Focus on the Right of Children with Disabilities to Live in the Community

[Excerpt] The European Coalition for Community Living believes that all children have the right to live in the community and be included in society. However, this is far from reality for many children with disabilities. Across Europe, thousands of children with disabilities are placed in large residential institutions which are often situated in remote areas so that residents have little or no contact with the outside world. Thus these children are excluded from community life and separated from their families. It is unacceptable to place any child in such segregated environments. ECCL therefore considers that urgent action is required at all levels of government to ensure that appropriate quality community-based services and family supports are available as alternatives to these institutions

The European Road Map to a Zero Victim Target: The EC Mine Action Strategy and Multi Annual Indicative Programming 2005-2007

Outlines main aspects of EC mine action programming- development highlighted as key criteria. Emphasises that mine action is mainstreamed into wider EC programmes wherever possible

Detecting a signal in the noise : Monitoring the global spread of novel psychoactive substances using media and other open source information

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. Date of Acceptance: 16/02/2015To determine the feasibility and utility of using media reports and other open-source information collected by the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), an event-based surveillance system operated by the Public Health Agency of Canada, to rapidly detect clusters of adverse drug events associated with ‘novel psychoactive substances’ (NPS) at the international levelPeer reviewedFinal Published versio

Développer l'éducation tout au long de la vie dans l'enseignement supérieur européen : accompagner l'innovation technologique

*Ecole Nationale Superieure Agronomique de Rennes 65 rue de Saint-Brieuc 35042 RENNES CEDEX (FRA) Diffusion du document : Ecole Nationale Superieure Agronomique de Rennes 65 rue de Saint-Brieuc 35042 RENNES CEDEX (FRA)La coopération inter-universitaire est une stratégie et un outil privilégiés pour permettre de rassembler les moyens, la capacité d'expertise et d'innovation pour entreprendre les adaptations nécessaires. L'exploitation de l'expérienceacquise antérieurement dans les programmes d'éducation communautaires est une piste à explorer. C'est, notamment, le cas du dispositif d'accompagnement de la réflexion prospective et de l'expérimentation pédagogique mis en place il y a trois ans sous la forme des Réseaux Thématiques Erasmus. L'expérience acquise (1996 - 1999) montre qu'ils recèlent un potentiel de mobilisation et d'innovation important, à la mesure du défi que représente la formation tout au long de la vie et sous réserve d'obtenir le soutien et la reconnaissance indispensable de la part des autorités universitaires

Successful, small scale, manufacturing from five European island regions

The support of the European Commission, through its Leonardo da Vinci Community Vocational Training Action Programme, in this ongoing pilot project- MT/2002/B/F/139000- is gratefully acknowledged. This manual has been compiled by University of Malta Professor Godfrey Baldacchino (the NISSOS Project ideator and academic coordinator) with the kind support of the project’s 11 institutional partners, their delegates and associated support staff involved in the NISSOS Project. These are: Estonia Chamber of Commerce and Industry-Saaremaa Branch (Delegate: Tullio Liblik); Kuressaare College at Tallinn Technical University (Maret Pank); Åland Trade Association (Mika Lindfors & Johnny Mattson); Åland Polytechnic (Anna-Lena Freman, Christer Kullman & Thor-Bjorn Wik); Technological Institute of Iceland (Bjorn Gislason); Institute of Business Studies at the University of Iceland (Gylfi Dalmann Adalsteinsson); Foundation for Human Resources Development, Malta (Helga Ellul, Mario Grixti, Godwin Micallef, John Muscat Drago); Malta Enterprise (Karl Herrera); University of Malta (Roger Ellul Micallef, Saviour Rizzo); Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology (Frank Edwards); the Highland Council of Scotland (Catriona Maclean; Lisa Stephen) and the UHI Millennium Institute, Scotland (Maggie Marr; Anne Marie McDairmid, Stephanie Tristam). Thanks also to the expert independent input of Joe Vella Bonnici (Malta), Ingi Runar Edvardsson (Iceland) and Tage Petersen (Denmark). The institutional support of the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada, is also acknowledged. Responsibility for the contents of this manual and any errors are those of the author and are not attributable to the European Commission or any of the specific NISSOS Project institutional partners.It is common knowledge nowadays that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are very important to economic growth. Their positive contribution is all the more evident in the context of massive lay-offs from large firms and especially appreciated in epochs of long term, structural unemployment. SMEs play an even more pronounced role in the case of very small islands, since the typical average enterprise size is even smaller than elsewhere. Manufacturing is also seen as an important contributor to economic growth and development. The factory has been a symbol of industrial progress for the last 200 years. Manufacturing creates many jobs, usually in large firms, develops technical skills, adds higher value to products and creates many supportive service industries. However, many handicaps can affect the set-up and operation of SMEs which are based in small island territories And are involved in manufacturing. How challenging are these handicaps? Can they be overcome? How? Can some small firms from small islands serve as models of successful export-oriented development? And if so, which? What would be their characteristics?peer-reviewe

Use of QSARs in international decision-making frameworks to predict health effects of chemical substances

This article is a review of the use of quantitative (and qualitative) structure-activity relationships (QSARs and SARs) by regulatory agencies and authorities to predict acute toxicity, mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and other health effects. A number of SAR and QSAR applications, by regulatory agencies and authorities, are reviewed. These include the use of simple QSAR analyses, as well as the use of multivariate QSARs, and a number of different expert system approaches

Validation instruments for health promotion in the community pharmacy setting

The developments during the past fifty years have resulted in a complete shift in the role of the community pharmacist from that of mainly compounding of medicines to becoming an advisor on health-related issues (Schaefer, 1998). This shift resulted in highlighting the intervention of the pharmacist as the initial contact point for the provision of primary health care. An initiative undertaken in the United Kingdom in 1995, 'Pharmacy in a New Age', identified health promotion as one of the areas that community pharmacists should focus more on (Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, 1996). In this day and age of cost containment. evidence-based practice is required to confirm the provision of professional services, including the provision of health promotion (Rupp, 1997). This prompted the development of the Validation Method for Community Pharmacy, which is a process carried out to confirm the effectiveness of the pharmacist in the community setting (Azzopardi, 2000).peer-reviewe