Migrants and modernisation : a study of change in Lao society

This thesis focusses on the interaction between rural-to-urban migration on the one hand, and 'modernisation' on the other, in the fields of economic, political and social relations in Lao society.The introduction presents the concepts and research methods used and the design of the thesis. It emphasises the aim of the work, to describe, through history, aspects of the development of various economic political and social relations in rural and urban Laos. In this context particular emphasis is given to the relationship between ideologies, expectations and practice. Myth and ritual are seen as areas of communication which legitimise an institutionalised order of inequality.Following a general historical and geographical background (Chapte 2), a critical review of the existing literature on Lao society (Chapter 3) and an introduction to the two research villages, one rural and one urban (Chapter 4), the next three chapters form the core of the thesis, offering a detailed analysis of, successively, economic, political and social relations within the rural and urban villages under the influence of modernisation.The section on the rural economy describes its historical development and analyses the influence of traditional ideologies on modern economic practice. The section on the urban economy shows how the economies of modern Lao towns developed as a result of factors external to Laos itself, while individual participants still maintain contact with the rural economic sector.In the study of political relations (Chapter 6) the importance of competing ideologies and the complexity of the relationship between ideals and practice become most clearly evident. The close link between town, state and monarchy on the one hand, is contrasted with the political ideology of the village which grows out of the villagers' primary concern to define and control their relationships with natural forces. The study of rural and urban social relations (Chapter 7) shows, through examples of a few key social activities, how the influence of modem practice has affected the development of social ideals, as well as behaviour.The concluding chapter brings together the analysis regarding the interrelationship between migration and modernisation, and shows how the traditional economic and social constraints governing 'appropriate' and prestige-giving redistribution of 'wealth', which had emphasised the principle of cooperation, have given way under the influence of 'modernisation , to economic motivations which emphasise competition. In modern Laos the ways in which people talk or think about their society derive to an important degree from a corpus of traditional ideology based on ritual communications. The ways in which they act within their society however, change in response to imported influences

Learning By Living: Empathy Learned Through An Extended Medical Education Immersion Project

Introduction: Medical student training and experiences in nursing homes are often viewed as negative; however, long-term care services represent a growing aspect of our medical system that receives little attention in medical education. The University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine Learning by Living Nursing Home Immersion Project accelerates students learning about older adult care and the importance of empathy. Methods: Learning by Living applies qualitative ethnographic/autobiographic research methods to answer the question: “What is it like for me to live the life of an older adult nursing home resident?” Two first year medical students (female, 25 y/o & male, 27 y/o) were “admitted” into two different nursing homes for 11 days each. The students were wheelchair reliant from their assigned diagnoses of dominant-side paralysis secondary to stroke and aspiration pneumonia; requiring standard procedures of care experienced by older adults residents with similar conditions. Data were collected in the form of journal notes for pre-fieldwork, fieldwork, and post-fieldwork and included subjective and objective reporting of observations, experiences, and resident encounters. Analyses included journal review and thematic categorization and coding through content analysis. Results: Four themes of significance intersected for the two medical students: 1) control; 2) quality of life; 3) communication; and 4) isolation. Being immersed in nursing home life provided the students with firsthand experiences of loss and challenges faced by nursing home residents. This aided students’ learning about empathy and communication as key components of providing health care. Conclusion: This experience imparted knowledge to the medical students’ about aging, dignity, and the importance of making meaningful connections in order to thrive. These insights provided a gateway to establish a model of patient-centered care that is comprehensive and empathic for the older adult population

Recurrent mild cerebral ischemia: enhanced brain injury following acute compared to subacute recurrence in the rat

Additional file 3. Histological assessments for Figure 3. Shown are the data for each animal at either 1d or 3d post a single mild ischemic insult. The H&E scores, the ED1 counts and the GFAP scores are presented

From fly-by-wire to drive-by-wire: Safety implications of automation in vehicles

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the current trend in automobile engineering toward automation of many of the functions previously performed by the driver. Working on the assumption that automation in aviation represents the basic model for driver automation, the costs and benefits of automation in aviation are explored as a means of establishing where automation of drivers' tasks are likely to yield benefits. It is concluded that there are areas where automation can provide benefits to the driver, but there are other areas where this is unlikely to be the case. Automation per se does not guarantee success, and therefore it becomes vital to involve Human Factors into design to identify where automation of driver functions can be allocated with a beneficial outcome for driving performance

Accuracy Evaluation of an Optical Lattice Clock with Bosonic Atoms

We report the first accuracy evaluation of an optical lattice clock based on the 1S0 - 3P0 transition of an alkaline earth boson, namely 88Sr atoms. This transition has been enabled using a static coupling magnetic field. The clock frequency is determined to be 429 228 066 418 009(32) Hz. The isotopic shift between 87Sr and 88Sr is 62 188 135 Hz with fractional uncertainty 5.10^{-7}. We discuss the conditions necessary to reach a clock accuracy of 10^{-17} or less using this scheme.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, uses ol.sty fil

Environmental drivers of Culicoides phenology: how important is species-specific variation when determining disease policy?

Since 2006, arboviruses transmitted by Culicoides biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) have caused significant disruption to ruminant production in northern Europe. The most serious incursions involved strains of bluetongue virus (BTV), which cause bluetongue (BT) disease. To control spread of BTV, movement of susceptible livestock is restricted with economic and animal welfare impacts. The timing of BTV transmission in temperate regions is partly determined by the seasonal presence of adult Culicoides females. Legislative measures therefore allow for the relaxation of ruminant movement restrictions during winter, when nightly light-suction trap catches of Culicoides fall below a threshold (the ‘seasonally vector free period’: SVFP). We analysed five years of time-series surveillance data from light-suction trapping in the UK to investigate whether significant inter-specific and yearly variation in adult phenology exists, and whether the SVFP is predictable from environmental factors. Because female vector Culicoides are not easily morphologically separated, inter-specific comparisons in phenology were drawn from male populations. We demonstrate significant inter-specific differences in Culicoides adult phenology with the season of Culicoides scoticus approximately eight weeks shorter than Culicoides obsoletus. Species-specific differences in the length of the SVFP were related to host density and local variation in landscape habitat. When the Avaritia Culicoides females were modelled as a group (as utilised in the SFVP), we were unable to detect links between environmental drivers and phenological metrics. We conclude that the current treatment of Avaritia Culicoides as a single group inhibits understanding of environmentally-driven spatial variation in species phenology and hinders the development of models for predicting the SVFP from environmental factors. Culicoides surveillance methods should be adapted to focus on concentrated assessments of species-specific abundance during the start and end of seasonal activity in temperate regions to facilitate refinement of ruminant movement restrictions thereby reducing the impact of Culicoides-borne arboviruses

BMQ

BMQ: Boston Medical Quarterly was published from 1950-1966 by the Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals