Books published by Nova Science Publishers Inc

Tobacco smoking is a major public health issue worldwide. Smoking causes more than a quarter of all cancer deaths, with nearly 80% of deaths from lung cancer, 80% of deaths from bronchitis and emphysema and almost one fifth of deaths from cardiovascular disease. The role of tobacco smoke in the development of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases is widely discussed in the chapters of this book. It is responsible for many preventable diseases, contributes to a large number of premature deaths and accounts for enormous economic costs. The chapters in this book review a variety of topics related to the sociodemographic characteristics of people consuming tobacco, tobacco product promotion and merchandising consequences of smoking on health, the studied mechanism of damage and the different interventions promoted for tobacco control. The mechanisms by which cigarette smoke affects health are diverse. Thousands of chemical components -- mainly toxins and carcinogens -- are part of tobacco smoke. These components could act through specific or nonspecific mechanisms in the development of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Common pathways include DNA damage, gene mutations, vasomotor dysfunction and oxidative stress, among others. The effects on health of first-hand and second-hand smoke exposure have been widely studied, and there is growing evidence regarding consequences of third-hand smoke exposure. The constituents, dynamic transformation and distribution of third-hand smoke are a fruitful area of study, as much as the quantification of its exposure. In this book, many useful indicators of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, ranging from surrogate indicators to direct measurements of the components that reflect dose are analysed. Advances in this field can provide useful information on the extent and effects of smoking, implementing and assessing tobacco control policies. Furthermore, the World Health Organization developed a framework for an international treaty that provides evidence-based recommendations for health promotion and tobacco control. After more than ten years of its implementation, the effectiveness of different strategies adopted worldwide is analysed and reflections on the new challenges of its implementation are presented. In this book, smoking is reviewed pertaining to the effects and implications for health, as well as the current challenges on implementation and evaluation of tobacco control interventions.

This book explores the psycho-social and cognitive development of Greek Cypriot University students. Taking Perrys theory of ethical and intellectual development as a point of reference, it first explores the way Perry was influenced by both Piaget and Kohlberg in relation to the formulation of stage theory, and then discusses the way Perrys work influenced more recent post Post-formal theories of cognitive development. It is argued that all stage theories depended on a particular structuralist reading of Piagetian theory that suppressed the references to the social psychological work of Piaget, and in particular the role of social interaction in cognitive development. This critique is articulated in two moves. First, the authors describe how critical voices internal to this literature like Riegels attempted to depart from what they conceived as an individualistic paradigm through the introduction of a dialectical framework, but then also point to the problems of these initial efforts. A major problem of these first efforts was the absence of a well developed socio-cultural framework for analysis based on Vygotskian theory. This problem is redressed through a discussion of the ways that major socio-cultural theorists understood human development in their more recent theories. The authors also revisit the social concept in Piagetian theory and its development through successive generations of research on social interaction and cognitive development. An integrative framework of human development as a social psychological process is then proposed that welds together a role for social relations on crucial cognitive outcomes like the attainment of formal operational thinking and deep learning. Additionally, psycho-social developmental outcomes like tolerance, commitment to future plans and self-determination are discussed as well. The results, beyond providing a description of university students state of development for the first time in the Cypriot context, also discuss the role of gender and socio-economic status in these students. Finally, the book is characterised by the attempt at the articulation of what Doise [1986] described as the four levels of analysis [intra-personal, interpersonal, intergroup/positional, social representations/ideological] by integrating in this process of articulation a role for social ethnic identity and ideological variables, thus offering a more complete socio-cultural model of university students development that manages to integrate social identity dynamics into existing development theories.