Daily changes in the logarithm of stock market index from 1997 to 2004 are analyzed for countries from three subgroups of economies classified by the International Monetary Fund (IMF): developing Asian countries, newly industrialized Asian economies and major advanced economies. For all markets, the daily changes are well fitted by a non-Gaussian stable probability density. The time evolution o...

In industrialized countries, tuberculosis (TB) cases are concentrated among immigrants and driven by reactivation of imported latent TB infection (LTBI). We examined mechanisms used to screen immigrants for TB and LTBI by sending an anonymous, 18-point questionnaire to 31 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Twenty-nine (93.5%) of 31 responded; 25 (86....

Hepatitis E is an infectious viral disease with clinical and morphological features of acute hepatitis. The disease represents an important public health problem in developing countries, where it is often related to outbreaks mainly associated with consumption of contaminated water. During recent years, an increasing number of sporadic cases have also been described in industrialized countries....

The report of the Nutrition Task Force’s Low Income Project Team (LIFT) was published in early 1996. The report, Low Income, Food, Nutrition and Health: Strategies for Improvement (Department of Health, 1996), contains far-ranging recommendations, as discussed by Nelson (1997). The principal recommendations were: to develop a coordinated national approach on food and low income, to establish lo...

In the industrialized countries, there has been much discussion on the short- and long-range financing problems of their social security programs. Prolonged unfavorable economic conditions triggered by the oil price shocks of the 1970's and negative demographic trends have caused many of these countries to adapt their social security programs in an effort to maintain financial stability. System...