evaluated the design of the mental health simulation workshop from an educational perspective. A pre/post-test survey was administered to a cohort of N = 89 Australian pre-registration nursing students. Exploratory factor analysis identified three factors: Mental health therapeutic engagement, mental health assessment skills, and mental health placement preparedness. Analyses of pre–post differences indicated that all three factors were significantly different between the initial and follow-up responses, with follow-up responses being more favourable. The findings of this study demonstrate that there is value in including mental health simulated patient exercise as part of the learning strategies in the curriculum of pre-registration nurses. This has implications for the quality of care in the clinical environment and level of preparedness of these students’ nurses for mental health clinical placement where they will be providing care to consumers living with a mental illness under direct supervision. © 2020 Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc