Development Engineering最新文献

{"title":"Data-powered positive deviance: Combining traditional and non-traditional data to identify and characterise development-related outperformers","authors":"Basma Albanna ,&nbsp;Richard Heeks ,&nbsp;Andreas Pawelke ,&nbsp;Jeremy Boy ,&nbsp;Julia Handl ,&nbsp;Andreas Gluecker","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100090","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100090","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The positive deviance approach in international development scales practices and strategies of positively-deviant individuals and groups: those who are able to achieve significantly better development outcomes than their peers despite having similar resources and challenges. This approach relies mainly on traditional data sources (e.g. surveys and interviews) for identifying those positive deviants and for discovering their successful solutions. The growing availability of non-traditional digital data (e.g. from remote sensing and mobile phones) relating to individuals, communities and spaces enables data innovation opportunities for positive deviance. Such datasets can identify deviance at geographic and temporal scales that were not possible before. But guidance is needed on how this new data can be employed in the positive deviance approach, and how it can be combined with more traditional data to gain deeper, more meaningful, and context-aware insights.</p><p>This paper presents such guidance through a data-powered method that combines both traditional and non-traditional data to identify and understand positive deviance in new ways and domains. This method has been developed iteratively through six development projects covering five different domains – sustainable cattle ranching, agricultural productivity, rangeland management, research performance, crime control – with global and local development partners in six countries. The projects combine different types of non-traditional data with official statistics, administrative data and interviews. Here, we describe a structured method for data-powered positive deviance developed from the experience of these projects, and we reflect on lessons learned. We hope to encourage and guide greater use of this new method; enabling development practitioners to make more effective use of the non-traditional digital datasets that are increasingly available.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"7 ","pages":"Article 100090"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352728521000324/pdfft?md5=d768cf737998ae3cee940b373d4f19e8&pid=1-s2.0-S2352728521000324-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46752255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Use of simulation and wear prediction to explore design improvements to the cup seal in the India Mark II/III hand pump system","authors":"Hans J. Ottosson ,&nbsp;Christopher A. Mattson ,&nbsp;Oliver K. Johnson ,&nbsp;Immy Irot","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2022.100092","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2022.100092","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The India Mark II/III hand pump system is now over 40 years old and has become a staple in how water is retrieved in many rural areas across India and Africa. With over 4 million installations, it is estimated that 10% of the world’s population is using one on a daily basis. One of the components that fails most frequent is the nitrile cup seal found in the under-ground pump cylinder, often causing the pump to become derelict for undesirably long periods of time. This paper’s focus is on this cup seal and how the wear and life of the seal can be predicted. A test rig was created to evaluate and test cup seals. From this, seal performance and the nitrile cup seal wear coefficient were found. A two-dimensional finite element model of the seal and the pump cylinder was then developed and used to calculate the pressure distribution and wear of the seal. Archard’s wear law was used to simulate the wear. From this, models for pump performance and seal wear prediction were created. This data was then used to explore possible design improvements to the cup seal. By combining this data with engineering tools such as ANSYS, MATLAB, and JMP, a new seal design was generated that has the potential to last 12% longer than the original cup seal.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"7 ","pages":"Article 100092"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235272852200001X/pdfft?md5=a13e9ce7a8960b3e1c0e421ac24f968a&pid=1-s2.0-S235272852200001X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49109255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Willingness to pay (WTP) for arsenic-safe drinking water: A case study to understand societal embedding of ECAR technology in rural West Bengal, India","authors":"Shyamasree Dasgupta ,&nbsp;Joyashree Roy ,&nbsp;Monalisa Ghosh ,&nbsp;Jayanta Talukder","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2022.100096","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2022.100096","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper analyzes users’ willingness to pay (WTP) for safe drinking water in a resource-poor region in West Bengal, India, with dangerously high groundwater arsenic concentrations. The study was carried out during the installation of an Electro Chemical Arsenic Remediation (ECAR) water treatment plant at the site. Using a contingent valuation method, the study elicits WTP, based on a stratified random sample of 1003 households. Arsenic is invisible and odorless, and related health risks have a prolonged latency period. As a result, awareness about arsenic and the perceived benefits of any arsenic remediation technology are low. In the study area, only 21% of respondents were aware of the danger of high arsenic concentrations in groundwater, however, a large number of the respondents reported irregularity of drinking water supply and a lack of quality assurance. About 64% of the respondents were willing to pay for ECAR-treated safe drinking water. Participants opting for home delivery were willing to pay more than those willing to collect water from the plant. The average WTP was high enough to recover the operational cost of the plant. Households with higher income and educational attainment, more awareness about arsenic contamination, and living in proximity to the plant were willing to pay more than the others. Regular interaction with the community, maintaining transparency, and interacting closely with the local administration created a sense of local ownership for the technology that was found to be crucial for the societal embedding of the technology.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"7 ","pages":"Article 100096"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352728522000057/pdfft?md5=24245b34df0c00ec8f136c7f513ad2b6&pid=1-s2.0-S2352728522000057-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49352992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Improved water supply and water handling technologies: Revealed complements but perceived substitutes for safe water quality","authors":"Elena Gross ,&nbsp;Isabel Guenther ,&nbsp;Youdi Schipper","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100089","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100089","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We analyze the impact of public water infrastructure and water handling technologies on the water quality and water handling behavior of households in rural Benin using both quasi-experimental and experimental household-level panel data. We find that the installation of improved village-level water sources induces households to reduce water disinfection efforts at home, indicating that households perceive improved public water infrastructure as a substitute for improved water handling to obtain safe drinking water. Consequently, point-of-use drinking water quality does not change. A reduction of contamination with <em>E. coli</em> at points of use can only be achieved if interventions providing drinking water technologies at the water source are complemented by household-level interventions and efforts to teach households how to maintain good water quality.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"7 ","pages":"Article 100089"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352728521000312/pdfft?md5=0dea8d08a036d182ccba2a1e12957c6a&pid=1-s2.0-S2352728521000312-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43635911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Erratum to “Hot diodes!: Dirt cheap cooking and electricity for the global poor?” [Dev. Eng. 4 (2019) 100044]","authors":"Grace Gius ,&nbsp;Matthew Walker ,&nbsp;Andre Li ,&nbsp;Nicholas J. Adams ,&nbsp;Robert Van Buskirk ,&nbsp;Pete Schwartz","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100082","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100082","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100082"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352728521000245/pdfft?md5=5a55a2cf419186bddd895913c18f5f16&pid=1-s2.0-S2352728521000245-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45271608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A techno-economic and environmental assessment of residential rooftop solar - Battery systems in grid-connected households in Lagos, Nigeria","authors":"Chukwudi Udeani ,&nbsp;Paulina Jaramillo ,&nbsp;Nathaniel J. Williams","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100069","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100069","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We developed a techno-economic model to simulate the performance of residential solar-battery systems as a means of reducing the reliance on backup generators in grid connected households in Lagos, Nigeria. We compared the economic and environmental performance of solar-battery systems to the technology options in households that may currently rely on backup generators to supplement unreliable grid service. Our analysis shows that solar-battery systems are economically profitable for households who rely on their backup generators to ensure at least 8-h of reliable service daily. We also show that the solar-battery systems could offer a cost-effective alternative for households intending to increase the level of the electricity services they receive without greater demand from backup generators. Finally, installing the solar-battery system lowers annual air emissions from households by 15 %–87 %. The paper proposes that policymakers provide access to low interest loans to improve the economic attractiveness of solar-battery systems across all the reliability preference levels.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100069"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100069","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54239152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Factors leading to sustainable social impact on the affected communities of engineering service learning projects","authors":"Andrew G. Armstrong ,&nbsp;Christopher A. Mattson ,&nbsp;Randy S. Lewis","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100066","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>University engineering programs across the USA engage in service learning projects. These projects involve student teams designing and implementing products or solutions for communities in need, often in developing nations. There has been much research done relating to pedagogy and the impact of these programs on student learning. However, less research has been done on measuring the impact of these programs on the affected communities. This paper examines factors that practitioners believe are related to successfully delivering a desirable and transferable solution to affected communities. The authors identified 49 distinct factors from the literature that implicitly or explicitly are suggested to contribute to successful project outcomes. Formed as postulates in this paper, these 49 factors have been separated into 5 categories to assist understanding and implementing these factors into service learning programs. Lastly, different methods of analyzing and measuring project success and impact are discussed. Future methods for proving the viability of the 49 postulates are discussed as well.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100066"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100066","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"137242193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tracking economic activity in response to the COVID-19 crisis using nighttime lights – The case of Morocco","authors":"Mark Roberts","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100067","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100067","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Over the past decade, nighttime lights have become a widely used proxy for measuring economic activity. This paper examines the potential for high frequency nighttime lights data to provide “near real-time” tracking of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in Morocco. At the national level, there exists a statistically significant correlation between quarterly movements in Morocco's overall nighttime light intensity and movements in its real GDP. This finding supports the cautious use of lights data to track the economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis at higher temporal frequencies and at the subnational and city levels, for which GDP data are unavailable. Relative to its pre-COVID-19 trend growth path of lights, Morocco experienced a large drop in the overall intensity of its lights in March 2020 following the country's first COVID-19 case and the introduction of strict lockdown measures, from which it has subsequently struggled to recover. At the subnational and city levels, while all regions and cities examined shared in March's national decline in nighttime light intensity, some suffered much larger declines than others. Since then, the relative effects of the COVID-19 shock across regions and cities appear to have largely persisted. Notwithstanding these findings, however, further research is required to ascertain the exact causes of the observed changes in light intensity and to fully verify that the results are driven by anthropogenic causes.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100067"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100067","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10389506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ingredients for growth: Examining electricity consumption and complementary infrastructure for Small and Medium Enterprises in Kenya","authors":"Bob Muhwezi ,&nbsp;Nathaniel J. Williams ,&nbsp;Jay Taneja","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100072","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2021.100072","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In Kenya, between 2010 and 2015, the number of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) connected to the grid increased by over 60%. Despite this substantial increase, little is known about the behavioural patterns or conditions that contribute to increased electricity consumption among these SMEs. This study addresses the problem through a longitudinal analysis of monthly electricity bills for over 179,000 grid connected SMEs in Kenya. We then leverage multiple publicly available geospatial datasets to estimate how complementary infrastructural variables (such as access to roads, markets, financial services, and macro/micro-economic conditions) correlate with sustained electricity consumption growth by SMEs. Results from our longitudinal analysis indicate that newly electrified SMEs in urban areas have higher median consumption than their older counterparts while in rural areas, more newly connected SMEs appear to have lower median consumption. We find the effects of complementary infrastructure on SME electricity consumption to be more pronounced in rural areas than urban areas. For example, SMEs located in rural neighbourhoods with close proximity to roads, markets or financial service providers are associated with a 10% to 16% increase in electricity consumption while in urban areas, we only observe about a 2% increment in electricity consumption for SMEs within close proximity to roads. All other infrastructural variables are either statistically insignificant or negatively correlated with urban SME electricity consumption.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100072"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352728521000142/pdfft?md5=0d17d39b3a63bd2902dfe95120855f44&pid=1-s2.0-S2352728521000142-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54239186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Building the supply of demand: Experiments in mini-grid demand stimulation","authors":"June Lukuyu ,&nbsp;Rob Fetter ,&nbsp;P.P. Krishnapriya ,&nbsp;Nathan Williams ,&nbsp;Jay Taneja","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2020.100058","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2020.100058","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Solar mini-grids are a key element in strategies to achieve universal access to modern energy by 2030. In many settings mini-grids offer a combination of affordability, reliability, and capacity for productive use of power, moreso than most solar home systems and some central grids. Yet the economic sustainability of mini-grids relies on achieving target usage levels, and consumption data to date suggest that they may be commercially unsustainable due to consistently low demand for power once installed—and that newly-connected recipients cannot take full advantage of access. Using a uniquely fine-grained data set spanning 29 villages in East Africa, we test whether credit constraints and the cost of electricity hinder demand growth among mini-grid-connected households. We find that households that purchased appliances under a financing program increased consumption by up to 66 percent compared to matched controls, though a sensitivity analysis suggests this estimate is rather sensitive to bias from unobservable characteristics, and the increase is not sustained. While most customers in the program do not repay loans in full, we find that on average, customers repay about 78 percent of the loan amount. When we analyze developers’ return on investment, we find that the profitability of appliance financing programs at a market cost of capital, similar to those evaluated in this study, depends substantially on the types of appliances on offer. With a limited sample size, the tariff subsidy program indicated that lowering the cost of electricity by up to 75 percent substantially increased consumption, albeit with mixed signals for whether overall revenue could be maintained at a lower tariff, therefore calling for further research to find the optimal balance of affordable tariffs and profitable business models for mini-grids in settings like East Africa.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100058"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2020.100058","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54239064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}