Levels and correlates of awareness of point-of-purchase tobacco displays and advertising

This study examined smokers' awareness of tobacco displays and advertising at point-of-purchase (POP), and whether the association between noticing POP tobacco displays with prompted purchase of cigarettes and quit intentions varied by socioeconomic status (SES). Logistic regression analyses undertaken with a sample of 2,272 current smokers (aged 18+) from the Netherlands and the UK, who completed the International Tobacco Control Surveys between July 2010 and June 2011. Results showed that overall 76.9% of smokers were aware of POP tobacco displays comprising 88.3% in the UK and 67.4% in the Netherlands. After adjusting for ovariates, younger smokers in both countries were more likely to be prompted to purchase cigarettes than older smokers. In the Netherlands, smokers with low SES were more likely to indicate that noticing tobacco displays and advertising prompted them to purchase cigarettes than those with high SES (OR = 2.34, 95% CI = 1.28 – 4.27), but UK smokers with low SES were less likely to be prompted to purchase cigarettes (OR = .49, 95% CI = .25 – .95). These findings suggest that retail tobacco displays at POP are still noticeable, and affect cigarettes purchased and quit intention, particularly among those in low social groups. Tobacco legislation should aim at putting cigarettes completely out of sight in retail environments

Documento de Resultados do Seminário Participativo sobre a Planificação do Sector da Água para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável de Cabo Verde

O Projecto PECAVE 1ª Fase ¨Apoio à Planificação dos sectores da Energia e da Água Para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável De Cabo Verde”, do Instituto Tecnológico de Canárias, S.A. (ITC) financiado pela Cooperação Canária, através da Direcção Geral de Relações com África do Governo de Canárias, propõe, como objectivos gerais, os seguintes: · Realização de um diagnóstico da situação actual dos sectores da energia e da água em Cabo Verde. · Elaboração de uma proposta com medidas concretas (tecnológicas e socioeconómicas) para um desenvolvimento sustentável desses sectores. · Elaboração de projectos-piloto nessas áreas para sua futura execução. · Fortalecimento dos vínculos institucionais, comerciais e empresariais entre Cabo Verde e Canárias. · Planificação da introdução das energias renováveis no país. · Planificação do aumento do acesso à electricidade da população mediante a integração de energias renováveis · Planificação da realização de projectos singulares no sector da água (dessalinização com energias renováveis em regiões insulares para o abastecimento de água potável e depuração descentralizada). · Redução dos consumos energético e económico no sector industrial público do abastecimento de água Para a consecução destes objectivos, no sector da água, considerou-se como sendo imprescindível contar com a participação e a opinião dos diferentes agentes directa ou indirectamente implicados. É já muito conhecida a experiência de Canárias no que se refere a enfrentar a escassez de recursos e na capacidade de satisfazer as necessidades, não só da população residente, como também das diferentes actividades económicas, entre as quais se destacam como demandantes de água o turismo e a agricultura. Não obstante, todo este processo de evolução e de busca de soluções não esteve isento de erros, causados tanto pela ausência de planificação como pelo desconhecimento dos recursos realmente disponíveis. Canárias é uma região com mais de 2 milhões de habitantes, um importantíssimo desenvolvimento turístico e um não insignificante sector agrícola bastante especializado e dinâmico, todos eles demandantes de uma enorme quantidade de recursos hídricos. A sobre exploração dos recursos hídricos naturais de que as Canárias foi acusada no passado, com consequências para o meio ambiente bem estudadas como a perda de ecossistemas e fenómenos induzidos de contaminação como a intrusão marinha, provocou uma tomada de consciência muito importante voltada para a conservação, preservação e recuperação destes recursos, com o estabelecimento de estratégias claras neste sentido. Por sua vez, desde 1990, existe uma Lei de Águas de Canárias que subordina todas as águas ao interesse geral e cria os Conselhos Insulares de Águas como entidades de direito público com pessoalidade jurídica própria e plena autonomia funcional para a ordenação, planificação e gestão das águas em cada ilha. Estas circunstâncias, acompanhadas do fenómeno da dessalinização da água do mar já aplicada nas Canárias desde há 40 anos, a qual foi dinamizada por múltiplas empresas com vista a melhorar e gerir os ciclos da água, incorporando a produção, a potabilização, a gestão de redes, o abastecimento, o saneamento, a depuração e a reutilização das águas depuradas, com eficiência e eficácia, fazem com que Canárias possa ser uma referência de estudo e proporcionar experiências de interesse para Cabo Verde. Todo este potencial deveria ser aproveitado no futuro pelas empresas e entidades que se desenvolvam em Cabo Verde. Por outro lado a participação activa dos utilizadores é considerada como sendo um elemento necessário para a gestão sustentável da água. Assim o testemunha a tradição implantada desde a Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre o Meio Ambiente e o Desenvolvimento de 1992 no Rio de Janeiro. A partir desta data foi institucionalizada a participação dos cidadãos como uma das chaves da sustentabilidade. Este testemunho foi muito recentemente recolhido, pela Directiva 2000/60/CE de águas da União Europeia. Independentemente da pertinência da participação pública activa para a gestão mais sustentável e democrática dos recursos, existe uma questão prévia a resolver: Como levar a cabo esta participação da forma mais útil e eficiente possível? O presente documento contém uma proposta metodológica que foi já posta em prática na Europa e nas Canárias para determinadas aplicações relacionadas com a planificação dos recursos naturais, a qual provou ser muito produtiva perante a implicação dos agentes participantes e para a obtenção de ideias e propostas concretas. Por isso acredita-se que este tipo de metodologia de trabalho pode ser transferida para as instituições de Cabo Verde para que seja aplicada como ferramenta participativa prática, não apenas no campo da energia e da água, mas também em qualquer outro campo de planificação e de introdução de tecnologia

Power, Ideology, and Global Development: On the Origins, Evolution and Achievements of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

UNCTAD was created in 1964 as a forum for strategic thinking about international trade and development issues and for identifying mutually beneficial opportunities for policy coordination and international co-operation with the participation of both developing and industrialized countries. The history of UNCTAD, with its successes and failures, therefore, is closely intertwined with the history of ideas on trade and development and the interplay of political power and ideological manipulation in international trade and development policy making. This paper focuses on the intellectual traditions in economics which underpinned the formation of UNCTAD and examines the way such intellectual traditions have informed – both in method and substance – the subsequent thinking and research output by the institution and helped define its objectives. It compares UNCTAD’s methods and research output on a number of international development issues with the positions taken by other international institutions. These findings are used to reflect on the ideological element in development economics thinking

Radicalising your Lifecycle’s full potential with PLM

‘The Radicalising your Lifecycle’s full potential with PLM’ was hosted by University of Huddersfield and ITC Infotech as part of Inspired Huddersfield 2016. Thirty participants participated from the University and businesses in the region including Bonmarche, Camira Fabrics, and Shackletons Ltd. This session was intended for participants considering a product lifecycle management (PLM) investment or those companies simply wanting to know more about PLM opportunities for the sector. PLM cloud based solutions are now available to all sizes of businesses involved in a global supply chain. Such solutions are helping businesses improve time to market, reduce costs, improve quality and ensure compliance. Beyond these well-reported best practice adoption benefits and efficiency gains they also provide a platform to seek further creative opportunities enabled by emerging technologies related to the internet of things (IoT), Big Data and virtual reality. This product lifecycle management (PLM) project was collaborative venture funded (CVF) and was initiated and lead by Jo Conlon. The project aimed to develop robust business network opportunities within fashion, textiles & interiors for integrating PLM knowledge transfer and to provide a deeper understanding of the strategic benefits, solutions, and capabilities of product lifecycle management. Jo Conlon, Andrew Taylor & Vera Barron from School of Art, Design & Architecture working closely with the ICT Infotech UK team: Sunil Ramachandran, Ramesh Chelliah, Vivek Mani, and Niyi Adewale formulated this knowledge generator symposium and hosted a unique forum for local businesses, to share best practice and promote future innovation opportunities and support developing industry academic partnerships. What did the session cover? • Overview and introduction to PLM at University of Huddersfield • Starting a PLM journey • Opportunities for next generation PLM • Importance of establishing “business readiness” • Case studies in the sector • Mechanisms and funding opportunities for collaboration • Plenary review (Attached are PDFs of main presentations

Determinants of Dwell Time in Visual Search: Similarity or Perceptual Difficulty?

The present study examined the factors that determine the dwell times in a visual search task, that is, the duration the gaze remains fixated on an object. It has been suggested that an item’s similarity to the search target should be an important determiner of dwell times, because dwell times are taken to reflect the time needed to reject the item as a distractor, and such discriminations are supposed to be harder the more similar an item is to the search target. In line with this similarity view, a previous study shows that, in search for a target ring of thin line-width, dwell times on thin linewidth Landolt C’s distractors were longer than dwell times on Landolt C’s with thick or medium linewidth. However, dwell times may have been longer on thin Landolt C’s because the thin line-width made it harder to detect whether the stimuli had a gap or not. Thus, it is an open question whether dwell times on thin line-width distractors were longer because they were similar to the target or because the perceptual decision was more difficult. The present study de-coupled similarity from perceptual difficulty, by measuring dwell times on thin, medium and thick line-width distractors when the target had thin, medium or thick line-width. The results showed that dwell times were longer on target-similar than target-dissimilar stimuli across all target conditions and regardless of the line-width. It is concluded that prior findings of longer dwell times on thin linewidth-distractors can clearly be attributed to target similarity. As will be discussed towards the end, the finding of similarity effects on dwell times has important implications for current theories of visual search and eye movement control

Eye–hand coupling is not the cause of manual return movements when searching

When searching for a target with eye movements, saccades are planned and initiated while the visual information is still being processed, so that subjects often make saccades away from the target and then have to make an additional return saccade. Presumably, the cost of the additional saccades is outweighed by the advantage of short fixations. We previously showed that when the cost of passing the target was increased, by having subjects manually move a window through which they could see the visual scene, subjects still passed the target and made return movements (with their hand). When moving a window in this manner, the eyes and hand follow the same path. To find out whether the hand still passes the target and then returns when eye and hand movements are uncoupled, we here compared moving a window across a scene with moving a scene behind a stationary window. We ensured that the required movement of the hand was identical in both conditions. Subjects found the target faster when moving the window across the scene than when moving the scene behind the window, but at the expense of making larger return movements. The relationship between the return movements and movement speed when comparing the two conditions was the same as the relationship between these two when comparing different window sizes. We conclude that the hand passing the target and then returning is not directly related to the eyes doing so, but rather that moving on before the information has been fully processed is a general principle of visuomotor control

Audio describing text on screen

This article is part of the research project "Accesibilidad lingüística y sensorial: tecnologías para las voces superpuestas y la audiodescripción", funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (ref. FFI2012-31024), also supported by the Catalan Government (2014SGR27) and the EU project Hbb4ALL from the FP7 CIP-ICT-PSP.2013.5.1 # 621014.In the film under analysis text on screen appears in various forms: logos and both opening and final credits, inserts and intertitles, words written on various objects (ledger, riffle, newspaper, etc.), and subtitles. This chapter has described the many instances found and has suggested ways of approaching their audio description, taking into account the constraints posed by each particular scene. A short overview of the proposals found in the literature has also been presented, showing that logos and credits have attracted the attention of most guidelines. All in all, it has been demonstrated that text on screen often conveys meanings which help audiences make sense of the film and therefore it has to be carefully considered and integrated in the accessible version of the movie. The strategies to accomplish it successfully are varied, as previously described, and include diverging possibilities ranging from omission to a literal rendering of the text on screen. Moreover, the ways to indicate that text on screen is voiced are not uniform: the source of the text can be indicated ("A subtitle reads:" or "A caption:") but other strategies can be used such as changing the intonation, using another voice, or including an earcon, among others. Despite the many possibilities, only a thorough film analysis of the many codes used in each scene by describers and continuous testing with blind and visually impaired audiences by researchers will provide the best answer, which will probably have to be flexible enough to adapt to the many possible situations

Material Cycles and Chemicals: Dynamic Material Flow Analysis of Contaminants in Paper Recycling

This study provides a systematic approach for assessment of contaminants in materials for recycling. Paper recycling is used as an illustrative example. Three selected chemicals, bisphenol A (BPA), diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOHs), are evaluated within the paper cycle. The approach combines static material flow analysis (MFA) with dynamic material and substance flow modeling. The results indicate that phasing out of chemicals is the most effective measure for reducing chemical contamination. However, this scenario was also associated with a considerable lag phase (between approximately one and three decades) before the presence of chemicals in paper products could be considered insignificant. While improved decontamination may appear to be an effective way of minimizing chemicals in products, this may also result in lower production yields. Optimized waste material source-segregation and collection was the least effective strategy for reducing chemical contamination, if the overall recycling rates should be maintained at the current level (approximately 70% for Europe). The study provides a consistent approach for evaluating contaminant levels in material cycles. The results clearly indicate that mass-based recycling targets are not sufficient to ensure high quality material recycling