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This article is an exploration of family therapy in France by an Australian social worker and family therapist. It also reports on the 2010 European Family Therapy Conference and includes an interview with Dr Mony Elkaïm that provides an overview of his work. All this is discussed in terms of its relevance for family therapists in Australia. It is followed by a brief response from Dr Elkaïm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overweight and obese people appear to be at greater risk of suboptimal vitamin and mineral status compared with people of a healthy weight. Nutrients most affected include vitamin D, vitamin B, carotenoids, folate, vitamin C and iron. The reasons are unknown but may be caused by poor diets, increased requirements or obesity-related changes to nutrient absorption, excretion or metabolism, or a combination of these. Sequestration of fat-soluble vitamins by adipose tissues is also a major factor. Although dietary assessment in obese populations is hampered by under-reporting, there is evidence that dietary patterns characterised by energy-dense, processed foods are more common in groups with a higher body mass index. Dieting practices, bariatric surgery and the use of anti-obesity drugs may compound the risk of nutrient inadequacy, although sustained weight loss helps to improve vitamin D status. A poor nutrient status could accentuate the risk of chronic diseases already experienced by overweight people on account of their excessive fat mass. There is evidence that the use of dietary supplements can improve nutrient status and have a favourable impact on disease risk markers such as lipid profiles and insulin resistance. Whether currently dieting or not, overweight people may benefit from safeguarding vitamin and mineral adequacy by taking a multi-nutrient supplement alongside an increased intake of nutrient-rich foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To report the clinical use of the QOLIBRI, a disease-specific measure of health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods: The QOLIBRI, with 37 items in six scales (cognition, self, daily life and autonomy, social relationships, emotions and physical problems) was completed by 795 patients in six languages (Finnish, German, Italian, French, English and Dutch). QOLIBRI scores were examined by variables likely to be influenced by rehabilitation interventions and included socio-demographic, functional outcome, health status and mental health variables. Results: The QOLIBRI was self-completed by 73% of participants and 27% completed it in interview. It was sensitive to areas of life amenable to intervention, such as accommodation, work participation, health status (including mental health) and functional outcome. Conclusion: The QOLIBRI provides information about patient's subjective perception of his/her HRQoL which supplements clinical measures and measures of functional outcome. It can be applied across different populations and cultures. It allows the identification of personal needs, the prioritization of therapeutic goals and the evaluation of individual progress. It may also be useful in clinical trials and in longitudinal studies of TBI recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of livres composés, which is a response to the challenge of the long poem that developed in the mid-to late-nineteenth century. It mentions that it proves the importance in the development of a new influence of French poetry to Australian poetry through the work of Christopher Brennan, a poet and a professor. It also enumerates the work of Brennan through the development of livres composés, which include "XXI Poems," "The Burden of Tyre" and "A Chant of Doom."

Surveys of Australian consumers before, during, and after French nuclear testing in the Pacific in 1995 show clear evidence of negative reaction of consumers to the testing with regards to their ratings of France and French products. Although beliefs about French products did not decline following the announcement of the planned testing, evaluative feelings, and behavioral orientation towards France, the French and French products did. However, by 2005 behavioral orientation to French products, as well as attitudes to France and the French had more than recovered. The components of attitudes to products and country-people are examined in the context of theories of forgiveness to understand processes that could explain such a recovery. Implications for researchers and marketers in the increasingly frequent situations of international tensions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between English botanist, naturalist, and explorer Sir Joseph Banks and French explorer Nicolas Baudin, noting Banks' stance on Baundin's expedition of 1800 to 1803 to map Australia's coast. It examines Bank's support of science and his political and colonial interests, analyzing his correspondence with the British Admiralty, colonial authorities in New South Wales, Australia, and the contemporary Australian expedition of English navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders. Relations between France and Great Britain during this time are highlighted.

Blackleg, caused by Leptosphaeria maculans, is a major disease of oilseed rape ( Brassica napus), worldwide, including Australia and France. The aims of these studies were first, to determine if higher levels of resistance to L. maculans could be generated in double haploid (DH) lines derived from spring-type B. napus cv. Grouse, which has a good level of field resistance to blackleg; and second, to determine whether the resistance to blackleg disease of individual DH lines responds differentially to different L. maculans field populations within and between the two countries. DH lines were extracted from cv. Grouse and tested in field experiments carried out in both France and Australia against natural L. maculans populations. Extracting and screening DH lines were an effective means to select individual lines with greatly improved expression of resistance to blackleg crown canker disease in comparison with the original parental population. However, relative disease resistance rankings for DH lines were not always consistent between sites. The higher level of resistance in France was shown to be because of a high expression level of quantitative resistance in the French growing conditions. Big differences were observed for some DH lines between the 2004 and the 2005 field sites in Australia where the L. maculans populations differed by their virulence on single dominant gene-based resistant lines derived from Brassica rapa ssp. sylvestris. This differential behaviour could not be clearly explained by the specific resistance genes until now identified in these DH lines. This investigation highlights the potential to derive DH lines with superior levels of resistance to L. maculans compared with parental populations. However, in locations with particularly high pathogen diversity, such as in southern Australia, multiyear and multisite evaluations should be performed to screen for the most efficient material in different situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variable-resolution GCMs using a global stretched-grid (SG) with enhanced resolution over the region(s) of interest is an established approach to regional climate modeling providing an efficient means for regional down-scaling to mesoscales. This approach has been used since the early-mid 90s by the French, U.S., Canadian, Australian and other climate modeling groups along with, or as an alternative to, the current widely-used nested-grid approach. Stretched-grid GCMs are used for continuous climate simulations as usual GCMs, with the only difference that variable-resolution grids are used instead of more traditional uniform grids. The important advantages of variable-resolution stretched-grid GCMs are that they do not require any lateral boundary conditions/forcing and are free of the associated undesirable computational problems. As a result, stretched-grid GCMs provide self-consistent interactions between global and regional scales while a high quality of global circulation is preserved, as in uniform-grid GCMs. The international SGMIP-2 (Stretched-Grid Model Intercomparison Project, phase-2) includes 25-year (1979–2003) climate simulations using enhanced variable and uniform-resolution GCMs developed at major centers/groups in Australia, Canada, France, and the U.S. The SGMIP-2 regional (North American) and global products are available as a link of the WMO/WCRP/WGNE web site: . The SGMIP-2 multi-model regional ensembles compare well with reanalysis and observations, in terms of spatial and temporal diagnostics. Regional biases are mostly limited to about half (or less) of typical observational or reanalysis errors while a high quality of global circulation is preserved. SGMIP-2 was endorsed by the WMO/WCRP/WGNE at its annual meetings in 2004–2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines recent steps taken by Australia and France to combat illegal fishing in their claimed maritime zones of jurisdiction around their adjacent sub-Antarctic island territories. These steps comprise operational responses and legal developments, including the conclusion of two bilateral treaties on cooperative surveillance and enforcement. Geographical and legal problems associated with addressing the illegal fishing threat in the Southern Ocean are highlighted. It is concluded that when they come to be tested by international legal authorities, some of the more innovative legal measures under discussion are likely to be appraised as being in conflict with some provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades, SMEs have become increasingly active in international markets. SMEs do not necessarily follow a pattern of incremental internationalisation as they have a wide range of options and many are opportunistic. A large postal survey was conducted in five countries - the UK, France, Finland, Australia and Mexico. Many similarities in internationalisation strategy were found among these companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have indicated that government bonds are an imperfect substitute for money in providing transaction services. Based on these studies, this article develops a theoretical framework showing that, as with money seigniorage, the government can gain an interest benefit from issuing government bonds. The article terms this interest benefit as ‘government bond seigniorage’. Further, the article estimates government bond seigniorage in comparison with money seigniorage for five countries (Australia, Canada, France, Italy and the United States) during the period 1959–2001. It is found that government bond seigniorage accounts for a larger percentage of Gross Domestic Product than money seigniorage, but also experiences greater fluctuations for all sample countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates and compares some of the strategic choices made by small wine firms from two different New World wine producing countries, Australia and New Zealand, and one traditional wine producing region of France. This research was first conducted in 2003 in France with 98 wine firms being interviewed and then in Australia and New Zealand, with a total of 68 wine firms interviewed in 2004. In order to explain the differences in business practices, an effort to match wine sector perspectives and strategic management profiles is presented through a hierarchical cluster analysis. Some complementary explanations for the clusters found can be suggested: business practices are clearly dependent upon the business activity (bottled wine versus bulk wine), and the main goal of the owner-manager (improving business economic performance versus increasing market share). [EconLit classification: L190, L210]. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 22: 405–416, 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the real convergence hypothesis for 14 OECD countries looking at the fractional order of integration of the differences of real GDP per capita in these countries with respect to the United States. Using parametric procedures, the results vary depending on how we specify the I(0) disturbances. If they are white noise, convergence is achieved for Canada and Australia, and with autocorrelated disturbances, this hypothesis is satisfied for France and the Netherlands. However, allowing for a break at World War 11, evidence of convergence is obtained for all countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering academic units might engage with social media for a range of purposes including for general communication with students, staff, alumni, other important stakeholders and the wider community at large; for student recruitment and for marketing and promotion more generally. This paper presents an investigation into the use of Twitter by six engineering academic units internationally, using publicly available Twitter data over an 18-month period for analysis and visualization, to characterize the engagement by engineering academic units with one popular social media tool. Widely varying levels of activity were observed, from essentially undirected "Megaphone" Tweeting, through to sustained and complex interactions with multiple external accounts. This work provides insights into how engineering academic units are using Twitter and how they might more effectively use the platform to achieve their individual objectives for institutional social media communications and marketing, and offers a methodology for future research.

This article looks at how the French and Australian cinemas have seen the release of films which show remarkable similarities and suggest that a comparative study of both cinemas' youth film might usefully be undertaken. However, the author argues that the notion of youth cinema in each country is a construct, the product of particular cultural and critical discursive translations which do not reflect the content and themes of the films themselves. Identifying a form of intracultural translation occurring within each cinema, he also identifies a form of intracultural translation occurring within each cinema, he also identifies a form of intercultural translation occurring within each cinema, he also identifies a form of intercultural translation operating when French and Australian cinema look cross-culturally at each other.

Focuses on the value-added tax (VAT) general anti-avoidance regulation developments. Information on the indirect tax legislation in Canada; Discussion on the general anti-avoidance provision in Australia; General principle of corporate taxation in France.

This study examines reporting practices of a sample of foreign listed and domestic-only listed companies from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and Australia to determine the extent to which companies voluntarily use “international” standards. Two types of use of non-national standards in the consolidated accounts presented to the public are considered: adoption of “international” standards instead of national standards, and supplementary use where “international” standards are used in conjunction with national standards. “International” standards are defined as US GAAP or IAS (now IFRS). The study tests for a preference for either set of standards and considers the relationship of choice of regime with firm attributes. The results show significant voluntary use of “international” standards in all five countries and among foreign listed and domestic-only listed companies. Companies using “international” standards are likely to be larger, have more foreign revenue and to be listed on one or more foreign stock exchanges. US GAAP is the predominant choice, but IAS are used by many firms in Germany and some in Japan. Firms listed in the United States' regulated markets (NYSE and NASDAQ) are more likely to choose US GAAP, but companies traded in the OTC market often select IAS. The study demonstrates for managers and regulators that there is considerable support for “international” standards, and that choice of IAS or US GAAP relates to specific firm characteristics which differ according to a firm's country of origin. Most use of “international” standards reflects individual countries' institutional frameworks, confirming the key role of national regulators and standard setters in assisting companies to achieve more comparable international reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports from a comparative study on systems of quality assurance in 19 countries around the globe, and how these systems function as accountability mechanisms. Based on a theoretical framework for assessing how accountability mechanisms can contribute to build trust in the higher education sector, the analysis of the quality assurance systems underline the dominant role of quality assurance systems as the prime accountability mechanism in the sector, often accompanied by semi-autonomous agencies emphasising various forms of accreditation. Based on an assessment of the quality assurance systems it is still suggested that the current forms of accountability are not stimulating the up-building of trust in and of the sector. In the conclusion, some reflections are offered as alternatives to the current situation.

This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support activities as diverse as widening participation, e-learning, and business partnership. This in turn has implications for higher education governance and management structures and processes. Consideration is given to variables likely to affect institutional responses to such changes, and some suggestions are made as to possible ways forward in addressing the interests of an expanding range of professional groupings and stakeholders, as well as those of institutions as a whole. These are likely to involve the development of more flexible organisational frameworks in relation to, for instance, reward and incentive mechanisms and career pathways. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

What does "internationalizing" university educators mean? This question is being answered differently by business schools everywhere. Although business schools are seeking to internationalize themselves, many are doing so without fully understanding what this might entail. One dimension that often is misdirected is the individual educator and the value of living and working in a foreign environment. This paper discusses this issue for those who undertake a temporary or visiting foreign assignment. (Contains 1 figure.)

Ethnolinguistic vitality theory asserts that Status, Demographic, Institutional Support and Control factors make up the vitality of ethnolinguistic groups. An assessment of a group's strengths and weaknesses in each of these dimensions provides a rough classification of ethnolinguistic groups into those having low, medium, or high vitality. Low vitality groups are most likely to go through linguistic assimilation and may not be considered a distinctive collective group. On the other hand, high vitality groups are likely to maintain their language and distinctive cultural traits in multilingual settings. Compared to other models, Ethnoliguistic Vitality Theory (EVT) and its accompanying instruments provide a broader and more inclusive framework for the investigation of language maintenance and shift. However, the empirical evidence obtained in a number of contexts point to an underestimation of the actual vitality of some minority groups. In this paper, based on the findings on ethnolinguistic vitality perceptions of Turkish immigrants in Australia, France, Germany and the Netherlands, a critical evaluation of EVT will be presented. (Contains 5 tables.)

At least one-third of the 72 million children currently missing out on primary education are estimated to be disabled. With just five years remaining to achieve the Millennium Development and Education for All (EFA) goals, global efforts to ensure all children complete a full cycle of primary education by 2015 will fail if bilateral and multilateral donor support for education does not prioritise the inclusion of disabled children. This paper reviews the commitments and practices of key EFA Fast Track Initiative (FTI) donors in relation to early childhood and primary education for disabled children between 2005 and 2008/9. The review highlights that, while a number of FTI donor partners are beginning to pay greater attention to the inclusion of disabled children in education through their international development cooperation and policy commitments, this has not been accompanied by sustained and systematic action. Weak political will and continued marginalisation of the issue of education for disabled children from the mainstream EFA agenda threatens to impede current efforts towards "education for all". (Contains 9 notes and 1 table.)

The mathematics achievement scores of 28,274 students in 1443 Australian, Belgian, English, Finish, French, German, Israeli, Japanese, Dutch, Scotch, Swedish, and US. elementary schools were correlated with, and regressed on socioeconomic status, highest math course taken, weekly hours of homework, interest in mathematics, and several other variables with both individuals and schools within each country as units of analysis. The results corroborate recent syntheses of small- scale studies of productive factors in academic learning as well as regression analyses of large-scale surveys. Among directly alterable variables, the amount and the quality or vigour of instruction including homework most strongly influence achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a research study examining the difference between educational system in Australia and France. The two countries have major differences in the dimensions of the task reflecting different structural frameworks inspite of similarities in the contextual factors associated with increased demand for education. Vocational courses in school, broader range in the senior high school curricula and the practice of selective grade-promotion has led to much higher enrolment rates in full-time education in France. As compared to France, Australia has low rates of full-time participation. A mainly academic curriculum, lack of alternative courses in school and of alternative credentials, reduced accessibility to higher education and the operation of a large TAPE sector engaged in providing part-time training has created social bias in full-time education in Australia. Sex differences are prominent in the vocational systems as well as in the academic programmes in both Australia and France. Apprenticeships are dominated by males in both the countries.

Our paper contributes to explore differences in high-education systems, and to highlight the role of competition among tertiary education providers and more generally of tertiary education systems viewed from a general equilibrium perspective to explain changes in returns to skill, wage inequalities and output. An objective function is introduced for universities who seek to maximize their reputations and face a trade-off between research and teaching activities. We propose an explanation to the stratification of higher education providers engaged in a competition process, which preserves the positive competitive effect of admission requirement, both on the size of the students' body and on the quality of the research. We show that competition among higher education providers may have strong benefits on economic activities and output in particular. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures and 18 notes.)

While higher education is regarded a high priority for economic development in many countries, public budgets often fall short to support desired levels of expansion in higher education. This leads to cost-sharing: students and their families are required to contribute more to the costs of higher education. This paper explores worldwide trends to cope with this issue based on the following questions: Is it fair to ask for larger contributions from students? What are the global patterns and forms of higher private shares in the costs of higher education? And what is the impact of cost-sharing on higher education access and equity? (Contains 4 tables and 2 footnotes.)

The evaluation of government-financed research has become increasingly important in the last few decades in terms of increasing the quality of, and payoff from, the research that is done, reducing the cost of doing it, and lending public credibility to the manner in which research is funded. But there are very large differences throughout the world in the extent to which systems used promote these results. This paper briefly presents the dimensional results of a study designed to comparatively evaluate the national-level research evaluation models in sixteen countries on five merit-defining dimensions. (Contains 6 figures.)

In recent years, a number of analyses assessments used in different countries have appeared. Analyses emerging from international comparisons such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have focused on what might be termed "cross-sectional" comparisons; examining the differences between the assessments in different national systems for students of the same age. Other studies have focused on the study of systems of assessments within a single country, looking at the articulation between the various assessments taken by students at the same ages (another form of cross-sectional analysis within a single system), and by the sequence of assessments taken by an individual over the course of their schooling (a longitudinal focus within a single system). The purpose of this paper is to try to combine both approaches, through the comparison of assessment "systems". The authors' aim is to look at the differences in assessment systems in different countries in order to try to identify the critical design issues. In this context, design issues are not just the features that are designed into the system by its architects. Design issues also include those features of the system that emerge unplanned, but might have panned out differently if different decisions had been taken in the development of the system (good examples of this latter category are the issue of the rate of increase of spread of attainment in the cohort over time, or sex differences in performance). (Contains 4 figures and 4 footnotes.)

This paper presents a model of the approaches open to government to ensure that early childhood services are affordable to families. We derived the model from a comparative literature review of affordability approaches taken by government, both in Australia and internationally. The model adds significantly to the literature by proposing a means to understand and assess the numerous options for affordability funding. The model suggests that the options fall into only three basic approaches: operational funding, fee subsidies and tax relief. Application of this simple model helps clarify the costs and benefits of particular choices within these approaches. We predict that the choices affect cost to government, affordability to families, and participation by children in early childhood services. (Contains 2 tables.)

This paper examines the extent that material, social, and cultural resources and schools account for the relationship between socioeconomic background and student achievement among 15-year-olds in 30 countries. Generally, cultural factors play a more important role in most countries although in a small minority of countries, material resources have a substantial impact. Most often, social resources have little impact. In many countries, educational differentiation--that is, school tracks and school types, and curriculum tracking within schools--mediates the relationship between socioeconomic background and student achievement. Countries with highly tracked systems tend to show stronger relationships. On average, over 60% of the effect of socioeconomic background on achievement is accounted for by these factors. These findings are independent of whether achievement in reading, mathematics, or science is examined. The implications of this study for reducing socioeconomic inequalities in education are discussed.

This paper investigates the relationship between school-based sex education policies and sexual health-related statistics of young people in four developed countries: the Netherlands, France, Australia, and the United States of America. Drawing upon literature searches in relevant CD-ROM databases, Internet websites, government reports and libraries, school-based sex education policies and a range of sexual health indicators for young people are described for each country. While the average age of first intercourse is approximately the same for each country, the analysis indicates that those countries with pragmatic and sex positive government policies (France, Australia and especially the Netherlands) have better sexual health-related statistics than the one country with a primarily sexual abstinence-based policy (the United States). The findings suggest that abstinence-based policies do not necessarily result in improved sexual health outcomes for young people. Furthermore, liberal policies do not necessarily "promote" sexual activity and may serve to better equip young people with skills that enable sexual health sustaining behaviours. Although a causal relationship between school-based sex education policies and sexual health outcomes cannot be proved, the analysis does suggest that young people's reproductive and sexual health is best served when sex between young people is acknowledged, accepted and regulated rather than proscribed in all contexts outside marriage. (Contains 3 tables and 2 notes.)

Remote sensing images classification is the key technology for monitoring forest changes. Texture features have been demonstrated to have better effectiveness than spectral features in the improvement of the classification accuracy. The accuracy of extracting texture information by window-based method depends on the choice of the window size. Moreover, the size should ideally match the spatial scale of the object or class under consideration. However, most of the existing texture feature extraction methods are all based on a single window and do not adequately consider the scale of different objects. Our first proposition is to use a composite window for extracting texture features, which is a small window surrounded by a larger window. Our second proposition is to reinforce the performance of the trained ensemble classifier by training it using only the most important features. Considering the advantages of random forest classifier, such as fast training speed and few parameters, these features feed this classifier. Measures of feature importance are estimated along with the growth of the base classifiers, here decision trees. We aim to classify each pixel of the forest images disturbed by hurricanes and fires in three classes, damaged, not damaged, or unknown, as this could be used to compute time-dependent aggregates. In this study, two research areas—Nezer Forest in France and Blue Mountain Forest in Australia—are utilized to validating the effectiveness of the proposed method. Numerical simulations show increased performance and improved monitoring ability of forest disturbance when using these two propositions. When compared with the reference methods, the best increase of the overall accuracy obtained by the proposed algorithm is 4.77% and 2.96% on the Nezer forest data and Blue Mountain forest data, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines whether federal budget deficits influence the performance of stock markets in Australia and France. Information on the stock market efficiency hypothesis; Factors which influence the performance of the United States stock exchange; Details on the association between deficits and stock markets.

Background: Despite significant investments to support primary care internationally, income-based inequities in access to quality health care are present in many high-income countries. This study aims to determine whether low- and middle-income groups are more likely to report poor quality of primary care (PC) than high-income groups cross-nationally. Methods: The 2011 Commonwealth Fund Telephone Survey of Sicker Adults is a cross-sectional study across eleven countries. Respondents were recruited from randomly selected households. We used data from surveys conducted in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We identified all questions relating to primary care performance, and categorized these into five dimensions: 1) access to care, 2) coordination 3) patient-centered care, and 4) technical quality of care. We used logistic regression with low and middle-income as the comparison groups and high-income as the referent. Results: Fourteen thousand two hundred sixty-two respondents provided income data. Countries varied considerably in their extent of income disparity. Overall, 24.7% were categorized as low- and 13.9% as high-income. The odds of reporting poor access to care were higher for low- and middle-income than high-income respondents in Canada, New Zealand and the US. Similar results were found for Sweden and Norway on coordination; the opposite trend favoring the low- and middle-income groups was found in New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States. The odds of reporting poor patient-centered care were higher for low-income than high-income respondents in the Netherlands, Norway, and the US; in Australia, this was true for low- and middle-income respondents. On technical quality of care, the odds of reporting poor care were higher for the low- and middle-income comparisons in Canada and Norway; in Germany, the odds were higher for low-income respondents only. The odds of reporting poor technical quality of care were higher for high-income than low-income respondents in the Netherlands. Conclusion: Inequities in quality PC for low and middle income groups exist on at least one dimension in all countries, including some that in theory provide universal access. More research is needed to fully understand equity in the PC sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photographs of anesthesiologist Henry Newark Featonby and nurse Dorothy Ellena Duffy during their individual participation for an anaesthesia and surgery operation, treating casualties of the World War 1 are presented.

The article focuses on alcohol usage cost in France and drug usage in Asia as of March, 2004. The Guardian newspaper (9 January 2004) reports on the recommendation of a French health commission to drastically increase taxes on retail alcohol sales. A Workshop on Managing Methamphetamine Users and Opioid Dependence in Asia was held in Hanoi, Vietnam between 5-7 November, 2003. The meeting was convened by a research consortium from the University of Adelaide Australia, National Addiction Centre UK and the Integrated Substance Abuse Program from UCLA.