The Five Factor Model of personality and evaluation of drug consumption risk

The problem of evaluating an individual's risk of drug consumption and misuse is highly important. An online survey methodology was employed to collect data including Big Five personality traits (NEO-FFI-R), impulsivity (BIS-11), sensation seeking (ImpSS), and demographic information. The data set contained information on the consumption of 18 central nervous system psychoactive drugs. Correlation analysis demonstrated the existence of groups of drugs with strongly correlated consumption patterns. Three correlation pleiades were identified, named by the central drug in the pleiade: ecstasy, heroin, and benzodiazepines pleiades. An exhaustive search was performed to select the most effective subset of input features and data mining methods to classify users and non-users for each drug and pleiad. A number of classification methods were employed (decision tree, random forest, $k$-nearest neighbors, linear discriminant analysis, Gaussian mixture, probability density function estimation, logistic regression and na{\"i}ve Bayes) and the most effective classifier was selected for each drug. The quality of classification was surprisingly high with sensitivity and specificity (evaluated by leave-one-out cross-validation) being greater than 70\% for almost all classification tasks. The best results with sensitivity and specificity being greater than 75\% were achieved for cannabis, crack, ecstasy, legal highs, LSD, and volatile substance abuse (VSA).Comment: Significantly extended report with 67 pages, 27 tables, 21 figure

Populism, ideology and contradiction: mapping young people's political views

Forms of populism have long been a component of modern political discourse and systems where democracy relies upon popular legitimacy. There is, however, an uneasy relationship between some widely held views of ‘the people’ and the parties which seek to govern them. Contemporary academic and political discourse on populism often equates these views with right-wing politics, whilst some radical scholars, suggest that these views, whilst controversial, are nonetheless examples of democratic expression. Using survey evidence from 14 European countries, we show that young people take up a mixture of political positions, some of which are strongly associated with indices of populism – cynicism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia – others of which do not map neatly onto the typical ‘left-right’ spectrum. We find evidence that some young people hold contradictory, often conflicting political viewpoints, which are reflective of the historical and cultural contexts of each location rather than of a ‘populist’ ideology. Where some theorists might use the term ‘populism’ pejoratively to denote a poorly and emotively grounded political ideology, we argue that this description denies its democratic legitimacy, as evidence suggests that young people draw on populist rhetoric to articulate views that are more reflective of local and regional concerns

Snake Bite in South Asia: A Review

Snake bite is one of the most neglected public health issues in poor rural communities living in the tropics. Because of serious misreporting, the true worldwide burden of snake bite is not known. South Asia is the world's most heavily affected region, due to its high population density, widespread agricultural activities, numerous venomous snake species and lack of functional snake bite control programs. Despite increasing knowledge of snake venoms' composition and mode of action, good understanding of clinical features of envenoming and sufficient production of antivenom by Indian manufacturers, snake bite management remains unsatisfactory in this region. Field diagnostic tests for snake species identification do not exist and treatment mainly relies on the administration of antivenoms that do not cover all of the important venomous snakes of the region. Care-givers need better training and supervision, and national guidelines should be fed by evidence-based data generated by well-designed research studies. Poorly informed rural populations often apply inappropriate first-aid measures and vital time is lost before the victim is transported to a treatment centre, where cost of treatment can constitute an additional hurdle. The deficiency of snake bite management in South Asia is multi-causal and requires joint collaborative efforts from researchers, antivenom manufacturers, policy makers, public health authorities and international funders

REVENUE TRAPS

When state officials care about tax revenue and factors of production are mobile across economic sectors, political economies organize themselves into equilibria where officials promote sectors to which resources are allocated, which in turn encourages that resource allocation. Differences across sectors in the ability of officials to extract revenues may result in a "revenue trap": the persistence of a low-productivity equilibrium even in the presence of large shocks to resource allocation. I argue that the failure of privatization in part of the postcommunist world to effect a shift toward new private economic activity resulted in part from such a trap. Copyright 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

Urea concentration in minor mucous gland secretions and the effect of salivary film velocity on urea metabolism by Streptococcus vestibularis in an artificial plaque

Our purpose was to determine the urea concentration in minor mucous gland (MMG) secretions and the pH at proximal and distal aspects of the lower surface of artificial plaque in vitro during infusion of urea solutions over the surface, at different film velocities. Saliva is present in the mouth as a slowly moving film (ca. 0.1 mm thick) with an estimated velocity in the range of 0.8–8.0 mm/min. At low velocities, due to the accumulation of bacterial products, a progressive increase in their concentration may occur in both the plaque and the overlying salivary film at the distal edge (where the film leaves the plaque). S. vestibularis, an oral micro‐organism possessing ureolytic activity, was combined with 1% agarose, to give a urease Vmax similar to that of natural plaque. The artificial plaque was in the chamber (6.0 × 6.0 square and 0.5 or 1.5 mm deep) of a diffusion apparatus, and a urea‐containing artificial saliva (3.3 or 13.2 mmol/ 1) was infused over the surface, as a film 0.1 mm deep, at velocities of 0.8, 8.2 and 86.2 mm/min. At the lower (physiologically normal) urea concentration and the two lower film velocities, most urea appeared to be metabolized at the proximal end of the plaque, which developed a higher pH. At the higher urea concentration, and a film velocity of 8 mm/min, a higher pH was found at the distal end. This was probably due to the combination of greater urea availability and a reduced rate of ammonia loss distally. At a film velocity of 86.2 mm/min, proximal/distal pH gradients did not develop. Thus the salivary film velocity may influence the pH and ammonia level in plaque and perhaps the development of gingivitis. In unstimulated and stimulated MMG secretions, which are the secretions in contact with the buccal surfaces of most teeth, the urea concentrations were 5.27 ± 1.07 and 4.38 ± 1.51 mmol/1, respectively