Suchergebnisse

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-127). ; In the wake of AI Qaeda's attack against the United States on September 11, 2001, Africa has gained strategic significance due to the belief that its weak states are a danger to American national security. US Africa policy is now centered on the logic that weak African governments unable to provide for the basic needs of their people and lacking full control of their borders provide both a breeding ground and safe-haven for terrorist organizations. Africa has thus gone from being a marginalized humanitarian concern in the 1990s, to a continent of strategic significance in the US War on Terror (USW01) in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, as seen in the fact that American aid to the continent has more than tripled in the years following 9/11. The purpose of this thesis is to critically analyze the political process behind this shift in policy in order to address the question of who was responsible for this change in US Africa policy and how did they make the change happen. This study takes the form of a theoretical case study, using the Copenhagen School's Securitization Theory, designed to identify the means by which an issue is placed on the national security agenda, to address this change in post-9/11 US Africa policy. In accordance with this theoretical framework, primary sources from government and non-government agencies including policy statements, speeches and legislative testimonies are surveyed to identify instances of the claim being articulated that Africa represents a threat to American national security and its legitimation and reiteration by an audience. This study finds that the unified executive branch under the Bush administration and Washington think tanks made the unified claim that the condition of Africa is a threat to US national security and the legislative branch served as the singular audience, legitimating this claim and appropriating dramatically increased and enhanced aid to the continent. The factors of political agency and context are offered as additions to the Securitization Theory framework in this study, and their incorporation in this case determines that the high-level of the agency of the securitizing actors and audience facilitated the legitimation process, as did the use of the contextual factors of the trauma of9/11 and the American identity as promoters of democratic ideals. These additional factors underscore both the political power of the actors involved and the techniques they use to support their claims, thereby developing the political quality of the theory and providing a more complete representation of the securitization process.

On 18 September 2007 more than 70 senior policymakers, scholars, and active duty and retired military officers from the United States and India gathered in New Delhi to discuss future maritime cooperation between the United States and India. The conference was sponsored by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Advanced Systems and Concepts Office and organized by the Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) and India's National Maritime Foundation (NMF). The conference built on another track-two dialogue, the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership: A Track- Two Dialogue for Long-Term Cooperation, held in New Delhi in April 2007, and sought to identify specific areas of cooperation in the maritime realm, including the role of India in the U.S. maritime strategy, cooperation on WMD interdiction issues, and the implications of energy security strategies for maritime conflict and cooperation in the Indian Ocean. The main topics of this conference included U.S. supremacy, China's role in the Indian Ocean, Navy as a foreign policy tool, technology, U.S.-India bilateral relations and the civilian nuclear deal, U.S. bureaucratic momentum, and U.S. seam issues. ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

In the wake of 9/11, Africa was securitised in a new way by the United States (US): weak states were believed to pose an existential threat to the US. American aid to Africa consequently more than tripled in the years following 9/11. Using the Copenhagen School's securitisation theory, we investigate the interaction between the executive branch as claimant and the US Congress as legitimiser. The factors of political agency and context are accentuated in our use of securitisation theory. Yet, the evidence also points to structural forces, especially the unequal relationship between executive and legislature.

Section I General -- Sexual Disorders in Male Alcoholics -- Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid in Chronic Alcoholics -- Porphyria Cutanea Tarda in Chronic Alcoholics -- Physical Complications of Alcohol Excess—Metabolism of Alcohol -- Is Illegal Drugtaking a Problem? -- Alcoholism and Drug Dependence — A Multidisciplinary Problem: The Sociologist's Viewpoint -- Alcohol and the General Physician -- Denial of the Hidden Alcoholic in General Practice -- Section II Aetiology and Epidemiology -- The Validity of Per Capita Alcohol Consumption as an Indicator of the Prevalence of Alcohol Related Problems: An Evaluation Based on National Statistics and Survey Data -- On the Need to Reconcile the Aetiologies of Drug Abuse -- Drinking Patterns of Young People -- Alcoholism and Psychology — Some Recent Trends and Methods -- A Psychiatric View of Substance Dependency -- How Important is Alcohol in "Alcoholism"? -- Social Circumstances of Non-Convicted vs Convicted Drug Users -- The Pathological and the Subcultural Model of Drug Use — A Test of Two Contrasting Explanations -- Unemployment and Sickness Absenteeism in Alcoholics -- Alcohol Problems in Women -- The Aetiology of Dependency -- Section III Treatment -- A Pilot Controlled Drinking Out-Patient Group -- Programming Alcoholism Treatment: Historical Trends -- A Young Problem Drinkers Programme as a Means of Establishing and Maintaining Treatment Contact -- Family Focused Treatment and Management: A Multi-Discipline Training Approach -- The Young Alcoholic — Approaches to Treatment -- Detoxification — The First Step -- The Treatment of Drug Dependence — A Taxonomy of Approaches -- Aims of Treatment -- Controlled Drinking in the Alcoholic — A Search for Common Features -- A Programme of Group Counselling for Alcoholics -- The Ontario Detoxication System: An Evaluation of its Effectiveness -- Section IV Rehabilitation -- The Role of the Probation Service in the Treatment of Alcoholism -- An Analysis of Clients Using Alcoholic Agencies within One Community Service -- Co-ordination and Co-operation -- The Problem — Its Magnitude and a Suggested Community Based Answer to Alcoholism -- Methodological Problems in Evaluating Drug Misuse Intervention Programmes -- Planning for the Future — Developing a Comprehensive Response to Alcohol Abuse in an English Health District -- The Featherstone Lodge Project — Phoenix House. One Method of Rehabilitation -- The Co-ordination of Care in the Field of Alcoholism -- Section V Prevention and Education -- The Role of Legislation in Diminishing the Misuse of Alcohol -- The Need for and Some Results of Evaluation of English Drug Education -- Developing a Co-ordinated Approach to Interprofessional Education -- Alcohol Control Policy as a Strategy of Prevention: A Critical Examination of the Evidence -- Parents, Children and Learning to Drink -- Alcohol and Education -- Chairmen -- Contributors.

AbstractEye‐tracking paradigms are increasingly used to investigate higher‐level social and cognitive processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the integrity of the oculomotor system within ASD is unclear, with contradictory reports of aberrant eye‐movements on basic oculomotor tasks. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether reducing population heterogeneity and distinguishing neurocognitive phenotypes can clarify discrepancies in oculomotor behaviour evident in previous reports. Reflexive and volitional eye‐movement control was assessed in 73 children aged 8–14 years from four distinct groups: Autism Language Normal (ALN), Autism Language Impaired (ALI), non‐autistic Language Impaired (LI) and Typically Developing (TD). Eye‐movement control was measured using pro‐ and antisaccade tasks and a novel 'search distracter' task to measure distractibility. Reflexive eye‐movements were equivalent across groups, but deficits in volitional eye‐movement control were found that aligned with language status, and were not specific to ASD. More than 80% of ALI and LI children presented error rates at least 1.5 SDs below the TD mean in an antisaccade task. In the search distracter task, 35.29% of ALI children and 43.75% of LI children had error rates greater than 1.5 SDs compared with 17.64% of ALN children. A significant proportion of children with neurodevelopmental disorders involving language function have pronounced difficulties suppressing reflexive saccades and maintaining fixations in the presence of competing stimuli. We extend the putative link between ALI and LI populations to non‐language tasks, and highlight the need to account for co‐morbidity in understanding the ontogenesis of ASD.

OBJECTIVE: : To conduct a systematic review examining whether minority ethnic populations participate in surveys as actively as the majority ethnic population. METHODS: : A literature and grey literature search was conducted using five online databases as well as government databases and reports, including the search terms: survey response rates or non-response rates and racial or ethnic populations (White, African American, Asian, and Hispanic); survey modes or methods (mail, telephone, face to face, e-mail); and response bias (non-response bias, response bias or social desirability). The search was limited to English language and articles published from January 1990 to June 2009. Article exclusions were based on further inclusion and exclusion criteria. SYNTHESIS: : Thirty-five articles were identified on ethnicities and response rates to survey modes. Six articles compared survey mode and response rate for multiple ethnic populations. Response rates ranged from 22.0% to 68.8% in Whites, and in other ethnic groups ranged from 15.4% in African Americans to 70.9% in Latino Americans. Among the 29 articles that presented survey mode and response rate for a specific ethnicity, the highest response rate reported was from African Americans (92.5%) and the lowest was from Cambodian Americans (30.3%). CONCLUSION: : Response rate varied across studies but was similar across ethnicities. Response rate may be related to many factors, including survey mode, length of questionnaire, survey language and cultural sensitivity to content. Our review indicates that ethnic populations who participate in surveys are as likely to participate in research as Whites. In literature, data validity across ethnicity is still unknown and should be studied in the future.

ABSTRACTObjectiveChina has collected high volume of electronic health record (EMR) data. The rich information in EMR data could be used for health services research. The first challenge is developing methods for extracting study variables. Our study aimed to develop and validate data extraction methods for defining clinical conditions.
ApproachThe EMRs were from Beijing You-An Hospital, a leading liver diseases specialized teaching hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University in China. We developed EMR based case definitions for extracting common liver diseases and comorbidities in Charlson and Elixhauser comorbidity algorithms. We developed the EMR case definitions based on the fundamental EMR structure and clinical expertise. To determine validity of the EMR case definitions, we calculated the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for each case definition based on the "gold standard": randomly selected 450 charts review conducted by two hepatologists. The agreement between the two reviewers was assessed by kappa value.
ResultsIn total, 69,864 EMRs for adult patients with liver disease admitted between 2010 and 2015 were included in this study. Among these patients, we identified 13,763 (19.7%) PLC, 18,654 (26.7%) Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), 4681 (6.7%) Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), 18,933 (27.1%) cirrhosis, 7,964 (11.4%) diabetes, 8,523 (12.2%) hypertension, 3,283 (4.7%) Fluid and Electrolyte Disorder (FED), 3,563 (5.1%) renal disease and 1,258 (1.8%) Cerebrovascular Disease (CEVD). Between the two reviewers, the Kappa values fell between 0.65 and 1.00. Of the 450 EMRs reviewed, the two reviewers identified 95 (21.1%) PLC, 197 (43.8%) HBV, 40 (8.9%) HCV, 146 (32.4%) cirrhosis, 39 (8.7%) diabetes, 45 (10.0%) hypertension, 25 (5.6%) FED, 26 (5.8%) renal disease and 8 (1.8%) CEVD. Compared to chart review, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV of the algorithms for above conditions are respectively: (PLC) 100%, 99.44%, 97.94%, 100%; (HBV) 61.93%, 99.21%, 98.39%, 76.99%; (HCV) 72.50%, 99.51%, 93.55%, 97.37%; (cirrhosis) 78.77%, 98.36%, 95.83%, 90.61%; (diabetes) 97.44%, 98.05%, 82.61%, 99.75%; (hypertension) 95.00%, 99.72%, 97.44%, 99.45%; (FED) 71.43%, 100.00%, 100.00%, 99.09%; (renal disease) 96.15% 100.00% 100.00% 99.76%; (CEVD) 100.00%, 99.77%, 88.89%, 100.00%.
ConclusionOur EMR case definitions of above conditions had high validity and could be applied to extract clinical variables including major liver diseases and comorbidities from Chinese EMR. This extracting method could be modified slightly for extracting other medical conditions from Chinese EMRs.