GHERS: Greater Harvest and Economic Returns from Shrimp: Final program performance report

The Greater Harvest and Economic Returns from Shrimp (GHERS) is an initiative of Poverty Reduction by Increasing the Competitiveness of Enterprises (PRICE) project, funded by USAID. The objective of GHERS was to increase the productive capacity of existing farms and enhance quality of shrimp delivered to processors adding over $ 45 million to current sales, $10 million new investment and 14,000 new jobs. This final performance report presents the activities and achievements of the project since 2008.

Revising the Program Portfolio: Elevating Academic Program Performance and Strategic Alignment

At many institutions, program review is an underproductive exercise. Review of existing programs is often a check-the-box formality, with inconsistent criteria and little connection to institutional priorities or funding considerations. Decisions about where to concentrate resources across the portfolio can be highly politicized. This report profiles how academic planning exemplars use program review as a strategic tool, integrating data on academic quality, student demand, and resource utilization to improve the economics of challenged programs and prioritize programs for investment and expansion.

Annual program performance report : federal fiscal year /

Description based on: 1994.

Performance accountability in the federal-state transportation program: Factors affecting successful implementation

Governmental accountability is the requirement of government entities to be accountable to the citizenry in order to justify the raising and expenditure of public resources. The concept of service efforts and accomplishments measurement for government programs was introduced by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) in Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting: Its Time Has Come (1990). This research tested the feasibility of implementing the concept for the Federal-aid highway construction program and identified factors affecting implementation with a case study of the District of Columbia. Changes in condition and performance ratings for specific highway segments in 15 projects, before and after construction expenditures, were evaluated using data provided by the Federal Highway Administration. The results of the evaluation indicated difficulty in drawing conclusions on the state program performance, as a whole. The state program reflects problems within the Federally administered program that severely limit implementation of outcome-oriented performance measurement. Major problems identified with data acquisition are: data reliability, availability, compatibility and consistency among states. Other significant factors affecting implementation are institutional barriers and political barriers. Institutional issues in the Federal Highway Administration include the lack of integration of the fiscal project specific database with the Highway Performance Monitoring System database. The Federal Highway Administration has the ability to resolve both of the data problems, however interviews with key Federal informants indicate this will not occur without external directives and changes to the Federal “stewardship” approach to program administration. ^ The findings indicate many issues must be resolved for successful implementation of outcome-oriented performance measures in the Federal-aid construction program. The issues are organizational and political in nature, however in the current environment resolution is possible. Additional research is desirable and would be useful in overcoming the obstacles to successful implementation. ^

Evolution of life drama program

Life Drama is a program of drama-based experiential learning activities involving groups of community leaders and members. The three-year project evolved from a theatre-in-education approach to an intercultural theatre approach incorporating Papua New Guinean performance traditions. It involved Australian, English and Papua New Guinean researchers at four key sites: Tari, Southern Highlands Province; Port Moresby, National Capital District; Madang, Madang Province; and Karkar Island, Madang Province. The project was innovative in a number of ways, including: a Participatory Action Research approach, involving community leaders at various levels as co-researchers; a participatory theatre approach as opposed to a performance approach; emphasis on sexual health promotion and HIV prevention through an experiential learning paradigm; addressing the norms and realities of the community rather than targeting only individual behaviour; an International Theatre Research Laboratory to explore the fusion of traditional cultural elements with contemporary health promotion aims; and an innovative method-assemblage approach to collecting and triangulating quantitative, qualitative, and performative data. The project attracted over $350,000 in funding and support from the Australian Research Council, National AIDS Secretariat in PNG, and private sector and non-government partners. Findings were presented at various conferences and symposia including the annual Medical Symposium in Wewak (2010), the triennial Research in Drama Education conference in Exeter (2011), and the International Research in Drama Education conference (Sydney 2009 and Limerick 2012). A number of peer-reviewed journal articles have been published. Elements of the program have been incorporated into the University of Goroka's compulsory HIV awareness program for undergraduate students. A national dissemination strategy for Life Drama in Papua New Guinea is now underway, with seed funding of AUD$74,000 from the National AIDS Council Secretariat, PNG.

Evaluation of the Australian branched broomrape (Orobanche ramosa) eradication program

Because weed eradication programs commonly take 10 or more years to complete, there is a need to evaluate progress toward the eradication objective. We present a simple model, based on information that is readily obtainable, that assesses conformity to the delimitation and extirpation criteria for eradication. It is applied to the program currently targeting the annual parasitic weed, branched broomrape, in South Australia. The model consists of delimitation and extirpation (E) measures plotted against each other to form an 'eradograph.' Deviations from the 'ideal' eradograph plot can inform tactical responses, e.g., increases in survey and/or control effort. Infestations progress from the active phase to the monitoring phase when no plants have been detected for at least 12 mo. They revert to the active phase upon further detection of plants. We summarize this process for the invasion as a whole in a state-and-transition model. Using this model we demonstrate that the invasion is unlikely to be delimited unless the amount of newly detected infested area decreases, on average, by at least 50% per annum. As a result of control activities implemented, on average approximately 70% (range, 44 to 86%) of active infestations progressed to the monitoring phase in the year following their detection. Simulations suggest that increasing this rate of transition will not increase E to a significant extent. The rate of reversion of infestations from the monitoring phase to the active phase decreased logarithmically with time since last detection, but it is likely that lower rates of reversion would accelerate the trend toward extirpation. Program performance with respect to the delimitation criterion has been variable; performance with respect to the extirpation criterion would be improved considerably by the development and application of cost-effective methods for eliminating branched broomrape soil seed populations.

Cluster randomised-control trial for an Australian child protection education program: Study protocol for the Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends™

Background Child maltreatment has severe short-and long-term consequences for children’s health, development, and wellbeing. Despite the provision of child protection education programs in many countries, few have been rigorously evaluated to determine their effectiveness. We describe the design of a multi-site gold standard evaluation of an Australian school-based child protection education program. The intervention has been developed by a not-for-profit agency and comprises 5 1-h sessions delivered to first grade students (aged 5–6 years) in their regular classrooms. It incorporates common attributes of effective programs identified in the literature, and aligns with the Australian education curriculum. Methods/Design A three-site cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) of Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends™ will be conducted with children in approximately 72 first grade classrooms in 24 Queensland primary (elementary) schools from three state regions, over a period of 2 years. Entire schools will be randomised, using a computer generated list of random numbers, to intervention and wait-list control conditions, to prevent contamination effects across students and classes. Data will be collected at baseline (pre-assessment), immediately after the intervention (post-assessment), and at 6-, 12-, and 18-months (follow-up assessments). Outcome assessors will be blinded to group membership. Primary outcomes assessed are children’s knowledge of program concepts; intentions to use program knowledge, skills, and help-seeking strategies; actual use of program material in a simulated situation; and anxiety arising from program participation. Secondary outcomes include a parent discussion monitor, parent observations of their children’s use of program materials, satisfaction with the program, and parental stress. A process evaluation will be conducted concurrently to assess program performance. Discussion This RCT addresses shortcomings in previous studies and methodologically extends research in this area by randomising at school-level to prevent cross-learning between conditions; providing longer-term outcome assessment than any previous study; examining the degree to which parents/guardians discuss intervention content with children at home; assessing potential moderating/mediating effects of family and child demographic variables; testing an in-vivo measure to assess children’s ability to discriminate safe/unsafe situations and disclose to trusted adults; and testing enhancements to existing measures to establish greater internal consistency.

Petri net based performance modeling for effective DVFS for multithreaded programs

Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) is a very effective tool for designing trade-offs between energy and performance. In this paper, we use a formal Petri net based program performance model that directly captures both the application and system properties, to find energy efficient DVFS settings for CMP systems, that satisfy a given performance constraint, for SPMD multithreaded programs. Experimental evaluation shows that we achieve significant energy savings, while meeting the performance constraints.

Leading Safety Indicators: Proactively Monitoring Safety Performance

Traditional measures or indicators of workplace safety performance reflect unrecognized hazards, unsafe conditions, reckless behavior, and other safety program shortcomings only after a worker is injured or falls ill. In contrast to traditional or lagging indicators, leading indicators can predict poor safety performance to ensure that safety program failings are addressed before an occupational injury or illness actually occurs. This Capstone Project identified a variety of proactive safety management practices, policies, and activities shown to have a positive impact on workplace safety as leading safety indicators. The end result is a comprehensive framework of leading safety indicators that employers can use to proactively gauge safety program performance and address unrecognized hazards, unsafe conditions, reckless behavior, and other safety program deficiencies.

Dynamic Management of Loyalty Program Strategies

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Wet tropics reef rescue impact report 2009

The Wet Tropics region has a unique water asset and is also considered a priority region for the improvement of water quality entering the Great Barrier Reef due to a combination of high rainfall, intensive agricultural use, urban areas and the proximity of valuable reef assets to the coast. Agricultural activities are one of many identified threats to water quality and water flows in the Wet Tropics in terms of sediment and pollutant-related water quality decline. Information describing the current state of agricultural management practices across the region is patchy at best. Based on the best available information on agricultural management practices in the Wet Tropics in 2008, it is clear that opportunities exist to improve nutrient, sediment and pesticide management practice to reduce the impact on the water asset and the Great Barrier Reef. Based on current understandings of practices and the relationship between practices and reef water quality, the greatest opportunities for improved water quality are as follows: · nutrients – correct rate and the placement of fertilisers; · pesticides – improve weed control planning, herbicide rates and calibration practice; and · soil and sediment – implement new farming system practices. The 2008-09 Reef Rescue program sought to accelerate the rate of adoption of improved management practices and through Terrain invested $6.8M in the 2008-09 year for: · landholder water quality improvement incentive payments; · cross regional catchment repair of wetlands and riparian lands in areas of high sediment or nutrient loss; and · partnerships in the region to lever resources and support for on-ground practice change. The program delivered $3,021,999 in onground incentives to landholders in the Wet Tropics to improve farm practices from D or C level to B or A level. The landholder Water Quality Incentives Grants program received 300 individual applications for funding and funded 143 individual landholders to implement practice change across 36,098 ha of farm land. It is estimated that the Reef Rescue program facilitated practice change across 21% of the cane industry, and 20% of the banana industry. The program levered an additional $2,441,166 in landholder cash contributions and a further $907,653 in non-cash in-kind contributions bringing the total project value of the landholder grants program in the Wet Tropics to $6,370,819. Most funded projects targeted multiple water quality objectives with a focus on nutrient and sediment reduction. Of the 143 projects funded, 115 projects addressed nutrient management either as the primary focus or in combination with strategies that targeted other water quality objectives. Overall, 82 projects addressed two or more water quality targets. Forty-five percent of incentive funds were allocated to new farming system practices (direct drill legumes, zonal tillage equipment, permanent beds, min till planting equipment, GPS units, laser levelling), followed by 24% allocated to subsurface fertiliser applicators (subsurface application of fertiliser using a stool splitter or beside the stool, at the correct Six Easy Steps rate). As a result, Terrain estimates that the incentive grants achieved considerable reductions in nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment and pesticide loads. The program supported nutrient management training of 167 growers managing farms covering over 20% of the area harvested in 2008, and 18 industry advisors and resellers. This resulted in 115 growers (155 farms) developing nutrient management plans. The program also supported Integrated Weed Management training of 80 growers managing farms covering 8% of the area harvested in 2008, and 6 industry advisors and resellers. This report, which draws on the best available Reef Rescue Management Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting, and Improvement (MERI) information to evaluate program performance and impact on water quality outcomes, is the first in a series of annual reports that will assess and evaluate the impact of the Reef Rescue program on agricultural practices and water quality outcomes. The assessment is predominantly focused on the cane industry because of data availability. In the next stage, efforts will expand to: · improve practice data for the banana and grazing industry; · gain a better understanding of the water quality trends and the factors influencing them in the Wet Tropics; in particular work will focus on linking the results of the Paddock to Reef monitoring program and practice change data to assess program impact; · enhance estimations of the impact of practice change on pollutant loads from agricultural land use; · gain a better understanding of the extent of ancillary practice (change not directly funded) resulting from Reef Rescue training/ education/communication programs; and · provide a better understanding of the economic cost of practice change across the Wet Tropics region. From an ecological perspective, water quality trends and the factors that may be contributing to change, require further investigation. There is a critical need to work towards an enhanced understanding of the link between catchment land management practice change and reef water quality, so that reduced nutrient, sediment, and pesticide discharge to the Great Barrier Reef can be quantified. This will also assist with future prioritisation of grants money to agricultural industries, catchments and sub catchments. From a social perspective, the program has delivered significant water quality benefits from landholder education and training. It is believed that these activities are giving landholders the information and tools to implement further lasting change in their production systems and in doing so, creating a change in attitude that is supportive and inclusive of Natural Resource Management (NRM). The program in the Wet Tropics has also considerably strengthened institutional partnerships for NRM, particularly between NRM and industry and extension organisations. As a result of the Reef Rescue program, all institutions are actively working together to collectively improve water quality. The Reef Rescue program is improving water quality entering the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon by catalysing substantial activity in the Wet Tropics region to improve land management practices and reduce the water quality impact of agricultural landscapes. The solid institutional partnerships between the regional body, industry, catchment and government organisations have been fundamental to the successful delivery of the landholder grant and catchment rehabilitation programs. Landholders have generally had a positive perception and reaction to the program, its intent, and the practical, focused nature of grant-based support. Demand in the program was extremely high in 2008-09 and is expected to increase in 2009-2010.

Microarchitecture sensitive empirical models for compiler optimizations.

This paper proposes the use of empirical modeling techniques for building microarchitecture sensitive models for compiler optimizations. The models we build relate program performance to settings of compiler optimization flags, associated heuristics and key microarchitectural parameters. Unlike traditional analytical modeling methods, this relationship is learned entirely from data obtained by measuring performance at a small number of carefully selected compiler/microarchitecture configurations. We evaluate three different learning techniques in this context viz. linear regression, adaptive regression splines and radial basis function networks. We use the generated models to a) predict program performance at arbitrary compiler/microarchitecture configurations, b) quantify the significance of complex interactions between optimizations and the microarchitecture, and c) efficiently search for'optimal' settings of optimization flags and heuristics for any given microarchitectural configuration. Our evaluation using benchmarks from the SPEC CPU2000 suits suggests that accurate models (< 5% average error in prediction) can be generated using a reasonable number of simulations. We also find that using compiler settings prescribed by a model-based search can improve program performance by as much as 19% (with an average of 9.5%) over highly optimized binaries.

Compiler-Directed Frequency and Voltage Scaling for a Multiple Clock Domain

Multiple Clock Domain processors provide an attractive solution to the increasingly challenging problems of clock distribution and power dissipation. They allow their chips to be partitioned into different clock domains, and each domain’s frequency (voltage) to be independently configured. This flexibility adds new dimensions to the Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling problem, while providing better scope for saving energy and meeting performance demands. In this paper, we propose a compiler directed approach for MCD-DVFS. We build a formal petri net based program performance model, parameterized by settings of microarchitectural components and resource configurations, and integrate it with our compiler passes for frequency selection.Our model estimates the performance impact of a frequency setting, unlike the existing best techniques which rely on weaker indicators of domain performance such as queue occupancies(used by online methods) and slack manifestation for a particular frequency setting (software based methods).We evaluate our method with subsets of SPECFP2000,Mediabench and Mibench benchmarks. Our mean energy savings is 60.39% (versus 33.91% of the best software technique)in a memory constrained system for cache miss dominated benchmarks, and we meet the performance demands.Our ED2 improves by 22.11% (versus 18.34%) for other benchmarks. For a CPU with restricted frequency settings, our energy consumption is within 4.69% of the optimal.