Linking Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) data to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC): the case for the Seychelles

Tobacco control has been recognized as a main public health concern in Seychelles for the past two decades. Tobacco advertising, sponsoring and promotion has been banned for years, tobacco products are submitted to high taxes, high-profile awareness programs are organized regularly, and several other control measures have been implemented. The Republic of Seychelles was the first country to ratify the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in the African region. Three population-based surveys have been conducted in adults in Seychelles and results showed a substantial decrease in the prevalence of smoking among adults between 1989 and 2004. A first survey in adolescents was conducted in Seychelles in 2002 (the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, GYTS) in a representative sample of 1321 girls and boys aged 13-15 years. The results show that approximately half of students had tried smoking and a quarter of both boys and girls had smoked at least one cigarette during the past 30 days. Although "current smoking" is defined differently in adolescents (>or=1 cigarette during the past 30 days) and in adults (>or=1 cigarette per day), which precludes direct comparison, the high smoking prevalence in youth in Seychelles likely predicts an increasing prevalence of tobacco use in the next adult generation, particularly in women. GYTS 2002 also provides important data on a wide range of specific individual and societal factors influencing tobacco use. Hence, GYTS can be a powerful tool for monitoring the situation of tobacco use in adolescents, for highlighting the need for new policy and programs, and for evaluating the impact of current and future programs.

Quantitative and qualitative research on brief systemic therapies carried out within the framework of an ambulatory consultation for couples and families

Abstract: This article presents both a brief systemic intervention method (IBS) consisting in 6 sessions developed in an ambulatory service for couples and families, and two research projects done in collaboration with the Institute for Psychotherapy of the University of Lausanne. The first project is quantitative and it aims at evaluating the effectiveness of ISB. One of its main feature is that outcomes are assessed at different levels of individual and family functioning: 1) symptoms and individual functioning; 2) quality of marital relationship; 3) parental and co-parental relationships; 4) familial relationships. The second project is a qualitative case study about a marital therapy which identifies and analyses significant moments of the therapeutic process from the patients' perspective. Methodology was largely inspired by Daniel Stem's work about "moments of meeting" in psychotherapy. Results show that patients' theories about relationship and change are important elements that deepen our understanding of the change process in couple and family therapy. The interest of associating clinicians and researchers for the development and validation of a new clinical model is discussed.

Political alliances and organisational change in political parties: a framework for analysis

This article sets out a theoretical framework for the study of organisational change within political alliances. To achieve this objective it uses as a starting point a series of premises, the most notable of which include the definition of organisational change as a discrete, complex and focussed phenomenon of changes in power within the party. In accordance with these premises, it analyses the synthetic model of organisational change proposed by Panebianco (1988). After examining its limitations, a number of amendments are proposed to adapt it to the way political alliances operate. The above has resulted in the design of four new models. In order to test its validity and explanatory power in a preliminary manner, the second part looks at the organisational change of the UDC within the CiU alliance between 1978 and 2001. The discussion and conclusions reached demonstrate the problems of determinism of the Panebianco model and suggest, tentatively, the importance of the power balance within the alliance as a key factor.

Avoidance Policies – A New Conceptual Framework

This paper develops a general theoretical framework within which a heterogeneous group taxpayers confront a market that supplies a variety of schemes for reducing tax liability, and uses this framework to explore the impact of a wide range of anti-avoidance policies. Schemes differ in their legal effectiveness and hence in the risks to which they expose taxpayers - risks which go beyond the risk of audit considered in the conventional literature on evasion. Given the individual taxpayer’s circumstances, the prices charged for the schemes and the policy environment, the model predicts (i) whether or not any given taxpayer will acquire a scheme, and (ii) if they do so, which type of scheme they will acquire. The paper then analyses how these decisions, and hence the tax gap, are influenced by four generic types of policy: Disclosure – earlier information leading to faster closure of loopholes; Penalties – introduction of penalties for failed avoidance; Policy Design – fundamental policy changes that design out opportunities for avoidance; Product Register - the introduction of GAARs or mini-GAARs that give greater clarity about how different types of scheme will be treated. The paper shows that when considering the indirect/behavioural effects of policies on the tax gap it is important to recognise that these operate on two different margins. First policies will have deterrence effects – their impact on the quantum of taxpayers choosing to acquire different types schemes as distinct to acquiring no scheme at all. There will be a range of such deterrence effects reflecting the range of schemes available in the market. But secondly, since different schemes generate different tax gaps, policies will also have switching effects as they induce taxpayers who previously acquired one type of scheme to acquire another. The first three types of policy generate positive deterrence effects but differ in the switching effects they produce. The fourth type of policy produces mixed deterrence effects.

J2EE tienda virtual application framework

En el siguiente documento podrá encontrar de una forma clara y entendedora, a través de la creación de un sencillo aplicativo, el mecanismo para la creación de una aplicación J2EE basada en el framework de desarrollo Yakarta Struts. En el mismo partirá desde cero, desde el inicio en la captación de requerimientos, pasando por la etapa de análisis y diseño y la posterior implementación.

A Framework for Analyzing Language and Welfare

The paper proposes a general model that will encompass trade and social benefits of a common language, a preference for a variety of languages, the fundamental role of translators, an emotional attachment to maternal language, and the threat that globalization poses to the vast majority of languages. With respect to people’s emotional attachment, the model considers minorities to suffer losses from the subordinate status of their language. In addition, the model treats the threat to minority language as coming from the failure of the parents in the minority to transmit their maternal language (durably) to their children. Some familiar results occur. In particular, we encounter the usual social inefficiencies of decentralized solutions to language learning when the sole benefits of the learning are communicative benefits (though translation intervenes). However, these social inefficiencies assume a totally different air when the con-sumer gains of variety are brought in. One fundamental aim of the paper is to bring together contributions to the economics of language from labor economics, network externalities and international trade that are typically treated separately.

A Framework for Analyzing Language and Welfare

The paper proposes a general model that will encompass trade and social benefits of a common language, a preference for a variety of languages, the fundamental role of translators, an emo-tional attachment to maternal language, and the threat that globalization poses to the vast ma-jority of languages. With respect to people’s emotional attachment, the model considers minor-ities to suffer losses from the subordinate status of their language. In addition, the model treats the threat to minority language as coming from the failure of the parents in the minority to transmit their maternal language (durably) to their children. Some familiar results occur. In particular, we encounter the usual social inefficiencies of decentralized solutions to language learning when the sole benefits of the learning are communicative benefits (though translation intervenes). However, these social inefficiencies assume a totally different air when the con-sumer gains of variety are brought in. One fundamental aim of the paper is to bring together contributions to the economics of language from labor economics, network externalities and international trade that are typically treated separately.

On the cost of rent-seeking by government bureaucrats in a Real-Business-Cycle framework

This paper studies the wasteful e ffect of bureaucracy on the economy by addressing the link between rent-seeking behavior of government bureaucrats and the public sector wage bill, which is taken to represent the rent component. In particular, public o fficials are modeled as individuals competing for a larger share of those public funds. The rent-seeking extraction technology in the government administration is modeled as in Murphy et al. (1991) and incorporated in an otherwise standard Real-Business-Cycle (RBC) framework with public sector. The model is calibrated to German data for the period 1970-2007. The main fi ndings are: (i) Due to the existence of a signi ficant public sector wage premium and the high public sector employment, a substantial amount of working time is spent rent-seeking, which in turn leads to signifi cant losses in terms of output; (ii) The measures for the rent-seeking cost obtained from the model for the major EU countries are highly-correlated to indices of bureaucratic ineffi ciency; (iii) Under the optimal scal policy regime,steady-state rent-seeking is smaller relative to the exogenous policy case, as the government chooses a higher public wage premium, but sets a much lower public employment, thus achieving a decrease in rent-seeking.

Open source framework for trucks fleet control (client)

Aquest projecte desenvolupa la part client d'una aplicació per controlar una flota de camions. Està implementada per funcionar sobre un dispositiu mòbil que funcioni amb el sistema operatiu Android.

Testing, not modelling, the impact of cohesion support: a theoretical framework and some preliminary results for the Spanish regions

This paper develops a simple model that can be used to estimate the effectiveness of Cohesion expenditure relative to similar but unsubsidized projects, thereby making it possible to explicitly test an important assumption that is often implicit in estimates of the impact of Cohesion policies. Some preliminary results are reported for the case of infrastructure investment in the Spanish regions.