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Kinds of Access Terms modified by Access Selected AbstractsTHE DETERMINANTS OF LAWS RESTRICTING YOUTH ACCESS TO TOBACCOCONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 1 2009CRAIG A. GALLET Since many smokers begin consuming tobacco products in their adolescent years, many states have adopted a variety of restrictions on youth access to tobacco, which studies show reduces the demand for tobacco among this cohort. This paper takes a different track by addressing the demand for youth access restrictions. Specifically, using a random effects Probit procedure, which controls for the endogeneity of cigarette consumption and taxation, we examine the determinants of nine methods commonly used by states to restrict youth access to tobacco. (JEL H70, I18) [source] ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL MEDICINES: A HOBBESIAN SOCIAL CONTRACT APPROACHDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 2 2005RICHARD E. ASHCROFT ABSTRACT Medicines that are vital for the saving and preserving of life in conditions of public health emergency or endemic serious disease are known as essential medicines. In many developing world settings such medicines may be unavailable, or unaffordably expensive for the majority of those in need of them. Furthermore, for many serious diseases (such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis) these essential medicines are protected by patents that permit the patent-holder to operate a monopoly on their manufacture and supply, and to price these medicines well above marginal cost. Recent international legal doctrine has placed great stress on the need to globalise intellectual property rights protections, and on the rights of intellectual property rights holders to have their property rights enforced. Although international intellectual property rights law does permit compulsory licensing of protected inventions in the interests of public health, the use of this right by sovereign states has proved highly controversial. In this paper I give an argument in support of states' sovereign right to expropriate private intellectual property in conditions of public health emergency. This argument turns on a social contract argument for the legitimacy of states. The argument shows, further, that under some circumstances states are not merely permitted compulsory to license inventions, but are actually obliged to do so, on pain of failure of their legitimacy as sovereign states. The argument draws freely on a loose interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's arguments in his Leviathan, and on an analogy between his state of War and the situation of public health disasters. [source] IMPROVING ACCESS TO OPIATE ADDICTION TREATMENT FOR PRISONERSADDICTION, Issue 7 2010AMY NUNN No abstract is available for this article. [source] THIRD-PARTY ACCESS TO INFRASTRUCTURE: THE CASE OF THE MT NEWMAN RAIL LINE IN THE PILBARAECONOMIC PAPERS: A JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY, Issue 4 2007PAUL KOSHY Australia is continuing to develop a legal and administrative framework for facilitating third party access to important infrastructure. This paper examines the workings of the organisation charged with assessing requests for access,the National Competition Council,in the context of the Council's Final Recommendation on an application by the Fortescue Metals Group for access to the Mt Newman Rail Line, owned and operated by BHP Billiton Iron Ore. The discussion draws on submissions to the Council and the recent literature on rail access in order to critique this decision. It concludes by observing that further research is needed to develop a methodology for a more formal approach to determining certain key questions. [source] ALL CHILDREN ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL: PRWORA'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTION ON IMMIGRANT CHILDREN'S ACCESS TO FEDERAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAMSFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 3 2006Hyejung Janet Shin The lack of health insurance for children is a serious problem in the United States, especially for those children in families that earn too little to get private health insurance and too much to qualify for Medicare. Even within this subclass of children, immigrant children are particularly vulnerable to the problems faced by lack of health care. Nevertheless, with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) by Congress, equality interests of low-income immigrant children are undermined when immigrant children are denied federal benefits for the first 5 years of residency in the United States. The first part of this Note examines the importance of child health care and the long-term problems with uninsured children, especially with uninsured immigrant children and pregnant women. The next part introduces Medicaid as well as State Children's Health Insurance Program, a supplemental federal program designed to increase health care coverage to all children, while contrasting these programs in light of the restrictive anti-immigrant PRWORA provisions. The third part explains the passage of PRWORA, its anti-immigrant provisions, and how these provisions prevent needy immigrant children from receiving federally funded health care. Then, the fourth part uses both the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to argue the unconstitutionality of the anti-immigrant provisions. Finally, the last part lays out the recommendation to amend the Social Security Act so that the PRWORA barriers can be removed and recent immigrant children can receive federally funded health care. [source] WORKING WITH PUBLIC LIBRARIES TO ENHANCE ACCESS TO QUALITY-ASSURED HEALTH INFORMATION FOR THE LAY PUBLICJOURNAL OF HUMAN NUTRITION & DIETETICS, Issue 2 2004Sara F. L. Kirk PhD RD [source] GOING ONLINE WITHOUT EASY ACCESS: A TALE OF THREE CITIESJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 5 2008KAREN MOSSBERGER ABSTRACT:,Building on a national study that showed that concentrated poverty matters for the "digital divide," this research compares the influence of the neighborhood-level context in three cities that vary in racial composition and income. We use a 2005 random digit-dialed survey of respondents in Northeast Ohio communities, and find unexpectedly that residents in areas of concentrated poverty demonstrate efforts to go online despite lacking home or work access. We analyze the results using regression models that include contextual "buffers" that create a unique geography for each respondent within a half-kilometer radius. Respondents who live in areas with a high percentage of African Americans or college graduates are more likely to go online even if they lack convenient Internet access, although the percentage of college graduates has a greater effect. At the neighborhood level, race and education influence the context for technology use. [source] BIOCHEMICAL MARKERS OF CARDIAC INJURY IN NORMAL AND SURVIVING VERSUS NON-SURVIVING SEPTICEMIC NEONATAL FOALSJOURNAL OF VETERINARY EMERGENCY AND CRITICAL CARE, Issue S1 2004SF Peek Although myocardial injury can be a significant component of multiple organ dysfunction (MODS) in association with septicemia in critically ill human patients, it is as yet an undefined clinical entity in equine septicemia. With septicemia as the leading cause of death in neonatal foals, a better understanding of the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of MODS will be important in further improving survival rates. We designed a prospective study to establish normal ranges for cardiac troponin I (cTnI), T (cTnT) and CKMB mass in healthy 24,48 hour old foals, as well as septicemic neonatal foals seen over a 2-year period in a teaching hospital. We also performed a comparison of these biomarkers in surviving and non-surviving septicemic foals. Sepsis was judged on the basis of the presence of any of the 3 following criteria: blood culture positive at admission, admission sepsis score ,11, or 3 or more sites of infection during hospitalization in foals ,14 days of age. cTnI was measured by the ACCESS® (Beckman Coulter), cTnT was measured using the Elecsys 2010® Immunoassay (Roche), and CKMB mass measurements were performed using the Elecsys 2010®. Each parameter was described using range and 95th and 50th percentile. Comparisons were made for each parameter between normal and septic foals as well as surviving and non-surviving septic foals using the non-parametric Wilcoxon's rank sum test. Significance was set at p<0.05. There were 52 control foals and 38 septic foals of which 22 survived. Significant differences were documented for CKMB between septicemic and normal foals, but not for cTnT or cTnI. However, CKMB and cTnT were significantly lower in surviving versus non-surviving septicemic foals. The 50th and 95th percentiles alongside the ranges for the normal foal population were 0.14, 0.49, (0.01,0.51) ,g/L for cTnI, 0.009, 0.03, (0.009,0.04) ,g/L for cTnT and 2.3, 7.4, (0.4,9.3) ,g/L for CKMB. Our findings suggest that myocardial injury is a component of MODS during septicemia in foals, and that quantitatively significant increases in CKMB and cTnT are seen in non-surviving septicemic foals versus survivors. [source] ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING AND URBAN FOOD ACCESS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLICANNALS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRACTICE, Issue 1 2009Howard Rosing The article describes how economic restructuring in the Dominican Republic during the 1980s and 1990s established the basis for urban food access challenges during the 2000s. Primarily based on research in Santiago, the second largest Dominican city, the article provides insights into how export-oriented development strategies, expanding trade liberalization, domestic political struggles, and patriarchal relations influenced access to food for low-income residents. During the early 2000s, many Santiago residents were engaged in an elaborate, androcentric exchange network that linked gendered income-generating strategies to credit-bearing food merchants who were, in turn, conjoined to a sequence of brokers all of whom were eventually linked to domestic and international producers by credit relations. Analysis of these findings illustrates how and why this exchange network existed, the importance of credit relations to its maintenance, and the ways in which government and U.S. food policies influenced urban provisioning patterns among the most economically and socially vulnerable population of Santiago. I argue that the rapidly changing social and spatial configurations of Latin American and Caribbean cities calls for innovative applied anthropological research into the processes that structure access to food resources by food insecure groups. By focusing on household food procurement in conjunction with exchange relations for a key staple, the article highlights practices and policies that enable and constrain food access for such groups. The article provides empirical data relevant to scholars and practitioners concerned with understanding the structural origins of the present-day food crisis in developing countries. [source] DOES NECK EXTENSION ELEVATE THE THYROID GLAND CEPHALAD TO POTENTIALLY IMPROVE ACCESS DURING THYROIDECTOMY?ANZ JOURNAL OF SURGERY, Issue 11 2003Jonathan W. Serpell Background: Patients undergoing thyroidectomy are positioned with the neck extended to facilitate exposure of the neck. Computed tomography (CT) scanning of the thyroid, without i.v. contrast, is often used preoperatively to investigate the extent of large goitres. Currently, patients are scanned in the neutral position rather than the surgical position of neck extension. The aim of the present study was to determine the degree, if any, of movement of the thyroid, as measured by CT, achieved by neck extension. Methods: A trial was designed using CT scanning of the neck. Fourteen patients were studied. Patients attended for the usual CT thyroid. In addition, they were then rescanned with their neck extended. The position of the inferior aspect of the gland in relation to the sternal notch was measured in both positions. The degree of neck extension was measured and correlated with the extent of thyroid gland movement. The data were analysed with the Wilcoxon signed rank test and Spearman correlation coefficients. Results: Results showed a median difference between the two positions of 5 mm (P = 0.0002). Conclusion: The minimal cephalad movement of the thyroid achieved by neck extension, although statistically significant, is of doubtful clinical use, and overextension of the neck should be avoided because of its associated risks of pain, vomiting and spinal damage. [source] CORPUS CAVERNOSUM AS AN ALTERNATIVE MEANS OF INTRAVENOUS ACCESS IN THE EMERGENCY SETTINGANZ JOURNAL OF SURGERY, Issue 7 2000D. Nicol Background: The present study was designed to investigate the feasibility of using the corpus cavernosum as an alternative means of intravenous access in the emergency setting. Methods: The feasibility of achieving the infusion flow rates was first ascertained using direct intracavernous infusion of normal saline. The effect of atropine and adrenaline when given via this route was then studied. Hypovolaemic shock was then induced in dogs who were then actively resuscitated via this route using normal saline, Haemaccel and whole blood. Results: Infusion flow rates were achieved for normal saline of 32.3, 50.3 and 67.3 mL per min at 100, 200 and 300 mmHg pressure, respectively. The peak effects of atropine and adrenaline via this route were seen at approximately 1 min after injection. Resuscitation using this method was uniformly successful in all dogs via the corpus cavernosum, with all reaching or exceeding their premorbid central venous pressure (CVP), and approaching or reaching their premorbid mean arterial pressure (MAP). In comparison the control dog's CVP and MAP did not rise during the period of observation after it was bled. Conclusions: The corpus cavernosum is a practical alternative means of intravenous access in the emergency setting in the dog model. [source] Layered Performance Animation with Correlation MapsCOMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 3 2007Michael Neff Abstract Performance has a spontaneity and "aliveness" that can be difficult to capture in more methodical animation processes such as keyframing. Access to performance animation has traditionally been limited to either low degree of freedom characters or required expensive hardware. We present a performance-based animation system for humanoid characters that requires no special hardware, relying only on mouse and keyboard input. We deal with the problem of controlling such a high degree of freedom model with low degree of freedom input through the use of correlation maps which employ 2D mouse input to modify a set of expressively relevant character parameters. Control can be continuously varied by rapidly switching between these maps. We present flexible techniques for varying and combining these maps and a simple process for defining them. The tool is highly configurable, presenting suitable defaults for novices and supporting a high degree of customization and control for experts. Animation can be recorded on a single pass, or multiple layers can be used to increase detail. Results from a user study indicate that novices are able to produce reasonable animations within their first hour of using the system. We also show more complicated results for walking and a standing character that gestures and dances. [source] Dynamic scratch-pad memory management with data pipelining for embedded systemsCONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 13 2010Yanqin Yang Abstract In this paper, we propose an effective data pipelining technique, SPDP (Scratch-Pad Data Pipelining), for dynamic scratch-pad memory (SPM) management with DMA (Direct Memory Access). Our basic idea is to overlap the execution of CPU instructions and DMA operations. In SPDP, based on the iteration access patterns of arrays, we group multiple iterations into a block to improve the data locality of regular array accesses. We allocate the data of multiple iterations into different portions of the SPM. In this way, when the CPU executes instructions and accesses data from one portion of the SPM, DMA operations can be performed to transfer data between the off-chip memory and another portion of SPM simultaneously. We perform code transformation to insert DMA instructions to achieve the data pipelining. We have implemented our SPDP technique with the IMPACT compiler, and conduct experiments using a set of loop kernels from DSPstone, Mibench, and Mediabench on the cycle-accurate VLIW simulator of Trimaran. The experimental results show that our technique achieves performance improvement compared with the previous work. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Features of the Java Commodity Grid KitCONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 13-15 2002Gregor von Laszewski Abstract In this paper we report on the features of the Java Commodity Grid Kit (Java CoG Kit). The Java CoG Kit provides middleware for accessing Grid functionality from the Java framework. Java CoG Kit middleware is general enough to design a variety of advanced Grid applications with quite different user requirements. Access to the Grid is established via Globus Toolkit protocols, allowing the Java CoG Kit to also communicate with the services distributed as part of the C Globus Toolkit reference implementation. Thus, the Java CoG Kit provides Grid developers with the ability to utilize the Grid, as well as numerous additional libraries and frameworks developed by the Java community to enable network, Internet, enterprise and peer-to-peer computing. A variety of projects have successfully used the client libraries of the Java CoG Kit to access Grids driven by the C Globus Toolkit software. In this paper we also report on the efforts to develop serverside Java CoG Kit components. As part of this research we have implemented a prototype pure Java resource management system that enables one to run Grid jobs on platforms on which a Java virtual machine is supported, including Windows NT machines. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] NON-GYNAECOLOGICAL CYTOLOGY: THE CLINICIAN'S VIEWCYTOPATHOLOGY, Issue 2006I. Penman There is increased recognition of the importance of accurate staging of malignancies of the GI tract and lung, greater use of neoadjuvant therapies and more protocol-driven management. This is particularly important where regional lymph node involvement significantly impacts on curability. Multidetector CT and PET scanning have resulted in greater detection of potential abnormalities which, if positive for malignancy, would change management. There is also a greater recognition that many enlarged nodes may be inflammatory and that size criteria alone are unreliable in determining involvement. In other situations, especially pancreatic masses, not all represent carcinoma as focal chronic pancreatitis, autoimmune pancreatitis etc can catch out the unwary. A preoperative tissue diagnosis is essential and even if unresectable, oncologists are increasingly reluctant to initiate chemotherapy or enroll patients into trials without this. The approach to obtaining tissue is often hampered by the small size or relative inaccessibility of lesions by percutaneous approaches. As such novel techniques such as endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) guided FNA have been developed. A 120cm needle is passed through the instrument and, under real-time visualisation, through the gastrointestinal wall to sample adjacent lymph nodes or masses. Multiple studies have demonstrated the safety and performance of this technique. In oesophageal cancer, confirmation of node positivity by has a major negative influence on curative resection rates and will often lead to a decision to use neoadjuvant chemotherapy or a non-operative approach. Sampling of lymph nodes at the true coeliac axis upstages the patient to M1a status (stage IV) disease and makes the patient incurable. In NSCLC, subcarinal lymph nodes are frequently present but may be inflammatory. If positive these represent N2 (stage IIIA) disease and in most centres again makes the patient inoperable. Access to these lymph nodes would otherwise require mediastinosocopy whereas this can be done simply, safely and quickly by EUS. Overall the sensitivity for EUS , FNA of mediastinal or upper abdominal lymph nodes is 83,90% with an accuracy of 80,90%. In pancreatic cancer performance is less good but pooled analysis of published studies indicates a sensitivity of 85% and accuracy of 88%. In a recent spin-off from EUS, endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) instruments have been developed and the ability to sample anterior mediastinal nodes has been demonstrated. It is likely that this EBUS , FNA technique will become increasingly utilised and may replace mediastinoscopy. The development of techniques such as EUS and EBUS to allow FNA sampling of lesions has increased the role of non-gynaecological cytology significantly in recent years. Cytology therefore remains important for a broad range of specialties and there is ongoing need for careful and close co-operation between cytologists and clinicians in these specialties. References:, 1. Williams DB, Sahai AV, Aabakken L, Penman ID, van Velse A, Webb J et al. Endoscopic ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration biopsy: a large single centre experience. Gut. 1999; 44: 720,6. 2. Silvestri GA, Hoffman BJ, Bhutani MS et al. Endoscopic ultrasound with fine-needle aspiration in the diagnosis and staging of lung cancer. Ann Thorac Surg 1996; 61: 1441,6. 3. Rintoul RC, Skwarski KM, Murchison JT, Wallace WA, Walker WS, Penman ID. Endobronchial and endoscopic ultrasound real-time fine-needle aspiration staging of the mediastinum ). Eur Resp J 2005; 25: 1,6. [source] Paper Versus Electronic Medical Records: The Effects of Access on Physicians' Decisions to Use Complex Information Technologies,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 2 2009Virginia Ilie ABSTRACT This study examines physicians' responses to complex information technologies (IT) in the health care supply chain. We extend individual-level IT adoption models by incorporating a new construct: system accessibility. The main premise of the study is, when faced with a decision between alternate IT systems, individual users tend to select and make use of the technology or system that is most readily accessible. We discuss both physical and logical dimensions of accessibility as they relate to adoption of electronic medical records (EMR). Physical accessibility refers to the availability of computers that can be used to access EMR, while logical accessibility refers to the ease or difficulty of logging into the system. Using data from a survey of 199 physicians practicing in a large U.S. hospital, we show that, when deciding between the paper chart and EMR, accessibility is an important consideration in a physician's decision to use the system. Both dimensions of accessibility act as barriers to EMR use intentions through their indirect effect on physicians' perceptions of EMR usefulness and ease of use. Logical access also has a direct effect on EMR use intentions. We conclude that accessibility is an important factor that limits acceptance of complex IT such as EMR. [source] Using Buyer,Supplier Performance Frontiers to Manage Relationship Performance,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 1 2009Anthony D. Ross ABSTRACT This article presents a consensus-building methodology to implement dyadic performance measurement. It focuses on transmuting supplier performance and buyer performance metrics on several important attributes into actionable relationship management plans using Clark's (1996) theory of performance frontiers. Access to the supplier performance management program of a Fortune 100 corporation was granted to the research team. Direct observation of practice and in-depth discussions with several managers provided a roadmap for investigating both the literature on quantitative evaluation methods and the empirically derived theory on buyer,supplier relationships from several perspectives. This study describes a multiphase, iterative framework that uses current methods and theory on dyadic buyer,supplier evaluation to consider: (i) evaluation criteria and their importance; (ii) whether the improvement focus should be on strengths, weaknesses, or both; and (iii) whether the referent role supplier should be the ideal supplier, best supplier, or best-in-strategic-group supplier in the focal supply base. We illustrate a unifying approach by reporting results from a large buyer and 35 of its key suppliers. This research makes the case for managing supplier relationships through the dyadic performance lens. The outputs from this framework provide individual supplier improvement paths which are actionable prescriptions for each buyer,supplier dyad, as well as recommendations for strategic group formation. [source] Access to Essential DrugsDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 1 2003Article first published online: 8 APR 200 Access to Essential Drugs: Generics Supporters Win on Important Issues, Ministerial Meetings of World Trade Organisation Members Fails to Agree on Rules [source] Access to Essential Drugs: Latin America, South Africa, KenyaDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 2 2002Article first published online: 28 JUN 200 [source] Access to Essential Drugs: Kenya, South Africa and Botswana, Botswana, South Africa, The US and Canada, Brazil, NigeriaDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 1 2002Article first published online: 28 JUN 200 [source] Access to Essential Drugs Prevented by Pharmaceutical MultinationalsDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 1 2001Article first published online: 28 JUN 200 [source] Resource Accessibility and Vulnerability in Andhra Pradesh: Caste and Non-Caste InfluencesDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2007Lee Bosher ABSTRACT Coastal Andhra Pradesh in southern India is prone to tropical cyclones. Access to key resources can reduce the vulnerability of the local population to both large-scale disasters, such as cyclones, and to the sort of small-scale crises that affect their everyday lives. This article uses primary fieldwork to present a resource accessibility vulnerability index for over 300 respondents. The index indicates that caste is the key factor in determining who has assets, who can access public facilities, who has political connections and who has supportive social networks. The ,lower' castes (which tend to be the poorest) are marginalized to the extent that they lack access to assets, public facilities and opportunities to improve their plight. However, the research also indicates that the poor and powerless lower castes are able to utilize informal social networks to bolster their resilience, typically by women's participation with CBOs and NGOs. Nevertheless it is doubtful whether this extra social capital counterbalances the overall results which show that , despite decades of counteractions by government , caste remains a dominant variable affecting the vulnerability of the people of coastal Andhra Pradesh to the hazards that they face. [source] Border Practices, Boundaries, and the Control of Resource Access: A Case from China, Thailand and BurmaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2004Janet C. Sturgeon This article traces border practices along boundaries that China and Thailand share with Burma. It portrays a spectrum of small border polities, from principalities on the fringes of Southeast Asian kingdoms, through Nationalist troops in Burma following their defeat in China, to ,drug lords' and ,rebel armies'. The focus here is on Akha village heads who have worked their connections in multiple directions, including into Burma, to position themselves as patrons controlling local resource access. With state appointment as border guardians, village heads become chiefs of new kinds of small border entities, protecting the border for the homeland while enabling certain illicit information, people, and goods to cross. In regions with a history of complex patronage relations, state efforts to control peripheral people, resources, and territories have in fact produced small border chiefs, with practices similar to those of frontier princes in the past. [source] Access to Land, Rural Development and Public Action: The When and the HowDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2009Pablo Bandeira After being marginalised in the 1980s, land-reform policies came back to national and international development agendas during the 1990s, resulting in a revival of academic research on the subject. This article reviews the empirical literature on access to land, rural development and public action for evidence on when and how the state should intervene in the allocation of rural land. The review suggests that positive impacts are obtained if, and only if, public actions on the allocation of land are carried out under certain conditions and in a certain way. The article ends by highlighting the need to elaborate empirical models that take into consideration opportunity costs and interactions, and that integrate individual responses with aggregate effects. [source] What Determines Cross-Country Access to Antiretroviral Treatment?DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2006Nicoli Nattrass Despite the recent international effort to expand access to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in developing countries, its coverage still varies significantly from country to country and is strongly correlated with per capita income. However, regional and political variables are also important. Cross-country regressions indicate that, controlling for political and economic characteristics and the scale of the HIV epidemic, Latin American and African countries have better coverage than predicted. Whereas the level of HIV prevalence was a significantly (negative) factor when accounting for HAART coverage in June 2004, this effect had disappeared by December 2004. The improvement appears to have benefited democratic countries in particular. [source] Community Ventures and Access to Markets: The Role of Intermediaries in Marketing Rural Tourism ProductsDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 5 2004Kathrin Forstner Many community-based tourism ventures face marketing problems similar to those of other rural producers. They depend on intermediaries, such as private companies, membership organisations, public sector institutions and non-governmental organisations, to facilitate market access. The article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of each type of intermediary, based on different levels of marketing support. Reflecting discussions about marketing assistance in other rural sectors, it argues that intermediary institutions have different areas of expertise and experience different constraints in terms of capacity-building, marketing know-how, financial resources and overall livelihood impacts. Instead of pursuing individual support strategies, it is therefore necessary to develop combined approaches of marketing assistance, depending on location, tourism resources and existing organisational structures. [source] Rights and Access to Plant Genetic Resources under India's New LawDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 4 2004Anitha Ramanna Recognition of ,Farmer's Rights' is an attempt by developing countries to evolve a counterclaim to breeders' Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) promoted under the TRIPs Agreement of the WTO. India is one of the first countries to have granted rights to both breeders and farmers under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001. This multiple rights system aims to distribute rights equitably, but may pose the threat of an ,anticommons tragedy' i.e. too many parties independently possessing the right to exclude others from utilising a resource. If under-utilisation of plant genetic resources results, the Act will have negative consequences for sustaining crop productivity and for the welfare of the very farming communities it seeks to compensate. [source] Diagnostic criteria and surgical procedure for megaesophagus , a personal experienceDISEASES OF THE ESOPHAGUS, Issue 4 2009A. Lewandowski SUMMARY Megaesophagus is the end-stage of achalasia cardiae. It is the result of peristaltic disorders and slow decompensation of the muscular layer of the esophagus. The aim of this article is to detail the diagnostic criteria and surgical management of megaesophagus. Criteria were acute bending of esophagus axis; lack of esophagus peristalsis, and no response to stimulation in the manometric test; and Los Angeles C/D esophagitis in the endoscopic examination. Between 1991 and 2004 seven patients (5 females, 2 males; age, 51,67 years; average age, 59 ± 8 years) were treated. A bypass made from the pedunculated part of the jejunum connecting the part of esophagus above the narrowing with the praepyloric part of the stomach was made. Access was by an abdominal approach. A jejunum bypass was made in six patients with megaesophagus. A transhiatal esophageal resection was carried out, and in the second stage a supplementary esophagus was made from the right half of the colon on the ileocolic vessels in one patient who had experienced two earlier unsuccessful operations. Symptoms of dysphagia, recurrent inflammation of the respiratory tract, and pain subsided in all patients. Complications were not reported in the postoperative period. All patients survived. Subsequent radiographic and endoscopic examination showed very good outcome. The jejunum bypass gave very good results in the surgical treatment of megaesophagus. [source] VegTrack: A structured vegetation restoration activity databaseECOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT & RESTORATION, Issue 2 2009Andre Zerger Summary, Information about on-ground vegetation restoration activities (e.g. fencing and revegetation) is critical if natural resource management (NRM) groups are to monitor progress towards restoration targets, assess the efficacy of their interventions and adaptively learn from different actions. However, in Australia, there are few practical guidelines for recording data, making it difficult to consistently compare actions between sites and through time. Records of primary information are particularly important given the ongoing national investment in vegetation restoration activities. With the aid of six-case study areas in different landscapes, robust guidelines and tools were developed and incorporated into VegTrack, a methodology, which allows groups to develop their own vegetation restoration activity database. VegTrack differentiates spatial data from attribute data storing each in different databases (a GIS and a relational database management system respectively). We describe the process which enables NRM groups to develop their own database, and provide a Microsoft Access 2003 version of VegTrack to allow NRM groups to commence activity recording. To demonstrate the utility of the VegTrack method in different situations and to encourage consistency across study areas, we describe the application of the guidelines for several scenarios including riparian revegetation, corridors disrupted by roads and infill plantings. [source] Access to Telephone Services and Household Income in Poor Rural Areas Using a Quasi-natural Experiment for PeruECONOMICA, Issue 304 2009ALBERTO CHONG We take advantage of a quasi-natural experiment in Peru in which a privatized telecommunications company was required by the government to randomly install and operate public pay phones in small rural towns throughout the country. Using an especially designed household survey for a representative sample of rural towns, we are able to link access to telephone services with household income. We find that, regardless of income measurement, most characteristics of public telephone use are positively linked with income. Remarkably, the benefits are given at both non-farm and farm income levels. The findings hold when using propensity score matching methods. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||