Green Urbanism and its Application to Singapore

Green urbanism has been applied to cities but not in Asia. Seven characteristics of green urbanism are outlined and then applied to Singapore. The Renewable City is not yet a concept for Singapore. The Carbon Neutral City is being developed for an island Palau Ubin and by some firms but not to significant sectors or parts of urban Singapore. The Distributed City is being developed around Singapore’s polycentric model but needs specific infrastructure plans similar to ones developed by Singapore for Tianjin Eco-City. The Biophillic City is being developed as a world first through its Skyrise Greenery initiative and urban landscaping. The Eco-Efficient City is also being demonstrated through Singapore closing the loop on their water and solid waste systems. The Place Based City is very evident in all its 22 sub centres. And the Sustainable Transport City is an Asian leader in integrated transport planning though there are signs of this becoming harder to achieve

Sub-threshold depression and antidepressants use in a community sample: searching anxiety and finding bipolar disorder

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To determine the use of antidepressants (ADs) in people with sub-threshold depression (SD); the lifetime prevalence of mania and hypomania in SD and the link between ADs use, bipolarity and anxiety disorders in SD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Study design: community survey. Study population: samples randomly drawn, after stratification from the adult population of municipal records. Sample size: 4999 people from seven areas within six Italian regions. Tools: Questionnaire on psychotropic drug consumption, prescription; Structured Clinical Interview NP for DSM-IV modified (ANTAS); Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D); Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ); Short Form Health Survey (SF-12). SD definition: HAM-D > 10 without lifetime diagnosis of Depressive Episode (DE).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>SD point prevalence is 5.0%. The lifetime prevalence of mania and hypomania episodes in SD is 7.3%. Benzodiazepines (BDZ) consumption in SD is 24.1%, followed by ADs (19.7%). In SD, positive for MDQ and comorbidity with Panic Disorder (PD) or Generalized Anxiety Disorders (GAD) are associated with ADs use, whereas the association between a positive MDQ and ADs use, without a diagnosis of PD or GAD, is not significant. Only in people with DE the well-being (SF-12) is higher among those using first-line antidepressants compared to those not using any medication. In people with SD no significant differences were found in terms of SF-12 score according to drug use.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study suggests caution in prescribing ADs to people with SD. In people with concomitant anxiety disorders and SD, it should be mandatory to perform a well-designed assessment and evaluate the presence of previous manic or hypomanic symptoms prior to prescribing ADs.</p

Validation of the Chinese version of the "Mood Disorder Questionnaire" for screening bipolar disorder among patients with a current depressive episode

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) is a well-recognized screening tool for bipolar disorder, but its Chinese version needs further validation. This study aims to measure the accuracy of the Chinese version of the MDQ as a screening instrument for bipolar disorder (BPD) in a group of patients with a current major depressive episode.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>142 consecutive patients with an initial DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of a major depressive episode were screened for BPD using the Chinese translation of the MDQ and followed up for one year. The final diagnosis, determined by a special committee consisting of three trained senior psychiatrists, was used as a 'gold standard' and ROC was plotted to evaluate the performance of the MDQ. The optimal cut-off was chosen by maximizing the Younden's index.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 142 patients, 122 (85.9%) finished the one year follow-up. On the basis of a semi-structured clinical interview 48.4% (59/122) received a diagnosis of unipolar depression (UPD), 36.9% (45/122) BPDII and 14.8% (18/122) BPDI. At the end of the one year follow-up,9 moved from UPD to BPD, 2 from BPDII to UPD, 1 from BPDII to BPDI, the overall rate of initial misdiagnosis was 16.4%. MDQ showed a good accuracy for BPD: the optimal cut-off was 4, with a sensitivity of 0.72 and a specificity of 0.73. When BPDII and BPDI were calculated independently, the optimal cut-off for BPDII was 4, with a sensitivity of 0.70 and a specificity of 0.73; while the optimal cut-off for BPDI was 5, with a sensitivity of 0.67 and a specificity of 0.86.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results show that the Chinese version of MDQ is a valid tool for screening BPD in a group of patients with current depressive episode on the Chinese mainland.</p

Urbanization and its implications for food and farming

This paper discusses the influences on food and farming of an increasingly urbanized world and a declining ratio of food producers to food consumers. Urbanization has been underpinned by the rapid growth in the world economy and in the proportion of gross world product and of workers in industrial and service enterprises. Globally, agriculture has met the demands from this rapidly growing urban population, including food that is more energy-, land-, water- and greenhouse gas emission-intensive. But hundreds of millions of urban dwellers suffer under-nutrition. So the key issues with regard to agriculture and urbanization are whether the growing and changing demands for agricultural products from growing urban populations can be sustained while at the same time underpinning agricultural prosperity and reducing rural and urban poverty. To this are added the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to build resilience in agriculture and urban development to climate change impacts. The paper gives particular attention to low- and middle-income nations since these have more than three-quarters of the world's urban population and most of its largest cities and these include nations where issues of food security are most pressing

Social Phobia in an Italian region: do Italian studies show lower frequencies than community surveys conducted in other European countries?

BACKGROUND: The lifetime prevalence of Social Phobia (SP) in European countries other than Italy has been estimated to range from 3.5% to 16.0%. The aim of this study was to assess the frequency of SP in Sardinia (Italy) in order to verify the evidence of a lower frequency of SP in Italy observed in previous studies (from 1.0% to 3.1%). METHODS: A randomised cross sample of 1040 subjects, living in Cagliari, in rural areas, and in a mining district in Sardinia were interviewed using a Simplified version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDIS). Diagnoses were made according to the 10(th )International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). RESULTS: Lifetime prevalence of SP was 2.2% (males: 1.5%, females: 2.8%) whereas 6-month prevalence resulted in 1.5% (males: 0.9%, females: 2.1%). Mean age at onset was 16.2 ± 9.3 years. A statistically significant association was found with Depressive Episode, Dysthymia and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. CONCLUSIONS: The study is consistent with findings reported in several previous studies of a lower prevalence of SP in Italy. Furthermore, the results confirm the fact that SP, due to its early onset, might constitute an ideal target for early treatment aimed at preventing both the accumulation of social disabilities and impairments caused by anxiety and avoidance behaviour, as well as the onset of more serious, associated complications in later stages of the illness

The Effect of Immigrant Peers in Vocational Schools

This paper provides new evidence on how the presence of immigrant peers in the classroom affects native student achievement. The analysis is based on longitudinal administrative data on two cohorts of vocational training students in Italy's largest region. Vocational training institutions provide the ideal setting for studying these effects because they attract not only disproportionately high shares of immigrants but also the lowest ability native students. We adopt a value added model, and exploit within-school variation both within and across cohorts for identification. Our results show small negative average effects on maths test scores that are larger for low ability native students, strongly non-linear and only observable in classes with a high (top 20%) immigrant concentration. These outcomes are driven by classes with a high average linguistic distance between immigrants and natives, with no apparent role played by ethnic diversity

The German Part-Time Wage Gap: Bad News for Men?

Despite the increasing occurrence of part-time employment in Germany, the effects on wage rates are rarely studied. I therefore use GSOEP panel data from 1984 to 2010 and apply different econometric approaches and definitions of part-time work to measure the so-called part-time wage gap of both, men and women. A very robust finding is that part-time working men are subject to higher wage cuts than women. The specification accommodating all available information and the biasing effect of unobserved individual characteristics yields a wage cut of about 10 percent in West and East Germany. Furthermore, the type of contract makes a big difference. While marginal employees own lower wage rates, irrespective of region and sex, female part-time employees covered by social security have no significant drawback once differences in firm and job characteristics (in OLS regressions) or individual fixed-effects (in panel regressions) are taken into account. The results also reveal that work experience in part-time employment generates no positive returns, implying that reduced working hours do not only cause short-term effects. Another novel of my study is the look at the part-time wage gap over time. While there are good reasons to believe that the part-time wage gap shrinks, the empirical evidence reveals that wage differentials in West-Germany increased over time. This finding also surprises in light of the supposition that the wage penalty tends to be lower in times when part-time work is widespread and employers get accustomed to alternative working time schemes