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The purpose of this case report is to report the clinical experience of the use of gabapentin in the management of problem behaviors in a person with autism spectrum disorder and comorbid intellectual disability. Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a high prevalence of intellectual disability. Challenging behaviors in autism spectrum disorder are very common. In recent years, the hypothesis that the symptoms of autism derive from a deficiency of the inhibitory neurotransmission of gamma-aminobutyric acid is gaining considerable weight.

Exploring behavioral symptoms improvement in an adult man with ASD and severe intellectual disability taking gabapentin.

The rating scales used show improvement in challenging behaviors and aggressions. No side effects were observed.

Currently, there are no authorized drugs for the treatment of the symptomatic features of autism spectrum disorder, but drugs are used for comorbid psychopathological aspects. The authors want to speculate on a hypothetical function of gabapentin in remodeling the expression of alpha-2-delta subunits in people with autism and the processing of neural information.

This paper aims to provide a study of a structured approach at map cataloguing training by a team of cataloguers at the Alma Jordan Library of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

The methodology is a case study which underscores the value of the experiences of cataloguers at training themselves in a particular cartographic format.

The collaborative efforts of the cataloguers facilitated the further development of institutional expertise and provided the required skills set for increasing bibliographic access in a specialised format.

The paper brings to bear the uniqueness of the cataloguing of Caribbean cartographic materials in a team-teaching setting which serves as a model for other academic libraries and information centres.

Limited attention has been given to the study of social marketing at the graduate level. Such a study not only reveals research interests and trends, but also provides insights into the level of academic evolution or maturity of the social marketing field. This paper aims to examine social marketing as the subject of master’s theses.

A search strategy found 266 social marketing-focused master’s theses completed from 1971 to 2015. These theses were analysed by host countries, institutions, disciplinary contexts and degree programmes for which they were submitted.

Only four theses were submitted from 1971-1980 and eight completed in 1981-1990. The number of theses increased to 35 in 1991-2000, 118 between 2001 and 2010 and 101 in the past five years (2011-2015). The USA was the leading producer of social marketing master’s theses, followed by Canada, Sweden, China, South Africa, the UK and Kenya. A majority of theses were housed in the disciplines of business, health and communication, and none of them was submitted for a Master of Social Marketing degree.

This is the first study that investigates master’s theses with an exclusive focus on social marketing. Implications for the evolution, learning and teaching of social marketing are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether good governance across countries, utilising the Rule of Law indicator of the Worldwide Governance Indicators, is associated with economic growth, measured in terms of real GDP. It is to be noted that in this paper both variables are measured in terms of changes, comparing like with like. It is hypothesised that a country with a high level of economic development and a high level of good governance (typically an economically advanced country) tends to find it more difficult to improve these two variables, when compared to a country with lower levels GDP per capita and good governance (typically an economically backward country). This assumption is termed the “diminishing marginal governance effect”.

The paper tests the hypothesis that governance improvements are related to real GDP growth, using the panel data regression approach. In this way both variables are measured in terms of changes, comparing like with like. Relevant control variables are utilised to impose the ceteris paribus condition.

The paper finds that improvements in good governance are statistically and significantly related to economic growth. This confirms the hypothesised “diminishing marginal governance effect” explained above.

The main research limitation of this paper is that measuring changes in the “Rule of Law” indicator over time may be subject to errors given that the “Rule of Law” score of each year is an average value with related standard deviations, and the latter vary from one year to another and from one country to another.

The major practical implication of this paper is that good governance matters for economic growth and that in order to produce evidence for this the governance score must be measured in terms of changes and not in terms of levels. Another implication is that equations that compare economic growth with levels of governance are misspecified as they would not be comparing like with like.

There are various beneficial social implications associated with good governance which is considered as a major pillar for orderly social relationships. Economic growth also has important social implications as it means, if properly distributed, improvements in material well-being of the population.

The originality of this paper is that it measures governance in terms of changes and not of levels. Studies on the relationship between governance and economic growth that measure governance in terms of levels generally do not find a positive relationship between the two variables. In using changes in both governance and real GDP, this paper confirms the “diminishing marginal effect of governance”, hypothesis.

The empirical analysis dealt in this paper emphasizes on the impact of military expenditures on out of pocket (OOP) healthcare payments. A sizeable body of defence economics literature has investigated the trade-off between military and public health expenditure, by testing the crowding-out or growth-stimulating hypothesis; does military expenditure scaling up crowd-out or promote governmental resources for social and welfare programs, including also state health financing?

In this study, panel data from 2000 to 2018 for 129 countries is used to examine the impact of military expenditure on OOP healthcare payments. The dataset of countries is categorized into four income-groups based on World Bank's income-group classification. Dynamic panel data methodology is applied to meet study objectives.

The findings of this study indicate that military expenditure positively affects OOP payments in all the selected groups of countries, strongly supporting in this way the crowding-out hypothesis whereby increased military expenditure reduces the public financing on health. Study econometric results are robust since different and alternative changes in specifications and samples are applied in our analysis.

Under the economic downturn backdrop for several economies in the previous decade and on the foreground of a potential limited governmental fiscal space related to the Covid-19 pandemic adverse economic effects, this study provides evidence that policy-makers have to adjust their government policy initiatives and prioritize Universal Health Coverage objectives. Consequently, the findings of this study reflect the necessity of governments as far as possible to moderate military expenditures and increase public financing on health in order to strengthen health care systems efficiency against households OOP spending for necessary healthcare utilization.

Despite the fact that a sizeable body of defence economics literature has extensively examined the impact of military spending on total and public health expenditures, nevertheless to the best of our knowledge there is no empirical evidence of any direct effect of national defence spending on the main private financing component of health systems globally; the OOP healthcare payments.