Terrorism's Implications for Preemption and Legislation: A Futurist Perspective
Abstract : The author explored how terrorism may manifest itself as a threat to America in the coming years and identified corollary implications for two concerns likely to be center stage: preemption and legislation. Beginning with an environmental scan the author determined there were overarching themes that could be impactors such as increased lethality employment of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) leveraging technology and the possibility of cooperation between terrorist organizations and other actors with common interests and enemy. Based on these themes the author then identified two impactors the likelihood of WMD employment and technology to construct a futurist scenario forecast model. As a result of the model the author proceeded to construct a possible scenario and story reflecting results. Finally as a result of the scenario outcome and story the author explored strategic policy implications and considerations regarding preemption and legislation.
Beyond the Tea Leaves
No one can predict the future. The study of futures research, however, offers insights that may assist in foreseeing certain trends that will affect future events. This article employs a modified version of one futures research methodology, cross-impact analysis, to study the interactions of four trends that will likely influence the future of international terrorism: the expanded use of the Internet on the international level, the effects of emerging ethnic and religious sensibilities, the growing economic gap between the rich and the poor, and the continued role of the United States as the world's predominant superpower.
Study on essential drug use status and its influencing factors among cerebral infarction inpatients in county level hospitals of Anhui Province, China
Background and purpose Drug costs is one of the main components of hospitalization expenditure for cerebral infarction inpatients. In China, the National Essential Medicine System (NEMS) was created to relieve the heavy drug-cost burden for patients. The objective of this study was to investigate essential drug-use status and its influencing factors among cerebral infarction inpatients in county-level hospitals of Anhui province, China. Methods Three county-level hospitals were selected through a multi-stage cluster random sampling method. The hospitalization cost data of cerebral infarction inpatients in the three hospitals were extracted from the Anhui provincial information platform of the New Rural Cooperative Insurance System (NCMS), and whether the proportion of essential drug cost in the total drug cost reached the median value of 33.05% which was set as the evaluation index for essential drug-use status. Questionnaires for hospitals and physicians were designed and given to them to assess influencing factors. Results We retrieved the cost data of 2,189 inpatients from the NCMS platform and investigated 51 corresponding physicians in total. The drug costs accounted for 52.6% of the total hospitalization cost, and essential drug costs alone accounted for 37.0% of the total drug costs. The essential drug-cost proportion was high among physicians with a higher recognition degree on NEMS, older age, lower final academic degree, longer work experience and lower professional title. Married physicians and those with tight organizational affiliation also prescribed more essential drugs. Conclusions Increasing the proportion of essential drugs was an effective way to reduce the disease burden for cerebral infarction patients. Perfecting the NEMS, increasing government investment, reinforcing education and propaganda, and formulating relevant incentive and restrictive mechanisms were all effective ways to promote and increase the number of essential drug prescriptions written by physicians.