An Approach for Actions to Prevent Suicides on Commuter and Metro Rail Systems in the United States, MTI Report 12-33

The primary goals of this report are to discuss measures to prevent suicides on commuter and metro rail systems, and to outline an approach for suicide prevention on rail systems. Based on existing literature and analysis of data obtained from the Metrolink system in Southern California, it was found that most suicides occur near station platforms and near access points to the track. Suicides occurred most frequently when relatively more trains were in operation and in areas of high population density. There do not appear to be suicide “hot spots” (e.g., linked to mental hospitals in the proximity, etc.), based on data analyzed for U.S. systems. The suicide prevention measures range from relatively inexpensive signs posting call-for-help suicide hotline information to costly platform barriers that physically prevent people from jumping onto tracks in front of trains. Other prevention measures fall within this range, such as hotlines available at high frequency suicide locations, or surveillance systems that can report possible suicide attempts and provide the opportunity for intervention tactics. Because of the relatively low number of suicides on rail systems, as compared to the overall number of suicides in general, a cost-effective strategy for preventing suicides on rail systems should be approached in a very focused manner. The prevention measures executed by the rail authorities should be focused on the suicides occurring on the rail systems themselves, while the broader problem of suicides should be left to community-based prevention efforts. Moreover, prevention measures, such as surveillance and response, could “piggyback” on surveillance and response systems used for other purposes on the rail systems to make such projects economically feasible

Sport, children's rights and violence prevention: A source book on global issues and local programmes

Copyright @ Brunel University, 2012In line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), UNICEF has been a strong advocate of children’s right to leisure and play. It recognizes the intrinsic value sports have in promoting the child’s health and well-being, education and development, and social inclusion, including by fostering the culture of tolerance and peace. Every child has the right to play safely, in an enabling and protective environment. However, although under-researched, evidence shows that children have been subjected to various forms of violence, abuse and exploitation ranging from undue pressure to achieve high performance, beatings and physical punishment, sexual harassment and assaults, to child labour and trafficking. The violence that children experience can lead to lifelong consequences for their health and development. It can also have devastating consequences. Article 19 of the CRC asserts that all children have the right to be protected from violence, calling on State Parties to take all appropriate measures for the protection of children, including while in the care others. Measures include strengthening child protection systems; increasing awareness and strengthening the protective role of parents, teachers, coaches and others caregivers as well as the media; developing and implementing standards for the protection and well-being of children in sports; implementing sport for development and other international programmes and initiatives; and improving data collection and research to develop an evidence-base of “what works”. Above all, the protection of young athletes starts by ensuring that those around children regard them in a way that is appropriate to their needs and that is respectful of their rights - as children first and athletes second. This book provides an expanded set of evidence and resources to back up the 2010 report from the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy - Protecting Children from Violence in Sport: A review with a focus on industrialized countries. I am delighted to provide a Foreword as it complements the ongoing work being done by UNICEF in development and humanitarian environments to make sport a safer place for children

THE REGULATORY REGIME AND ITS IMPACT ON INNOVATION ACTIVITIES IN AGRO-FOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY IN THE EU AND USA

Paper prepared for presentation at the Conference: “Seeds of Change: Intellectual Property Protection for Agricultural Biotechnology” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA), April 8 to 10th, 2004Agro-food Biotechnology, Innovation, European Union, United States, Regulations, Industrial Organization, L5, L66, O32,

Helping chronically ill or disabled people into work: what can we learn from international comparative analyses?

This project has added to knowledge in five main areas: It has mapped the range and types of policies and interventions that have been implemented in Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK that may influence employment chances for chronically ill and disabled people. By doing so it has added to understanding about what has actually been tried in each country and what might be considered in others. It has refined a typology of the focussed interventions that have been identified, based on the underlying programme logic of the intervention, which aids strategic thinking about national efforts to help chronically ill and disabled people into work. It has produced systematic reviews of the impact of the focussed interventions on the employment chances of chronically ill and disabled people and demonstrated the use of the typology in helping to interpret the results of the evaluations. The project’s empirical analyses of individual-level data have identified how chronically ill people from different socio-economic groups have fared in the labour markets of the five countries over the past two decades. It has then tested these findings against hypotheses about the impact of macro-level labour market policies on chronically ill people to provide insights into the influence of the policy context. The project has contributed to methodological development in evidence synthesis and the evaluation of natural policy experiments. By studying a small number of countries in great depth, we gained greater understanding of the policies and interventions that have been tried in these countries to help chronically ill and disabled people into work, against the backdrop of the wider labour market and macro-economic trends in those countries. We then integrated evidence from the wider policy context into the findings of systematic reviews of effectiveness of interventions, to advance interpretation of the natural policy experiments that have been implemented in these countries

Participatory design and participatory development: a comparative review

This paper examines literature in the twin domains of participatory interactive systems design and participatory approaches to international development. As interactive systems are increasingly promoted as a possible means of achieving international development goals, designers generally agree that participatory design approaches should be applied. However, review of the literature reveals that these two different traditions have more complex relationships, and questions must be asked about: the aims of participation, the forms of participation that are being advocated, and the skills and strategies required of practitioners. The findings suggest that successful integration of participatory interactive systems design into development will require careful reflection on the nature of development and the approaches adopted.</p