'I'd be unhealthy if nobody wanted me anymore': a sociological analysis of the relationship between ageing and health beliefs

This thesis is based upon life history and focus group interviews on the health beliefs of 26 older adults from Hull and surrounding areas. The research rationale is twofold. First, the area is relatively neglected. Second, it is posited that, whilst existing research reflects the idea that beliefs are constituted in the context of the relationship between the individual and society, its scope to explore issues of human agency is limited. The analytical framework adopted in this study is presented as a contribution towards redressing this imbalance by adopting a life course approach, thus helping to transcend the notion that agency and structure are separable. Interviewee agency is revealed in the way many draw upon a range of competing texts and narratives, much like books in a library, within biographical context, as competent social actors to create their own explanatory frameworks. The main finding is that imagined community (Anderson 1983) is the most common vocabulary of motive (Mills 1940) in the constitution of beliefs. Motivation, it is argued, is more a product of individuals drawing upon repertories of explanations in popular values and beliefs, rather than something which is innate and set apart from the social world. The motive of community appears most significant because beliefs tended to reflect a sense of an essential and moral self and a strong orientation towards reciprocal social relationships. The motive of community is, in large part, considered as imagined because it was often not possible to interact with other community members who included dead relatives, friends, famous and powerful people, and fictional characters from literature and TV. It is concluded that as well as reflecting the biographical contexts of interviewees, imagined community is made necessary by a society which subordinates. and excludes older adults

'I'd be unhealthy if nobody wanted me anymore': a sociological analysis of the relationship between ageing and health beliefs

This thesis is based upon life history and focus group interviews on the health beliefs of 26 older adults from Hull and surrounding areas. The research rationale is twofold. First, the area is relatively neglected. Second, it is posited that, whilst existing research reflects the idea that beliefs are constituted in the context of the relationship between the individual and society, its scope to explore issues of human agency is limited. The analytical framework adopted in this study is presented as a contribution towards redressing this imbalance by adopting a life course approach, thus helping to transcend the notion that agency and structure are separable. Interviewee agency is revealed in the way many draw upon a range of competing texts and narratives, much like books in a library, within biographical context, as competent social actors to create their own explanatory frameworks. The main finding is that imagined community (Anderson 1983) is the most common vocabulary of motive (Mills 1940) in the constitution of beliefs. Motivation, it is argued, is more a product of individuals drawing upon repertories of explanations in popular values and beliefs, rather than something which is innate and set apart from the social world. The motive of community appears most significant because beliefs tended to reflect a sense of an essential and moral self and a strong orientation towards reciprocal social relationships. The motive of community is, in large part, considered as imagined because it was often not possible to interact with other community members who included dead relatives, friends, famous and powerful people, and fictional characters from literature and TV. It is concluded that as well as reflecting the biographical contexts of interviewees, imagined community is made necessary by a society which subordinates. and excludes older adults

Optical properties of CO2 ice and CO2 snow from ultraviolet to infrared: Application to frost deposits and clouds on Mars

Researchers found that it is possible to grow large clear samples of CO2 ice at Mars-like temperatures of 150-170K if a temperature controlled refrigerator is connected to an isolated two-phase pure CO2 system. They designed a chamber for transmission measurements whose optical path between the 13mm diameter window is adjustable from 1.6mm to 107mm. This will allow measurements of linear absorption down to less than 0.01 cm (exp -1). A preliminary transmission spectrum of a thick sample of CO2 ice in the near infrared was obtained. Once revised optical constants have been determined as a function of wavelength and temperature, they can be applied to spectral reflectance/emissivity models for CO2 snow surfaces, both pure and contaminated with dust and water ice, using previously established approaches. It will be useful, also, to develop an infrared scattering-emission cloud radiance model (especially as viewed from near the limb) in order to develop a strategy for the identification of CO2 cloud layers by the atmospheric infrared radiometer instrument on the Mars Observer

NDL: A Domain-Specific Language for Device Drivers

Device drivers are difficult to write and error-prone. They are usually written in C, a fairly low-level language with minimal type safety and little support for device semantics. As a result, they have become a major source of instability in operating system code. This paper presents NDL, a language for device drivers. NDL provides high-level abstractions of device resources and constructs tailored to describing common device driver operations. We show that NDL allows for the coding of a semantically correct driver with a code size reduction of more than 50% and a minimal impact on performance

Distribution of contaminants in the environment and wildlife habitat use: a case study with lead and waterfowl on the Upper Texas Coast

The magnitude and distribution of lead contamination remain unknown in wetland systems. Anthropogenic deposition of lead may be contributing to negative population-level effects in waterfowl and other organisms that depend on dynamic wetland habitats, particularly if they are unable to detect and differentiate levels of environmental contamination by lead. Detection of lead and behavioral response to elevated lead levels by waterfowl is poorly understood, but necessary to characterize the risk of lead-contaminated habitats. We measured the relationship between lead contamination of wetland soils and habitat use by mottled ducks (Anas fulvigula) on the Upper Texas Coast, USA. Mottled ducks have historically experienced disproportionate negative effects from lead exposure, and exhibit a unique nonmigratory life history that increases risk of exposure when inhabiting contaminated areas. We used spatial interpolation to estimate lead in wetland soils of the Texas Chenier Plain National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Soil lead levels varied across the refuge complex (0.01–1085.51 ppm), but greater lead concentrations frequently corresponded to areas with high densities of transmittered mottled ducks. We used soil lead concentration data and MaxENT species distribution models to quantify relationships among various habitat factors and locations of mottled ducks. Use of habitats with greater lead concentration increased during years of a major disturbance. Because mottled ducks use habitats with high concentrations of lead during periods of stress, have greater risk of exposure following major disturbance to the coastal marsh system, and no innate mechanism for avoiding the threat of lead exposure, we suggest the potential presence of an ecological trap of quality habitat that warrants further quantification at a population scale for mottled ducks