Sustained Dialogue and Civic Life: Post-College Impacts

This study examined the civic outcomes of the Sustained Dialogue model. Qualitative interviews investigated the perceived impacts of dialogue experience on post-graduate civic life, generating an inventory of 29 dialogue civic outcomes across five domains: 1) cognitions, 2) behaviors, 3) attitudes 4) skills, and 5) hopes and plans for the future. Results extend past research by finding that perceived dialogue impacts lasted into the post-college years and affected future hopes and plans. Additional impacts were identified: (1) across various civic arenas of society, and (2) a transformative restringing effect, in which participants reported they were changed or transformed in subtle, complex, and pervasive ways

Private Capital Flows to Emerging-Market Economies

This article explores the evolution of capital flows to emerging markets over the last 30 years with emphasis on the past decade. Capital markets in emerging-market economies have evolved substantially over the period, becoming increasingly deep and resilient. The author looks at how capital flows to these countries have changed in terms of magnitude, geographical distribution, the financial instruments used, and the country of origin. He also examines how changes in the investor base have affected these flows and reviews the factors underlying the growth of private capital flows in the 1990s.

Investigating Performance and Usage of Input Methods for Soft Keyboard Hotkeys

Touch-based devices, despite their mainstream availability, do not support a unified and efficient command selection mechanism, available on every platform and application. We advocate that hotkeys, conventionally used as a shortcut mechanism on desktop computers, could be generalized as a command selection mechanism for touch-based devices, even for keyboard-less applications. In this paper, we investigate the performance and usage of soft keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys (abbreviated SoftCuts) through two studies comparing different input methods across sitting, standing and walking conditions. Our results suggest that SoftCuts not only are appreciated by participants but also support rapid command selection with different devices and hand configurations. We also did not find evidence that walking deters their performance when using the Once input method.Comment: 17+2 pages, published at Mobile HCI 202

Et si on parlait des hommes?

Cet article se veut un questionnement sur quelques-uns des effets pervers du discours sur l'association sexe/santé dans notre contexte socio-culturel. Ce discours dénonce haut et fort les problèmes psychosociaux des femmes, mais tend à passer sous silence la vulnérabilité des hommes, pourtant inscrite en noir sur blanc dans nos statistiques officielles sur le suicide, la dépendance à l'alcool et autres drogues, la violence et l'itinérance.This article raises questions about some of the perverse effects of the reasoning behind correlations betweeen sex and health in our socio-cultural context. Such a reasoning strongly denounces the psychosocial problems of women, but tends to forget the vulnerability of men which is nonetheless clearly evident in official statistics on suicide, dépendance on alcohol and other drugs, violence and itinerancy

L’enquête Santé Québec et la santé mentale des québécois : cadre conceptuel et méthodologie

L'enquête Santé Québec est l'enquête de santé la plus importante réalisée jusqu'ici au Québec sur les habitudes de vie et l'état de santé physique et psychologique de près de 20 000 personnes de 15 ans et plus résidant dans les ménages privés. Le volet santé mentale de l'enquête se situe dans la tradition des enquêtes d'épidémiologie sociale. L'article décrit la logique qui a conduit au choix des indicateurs de santé mentale (bien-être psychologique, détresse psychologique, idéations et tentatives de suicide, quelques problèmes psychologiques sévères) et des instruments de mesure. L'utilité et les limites de l'enquête sont discutées.The Santé Québec study is the most important inquiry into health yet undertaken in Quebec on life habits and the physical and psychological state of health of almost 20,000 persons aged 15 years and over living in private homes. The mental-health section of the study is situated within the tradition of socio-epidemiological inquiries. The article describes the reasoning behind the choice of mental-health indicators (psychological well-being, psychological distress, suicide thoughts and attempts, several severe psychological problems) and the measuring instruments. The study's usefulness and limits are discussed

The impact of infrastructure spending in Sub-Saharan Africa : a CGE modeling approach

The authors constructed a standard computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to explore the economic impact of increased spending on infrastructure in six African countries: Benin, Cameroon, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda. The basic elements of the model are drawn from EXTER, adjusted to accommodate infrastructure externalities. Seven sectors were considered: food crop agriculture, export agriculture, mining and oil, manufacturing, construction, private services, and public services. Four sets of simulations were conducted: baseline nonproductive investments, roads, electricity, and telecoms. For each set of simulations, five funding schemes were considered: reduced public expenditure; increased value-added taxes; increased import duties; funding from foreign aid; and increased income taxes. In general, the funding schemes had similar qualitative and quantitative effects on macro variables. For road and electricity investment, there were relatively large quantitative differences and some qualitative differences among funding schemes at the macro level. Sectoral analysis revealed further disparities among countries and investment types. The same type of investment with the same funding sources had varying effects depending on the economic structure of the sector in question. The authors find that few sectors are purely tradable or non-tradable, having instead variable degrees of openness to trade. If the current account needs to be balanced, funding investment through foreign aid produces the strongest sectoral effects because strong price and nominal exchange rate adjustments are needed to clear the current account balance. In addition, the capital/labor ratio of each sector plays an important role in determining its winners and losers.Economic Theory&Research,Debt Markets,Emerging Markets,Investment and Investment Climate,Public Sector Expenditure Policy