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A substantial number of military personnel who have served in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom; OIF) and Afghanistan (Operating Enduring Freedom; OEF) develop symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in response to their military experiences and many of these same individuals will drink in a risky or problematic manner following deployment. If left untreated, PTSD symptoms and alcohol problems can become chronic and have a significant, negative impact on the lives of veterans, their families and communities. Further, OIF and OEF service members are often reluctant to seek treatment for mental health symptoms or alcohol problems secondary to stigma. In order to reach this population it is essential that new strategies and venues for delivering evidence-based care are explored. Web-based interventions are uniquely suited to this cohort of veterans in that they have the potential to reach a significant number of veterans who commonly use the Web and who might not otherwise receive care. This article will review the prevalence of PTSD and alcohol problems among OIF and OEF veterans, common barriers they experience with accessing care in traditional mental health settings, and what is known about the effectiveness of Web-based approaches for PTSD and alcohol problems. It also describes the components of a new Web-based intervention, developed by the authors, that uses motivational enhancement and cognitive-behavioral strategies to intervene with returning veterans who report PTSD symptoms and problem drinking. Recommendations for future directions in working with returning veterans with PTSD and alcohol problems will be offered.

Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most influential novelists of the late 20th Century. His wry views of people and organizations are applicable to the today's efforts to use science to improve the effectiveness of substance use treatment programs. His 1963 book, Cat's Cradle pointed to the potentially disastrous consequences of the development of science for science's sake. Moving to more current viewpoints, in 2009 the young writer and medical doctor Josh Bazell published Beat the Reaper, a novel that discusses modern medical care and pharmaceutical treatments with sarcasm and wit. Currently we are witnessing many developments to incorporate evidence-based practices into addiction treatment, ranging from Institute of Medicine overviews to the organization the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, fielding the National Registry of National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices for preventing and treating substance abuse and mental health disorders, legislative initiatives, efforts to upgrade the treatment workforce and, most recently, health care reform. There are signs that these and other efforts are upgrading the effectiveness of treatments for addiction. Yet the checks and balances of every effort to create change make for a field that shows halting and peripatetic development. "Top-down" reforms are watered down by "bottom-up" approaches, and vice-versa. Several concrete steps can be taken to improve the magnitude and speed of change in the field. We cannot change human nature, but we can improve addiction treatment.

Despite the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing global economic recession, arms producers and military services companies continued their upward trend in arms sales. At the same time, large-scale acquisitions returned to the arms industry in 2010, while acquisition activity in general increased, including acquisitions by non-OECD countries in OECD arms markets. The military spending cuts proposed in 2010 in Western Europe and the USA are likely to have an impact on arms producers in the future, but to what extent remains to be seen. Companies outside of North America and Western Europe -- those regions that dominate the SIPRI Top 100 and the global arms industry overall -- also displayed resilience in light of the economic recession. As smaller OECD countries outside the Euro-Atlantic region with arms producers in the SIPRI Top 100 for 2009, the cases of Israel, South Korea and Turkey illuminate small state experiences in pushing for globally competitive arms industries. In each case, the underlying technological and industrial infrastructures have determined when and to what extent technological developments are integrated into domestic arms production and whether the integration leads to indigenous technological sophistication. Access to arms technology via transfers is also a key factor in the development of domestic arms industries. A requirement for offset investment in return for large arms procurement contracts can lead to technology transfers, although limitations are imposed by the USA on re-exports of US technology. In contrast, domestically funded military research and development allows national control over the resulting technology. Adapted from the source document.

General Comment No. 12 was herald as a turning point for the protection of the right to adequate food under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It helps all public authorities –from local councils to central governments, from social services to tribunals and courts– to act compatibly with this fundamental right enshrined in Art. 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and provides States Parties to the Covenant with useful baseline information for their periodic reports to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Nevertheless, more than ten years after its enactment, there is a notable lack of a positive culture of respect for this right in several Contracting States. Undeniably, in recent times the right to adequate food has been more pilloried than celebrated and General Comment No. 12 itself has suffered at the hands of a range of detractors who have frequently indicated its modest utility. This article considers the impressive ambition of General Comment No. 6 to convert society through the opening of a culture of respect for the right to food. It maintain that the failure to guarantee institutional commitment to positive compliance of the right to adequate food –and translate this fundamental right into practical reality as an integral part of public life– has fostered scepticism of General Comment No. 12 and eventually undermined the acceptance in public consciousness of the right to food as a positive social good.

Electronic versíon of an article published as International Journal on Artificial Intelligent Tools, Volume 20, issue 2, 2011. 10.1142/S0218213011000152. © World Scientific Publishing Company ; [EN] An agent-based Virtual Organization is a complex entity where dynamic collections of agents agree to share resources in order to accomplish a global goal or offer a complex service. An important problem for the performance of the Virtual Organization is the distribution of the agents across the computational resources. The final distribution should provide a good load balancing for the organization. In this article, a genetic algorithm is applied to calculate a proper distribution across hosts in an agent-based Virtual Organization. Additionally, an abstract multi-agent system architecture which provides infrastructure for Virtual Organization distribution is introduced. The developed genetic solution employs an elitist crossover operator where one of the children inherits the most promising genetic material from the parents with higher probability. In order to validate the genetic proposal, the designed genetic algorithm has been successfully compared to several heuristics in different scenarios. © 2011 World Scientific Publishing Company. ; This work is supported by TIN2008-04446, TIN2009-13839-C03-01, CSD2007-00022 and FPU grant AP2008-00600 of the Spanish government, and PROMETEO 2008/051 of the Generalitat Valenciana. ; Sánchez Anguix, V.; Valero Cubas, S.; García Fornes, AM. (2011). A genetic approach for long term virtual organization distribution. International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools. 20(2):271-295. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218213011000152 ; S ; 271 ; 295 ; 20 ; 2

This paper proposes a project - a local festival (Cal-Iter) of the Avellino's cheese industry - for local development that adopts a systemic approach which goes beyond a traditional place marketing approach. The approach followed in this contribution starts from a literature review of two different strands of study that have offered insights with regard to place management.Then, the proposed project is developed by means of Network Analysis, which supports the identification, analysis and description of relationships and roles of partners in the network.The analysis of the status quo found that the implementation of integrated projects require local participation of Cities (Submitting Subjects), Regional and Provincial Authorities (Co-ordinating Subjects), the Government and the EU (Regulating Subjects). Furthermore, the analysis of existing projects redefined the guidelines of Avellino's local development, by adopting a systemic approach. The proposed project may be an important factor both to support the "food and wine" tourism and to attract investments for the entire province of Avellino. Moreover, the consolidation of the "place identity" is further enhanced through the integration of "place communication", according to a systemic perspective (Siano et al., 2008). The study represents a first step in the planning of local networks for the enhancement of local areas. This has dual value: on the one hand, to stimulate tourism demand and on the other, to attract investments capable of generating further demand for goods/services in the area.KEY WORDS local development | local system, networks | festivals | "wine and food" tourism.

Environmental protection and poverty reduction are central issues in United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Both aspects have special importance in the Andes biodiversity hot spotʺ where high rates of deforestation overlap with high levels of poverty. Peasant households use forest land as cheap means of production to increase their agricultural area in order to maintain or increase their income. Respect to the issues mentioned above, following research questions are relevant: i) What are the opportunity costs of the farming households to conserve the native Andes forest?, a production function approach was used to calculate the profitability and determinants of agricultural production. ii) Is current agricultural production working efficiently?, a stochastic frontier analysis was used to calculate technical efficiency and its determinants in the cattle production. Futhermore, iii) What is the best conservation instrument in order to achieve cost-efficiency and poverty alleviation?, different conservation instruments fostering a forest conversion ban, including payments for ecosystem services schemes, on cost-efficiency and poverty alleviation were also tested. In order to apply economic models, a socioeconomic sample of 130 households was collected during the farming season 2008 in the area of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Podocarpus - El Condorʺ, south Ecuador. The most profitable land use found is extensive pasture-based cattle production (net profit 159 USD/ha/yr in average) with huge heterogeneity among households. Factors influencing the gross margin and consequently profitability in cattle production are land size, labor, input expenses, ethnicity, altitude and access to technical assistance and formal credits ...

In this paper we will discuss how the value placed on increasing 'choice' is a major factor determining both childcare and elder care policies, focussing in particular on the increasing emphasis on using cash allowances and tax credits or reliefs to achieve greater diversity of provision and better 'value for money'. The use of cash means understanding how families and service providers in the market respond to incentives to provide more care and what choices are important both to those who need care and those who give it. However, as Nancy Folbre has pointed out: 'In order to solve the care problems, we need to understand how markets work, but also how they don't work' (cited in Waerness, 2006 p76 [.]). We therefore begin by examining first, why the cost of care is increasing and second what happens when care is treated in the market as if it were a commodity like any other. Third, what evidence is there about how the capacity of and willingness to care within families is changing. Does it suggest growth or decline? Does state support for care, especially in the form of cash, substitute for or complement family care? Third, we will examine the circumstances in which 'cash for care' policies offer meaningful choices both to those giving care and those who need it. By comparing childcare and elder care policies and practices and analysing their differences, it is easier to evaluate the consequences of treating care provision as a means to achieving other policy objectives rather than as a worthy end in itself.

Literature often presents information as a key element of learning processes to enable innovation in development projects. Different learning theories formalize such processes, in which information is part of a dynamic cycle: actors construct new knowledge and develop competencies to then better use available information within ideal learning organizations or learning communities. But in practice, what are the factors which encourage such learning and innovative processes, in which information truly fosters innovation? Universidade Camponesa - UniCampo, aimed to develop the capacities of community leaders in a territory of the semi-arid region of Brazil. Information in such territories raises some particular issues. Often, social and economical information is the monopoly of traditional elites, who still politically dominate these regions. Adequate agronomic information, while available for productive zones, is non-existent for the selected region. Moreover, local knowledge retained by the local communities is often disdained by the banks and technical advisory services who impose their views. At UniCampo, a consultation of various stakeholder groups was held to discuss development models and suggest new ways for sharing information. Information adapted to the context was produced through research and experimentation, simultaneously reinforcing the actors' knowledge and skills. Thus empowered, the community leaders started asking to be informed about the development policies in the territory. Despite several limitations, the overall assessment of this experience shows that by enhancing the links between information systems, capacity building and governance systems, actors can learn to better mobilize and produce information and thus suggest innovative ways for the sustainable development of their territory.

Proofer: Erika Spaet; Cover art by Tom Curtis; Graphics by Tom Curtis; Layout by YellowHat Studios ; Director's Message by David Rogers; Organizational Update: PSJ Members Help Rebuild Lives!; PSJ Members Speak Out Against Mannix's Measure 73; PSJ Featured in Prestigious National Report; News Briefs: Safety and Sentencing News: Budget Crisis Results in Policy Changes; Federal Sentencing Guidelines Change for Some Drug Crimes; Two Accused of Voter Fraud in Multnomah County; Youth Justice News: Oregon's School-to-Prison Pipeline; The Future of Oregon's Juvenile Justice System; Budget Crisis Impacts Oregon Youth Authority; Crime Survivors News: America's Children Safer Today than in 1993; Obama Starts New Initiatives to End Domestic Violence; Defending Childhood; Re-Entry News: Re-Entry: What it is and Why it Matters; U.S. Justice Department Announces $110 Million for Re-Entry Programs; Efforts to Reduce Spending on Corrections; Oregon Receives Access to Recovery Grant; Prison-Related News: SB 1070 - It's About More Prisons; Updated Legal Resource for Prisoners; Budget Cuts Force Prison Closure; Measure 73 and Criminal Justice Reform - Keeping Perspective by David Rogers; Kevin Mannix's Boatload of Cash Springs a BIG Leak by Denise Welch; Oregon's Changing Political Landscape by David Rogers; Healthcare - Not Prisons - for Oregonians by Caylor Roling; Victim Services in a Tough Economy by Kerry Naughton; Safe Kids, Safer Communities Campaign by Shannon Wight; Racial Inequity in Oregon by Imran Ahmad; Rethinking Public Safety Spending Strategies by Shannon Wight; Checking in with John by Patty Katz; Just Facts - Oregon 2010 Election Results; Also Available

Sponsored Report (for Acquisition Research Program) ; This study focuses on the demographics of contracting personnel in the Army Contracting Command (ACC). Numerous acquisition studies and commissions have cited personnel management as one of the most critical factors contributing to the success or failure of buying organizations. Further, strategic human capital management and DOD Contract Management have been on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) High-Risk List for the last several years. Actions to understand the nature and dynamics of the acquisition workforce are important in the development and execution of an integrated, strategic, human capital management plan. This research focused primarily on identifying basic demographics for contracting personnel in the 1102 occupational series in ACC. The research consisted of two principal aspects. First, what is the baseline status of critical demographic factors of the ACC contracting workforce? Second, how does the ACC workforce compare with other similar contracting populations''such as other Services and DOD agencies, other Federal Government agencies, and even in the commercial or private sector? The key demographics upon which this study focused included: (1) education level; (2) contracting certification level; (3) gender; (4) age; (5) retirement eligibility; (6) rank (military) and grade level (civilians); (7) pay plan (civilians); (8) experience; (9) supervisory vs. non-supervisory personnel; and (10) contractor personnel. These demographics were examined at two different points in time in order to perform trend analysis. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

This paper reviews the implementation of the accrual accounting in the entities of the Estonian public sector. It gives a brief overview of the historical development of governmental accounting theories and examines the introduction of theory-based accounting policy. It explains main problems and risks to face in connection with the accounting system change process and offers solutions. This study attempts to answer the following research question: how to gain full benefit from accounting information in public sector entities. As to general scientific research methods, mainly comparative analysis and description were used. This study reveals as follows. Firstly, approach to accrual accounting leads to financial information that fulfils needs for true and fair accounting data for decision making purposes. Secondly, reform of public sector financial accounting can improve the quality and the quantity of services provided to the citizens. Thirdly, the Estonian accounting regulation has recently succeeded a remarkable evolution. Fourthly, considerable problems that need to be solved have arisen from the process of the transition to the accrual basis accounting. The given study does not touch upon the development of budgeting systems for public sector entities. Hopefully, this study will contribute to further optimization of accounting systems and management tools for public sector entities in Estonia. Therefore, it will contribute to economic growth and development of business environment. Studies carried out by independent researchers on the move to accrual based accounting in public sector entities are relatively scarce.

E-commerce offers immense challenges to traditional dispute resolution methods, as it entails parties often located in different parts of the world making contracts with each other at the click of a mouse. The use of traditional litigation for disputes arising in this forum is often inconvenient, impractical, time-consuming and expensive due to the low value of the transactions and the physical distance between the parties. Thus modern legal systems face a crucial choice: either to adopt traditional dispute resolution methods that have served the legal systems well for hundreds of years or to find new methods which are better suited to a world not anchored in territorial borders. Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), originally an off-shoot of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), takes advantage of the speed and convenience of the Internet, becoming the best, and often the only option for enhancing consumer redress and strengthening their trust in e-commerce. This book provides an in-depth account of the potential of ODR for European consumers, offering a comprehensive and up to date analysis of the development of ODR. It considers the current expansion of ODR and evaluates the challenges posed in its growth. The book proposes the creation of legal standards to close the gap between the potential of ODR services and their actual use, arguing that ODR, if it is to realise its full potential in the resolution of e-commerce disputes and in the enforcement of consumer rights, must be grounded firmly on a European regulatory model.

This paper reviews the implementation of the accrual accounting in the entities of the Estonian public sector. It gives a brief overview of the historical development of governmental accounting theories and examines the introduction of theory-based accounting policy. It explains main problems and risks to face in connection with the accounting system change process and offers solutions. This study attempts to answer the following research question: how to gain full benefit from accounting information in public sector entities. As to general scientific research methods, mainly comparative analysis and description were used. This study reveals as follows. Firstly, approach to accrual accounting leads to financial information that fulfils needs for true and fair accounting data for decision making purposes. Secondly, reform of public sector financial accounting can improve the quality and the quantity of services provided to the citizens. Thirdly, the Estonian accounting regulation has recently succeeded a remarkable evolution. Fourthly, considerable problems that need to be solved have arisen from the process of the transition to the accrual basis accounting. The given study does not touch upon the development of budgeting systems for public sector entities. Hopefully, this study will contribute to further optimization of accounting systems and management tools for public sector entities in Estonia. Therefore, it will contribute to economic growth and development of business environment. Studies carried out by independent researchers on the move to accrual based accounting in public sector entities are relatively scarce.