997 resultados para Economic substance


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OBJECTIVES: Family studies typically use multiple sources of information on each individual including direct interviews and family history information. The aims of the present study were to: (1) assess agreement for diagnoses of specific substance use disorders between direct interviews and the family history method; (2) compare prevalence estimates according to the two methods; (3) test strategies to approximate prevalence estimates according to family history reports to those based on direct interviews; (4) determine covariates of inter-informant agreement; and (5) identify covariates that affect the likelihood of reporting disorders by informants. METHODS: Analyses were based on family study data which included 1621 distinct informant (first-degree relatives and spouses) - index subject pairs. RESULTS: Our main findings were: (1) inter-informant agreement was fair to good for all substance disorders, except for alcohol abuse; (2) the family history method underestimated the prevalence of drug but not alcohol use disorders; (3) lowering diagnostic thresholds for drug disorders and combining multiple family histories increased the accuracy of prevalence estimates for these disorders according to the family history method; (4) female sex of index subjects was associated with higher agreement for nearly all disorders; and (5) informants who themselves had a history of the same substance use disorder were more likely to report this disorder in their relatives, which entails the risk of overestimation of the size of familial aggregation. CONCLUSION: Our findings have important implications for the best-estimate procedure applied in family studies.

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Pensions together with savings and investments during active life are key elements of retirement planning. Motivation for personal choices about the standard of living, bequest and the replacement ratio of pension with respect to last salary income must be considered. This research contributes to the financial planning by helping to quantify long-term care economic needs. We estimate life expectancy from retirement age onwards. The economic cost of care per unit of service is linked to the expected time of needed care and the intensity of required services. The expected individual cost of long-term care from an onset of dependence is estimated separately for men and women. Assumptions on the mortality of the dependent people compared to the general population are introduced. Parameters defining eligibility for various forms of coverage by the universal public social care of the welfare system are addressed. The impact of the intensity of social services on individual predictions is assessed, and a partial coverage by standard private insurance products is also explored. Data were collected by the Spanish Institute of Statistics in two surveys conducted on the general Spanish population in 1999 and in 2008. Official mortality records and life table trends were used to create realistic scenarios for longevity. We find empirical evidence that the public long-term care system in Spain effectively mitigates the risk of incurring huge lifetime costs. We also find that the most vulnerable categories are citizens with moderate disabilities that do not qualify to obtain public social care support. In the Spanish case, the trends between 1999 and 2008 need to be further explored.

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Given the recent efforts in several countries to reorganize the research institutional setting to improve research productivity, our analysis addresses the following questions: To which extent has the recent awareness over international quality standards in economics around the world been reflected in research performance? How have individual countries fared? Do research quantity and quality indicators tell us the same story? We concentrate on trends taking place since the beginning of the 1990s and rely on a very comprehensive database of scientific journals, to provide a cross-country comparison of the evolution of research in economics. Our findings indicate that Europe is catching-up with the US but, in terms of influential research, the US maintains a dominant position. The main continental European countries, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, experienced some of the largest growth rates in economic scientific output. Other European countries, namely the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden, have shown remarkable progress in per capita output. Collaborative research seems to be a key factor explaining the relative success of some European countries, in particular when it comes to publishing in top journals, attained predominantly through international collaborations.

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Introduction In my thesis I argue that economic policy is all about economics and politics. Consequently, analysing and understanding economic policy ideally has at least two parts. The economics part, which is centered around the expected impact of a specific policy on the real economy both in terms of efficiency and equity. The insights of this part point into which direction the fine-tuning of economic policies should go. However, fine-tuning of economic policies will be most likely subject to political constraints. That is why, in the politics part, a much better understanding can be gained by taking into account how the incentives of politicians and special interest groups as well as the role played by different institutional features affect the formation of economic policies. The first part and chapter of my thesis concentrates on the efficiency-related impact of economic policies: how does corporate income taxation in general, and corporate income tax progressivity in specific, affect the creation of new firms? Reduced progressivity and flat-rate taxes are in vogue. By 2009, 22 countries are operating flat-rate income tax systems, as do 7 US states and 14 Swiss cantons (for corporate income only). Tax reform proposals in the spirit of the "flat tax" model typically aim to reduce three parameters: the average tax burden, the progressivity of the tax schedule, and the complexity of the tax code. In joint work, Marius Brülhart and I explore the implications of changes in these three parameters on entrepreneurial activity, measured by counts of firm births in a panel of Swiss municipalities. Our results show that lower average tax rates and reduced complexity of the tax code promote firm births. Controlling for these effects, reduced progressivity inhibits firm births. Our reading of these results is that tax progressivity has an insurance effect that facilitates entrepreneurial risk taking. The positive effects of lower tax levels and reduced complexity are estimated to be significantly stronger than the negative effect of reduced progressivity. To the extent that firm births reflect desirable entrepreneurial dynamism, it is not the flattening of tax schedules that is key to successful tax reforms, but the lowering of average tax burdens and the simplification of tax codes. Flatness per se is of secondary importance and even appears to be detrimental to firm births. The second part of my thesis, which corresponds to the second and third chapter, concentrates on how economic policies are formed. By the nature of the analysis, these two chapters draw on a broader literature than the first chapter. Both economists and political scientists have done extensive research on how economic policies are formed. Thereby, researchers in both disciplines have recognised the importance of special interest groups trying to influence policy-making through various channels. In general, economists base their analysis on a formal and microeconomically founded approach, while abstracting from institutional details. In contrast, political scientists' frameworks are generally richer in terms of institutional features but lack the theoretical rigour of economists' approaches. I start from the economist's point of view. However, I try to borrow as much as possible from the findings of political science to gain a better understanding of how economic policies are formed in reality. In the second chapter, I take a theoretical approach and focus on the institutional policy framework to explore how interactions between different political institutions affect the outcome of trade policy in presence of special interest groups' lobbying. Standard political economy theory treats the government as a single institutional actor which sets tariffs by trading off social welfare against contributions from special interest groups seeking industry-specific protection from imports. However, these models lack important (institutional) features of reality. That is why, in my model, I split up the government into a legislative and executive branch which can both be lobbied by special interest groups. Furthermore, the legislative has the option to delegate its trade policy authority to the executive. I allow the executive to compensate the legislative in exchange for delegation. Despite ample anecdotal evidence, bargaining over delegation of trade policy authority has not yet been formally modelled in the literature. I show that delegation has an impact on policy formation in that it leads to lower equilibrium tariffs compared to a standard model without delegation. I also show that delegation will only take place if the lobby is not strong enough to prevent it. Furthermore, the option to delegate increases the bargaining power of the legislative at the expense of the lobbies. Therefore, the findings of this model can shed a light on why the U.S. Congress often practices delegation to the executive. In the final chapter of my thesis, my coauthor, Antonio Fidalgo, and I take a narrower approach and focus on the individual politician level of policy-making to explore how connections to private firms and networks within parliament affect individual politicians' decision-making. Theories in the spirit of the model of the second chapter show how campaign contributions from lobbies to politicians can influence economic policies. There exists an abundant empirical literature that analyses ties between firms and politicians based on campaign contributions. However, the evidence on the impact of campaign contributions is mixed, at best. In our paper, we analyse an alternative channel of influence in the shape of personal connections between politicians and firms through board membership. We identify a direct effect of board membership on individual politicians' voting behaviour and an indirect leverage effect when politicians with board connections influence non-connected peers. We assess the importance of these two effects using a vote in the Swiss parliament on a government bailout of the national airline, Swissair, in 2001, which serves as a natural experiment. We find that both the direct effect of connections to firms and the indirect leverage effect had a strong and positive impact on the probability that a politician supported the government bailout.

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We examined the influence of religious denomination (RD) and religiosity/spirituality on licit and illicit substance use beyond the potential impact of parental variables. Data from a representative sample of Swiss men (n = 5,387) approximately 20 years old were collected between August 2010 and November 2011. We asked single item questions about RD and religious self-description (RSD) (including aspects of spirituality). Alcohol use, smoking, and illicit drug use was measured as outcome variables. Logistic regressions (adjusting for parenting and socioeconomic background) revealed that religiosity/spirituality was inversely associated with substance use and that it was more strongly associated than denomination. RD, particularly having no denomination, was independently associated with the use of most substances. The study's limitations, and the implications for future work are noted.

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Adolescence corresponds to a transition period that requires adaptation and change capacities and skills. Most young people succeed with this challenge, whereas a minority fail. In order to identify with the teenage culture, become autonomous, and differentiate from their parents, some adolescents choose to use drugs, beginning with the use of cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis, followed by other illicit drugs such as opiates and stimulants. A high proportion of these adolescents attempt suicide, which is the primary cause of death during adolescence in many European countries. Who are the "vulnerable" adolescents? What are the mechanisms that can explain the varieties of drug-use initiation or suicide attempts? Can "protective factors" be identified? What kind of strategies might be developed at a social and political level in order to prevent or to minimize drug abuse and suicide attempts, among other harmful behaviors? These issues will be discussed on the basis of the recent literature and in the light of a recent study carried out in the French-speaking part of Switzerland on large cohorts of adolescent drug users. Unresolved critical issues are noted and future needed research is suggested.

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Primary sensory neurons display various neuronal phenotypes which may be influenced by factors present in central or peripheral targets. In the case of DRG cells expressing substance P (SP), the influence of peripheral or central targets was tested on the neuronal expression of this neuropeptide. DRG cells were cultured from chick embryo at E6 or E10 (before or after establishment of functional connections with targets). Preprotachykinin mRNA was visualized in DRG cell cultures by either Northern blot or in situ hybridization using an antisense labeled riboprobe, while the neuropeptide SP was detected by immunostaining with a monoclonal antibody. In DRG cell cultures from E10, only 60% of neurons expressed SP. In contrast, DRG cell cultures performed at E6 showed a significant hybridization signal and SP-like immunoreactivity in virtually all the neurons (98%). The addition of extracts from muscle, skin, brain or spinal cord to DRG cells cultured at E6 reduced by 20% the percentage of neurons which express preprotachykinin mRNA and SP-like immunoreactivity. Our results indicate that factors issued from targets inhibit SP-expression by a subset of primary sensory neurons and act on the transcriptional control of preprotachykinin gene.

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RésuméL'addiction aux drogues est une maladie multifactorieile affectant toutes les strates de notre société. Cependant, la vulnérabilité à développer une addiction dépend de facteurs environnementaux, génétiques et psychosociaux. L'addiction aux drogues est décrite comme étant une maladie chronique avec un taux élevé de rechutes. Elle se caractérise par un besoin irrépressible de consommer une drogue et une augmentation progressive de la consommation en dépit des conséquences néfastes. Les mécanismes cérébraux responsables des dépendances aux drogues ne sont que partiellement élucidés, malgré une accumulation croissante d'évidences démontrant des adaptations au niveau moléculaire et cellulaire au sein des systèmes dopaminergique et glutamatergique. L'identification de nouveaux facteurs neurobiologiques responsables de la vulnérabilité aux substances d'abus est cruciale pour le développement de nouveaux traitements thérapeutiques capables d'atténuer et de soulager les symptômes liés à la dépendance aux drogues.Au cours des dernières années, de nombreuses études ont démontré qu'un nouveau circuit cérébral, le système hypocrétinergique, était impliqué dans plusieurs fonctions physiologiques, tel que l'éveil, le métabolisme énergétique, la motivation, le stress et les comportements liés aux phénomènes de récompense. Le système hypocrétinergique est composé d'environ 3000-4000 neurones issus de l'hypothalamus latéral projetant dans tout ie cerveau. Des souris transgéniques pour le gène des hypocrétines ont été générées et leur phénotype correspond à celui des animaux sauvages, excepté le fait qu'elles soient atteintes d'attaques de sommeil similaires à celles observées chez les patients narcoleptiques. H semblerait que les hypocrétines soient requises pour l'acquisition et l'expression de la dépendance aux drogues. Cependant, le mécanisme précis reste encore à être élucidé. Dans ce rapport, nous rendons compte des comportements liés aux phénomènes de récompense liés à l'alcool et à la cocaine chez les souris knock-out (KO), hétérozygotes (HET) et sauvages (WT).Nous avons, dans un premier temps, évalué l'impact d'injections répétées de cocaïne (15 mg/kg, ip) sur la sensibilisation locomotrice et sur le conditionnement place préférence. Nous avons pu observer que les souris WT, HET et KO exprimaient une sensibilisation locomotrice induite par une administration chronique de cocaïne, cependant les souris déficientes en hypocrétines démontraient une sensibilisation retardée et atténuée. Π est intéressant de mentionner que les mâles HET exprimaient une sensibilisation comportementale intermédiaire. Après normalisation des données, toutes les souris exprimaient une amplitude de sensibilisation similaire, excepté les souris mâles KO qui affichaient, le premier jour de traitement, une sensibilisation locomotrice réduite et retardée, reflétant un phénotype hypoactif plutôt qu'une altération de la réponse aux traitements chroniques de cocaïne. Contre toute attente, toutes les souris femelles exprimaient un pattern similaire de sensibilisation locomotrice à la cocaïne. Nous avons ensuite évalué l'effet d'un conditionnement comportemental à un environnement associé à des injections répétées de cocaine (15 mg / kg ip). Toutes les souris, quelque soit leur sexe ou leur génotype, ont manifesté une préférence marquée pour l'environnement apparié à la cocaïne. Après deux semaines d'abstinence à la cocaïne, les mâles et les femelles déficientes en hypocrétines n'exprimaient plus aucune préférence pour le compartiment précédemment associé à la cocaïne. Alors que les souris WT et HET maintenaient leur préférence pour le compartiment associé à la cocaïne. Pour finir, à l'aide d'un nouveau paradigme appelé IntelliCage®, nous avons pu évaluer la consommation de liquide chez les femelles WT, HET et KO. Lorsqu'il n'y avait que de l'eau disponible, nous avons observé que les femelles KO avaient tendance à moins explorer les quatre coins de la cage. Lorsque les souris étaient exposées à quatre types de solutions différentes (eau, ImM quinine ou 0.2% saccharine, alcool 8% et alcool 16%), les souris KO avaient tendance à moins consommer l'eau sucrée et les solutions alcoolisées. Cependant, après normalisation des données, aucune différence significative n'a pu être observée entre les différents génotypes, suggérant que la consommation réduite d'eau sucrée ou d'alcool peut être incombée à l'hypoactivité des souris KO.Ces résultats confirment que le comportement observé chez les souris KO serait dû à des compensations développementales, puisque la sensibilisation locomotrice et le conditionnement comportemental à la cocaïne étaient similaires aux souris HET et WT. En ce qui concerne la consommation de liquide, les souris KO avaient tendance à consommer moins d'eau sucrée et de solutions alcoolisées. Le phénotype hypoactif des souris déficientes en hypocrétine est probablement responsable de leur tendance à moins explorer leur environnement. Il reste encore à déterminer si l'expression de ce phénotype est la conséquence d'un état de vigilance amoindri ou d'une motivation diminuée à la recherche de récompense. Nos résultats suggèrent que les souris déficientes en hypocrétine affichent une motivation certaine à la recherche de récompense lorsqu'elles sont exposées à des environnements où peu d'efforts sont à fournir afin d'obtenir une récompense.AbstractDrug addiction is a multifactorial disorder affecting human beings regardless their education level, their economic status, their origin or even their gender, but the vulnerability to develop addiction depends on environmental, genetic and psychosocial dispositions. Drug addiction is defined as a chronic relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking, with loss of control over drug intake and persistent maladaptive decision making in spite of adverse consequences. The brain mechanisms responsible for drug abuse remain partially unknown despite accumulating evidence delineating molecular and cellular adaptations within the glutamatergic and the dopaminergic systems. However, these adaptations do not fully explain the complex brain disease of drug addiction. The identification of other neurobiological factors responsible for the vulnerability to substance abuse is crucial for the development of promising therapeutic treatments able to alleviate signs of drug dependence.For the past few years, growing evidence demonstrated that a recently discovered brain circuit, the hypocretinergic system, is implicated in many physiological functions, including arousal, energy metabolism, motivation, stress and reward-related behaviors. The hypocretin system is composed of a few thousands neurons arising from the lateral hypothalamus and projecting to the entire brain. Hypocretin- deficient mice have been generated, and unexpectedly, their phenotype resembles that of wild type mice excepting sleep attacks strikingly similar to those of human narcolepsy patients. Evidence suggesting that hypocretins are required for the acquisition and the expression of drug addiction has also been reported; however the precise mechanism by which hypocretins modulate drug seeking behaviors remains a matter of debate. Here, we report alcohol and cocaine reward-related behaviors in hypocretin-deficient mice (KO), as well as heterozygous (HET) and wild type (WT) littermates.We first evaluated the impact of repeated cocaine injections (15 mg/kg, ip) on locomotor sensitization and conditioned place preference. We observed that WT, HET and KO mice exhibited behavioral sensitization following repeated cocaine administrations, but hypocretin deficient males displayed a delayed and attenuated response to chronic cocaine administrations. Interestingly, HET males exhibited an intermediate pattern of behavioral sensitization. However, after standardization of the post-injection data versus the period of habituation prior to cocaine injections, all mice displayed similar amplitudes of behavioral sensitization, except a reduced response in KO males on the first day, suggesting that the delayed and reduced cocaine-induced locomotor sensitization may reflect a hypoactive phenotype and probably not an altered response to repeated cocaine administrations. Unexpectedly, all female mice exhibited similar patterns of cocaine-induced behavioral sensitization. We then assessed the behavioral conditioning for an environment repeatedly paired with cocaine injections (15 mg/kg ip). All mice, whatever their gender or genotype, exhibited a robust preference for the environment previously paired with cocaine administrations. Noteworthy, following two weeks of cocaine abstinence, hypocretin-deficient males and females no longer exhibited any preference for the compartment previously paired with cocaine rewards whereas both WT and HET mice continued manifesting a robust preference. We finally assessed drinking behaviors in WT, HET and KO female mice using a novel paradigm, the IntelliCages®. We report here that KO females tended to less explore the four cage comers where water was easily available. When exposed to four different kinds of liquid solutions (water, ImM quinine or saccharine 0.2%, alcohol 8% and alcohol 16%), KO mice tended to less consume the sweet and the alcoholic beverages. However, after data standardization, no significant differences were noticed between genotypes suggesting that the hypoactive phenotype is most likely accountable for the trend regarding the reduced sweet or alcohol intake in KO.Taken together, the present findings confirm that the behavior seen in Hcrt KO mice likely reflects developmental compensations since only a slightly altered cocaine-induced behavioral sensitization and a normal behavioral conditioning with cocaine were observed in these mice compared to HET and WT littermates. With regards to drinking behaviors, KO mice barely displayed any behavioral changes but a trend for reducing sweet and alcoholic beverages. Overall, the most striking observation is the constant hypoactive phenotype seen in the hypocretin-deficient mice that most likely is accountable for their reduced tendency to explore the environment. Whether this hypoactive phenotype is due to a reduced alertness or reduced motivation for reward seeking remains debatable, but our findings suggest that the hypocretin-deficient mice barely display any altered motivation for reward seeking in environments where low efforts are required to access to a reward.

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This paper is to examine the proper use of dimensions and curve fitting practices elaborating on Georgescu-Roegen’s economic methodology in relation to the three main concerns of his epistemological orientation. Section 2 introduces two critical issues in relation to dimensions and curve fitting practices in economics in view of Georgescu-Roegen’s economic methodology. Section 3 deals with the logarithmic function (ln z) and shows that z must be a dimensionless pure number, otherwise it is nonsensical. Several unfortunate examples of this analytical error are presented including macroeconomic data analysis conducted by a representative figure in this field. Section 4 deals with the standard Cobb-Douglas function. It is shown that the operational meaning cannot be obtained for capital or labor within the Cobb-Douglas function. Section 4 also deals with economists "curve fitting fetishism". Section 5 concludes thispaper with several epistemological issues in relation to dimensions and curve fitting practices in economics.

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OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the present study was to describe health literacy and its association with substance use among young men. METHODS: The present study was part of the Cohort Study on Substance Use Risk Factors that included 11,930 Swiss males participating in initial screening from August 2010 to July 2011. Self-completed questionnaires covered use of three substances and three components of health literacy. RESULTS: Roughly 22 % reported having searched the Internet for health information and 16 % for information on substances over the past 12 months. At-risk and not at-risk users of alcohol (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 2.50 and 1.46), tobacco (AOR = 2.51 and 1.79) and cannabis (AOR = 4.86 and 3.53) searched for information about substances significantly more often via the Internet than abstainers. Furthermore, at-risk users reported better knowledge of risks associated with substance use and a marginally better ability to understand health information than abstainers. CONCLUSIONS: Substance users appear to be more informed and knowledgeable about the risks of substance use than non-users. Consequently, interventions that focus only on information provision may be of limited benefit for preventing substance use.

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The aim of this paper is to analyse the colocation patterns of industries and firms. We study the spatial distribution of firms from different industries at a microgeographic level and from this identify the main reasons for this locational behaviour. The empirical application uses data from Mercantile Registers of Spanish firms (manufacturers and services). Inter-sectorial linkages are shown using self-organizing maps. Key words: clusters, microgeographic data, self-organizing maps, firm location JEL classification: R10, R12, R34

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PURPOSE: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder (CD), and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) are common externalizing disorders of childhood. The common effects of these disorders on substance abuse need further investigation. The current study investigated the joint clusters of childhood/adolescence ADHD, CD, and ODD, and their influence on substance abuse/dependence in a population-based sample of adults. METHODS: The data were drawn from the PsyCoLaus study (n = 3,720) conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland. The population-based sample included 238 subjects meeting criteria for ADHD/ODD/CD diagnoses before the age of 15. Latent class analyses (LCA) were performed to derive comorbidity subtypes, which were subsequently characterized with respect to psychosocial correlates and substance use. RESULTS: The best fit in LCAs was achieved with three latent classes: an ADHD subtype (35.7 %); an externalizing multimorbid subtype (33.6 %) involving ODD, ADHD, and CD; and a third subtype with CD (30.7 %). The CD subtype showed the highest association with substance use. Apart from this, the externalizing multimorbid subtype was also significantly linked to substance use. The ADHD subtype had only elevated frequencies for alcohol dependence in comparison with subjects that had no history of ADHD, ODD, and CD during childhood or adolescence. Finally, important interactions between subtypes and sex were observed with regard to substance use. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence showing that subtyping the externalizing disorders, ADHD, ODD and CD, along their comorbidity patterns leads to important differences regarding substance use. This could have implications for the etiology, prevention, and treatment of substance use disorders.