The Alcohol Environment Protocol: A new tool for alcohol policy.

Introduction And Aim: To report data on the implementation of alcohol policies regarding availability and marketing, and drink driving, along with ratings of enforcement from two small high-income to three high-middle income countries, and one low-middle income country.

Method: This study uses the Alcohol Environment Protocol, an International Alcohol Control study research tool, which documents the alcohol policy environment by standardised collection of data from administrative sources, observational studies and interviews with key informants to allow for cross-country comparison and change over time.

Results: All countries showed adoption to varying extents of key effective policy approaches outlined in the World Health Organization Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol (2010).

How the alcohol industry relies on harmful use of alcohol and works to protect its profits.

The alcohol industry have attempted to position themselves as collaborators in alcohol policy making as a way of influencing policies away from a focus on the drivers of the harmful use of alcohol (marketing, over availability and affordability). Their framings of alcohol consumption and harms allow them to argue for ineffective measures, largely targeting heavier consumers, and against population wide measures as the latter will affect moderate drinkers. The goal of their public relations organisations is to 'promote responsible drinking'.

Transfer of stimulus control from a TFT to CRT screen.

The use of television and computer screens for presenting stimuli to animals is increasing as it is non-invasive and can provide precise control over stimuli. Past studies have used cathode ray tube (CRT) screens; however, there is some evidence that these give different results to non-flickering thin film transistor (TFT) screens. Hens' critical flicker fusion frequency ranges between 80 and 90 Hz--above standard CRT screens.

A comparison of two methods for assessing critical flicker fusion frequency in hens.

This paper compared two general methods for assessing critical fusion frequency in hens (gallus gallus domesticus). The first method was a conditional discrimination procedure with the stimuli presented successively. The second was a two-alternative forced-choice procedure with the stimuli presented simultaneously.