Taking the Next Step - Implementing a Currency Transaction Development Levy

As we approach the half-way point for the achievement of many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the spotlight is shining ever more intently on the urgent need for new sources of revenue to pay for them. With the first international development duty launched, in the form of the ‘pilot’ solidarity levy on air travel, the momentum needs to continue to the implementation in quick succession of a second such initiative to provide another long term predictable source of additional finance. Innovation is required not just in financing but also in delivery. UNITAID’s mission is to transform a situation of high cost drugs for the treatment of the few to low cost drugs for the care of the many. In so doing its potential value is exponentially greater than a simple addition of extra revenue. The choice of how and where the next new stream of finance is spent also needs to be to be similarly strategic. The Core Group1 Governments rightly pride themselves on an international development policy that has, as one of its pillars, the tackling of global inequality which has risen rapidly in the latest phase of globalisation. For example President Chirac opened the Paris conference held in February 2006 in Paris stating that ‘despite the continuous increase in global wealth, a third of humankind still lives on less than a euro a day’, and that ‘…globalisation, far from bridging the (poverty) gap, is widening it even further’. In this report, we offer some suggestions for tackling global inequality through concrete proposals for both raising substantial new revenue equitably and spending it in ways that strategically target the ‘weak spots’ in the international development effort. The financial services industry has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of globalisation. Annual turnover in the global market for currencies, has, for instance, expanded from about $4 trillion in 1973 to$40 trillion in the mid 1980s to more than $450 trillion now – a more than 100 fold increase.2 Profits at financial services firms are also at a record high with the top two most profitable banks, Citibank and HSBC, posting more than$40 billion of profits between them in 2005 alone. At the same time as industries such as airlines and financial services have benefited from globalisation, populations in many of the poorest countries, especially those in sub- Saharan Africa, have been left behind – or worse, harmed. Average life expectancy in these countries is in fact down from 50 years in 1990 to 45 years now, just over half the almost 80-year life expectancy in countries such as Norway. The health, education and productivity problems caused by a lack of access to basics such as clean drinking water and sanitation facilities, the added decimation wrought by global pandemics such as HIV/AIDS on the ability of the populations and systems in poor countries to cope, and the increased vulnerability linked to climate change, all threaten to undermine and, in fact, roll back the slow progress that has been made to date towards meeting the MDGs. In Section 2 we demonstrate in some detail how, by introducing a very small levy of less than a hundredth of one per cent on currency transactions, many countries can unilaterally generate substantial resources for development from those who can most afford to pay. Such a levy is simple and inexpensive to apply in this age of electronic transfers. Whilst this proposal is specific to the currency market, it can be generalised to apply to other financial markets many of which already pay some form of a levy. The possible uses for this revenue that we propose in Section 4 have been shaped by the need to lever maximum results from the resources generated. The three potential areas for immediate financing that we have identified would generate positive additional outcomes towards the achievement of several seemingly unrelated development goals. First, provision of clean water and sanitation, as it is a foundation stone that underlies the ability to make meaningful progress with the vast majority of the MDGs. Second, providing human resources for health, because without sufficient trained health workers, medicines and infrastructure are simply not enough on their own to contain the raging pandemics of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. Third, providing a long term predictable source of funds to an expanded UN Central Emergency Response Fund, to create a more robust response to the growing threat of natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies.currency tax; tobin tax; MDG; Financial markets; Financial Transaction Taxes

Attributional style of African-American adolescents

This study ascertains how positive and negative life events are viewed by stigmatized youngsters. The causal attributions of a sample of 139 at -risk AfricanAmerican adolescents are analyzed in a doubly multivariate repeated measures design. These students were participants in either the federally funded Summer Training and Education Program or the Student Academic and Leadership Enhancement Program funded by the Detroit Compact. Previous research on these students indicated that they have higher than norm global self-concepts and their locus of control is more external than would be expected for their age. The findings of the current study suggest that the attributions these youngsters ascribed to positive events were significantly more internal, stable, and global than the attributions for negative events. An ancillary outcome of this study is to report psychometric information regarding the use of The Attributional Style Questionnaire

The Effects of Stress on the Lives of Emerging Adult College Students: An Exploratory Analysis

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113775/1/adsp12007.pd

Taking the Next Step - Implementing a Currency Transaction Development Levy

As we approach the half-way point for the achievement of many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the spotlight is shining ever more intently on the urgent need for new sources of revenue to pay for them. With the first international development duty launched, in the form of the ‘pilot’ solidarity levy on air travel, the momentum needs to continue to the implementation in quick succession of a second such initiative to provide another long term predictable source of additional finance. Innovation is required not just in financing but also in delivery. UNITAID’s mission is to transform a situation of high cost drugs for the treatment of the few to low cost drugs for the care of the many. In so doing its potential value is exponentially greater than a simple addition of extra revenue. The choice of how and where the next new stream of finance is spent also needs to be to be similarly strategic. The Core Group1 Governments rightly pride themselves on an international development policy that has, as one of its pillars, the tackling of global inequality which has risen rapidly in the latest phase of globalisation. For example President Chirac opened the Paris conference held in February 2006 in Paris stating that ‘despite the continuous increase in global wealth, a third of humankind still lives on less than a euro a day’, and that ‘…globalisation, far from bridging the (poverty) gap, is widening it even further’. In this report, we offer some suggestions for tackling global inequality through concrete proposals for both raising substantial new revenue equitably and spending it in ways that strategically target the ‘weak spots’ in the international development effort. The financial services industry has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of globalisation. Annual turnover in the global market for currencies, has, for instance, expanded from about $4 trillion in 1973 to$40 trillion in the mid 1980s to more than $450 trillion now – a more than 100 fold increase.2 Profits at financial services firms are also at a record high with the top two most profitable banks, Citibank and HSBC, posting more than$40 billion of profits between them in 2005 alone. At the same time as industries such as airlines and financial services have benefited from globalisation, populations in many of the poorest countries, especially those in sub- Saharan Africa, have been left behind – or worse, harmed. Average life expectancy in these countries is in fact down from 50 years in 1990 to 45 years now, just over half the almost 80-year life expectancy in countries such as Norway. The health, education and productivity problems caused by a lack of access to basics such as clean drinking water and sanitation facilities, the added decimation wrought by global pandemics such as HIV/AIDS on the ability of the populations and systems in poor countries to cope, and the increased vulnerability linked to climate change, all threaten to undermine and, in fact, roll back the slow progress that has been made to date towards meeting the MDGs. In Section 2 we demonstrate in some detail how, by introducing a very small levy of less than a hundredth of one per cent on currency transactions, many countries can unilaterally generate substantial resources for development from those who can most afford to pay. Such a levy is simple and inexpensive to apply in this age of electronic transfers. Whilst this proposal is specific to the currency market, it can be generalised to apply to other financial markets many of which already pay some form of a levy. The possible uses for this revenue that we propose in Section 4 have been shaped by the need to lever maximum results from the resources generated. The three potential areas for immediate financing that we have identified would generate positive additional outcomes towards the achievement of several seemingly unrelated development goals. First, provision of clean water and sanitation, as it is a foundation stone that underlies the ability to make meaningful progress with the vast majority of the MDGs. Second, providing human resources for health, because without sufficient trained health workers, medicines and infrastructure are simply not enough on their own to contain the raging pandemics of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. Third, providing a long term predictable source of funds to an expanded UN Central Emergency Response Fund, to create a more robust response to the growing threat of natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies

Ethnic Identity Among Arab Americans: An Examination of Contextual Influences and Psychological Well-Being

Existing theories and research have indicated that ethnic identity is crucial for ethnic minority young adults because ethnicity is an important component of their personal identity that is likely to influence various aspects of their development. Given the centrality of this construct, the overarching aim of the present study was to examine ethnic identity and psychological well-being among members of an ethnic group that have long been ignored in the psychological literature: Arab Americans. Specifically, the goals of the study were threefold. The first goal was to examine the association between multiple contextual factors (such as students’ perceptions of their parents’ style of parenting, family ethnic socialization, perceived discrimination, and generational status) and ethnic identity. The second goal was to explore the potential role of ethnic identity to promote psychological adjustment and well-being: self-esteem and depressive symptoms are indices of psychological functioning that were examined in the study. The final goal of the study was to examine whether ethnic identity can serve as a protective factor, mitigating the negative effects of discrimination on psychological well-being. Methods: Participants (N= 323) were recruited through advertisements and flyers placed on bulletin boards across the Wayne State University (WSU) campus and through announcements placed on WSU pipeline and on the Arab American Student Association as well as the Egyptian Student Association Facebook pages. All flyers included the online study website (surveymonkey.com) to allow students to access the survey and complete it. Inclusion criteria for participants were: being between the ages of 18 and 25 years, of Arab or Middle Eastern descent, living in the United States, and registered as a full-time or part-time student at Wayne State University. The survey consisted of a package of 7 batteries: Demographic Questionnaire, Familial Ethnic Socialization Measure (FESM), Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ), Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire (PEDQ), Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and Center for Epidemiologic Studies – Depression Scale (CES-D Scale). Results: Pearson correlation analyses revealed that higher family ethnic socialization, authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting, and lower generational status were all significantly associated with higher ethnic identity (r= .55, r=.51, r= .16, r=-.19, respectively). Further mediation analyses revealed that the relation between generational status and ethnic identity was fully mediated by family ethnic socialization. With respect to the relation between ethnic identity, perceived discrimination, and psychological well-being, results from the correlational analyses revealed that higher ethnic identity was associated with higher self-esteem (r = .45, p \u3c .01) and lower depressive symptoms (r = -.23, p \u3c .01) whereas perceived discrimination was associated with lower self-esteem (r = -.33, p \u3c .01) and higher depressive symptoms (r = .49, p \u3c .01). Finally, with respect to the potential protective role of ethnic identity, hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that ethnic identity moderated the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological well-being. Specifically, perceived ethnic discrimination was negatively associated with self-esteem among participants with high ethnic identity; however, this relationship was even stronger among participants with low ethnic identity. Similarly, perceived ethnic discrimination was positively associated with depressive symptoms among participants with high ethnic identity; however, this relationship was even stronger among participants with low ethnic identity. Discussion: Our findings suggest that ethnic discrimination takes a toll on Arab American young adults, but, for this population, having a salient ethnic identity may have profound mental health benefits as ethnic identity may serve as valuable resource to help them deal with negative discriminatory experiences

Foreign Intravascular Object Embolization and Migration: Bullets, Catheters, Wires, Stents, Filters, and More

Foreign intravascular object embolization (FIOE) is an important, yet underreported occurrence that has been described in a variety of settings, from penetrating trauma to intravascular procedures. In this chapter, the authors will review the most common types of FIOEs, including bullet or “projectile” embolism (BPE), followed by intravascular catheter or wire embolization (ICWE), and conclude with intravascular noncatheter object (e.g., coil, gelatin, stent, and venous filter) migration (INCOM). In addition to detailed topic-based summaries, tables highlighting selected references and case scenarios are also presented to provide the reader with a resource for future research in this clinical area

Prospective validation of a checklist to predict short-term death in older patients after emergency department admission in Australia and Ireland

Abstract Background Emergency departments (EDs) are pressured environment where patients with supportive and palliative care needs may not be identified. We aimed to test the predictive ability of the CriSTAL (Criteria for Screening and Triaging to Appropriate aLternative care) checklist to flag patients at risk of death within 3 months who may benefit from timely end-of-life discussions. Methods Prospective cohorts of >65-year-old patients admitted for at least one night via EDs in five Australian hospitals and one Irish hospital. Purpose-trained nurses and medical students screened for frailty using two instruments concurrently and completed the other risk factors on the CriSTAL tool at admission. Postdischarge telephone follow-up was used to determine survival status. Logistic regression and bootstrapping techniques were used to test the predictive accuracy of CriSTAL for death within 90 days of admission as primary outcome. Predictability of in-hospital death was the secondary outcome. Results A total of 1,182 patients, with median age 76 to 80 years (IRE-AUS), were included. The deceased had significantly higher mean CriSTAL with Australian mean of 8.1 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 7.7–8.6) versus 5.7 (95% CI = 5.1–6.2) and Irish mean of 7.7 (95% CI = 6.9–8.5) versus 5.7 (95% CI = 5.1–6.2). The model with Fried frailty score was optimal for the derivation (Australian) cohort but prediction with the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) was also good (areas under the receiver-operating characteristic [AUROC] = 0.825 and 0.81, respectively). Values for the validation (Irish) cohort were AUROC = 0.70 with Fried and 0.77 using CFS. A minimum of five of 29 variables were sufficient for accurate prediction, and a cut point of 7+ or 6+ depending on the cohort was strongly indicative of risk of death. The most significant independent predictor of short-term death in both cohorts was frailty, carrying a twofold risk of death. CriSTAL's accuracy for in-hospital death prediction was also good (AUROC = 0.795 and 0.81 in Australia and Ireland, respectively), with high specificity and negative predictive values. Conclusions The modified CriSTAL tool (with CFS instead of Fried's frailty instrument) had good discriminant power to improve certainty of short-term mortality prediction in both health systems. The predictive ability of models is anticipated to help clinicians gain confidence in initiating earlier end-of-life discussions. The practicalities of embedding screening for risk of death in routine practice warrant further investigation