Family planning and reproductive health: the link to environmental preservation

This paper seeks to refocus the attention of environmentalists on the importance of population trends to environmental sustainability and identifies prevention of unintended pregnancy as potential common ground for environmentalists and family planning advocates. The health and other welfare benefits of preventing unintended pregnancy are felt most keenly by individual women, men, and their families. At the same time, however, preventing unwanted pregnancies usually results in smaller family size, an important factor in slowing population growth and, as a result, a source of broader benefits—including environmental benefits—to society.     

What probability should a jury address?

Probability of guilt is not the criterion on which a verdict in a criminal trial should be based, says Tony Gardner-Medwin . The courts, quite sensibly, do not even allow access to some of the background evidence on which a proper assessment of this probability should be made. He argues that a more satisfactory criterion is the probability, or degree of belief, that the evidence could have arisen without guilt.     

K–Player Additive Extension of Two-Player games with an Application to the Borda Electoral Competition Game

In this note we introduce the notion of K–player additive extension of a symmetric two-player game and prove a result relating the equilibria in mixed strategies in the two games. Then we apply the result to the Borda electoral competition game.     

After the War Comes Peace? An Examination of the Impact of the Northern Ireland Conflict on Young People

When the conflict in Northern Ireland erupted over 30 years ago many voiced concern at the implications for children and young people. In the early years many looked to U.S. experience in order to frame questions, problems, and solutions. This article examines the strands of psychological research that developed and their link to the articles in the present collection. The article critiques the consensus among psychologists in the 1970s and 1980s that young people coped reasonably well in difficult circumstances. One theme of the current collection is to highlight the difficulties of dealing with the legacies of the past thirty years and hence the constraints facing the attempt to establish a peaceful and settled society.     

The Macroeconomics of Doubling Aid to Africa and the Centrality of the Supply Side

The proposed doubling of aid to Africa by 2010 is a less simple proposition, from a recipient point of view, than is commonly supposed. This article argues that it is difficult to manage large and rapidly increasing aid inflows in ways which do not disadvantage producers of tradeable goods, and the private sector generally. This difficulty can be averted if conscious efforts are made to offset it and to stimulate positive responses from the supply side. Whether such responses prevail over the shorter‐term management difficulties depends on the efficacy of state actions — and of aid — to bolster the supply side. The outcome is likely to be mixed, depending on country circumstances.     

Appreciative Inquiry and Public Dialogue: An Approach to Community Change

This paper will demonstrate the contribution of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to whole system change in the public and non-profit sectors through elucidation of the theory, method, and examples of the successful application of this approach. Developed in the mid 1980s by David Cooperrider and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University, AI begins with the discovery of the highest achievements, core values, and aspirations embedded in all human systems. It is a methodology that begins a dialogue between individuals, expands to groups and builds to embrace and declare community wide intentions and actions. The theory of social constructionism informs this work asserting that individuals in relationship with one another can and will co-create an effective future when a positive inquiry into the heart and soul of a system, its greatest accomplishments and deepest values, generates new meaning and inspires new possibilities. Deceptively simple, the system is based on a reversal of the expectations, practices, and limitations found in traditional problem solving methodologies and thus represents a significant shift in attitude and language.     

Future Plans of Iraqi Physicians in Jordan: Predictors of Migration

The continuing violence in Iraq has led to further damage to the health sector in a country already affected by sanctions, war and harsh rule. As a consequence some doctors have been killed and others have migrated, both within Iraq and from Iraq to neighbouring countries. In this article we report patterns of migration of Iraqi physicians, identify perceived future plans, and assess factors behind physicians' decisions. Respondent driven sampling in 2007 was used to interview 401 Iraqi medical doctors who migrated to Jordan after the 2003 invasion of Iraq The main outcome measure for this study was the future plans of physicians, which included permanently residing outside Iraq or returning to Iraq. Physicians who planned to return to Iraq differed from those who planned to reside permanently outside Iraq in the following factors: age categories (relative odds comparing age 50 plus to those under 30 = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.21–0.97), years spent outside of Iraq (RO = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.28–3.21), no difficulties in Jordan (RO = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.31–0.93), and household members residing in Iraq (RO = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.05 – 1.31). Many doctors who fled Iraq after the 2003 invasion do not plan to return, which must be considered in future training strategies for the Iraqi health sector.