Comparison of the socio-economic impacts of natural disasters on Caribbean societies in 2004

Includes bibliography

Transport, the poor and moving towards low-carbon societies

This FAL Bulletin discusses the challenges involved in creating equality in urban mobility and the need to reach towards a social sustainability framework, as existing policies often accentuate current inequities and inequalities in accessibility. Lack of access to mobility has wide-ranging effects across social groups, gender and particularly the urban poor.

Report of the planning meeting of partners of the Caribbean Information Societies Measurement Initiative

The Planning Meeting of Partners was organized jointly by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, the Observatory for the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean (OSILAC - an ECLAC project supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the University of West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine Campus and the Telecommunications Policy and Management Programme, Mona School of Business at UWI, Jamaica. The Caribbean Information Societies Measurement Initiative (CISMI) is a component of the research proposal entitled “Networks for Development: The Caribbean ICT Research Programme”, recently submitted to IDRC for funding approval. The main objective of this programme is to “promote multi-stakeholder knowledge exchange and dialogue about the potential contribution of Information and Communications Technology for economic development and poverty alleviation in the Caribbean” The proposed budget for the CISMI component within the aforementioned proposal is US$ 150,000. The main objectives of the CISMI component are twofold: (a) to conduct a comprehensive Information and Communications Technology (ICT) survey in the Caribbean subregion to cover baseline information needs for studies and analysis from different partners involved in the construction of the Caribbean Information Societies; and (b) to analyze the household-level data, including the status of broadband and mobile usage in selected Caribbean countries in order to promote evidence-based policy planning and implementation with respect to ICT development and its impact on social and economic development in the subregion. The Planning Meeting of Partners was convened to: (a) discuss the CISMI component partnership arrangements, (b) discuss the design and implementation mechanisms of the survey instrument (questionnaire); (c) inform and engage potential key stakeholders; and (d) obtain information from potential service providers (survey companies). The Planning Meeting of Partners took place on 28 and 29 September 2009 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Book Review of Cetacean Societies: Field Studies Of Whales And Dolphins Edited by I. Mann, R. C. Connor, P. L. Tyack & H. Whitehead

Studying the sociobiology and behavioral ecology of cetaceans is particularly challenging due in large part to the aquatic environment in which they live. Nevertheless, many of the obstacles traditionally associated with data gathering on tree-ranging whales, dolphins and porpoises are rapidly being overcome, and are now far less formidable. During the past several decades, marine mammal scientists equipped with innovative research methods and new technologies have taken field-based behavioral studies to a new level of sophistication. In some cases, as is true for bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, sperm whales and humpback whales, modern research paradigms in the marine environment are comparable to present-day studies of terrestrial mammal social systems. Cetacean Society stands testament to the relatively recent advances in marine mammal science, and to those scientists, past and present, whose diligence has been instrumental in shaping the discipline.

Review of Laws and Societies in the Canadian Prairie West, 1670-1940 Edited by Louis A. Knafla and Jonathan Swainger

For all intents and purposes, the settlement of the Canadian prairie was the founding of a new society using materials brought to the new land along with those close at hand. Of course, preexisting aboriginal society had to be supplanted in the course of this founding. In both the supplanting and the founding, the rule of law as we currently know it was a principal means and end of the settlement process.

The Effects of Processing Non-Timber Forest Products and Trade Partnerships on People's Well-Being and Forest Conservation in Amazonian Societies

This study evaluated whether processing non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and establishing trade partnerships between forest communities and companies enhance the outcomes of NTFP commercialization. In particular, we evaluated whether product processing, partnerships, or their combination was associated with a number of outcomes related to the well-being of forest inhabitants and forest conservation. We based our analyses on ethnographic and quantitative data (i.e., survey and systematic observations) gathered at seven communities from five societies of the Brazilian and Bolivian Amazon. Our results indicated that product processing and partnerships do not represent a silver bullet able to improve the results of NTFP commercialization in terms of well-being and conservation indicators. Compared with cases without interventions, households adopting partnerships but not product processing were most often associated with improved economic proxies of well-being (total income, NTFP income, food consumption and gender equality in income). In comparison, the combination of product processing and partnerships was associated with similar outcomes. Unexpectedly, product processing alone was associated with negative outcomes in the economic indicators of well-being. All of the investigated strategies were associated with less time spent in social and cultural activities. With respect to forest conservation, the strategies that included a partnership with or without processing produced similar results: while household deforestation tended to decrease, the hunting impact increased. Processing alone was also associated with higher levels of hunting, though it did not reduce deforestation. Our results indicate that establishing partnerships may enhance the outcomes of NTFP trade in terms of the financial outcomes of local communities, but practitioners need to use caution when adopting the processing strategy and they need to evaluate potential negative results for indicators of social and cultural activities. With respect to conservation, the three strategies are promising for reducing deforestation, but more pervasive impacts, such as hunting, might increase.

World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) Guidelines for Biological Treatment of Schizophrenia, Part 1: Update 2012 on the acute treatment of schizophrenia and the management of treatment resistance

These updated guidelines are based on a first edition of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry Guidelines for Biological Treatment of Schizophrenia published in 2005. For this 2012 revision, all available publications pertaining to the biological treatment of schizophrenia were reviewed systematically to allow for an evidence-based update. These guidelines provide evidence-based practice recommendations that are clinically and scientifically meaningful and these guidelines are intended to be used by all physicians diagnosing and treating people suffering from schizophrenia. Based on the first version of these guidelines, a systematic review of the MEDLINE/PUBMED database and the Cochrane Library, in addition to data extraction from national treatment guidelines, has been performed for this update. The identified literature was evaluated with respect to the strength of evidence for its efficacy and then categorised into six levels of evidence (A-F; Bandelow et al. 2008b, World J Biol Psychiatry 9: 242). This first part of the updated guidelines covers the general descriptions of antipsychotics and their side effects, the biological treatment of acute schizophrenia and the management of treatment-resistant schizophrenia.

A multi-regional view on aging societies accounting for the existence of non-tradable goods

This thesis assesses the question, whether accounting for non-tradable goods sectors in a calibrated Auerbach-Kotlikoff multi-regional overlapping-generations-model significantly affects this model’s results when simulating the economic impact of demographic change. Non-tradable goods constitute a major part of up to 80 percent of GDP of modern economies. At the same time, multi-regional overlapping-generations-models presented by literature on demographic change so far ignored their existence and counterfactually assumed perfect tradability between model regions. Moreover, this thesis introduces the assumption of an increasing preference share for non-tradable goods of old generations. This fact-based as-sumption is also not part of models in relevant literature. rnThese obvious simplifications of common models vis-à-vis reality notwithstanding, this thesis concludes that differences in results between a model featuring non-tradable goods and a common model with perfect tradability are very small. In other words, the common simplifi-cation of ignoring non-tradable goods is unlikely to lead to significant distortions in model results. rnIn order to ensure that differences in results between the ‘new’ model, featuring both non-tradable and tradable goods, and the common model solely reflect deviations due to the more realistic structure of the ‘new’ model, both models are calibrated to match exactly the same benchmark data and thus do not show deviations in their respective baseline steady states.rnA variation analysis performed in this thesis suggests that differences between the common model and a model with non-tradable goods can theoretically be large, but only if the bench-mark tradable goods sector is assumed to be unrealistically small.rnFinally, this thesis analyzes potential real exchange rate effects of demographic change, which could occur due to regional price differences of non-tradable goods. However, results show that shifts in real exchange rate based on these price differences are negligible.rn

Current state of musculoskeletal ultrasound training and implementation in Europe: results of a survey of experts and scientific societies

To document the current state of musculoskeletal US (MSUS) training and extent of implementation among rheumatologists in the member countries of EULAR.

Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century World

In this groundbreaking book Christian Gerlach traces the social roots of the extraordinary processes of human destruction involved in mass violence throughout the twentieth century. He argues that terms such as 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' are too narrow to explain the diverse motives and interests that cause violence to spread in varying forms and intensities. From killings and expulsions to enforced hunger, collective rape, strategic bombing, forced labour and imprisonment he explores what happened before, during, and after periods of widespread bloodshed in countries such as Armenia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nazi-occupied Greece and in anti-guerilla wars worldwide in order to highlight the crucial role of socio-economic pressures in the generation of group conflicts. By focussing on why so many different people participated in or supported mass violence, and why different groups were victimized, he offers us a new way of understanding one of the most disturbing phenomena of our times.