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Metadata only record ; This book is a collection of papers presented at a workshop titled 'Listening to the people: social aspects of dryland management,' held in Nairobi, Kenya, 14-18 December 1993. The event was organized by the Desertification Control Programme Activity Centre of UNEP to develop a better understanding of community participation and bottom-up development. A primary goal of the workshop was to formulate recommendations of what needs to be done to achieve sustainable development in the drylands. A prerequisite for the success of any intervention affecting a local community is that the planners recognize the institutions, systems of indigenous knowledge and management structures that already exist. The papers and discussions of the workshop analyse the experiences of over three decades of attempts by governments, donor agencies and non-governmental organizations to promote economic development in the drylands of developing countries. Six sections of the book cover: (1) the social dimensions and concepts of desertification; (2) participatory approaches and methods related to development of the drylands; (3) social aspects of dryland management; (4) indigenous knowledge; (5) gender issues in natural resource management; and (6) the importance of government policies in dryland management. (CAB Abstracts)

BACKGROUND/AIMS—Landmines have long been used in conventional warfare. These are antipersonnel mines which continue to injure people long after a ceasefire without differentiating between friend or foe, soldier or civilian, women or children. This study focuses on Afghan non-combatants engaged in mine clearing operations in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Russo-Afghan war. The patterns and types of injuries seen are described and experiences in their management, ways, and means to prevent them, and recommendations for the rehabilitation of the affected individuals are given. METHODS—It is a retrospective and analytical study of 84 patients aged 19-56 years who sustained mine blast injuries during mine clearing operations in Afghanistan from November 1992 to January 1996. The study was carried out at a military hospital with tertiary care facilities. The patients were divided into three groups on the basis of their injuries. Group 1 required only general surgical attention, group 2 sustained only ocular injuries, while group 3 had combined ocular and general injuries. Patients in groups 2 and 3 were treated in two phases. The first phase aimed at immediate restoration of the anatomy, while restoration of function wherever possible was done in subsequent surgical procedures in the second phase. RESULTS—It was observed that 51 out of 84 patients (60.7%) had sustained ocular trauma of a variable degree as a result of the blasts. The mean age of the victims was 29 years and they were all male. A total of 91 eyes of 51 patients (89.2%) had been damaged. Bilaterality of damage was seen in 40 (78.4%) patients. Most, 34 (37.3%), eyes became totally blind (NPL). Only a few escaped with injury mild enough not to impair vision. Foreign bodies, small and multiple, were found in the majority of eyes; most, however, were found in the anterior segment, and posterior segment injuries were proportionally less. CONCLUSIONS—The prevalence of blindness caused by mine blast injuries is quite high. The resulting psychosocial ...

Bibliography: pages 201-214. ; Environmental degradation is widely regarded as an integral part of South Africa's homeland areas. Conventional thinking often blames so-called traditional farming practices, attitudes and values for this situation. In other words, the blame is placed with the residents of the areas and environmental degradation is explained away as the result of a particular cultural make-up. Following this line of thought, education via agricultural extension is mooted as the primary solution to what is regarded as an inherent problem. The central concern of this dissertation is to examine the dynamics of natural resource management by residents of a rural area in KwaZulu known as oBivane. The thesis shows that the conditions leading to environmental degradation are best seen as the result of particular historical and political processes and not simply as the results of particular patterns of behaviour that are culturally driven. These processes, given primary impetus by massive population influx onto a restricted land base and combined with the peculiarities of differential access to resources and the need to preserve the interests of elite groups, have forced sectors of the South African population into situations where physical survival has necessarily had grave environmental cost. One of the consequences of apartheid policies has been to institutionalise environmental degradation in particular areas of the country.

This report is on Amtrak: The Political and Social Aspects of Federal Intercity Passenger Rail Policy.

This paper addresses the question "To what extent can job satisfaction be explained as the revenue of social capital?" By conceiving someone's social network as social capital we specify conditions under which social ties do lead to job satisfaction. We inquire into the idea of goal specificity of social capital, which implies that a network with a given structure and content will have different impacts on various aspects of job satisfaction. If the content of the ties and the structure of the network at the job engender material well-being or produce social approval, satisfaction with the corresponding job aspects increases. Data were collected in 1993 using written questionnaires in two Dutch governmental agencies, one with 32 and the other with 44 employees. These workers' networks were charted using nine name-generating questions. Social capital, it turns out, is not an all-purpose good but one that is goal specific, even within a single domain of life such as work. Three effects stand out: First, the structure of the network and the content of the ties do matter. Networks of strategic, work-related ties promote an employee's satisfaction with instrumental aspects of the job, like income, security, and career opportunities. Second, closed networks of identity-based solidarity ties improve an employee's satisfaction with social aspects of the job, like the general social climate at work and cooperation with management and colleagues. Third, a network with a bow–tie structure (i.e., where a focal actor is the link between two or more mutually exclusive cliques) generally has strong negative effects on satisfaction with the social side of the job; although a bow–tie type network of trusting ties does increase satisfaction with the social side. This implies that Krackhardt's hypothesis on the unpleasant feelings produced by bow–tie type networks has to be specified for the content of the ties that constitute such a network. The most important conclusion of our analysis is that goal specificity of social capital ...

AIDS/HIV Positivity has been the most widely debated disease of this century. Reasons for this are manifold, viz-the non-availability of cure and consequent 100% mortality of a full blown case; its mode of transmission-homosexual and heterosexual activities; widespread occurrence amongst 'main liners'; and patients receiving blood and blood products etc. These aspects have created a dreaded halo around AIDS as well as social stigma. Even the medical community is not exempt from these problems. Unfortunately, legislatures around the world, more so in India, have lagged behind in clarifying many legal issues involved by not enacting specific laws pertaining to AIDS. Consequently many legal & ethical doubts arise in the minds of doctors when confronted with a case of AIDS either in a live patient or in a dead body. In addition, the disease being incurable & 100% fatal, makes it essential to adopt effective preventive measures which in turn need thorough knowledge of social aspects of the epidemic. Certain medicolegal, and ethical aspects of the problem of AIDS are recapitulated in this article for the benefit of the medical community.

The main objective of the article is to present the development of social work in Lithuania. The conception of social work and the social work definition problems are discussed in the first part. The absence of general social work theory and multfifunctionality of social work practice are obstacles for the unified conception of social work. The development of social work profession is discussed in the second part of the article. The roots of social work are the pseudoaltruistic behavior of animals and the proper altruistic behavior of hominids. There are eight stages of social work development in Lithuania according to author: GDL and the Union with Poland, period of Tsarist occupation, interwar independence, Models of Soviet social security, Formal acceptance of the notion of social work, professionalisation of social work, professional social work, social euro-integration. The contextual factors of social work in Lithuania are discussed in the third part of the article. The main contextual factors of social work are: socio-economical situation, legislative basis, international context, social service givers. The research in social work and the future development of social work discipline in Lithuania is discussed in the last part.

Pleasure Consuming Medicine investigates the significance of the classification of drugs forconceptions of personhood in the context of consumer citizenship. It examines howdrug discourses operate politically to sustain particular notions of personhood andorganise bodies. As the normative conception of social life shifts to a discourse ofconsumer agency and active citizenship, it is argued, drugs come to describe the moralboundaries of a freedom configured around personal consumption. The thesis tracks theparallel rise of two discourses of drug mis/use from the 1970s - a discourse of 'drugabuse' and a discourse of 'patient compliance' - illustrating how these discourses bindpersonal agency to medical authority through a vocabulary of self-administration. Itdescribes how illicit drugs are constructed as a sign and instance of excessive conformity toconsumer culture, and how this excess is opportunistically scooped off andspectacularised to stage an intense but superficial battle between the amoral market andthe moral state. Pleasure Consuming Medicine uses a theoretical frame developed from queertheory, corporeal feminism, governmentality studies and cultural studies to explore thepolitical character of drug regimes, tracing some of the ramifications for sex, race, class,and citizenship. Then it turns to the field of gay men's HIV education to conceive somealternative and provisional vocabularies of safety. The thesis develops an argument onthe exercise of power in consumer society, with the aim of contributing to cultural andcritical understandings of consumption, embodiment, sex, health, and citizenship.

Some philosochical and cognitive aspects of political gerrymandering are investigated. The basic assumption of gerrymandering practices is that regions be connected. This assumption is questioned, as it seems to result for a cognitive bias for connectedness (a preference for unitary objects).

Some philosochical and cognitive aspects of political gerrymandering are investigated. The basic assumption of gerrymandering practices is that regions be connected. This assumption is questioned, as it seems to result for a cognitive bias for connectedness (a preference for unitary objects).

The work of the North End Housing Project (NEHP) was an attempt to apply a number of theoretical orientations to the problem of decline in an inner city neighborhood of Winnipeg. Although the focus of the program was housing, NEHP moved well beyond this focus to address problems of neighbourhood distress in an integrated and multidimensional way. It used a cluster strategy in housing development to create a critical mass of new residences that could have an impact on neighbourhood housing markets. It took a convergence approach to community economic development that directed local production to meet local basic needs. The project used the concept of social capital to build social ties among neighborhood residents, to provide mutual support among families, and to enable the community to address its needs more effectively. Finally, the project engaged with Aboriginal residents to explore a cultural basis for community building and to acquire the means to influence neighbourhood affairs. NEHP's work was set in a context of citywide policies that contribute to the process of core area underdevelopment. These policies intrinsically subsidize suburban sprawl, accelerate core area population loss, and discourage inner city housing investment. While analysis of such policies was critical to understanding the dynamics of decline, advocacy for their change was beyond the scope of this small nonprofit housing initiative. The study assesses the community economic development dimensions of NEHP's work. It traces patterns of community income retention, community asset accumulation, and equity buildup for individual families. A social cost benefit analysis shows that creating work for previously long-term unemployed residents generated savings for government in welfare payments and other transfers, and it created new tax revenue through the payment of income taxes and sales taxes. Nearly half the costs of the subsidies for renovated housing were returned to the public treasury through the creation of employment for previously ...

This report is the third to appear in the Social Welfare Research Centre's Research Resource Series. It is an annotated bibliography of material published in Australia which relates to poverty and certain aspects of inequality. Concern about poverty in Australia has been increasing since the time of the earliest entries here which cite works published in the early 1960s. That concern has been reflected in the enquiries and reviews established by governments (notably the Poverty Inquiry in 1972 and the Social Security Review in 1986) and in the amount of research undertaken and the number of conferences which have been organised around the theme of poverty in recent years. Research into the economic and social aspects of poverty, including its measurement, causes and consequences is a major focus of the current research agenda of the Centre. So too, is the assessment of government policy in this area and the consideration and analysis of alternative policies. This bibliography draws together the material which has been published in this key area of social policy and should be a useful resource for those whose work continues to focus on the subject.

The issue of State aids (or subsidies) in an international perspective is a permanent source of conflicts because it is at the junction of three opposite views — the mercantilist attitude, the pure trade theory and the political economy approach. First, in a mercantilist perspective focusing on exports and domestic producers (to the detriment of imports and domestic consumers), that subsidies increase imports or reduce exports of the trading partners of the subsidising country is 'unfair' competition. Firms under foreign subsidy pressures feel that they cannot 'compete with foreign governments' and they lobby for 'countervailing' those foreign subsidies. Second, the pure trade theory has two stands. It underlines the fact that subsidised imports from trading partners are a benefit for the consumers of the importing country. And it shows that subsidies are among the least distorting instruments for solving a long list of problems. In particular, they are less distorting than tariffs or non-tariff barriers (NTBs). If public action favouring a particular activity is desired or if there is a need to compensate for economic distortions, then subsidised production funded by general taxation is likely to be the best instrument to be used. Lastly, the third view based on a political economy approach stresses the fact that State aids are easily captured by vested interests for their own agenda — hence becoming a source of waste of scarce economic resources. This approach explains the wide reluctance among economists to support subsidies and their perception that State aids should be constrained for domestic reasons — in sharp contrast with the first view which focuses on disciplines to be imposed on foreign subsidies and with the second view suggesting the use of subsidies for many purposes (.).

The issue of State aids (or subsidies) in an international perspective is a permanent source of conflicts because it is at the junction of three opposite views — the mercantilist attitude, the pure trade theory and the political economy approach. First, in a mercantilist perspective focusing on exports and domestic producers (to the detriment of imports and domestic consumers), that subsidies increase imports or reduce exports of the trading partners of the subsidising country is 'unfair' competition. Firms under foreign subsidy pressures feel that they cannot 'compete with foreign governments' and they lobby for 'countervailing' those foreign subsidies. Second, the pure trade theory has two stands. It underlines the fact that subsidised imports from trading partners are a benefit for the consumers of the importing country. And it shows that subsidies are among the least distorting instruments for solving a long list of problems. In particular, they are less distorting than tariffs or non-tariff barriers (NTBs). If public action favouring a particular activity is desired or if there is a need to compensate for economic distortions, then subsidised production funded by general taxation is likely to be the best instrument to be used. Lastly, the third view based on a political economy approach stresses the fact that State aids are easily captured by vested interests for their own agenda — hence becoming a source of waste of scarce economic resources. This approach explains the wide reluctance among economists to support subsidies and their perception that State aids should be constrained for domestic reasons — in sharp contrast with the first view which focuses on disciplines to be imposed on foreign subsidies and with the second view suggesting the use of subsidies for many purposes (.).

Talking about socio-economic structure of Roman Maritime Commerce on this occasion and to the present audience makes me feel like carrying the proverbial coals to Newcastle. I must confess straightaway that this is a totally new field of research for me. Until I obtained my doctorate from London University in 1975, and for a couple of years after, I concentrated my energy almost solely on Classical art, in particular Roman portraiture in relief; which explains the inclusion of the third part of my paper which some of you may find intrusive in the discussion of the theme of this conference. Since then, with my assumption of teaching duties at the University of Malta, barring one or two occasional contributions to Roman sculpture, I was forced by geographical, economic and logistical circumstances to focus my attention on the archaeology of my homeland. ; peer-reviewed