Development Engineering最新文献

{"title":"Computer security for data collection technologies","authors":"Camille Cobb ,&nbsp;Samuel Sudar ,&nbsp;Nicholas Reiter,&nbsp;Richard Anderson,&nbsp;Franziska Roesner,&nbsp;Tadayoshi Kohno","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2017.12.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2017.12.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Many organizations in the developing world (e.g., NGOs), include digital data collection in their workflow. Data collected can include information that may be considered sensitive, such as medical or socioeconomic data, and which could be affected by computer security attacks or unintentional mishandling. The attitudes and practices of organizations collecting data have implications for <em>confidentiality</em>, <em>availability</em>, and <em>integrity</em> of data. This work, a collaboration between computer security and ICTD researchers, explores security and privacy attitudes, practices, and needs within organizations that use Open Data Kit (ODK), a prominent digital data collection platform. We conduct a detailed <em>threat modeling</em> exercise to inform our view on potential security threats, and then conduct and analyze a survey and interviews with technology experts in these organizations to ground this analysis in real deployment experiences. We then reflect upon our results, drawing lessons for both organizations collecting data and for tool developers.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 1-11"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2017.12.002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36831164","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":"Do financial diaries affect financial outcomes? Evidence from a randomized experiment in Uganda","authors":"Joeri Smits ,&nbsp;Isabel Günther","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.02.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.02.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Survey data on income and expenditure is often of low quality and does not capture the volatile and irregular nature of cash flows of poor households. Financial diaries are increasingly used to improve the precision and accuracy of consumption and income estimates. In this paper we analyze whether keeping track of income and expenditures changes financial behavior and outcomes, which could reduce the validity of diaries as a measurement instrument. Members of urban Ugandan microcredit groups were, through random assignment, offered financial diaries to keep a record of their daily cash flows for more than a year. We find no evidence that financial diaries change numeracy skills, loan repayment, reported income, or food consumption. We only found a difference in savings, but this is unlikely to represent any impact of the financial diaries, as it does not exceed the amount provided as an incentive to the respondent for participation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 72-82"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2018.02.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54238717","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":"Assessing the productivity and profitability of the Solar Market Garden","authors":"Jennifer Burney ,&nbsp;Sandra Phillips ,&nbsp;Jeff Lahl","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Successful scale-up of any development project requires a deep understanding of the real-world economics of the intervention, and compelling evidence that such an investment would be worthwhile. This cost-benefit estimate is typically assessed in two ways: (a) by comparing the coefficient of impact along some margin measured in an impact evaluation (<span><math><mrow><mover><mrow><mi>β</mi></mrow><mo>ˆ</mo></mover></mrow></math></span>) to the unit implementation cost of the project, and/or (b) by conducting adoption studies, where autonomous adoption is assumed to indicate that the adopter has deemed the investment worthwhile (i.e., financially sustainable). However, these two techniques can be particularly difficult for development engineering projects that are large at the unit scale (or are group-based) and for projects that may have impacts on many margins or outcomes at once. Here we present the framework for, and analysis from, a field monitoring campaign in the interim evaluation period for community-scale solar-powered irrigation systems (Solar Market Gardens, or SMGs) in northeast Benin, West Africa. We used this interim monitoring to directly construct a CBA, and to document the pathways of impact actually at play for a project hypothesized ex-ante to have potential economic, food security, and gender impacts. We monitored all garden activity a the individual and group level for most of the dry season, including total production, sales, home consumption, input use, marketing, and labor (a key factor often overlooked when considering the cost of agricultural development projects). By combining production and sales data with cost information, we show that the most productive agricultural groups using the system only in the dry season would be profitable in a full cost-recovery model with no economies of scale, but that lower performing groups would not; we also show that many plausible scale-up models and financing mechanisms would be profitable. We then show how this type of monitoring can complement impact evaluation by elucidating different pathways of impact that could be used to understand heterogeneity in outcomes among beneficiaries. We document variance both within and between groups across numerous potential pathways of impact for the SMG; the heterogeneity in intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) across these indicators highlights the importance of understanding the causal chain(s), especially for cross-sectoral development engineering projects like the SMG. We conclude by discussing how this monitoring effort fits into the larger evaluation of the SMG, and how such data have been used to both adaptively refine the project, improving the likelihood for successful scale-up.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 60-71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54238526","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":"Sustainable development as successful technology transfer: Empowerment through teaching, learning, and using digital participatory mapping techniques in Mazvihwa, Zimbabwe","authors":"M.V. Eitzel ,&nbsp;Emmanuel Mhike Hove ,&nbsp;Jon Solera ,&nbsp;Sikhangezile Madzoro ,&nbsp;Abraham Changarara ,&nbsp;Daniel Ndlovu ,&nbsp;Adnomore Chirindira ,&nbsp;Alice Ndlovu ,&nbsp;Shamiso Gwatipedza ,&nbsp;Memory Mhizha ,&nbsp;Moses Ndlovu","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.07.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.07.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In development engineering, practitioners often strive to empower local communities through technology. Empowerment, however, is typically not well-defined and rarely assessed, leading to an erosion of its meaning. In this study, we define empowerment as capacity building through technology transfer, which we evaluate by assessing skill transfer, skill application, increased individual confidence, and community support. We test the usefulness of these assessments for participatory mapping as a form of technology transfer, using a Participatory Action Research approach. Our case is a digital mapping team embedded in the long-term community-based participatory research agenda of The Muonde Trust in Mazvihwa, Zimbabwe. We taught and evaluated mapping by conducting workshops and engaging in a variety of mapping projects (including measuring access to basic services, land-use planning, and cultural and historical preservation projects), demonstrating dramatically increased mapping skills and individual confidence, and the creation of a community of practice able to teach the skills. Our peer-based learning techniques used adult education principles and could be applied in creating other local communities of practice to support the use of medium-tech mapping methods (basic GPS units and computer mapping software). In poverty reduction and sustainability initiatives, participatory mapping can be complementary to cutting-edge big data approaches and necessary for true improvements in the well-being of the most vulnerable populations on our planet. Development engineers would benefit from incorporating participatory action research principles into their work, learning to co-labor with communities to define and solve problems.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 196-208"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2018.07.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54238821","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":"Multi-objective optimization and scenario-based robustness analysis of the MoneyMaker Hip Pump","authors":"Christopher McComb ,&nbsp;Nathan G. Johnson ,&nbsp;Pablo S. Santaeufemia ,&nbsp;Brandon T. Gorman ,&nbsp;Brent Kolste ,&nbsp;Alexander Mobley ,&nbsp;Kenji Shimada","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Water-lifting technologies for irrigation have significant potential to increase agricultural yields and stimulate economic growth in rural areas of the developing world. Human-powered water pumps have been used with great success in this rapidly developing market. KickStart's MoneyMaker Hip Pump is a human-powered water pump with additional design features that make it lightweight and portable for use in remote fields in several countries throughout Africa. This work first applied numerical optimization techniques to the design of the MoneyMaker Hip Pump and offers further improvements to its design. Deterministic multi-objective optimization methods were employed to maximize the flow rate of the pump, maximize the pumping height of water, and minimize cost. Following optimization, the robustness of the optimized pump design was analyzed under several modified scenarios, including fouling of the hoses and a decrease in operator power due to fatigue or aging. The set of cost-optimized pump designs was then compared to a second set of optimal designs that was found using material volume as a simplified proxy for the cost objective function. Findings indicate that several technical improvements can be made to the current MoneyMaker Hip Pump design to reduce cost by up to 37% without affecting water flow rate, or increase water flow rate by up to 88% without increasing cost. The numerical model was validated through physical experimentation of the MoneyMaker Hip Pump, and design alterations to reduce cost were experimentally shown to maintain pump performance.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 23-33"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54238516","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":"Prototyping methods and constraints for small-to-medium sized enterprises in East Africa","authors":"Suzanne Chou,&nbsp;Jesse Austin-Breneman","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.05.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.05.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Prototyping is integral to the design process for all projects, but particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In resource-constrained contexts, designers must operate under unique constraints and opportunities. This study investigates the methods, constraints, and impacts on design outcomes of prototyping in seven design and manufacturing SMEs in East Africa. Results from a site visit to a Rwandan partner company as well as interviews with the engineering teams of the other organizations are presented. Practitioners reported that the main intent of prototyping in this context is to develop functional prototypes with increasing fidelity through a highly iterative process. This process was limited by constraints to manufacturing inputs, capabilities, and modeling predictions. These constraints contributed to increases in the time and cost for each iteration. Thus, results indicate that there may be a mismatch between the highly iterative method chosen and the constraints of the operating context.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 117-124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2018.05.002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54238786","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":"Estimating the price (in)elasticity of off-grid electricity demand","authors":"Marc F. Müller ,&nbsp;Sally E. Thompson ,&nbsp;Ashok J. Gadgil","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2017.12.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2017.12.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Community-scale power infrastructure may be the only electrification option for tens of millions households that remain out of reach from centralized power grids. The responsiveness of household electricity demand to price is a crucial design input for off-grid systems. While the price elasticity of electricity demand of grid-connected consumers has been abundantly studied, few studies focus on off-grid communities where substantial econometric challenges arise, including the absence of metered consumption data and electricity prices that are simultaneously determined by cost and demand considerations. This study attempts to address these challenges for the case of off-grid micro hydropower consumers. It makes two core contributions: First, we propose the surface area of the contributing hydrologic catchment as a new instrumental variable to estimate elasticity using a cross sectional dataset of existing micro hydropower infrastructure. Second, we provide a first price-elasticity estimate (−0.15) for off-grid electricity demand in Nepal. We surmise that the small (in absolute value) elasticity value found in this study arises from the low levels of consumption observed off-the-grid. We use a Monte Carlo analysis to show that failing to account for this disparity can lead to substantial financial losses caused by suboptimal power infrastructure design.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 12-22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2017.12.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48724381","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":"Sustainability of novel water treatment technologies in developing countries: Lessons learned from research trials on a pilot continuous flow solar water disinfection system in rural Kenya","authors":"Joanne Mac Mahon,&nbsp;Laurence W. Gill","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The transition from laboratory research to pilot scale trials can be challenging for novel water treatment technologies. This transition is even more complex for technologies intended for use in a developing country context due to cultural, infrastructural, financial and capacity related challenges. This research looks at the lessons learned from a pilot installation of a continuous CPC solar water disinfection system in a rural community of Kenya. This project was implemented with local and international partners, however the monitoring and evaluation phase collapsed due to the breakdown of these partnerships. A visit to the project site three years after installation revealed significant problems with the system due to drought and flash flooding. A second project phase was funded through crowdfunding in order to rehabilitate the damaged system and provide an alternative water source for the community during periods of drought. Post project evaluation of both project phases showed that the engagement of local implementing partners is essential for ensuring community participation and effective monitoring and evaluation, as the priorities and presence of international implementing partners can easily change in the medium to long term. More external assistance is required for pilot projects using novel technologies than for those using well-established water treatment systems, particularly in terms of operation and maintenance challenges which may arise in the short to medium term. This requirement for external support significantly impacts the sustainability of these interventions. The performance of the continuous flow system while it was in use was found to be satisfactory and feedback from the community regarding operation of the system and quality of water was positive. Both project phases revealed the need for some small design changes, such as inclusion of air-bleed valves, which would significantly improve system operation for future pilot projects. The project experience also illustrated the need for better understanding of the behaviour of both surface and groundwater, given increasingly unpredictable weather patterns as a result of climate change.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 47-59"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2018.01.003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54238537","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":"Effects of USB port access on advanced cookstove adoption","authors":"Daniel L. Wilson ,&nbsp;Meenakshi Monga ,&nbsp;Abhinav Saksena ,&nbsp;Advait Kumar ,&nbsp;Ashok Gadgil","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.08.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.08.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Three billion people cook using traditional fires, and exposure to smoke from cooking remains a persistent and significant environmental health risk factor: household air pollution is estimated to cause 3–4 million premature deaths per year. “Improved cookstoves” could reduce the health risks associated with cooking, but the performance of most improved cookstoves is insufficient to result in meaningful health benefits, and global adoption of low-emission cookstoves remains low. However, a new class of advanced cookstoves equipped with thermoelectric generators could improve both emissions performance and adoption leading to better health outcomes. These cookstoves use electrical power provided by a thermoelectric generator to power combustion-improving fans while powering outboard USB charging ports. In communities lacking electricity access, USB levels of power could provide much-needed off-grid charging for mobile phones, small lights, and other loads. However, there is a risk that instead of being used primarily as a cooking tool, these cookstoves could be used solely as fire-powered USB chargers. Without displacing traditional cookstoves, “charging-only” adoption would result in a net increase in emissions exposure. In this study, we used custom Advanced Stove Use Monitor (ASUM) sensors to measure adoption of TEG-equipped cookstoves in 72 rural homes without electricity access in Odisha, India. To measure the impacts of the USB charging port, we randomized whether recipients received a cookstove with USB ports enabled or disabled. We found that access to USB charging ports significant increased adoption of cookstoves in “cooking” use modes; USB-enabled cookstoves were used for cooking 3.5X more than identical cookstoves with disabled USB ports. This substantial increase in cooking came with a relatively small marginal use of the cookstove in a “charging-only” mode; just 11% of total cookstove use was in this mode. As with past work, data showed that surveys of user behavior do not correlate well with sensor-measured behavior. The trial cookstove was much smaller and more cumbersome than traditional cookstoves, but still, we found that users were willing to prepare fuel and found the cookstove useful for light cooking tasks. Access to USB charging served as a catalyst for adoption of advanced cookstoves as cooking tools and did not increase undesirable “charging only” adoption modes. This work suggests that these kinds of USB-enabled cookstoves could be an important tool to improve biomass combustion, increase adoption, and realize meaningful health benefits.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 209-217"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2018.08.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54238851","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":"Design thinking in development engineering education: A case study on creating prosthetic and assistive technologies for the developing world","authors":"Bryan J. Ranger,&nbsp;Aikaterini Mantzavinou","doi":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.06.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.deveng.2018.06.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A human-centered design thinking approach has been applied to a course at the MIT D-Lab on creating low-cost prosthetic and assistive devices for the developing world. Teams of students with diverse backgrounds are paired with international stakeholders and industry partners to tackle real-world prosthetic technology needs, learn the design process through interactive lectures and workshops in the classroom, and are given the opportunity to conduct testing of the prototypes generated during the semester at field sites around the globe. The revamped course offers a fully immersive design experience that extends beyond the classroom and the semester by stimulating further research, inspiring and motivating student professional development, raising additional grant money and generating peer-reviewed publications and intellectual property. A multifaceted and nontraditional engagement with industry partners, as developed in our course, provides a novel and promising model for development engineering courses to afford unique opportunities to their students. As a result of our new course initiatives mean student enrollment has tripled and total project continuation beyond the end of the class has exceeded 60%. In this paper, we outline our framework for incorporating human-centered design thinking into development engineering education, provide outcomes, and present case studies of select projects that have successfully emerged from our course. Our novel pedagogical approaches and collaborative efforts showcase a promising way to engage students in impact-focused project-based learning with long-term benefits for their projects as well as their career development opportunities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37901,"journal":{"name":"Development Engineering","volume":"3 ","pages":"Pages 166-174"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.deveng.2018.06.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54238807","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}