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Abstract Background Problematic use of the Internet has been highlighted as needing further study by international bodies, including the European Union and American Psychiatric Association. Knowledge regarding the optimal classification of problematic use of the Internet, subtypes, and associations with clinical disorders has been hindered by reliance on measurement instruments characterized by limited psychometric properties and external validation. Methods Non-treatment seeking individuals were recruited from the community of Stellenbosch, South Africa (N = 1661), and Chicago, United States of America (N = 827). Participants completed an online version of the Internet Addiction Test, a widely used measure of problematic use of the Internet consisting of 20-items, measured on a 5-point Likert-scale. The online questions also included demographic measures, time spent engaging in different online activities, and clinical scales. The psychometric properties of the Internet Addiction Test, and potential problematic use of the Internet subtypes, were characterized using factor analysis and latent class analysis. Results Internet Addiction Test data were optimally conceptualized as unidimensional. Latent class analysis identified two groups: those essentially free from Internet use problems, and those with problematic use of the Internet situated along a unidimensional spectrum. Internet Addiction Test scores clearly differentiated these groups, but with different optimal cut-offs at each site. In the larger Stellenbosch dataset, there was evidence for two subtypes of problematic use of the Internet that differed in severity: a lower severity "impulsive" subtype (linked with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder), and a higher severity "compulsive" subtype (linked with obsessive-compulsive personality traits). Conclusions Problematic use of the Internet as measured by the Internet Addiction Test reflects a quasi-trait - a unipolar dimension in which most variance is restricted to a subset of people with problems regulating Internet use. There was no evidence for subtypes based on the type of online activities engaged in, which increased similarly with overall severity of Internet use problems. Measures of comorbid psychiatric symptoms, along with impulsivity, and compulsivity, appear valuable for differentiating clinical subtypes and could be included in the development of new instruments for assessing the presence and severity of Internet use problems.

An aquaculture investor (AQI) index was developed in order to provide a broad view of the relative attractiveness of 29 different European countries to aquaculture investors. AQI is based on five complementary categories: Market, Production, Regulatory, Environment, and Social, with each category containing four indicators. The attraction of investment into aquaculture depends on the viability of developing aquaculture for each country, and these five categories account for the connectivity in the aquaculture industry. The index benchmarks and tracks countries' progress by producing a quantitative and scalable tool for stakeholders to assess and monitor aquaculture attractiveness, and is designed to rank aquaculture competitiveness for each country. Index scores calculated for Europe range from moderate to good, on a heuristic five-class scale. Countries in Northern Europe with well-established aquaculture sectors score better than countries in Southern Europe. Countries with developing aquaculture sectors tend to score moderately. While high scores within single categories can be achieved, the index rewards countries with high scores across the five categories, to provide a more useful tool for stakeholders. No countries within Europe rank below the middle of the moderate range. The index identifies several countries with high scores that do not have significant aquaculture industries (e.g. Sweden and Finland), and further research is warranted to identify why aquaculture has not been developed. It is expected that as AQI is expanded to lower income countries spanning other geographic regions, countries with lower quality indicator scores will have lower overall scores. The index provides a broad-scale approach across a wide range of categories, and should be interpreted in that context, since it is designed to provide high-level guidance of the general attractiveness for aquaculture in each country. Appropriate due diligence for specific circumstances is warranted by all stakeholders requiring further ...

Until very recently, governments of many countries, as well as their supporting organizations, have primarily addressed the biological, technical and economic aspects of aquaculture. In contrast, social and cultural aspects of aquaculture production have taken a backseat. Drawing on the observation that aquaculture development in Western Societies has largely failed to address these social effects across different scales and contexts, this paper offers a new way of capturing and visualising the diverse social dimensions of aquaculture. It does so by testing the ability to operationalise a set of social dimensions based on categories and indicators put forward by the United Nations, using several case studies across the North Atlantic. Local/regional stakeholder knowledge realms are combined with scientific expert knowledge to assess aquaculture operations against these indicators. The approach indicates that one needs to have a minimum farm size in order to have an impact of a visible scale for the different social dimension categories. While finfish aquaculture seems to be more social impactful than rope mussel farming, the latter can hold important cultural values and contribute to place-based understanding, connecting people with place and identity, thus playing a vital role in maintaining the working waterfront identity. It could be shown that aquaculture boosts a potential significant pull-factor to incentivise people to remain in the area, keeping coastal communities viable. By visualising the social effects of aquaculture, a door may be opened for new narratives on the sustainability of aquaculture that render social license and social acceptability more positive.

This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Norway, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We consider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aquaculture‐related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aquaculture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture‐related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture‐related economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost‐effective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data collection. It can make trade‐off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts.

This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Nor-way, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We con-sider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aqua-culture-related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aqua-culture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture-related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture-re-lated economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost-ef-fective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data col-lection. It can make trade-off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts.

This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Norway, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We consider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aquaculture‐related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aquaculture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture‐related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture‐related economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost‐effective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data collection. It can make trade‐off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts ; This article is based upon work from COST Action OceansPast Platform (OPP – IS1403), supported by COST (Euro-pean Cooperation in Science and Technology). We gratefully acknowledge support also from the institutions of the authors, and discussions in the ICES Working Group onSocial and Economic Dimensions of Aquaculture. In particular, we thank Max ...

This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Norway, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We consider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aquaculture-related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aquaculture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture-related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture-related economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost-effective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data collection. It can make trade-off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts.

The Internet is now all-pervasive across much of the globe. While it has positive uses (e.g. prompt access to information, rapid news dissemination), many individuals develop Problematic Use of the Internet (PUI), an umbrella term incorporating a range of repetitive impairing behaviours. The Internet can act as a conduit for, and may contribute to, functionally impairing behaviours including excessive and compulsive video gaming, compulsive sexual behaviour, buying, gambling, streaming or social networks use. There is growing public and National health authority concern about the health and societal costs of PUI across the lifespan. Gaming Disorder is being considered for inclusion as a mental disorder in diagnostic classification systems, and was listed in the ICD-11 version released for consideration by Member States ( http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/revision/timeline/en/ ). More research is needed into disorder definitions, validation of clinical tools, prevalence, clinical parameters, brain-based biology, socio-health-economic impact, and empirically validated intervention and policy ap- proaches. Potential cultural differences in the magnitudes and natures of types and patterns of PUI need to be better understood, to inform optimal health policy and service development. To this end, the EU under Horizon 2020 has launched a new four-year European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action Programme (CA 16207), bringing together scientists and clinicians from across the fields of impulsive, compulsive, and addictive disorders, to advance networked interdisciplinary research into PUI across Europe and beyond, ultimately seeking to inform regulatory policies and clinical practice. This paper describes nine critical and achievable research priorities identified by the Network, needed in order to advance understanding of PUI, with a view towards identifying vulnerable individuals for early intervention. The network shall enable collaborative research networks, shared multinational databases, multicentre studies and joint publications .

The Internet is now all-pervasive across much of the globe. While it has positive uses (e.g. prompt access to information, rapid news dissemination), many individuals develop Problematic Use of the Internet (PUI), an umbrella term incorporating a range of repetitive impairing behaviours. The Internet can act as a conduit for, and may contribute to, functionally impairing behaviours including excessive and compulsive video gaming, compulsive sexual behaviour, buying, gambling, streaming or social networks use. There is growing public and National health authority concern about the health and societal costs of PUI across the lifespan. Gaming Disorder is being considered for inclusion as a mental disorder in diagnostic classification systems, and was listed in the ICD-11 version released for consideration by Member States (http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/revision/timeline/en/). More research is needed into disorder definitions, validation of clinical tools, prevalence, clinical parameters, brain-based biology, socio-health-economic impact, and empirically validated intervention and policy approaches. Potential cultural differences in the magnitudes and natures of types and patterns of PUI need to be better understood, to inform optimal health policy and service development. To this end, the EU under Horizon 2020 has launched a new four-year European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action Programme (CA 16207), bringing together scientists and clinicians from across the fields of impulsive, compulsive, and addictive disorders, to advance networked interdisciplinary research into PUI across Europe and beyond, ultimately seeking to inform regulatory policies and clinical practice. This paper describes nine critical and achievable research priorities identified by the Network, needed in order to advance understanding of PUI, with a view towards identifying vulnerable individuals for early intervention. The network shall enable collaborative research networks, shared multinational databases, multicentre studies and joint publications. ; ISSN:0924-977X ; ISSN:1873-7862