Social Aspects of Developing and Sustaining Voluntarily Reduced Consumption Activity in New York City

This dissertation examines the social aspects of voluntarily reduced consumption activity using the principles of cultural historical activity theory. Voluntarily buying less is viewed as ongoing interactive social process that is initiated and sustained as individuals engage with their surroundings. Data was collected from 320 online survey respondents living in the New York City Metro area, followed by a purposeful sampling of 24 participants for in-person, follow up interviews. Interviews revealed the social contextual influences on initiating voluntarily reduced consumption activity. For example, family experiences, personal life changes, and historical events played a role in individuals\u27 choice to voluntarily buy less. Individuals who choose to voluntarily reduce how much they buy experience both social supports and barriers to their activity. Many interview respondents treated voluntarily buying less as a sensitive topic of conversation, not to be openly discussed with others who did not hold the same opinions or values. Those participants adopted techniques to determine who the topic could be broached with while avoiding conflict with those who it may cause problems. Having social support and resources made a noteworthy difference in the viability of adopting many practices, such as reducing the amount of gifts exchanged at the holidays or acquiring used goods instead of buying something new. Social pressure to consume or support for buying less changed based upon specific situations, environments, and individuals with whom the respondent was interacting. Significant others were an important source of support for voluntarily buying less through actions such as sharing responsibility, reinforcing practices or providing skills. Having children presented particular challenges to buying less, as well as an opportunity to pass along one\u27s values and practices. Family and friends were often a resource for skills and information for practices including repairing goods or doing things for oneself. However, friendships that were not supportive were a particular sore spot for some interview participants. Making compromises, not talking about their values and practices, or reducing the amount of time they spent with their friends was a source of strain, anger, and feelings of social isolation. While a few developed new friendships that supported their buying less values, others enacted conflict-reducing practices in order to negotiate social interactions with their friends. Interview participants\u27 choice of employment influenced how much pressure they felt to maintain social norms and communicate status through purchasing of goods such as clothing and technology. The impact of living in New York City was very noticeable when interview participants talked about the support they received from their participation in local social groups, organizations, and communities. Some interview respondents felt their voluntarily reduced consumption activity may influence others. However, not all participants were motivated by the thought that their voluntarily reduced consumption activity was making an impact on a larger scale. A few even feel that what they are doing may have a negative impact on others

Plant capitalism and company science: the Indian career of Nathaniel Wallich

The career of the Danish-born botanist Nathaniel Wallich, superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden from 1815 to 1846, illustrates the complex nature of botanical science under the East India Company and shows how the plant life of South Asia was used as a capital resource both in the service of the Company's economic interests and for Wallich's own professional advancement and international reputation. Rather than seeing him as a pioneer of modern forest conservation or an innovative botanist, Wallich's attachment to the ideology of ‘improvement’ and the Company's material needs better explain his longevity as superintendent of the Calcutta garden. Although aspects of Wallich's career and botanical works show the importance of circulation between Europe and India, more significant was the hierarchy of knowledge in which indigenous plant lore and illustrative skill were subordinated to Western science and in which colonial science frequently lagged behind that of the metropolis

When “long-term memory” no longer means “forever”: analysis of accelerated long-term forgetting in a patient with temporal lobe epilepsy

Classical amnesia involves a difficulty in transferring information to long-term memory and can be detected with standard clinical tests. However, there are some patients who pass these tests but nonetheless show longer-term memory impairments. A case study is presented of a patient, RY, with temporal lobe epilepsy, who exhibited such a profile of “accelerated long-term forgetting”. To investigate the effect of recalling information on later retention, recall and recognition for pairs of novel stories were tested at five intervals ranging from 30 min to 4 weeks; we also manipulated whether or not recall and recognition were repeatedly tested for stories. Two studies are reported, one before RY commenced treatment with anticonvulsant medication, and one following 6 months of treatment. Very similar memory profiles were observed in both settings. Against a background of above average cognitive function, results showed that RY's free recall, although initially average or above, was significantly impaired at extended delays (within 24 h) for non-repeatedly recalled episodic information. However, this contrasted with normal performance for information that had been repeatedly recalled. An unresolved issue in the field is the impact of anticonvulsant medication on alleviating long-term forgetting, and the current study shows that anticonvulsant medication can have negligible beneficial effects in improving the rate of long-term forgetting in this type of patient. In addition, our study highlights the possible protective effect of active review of recent episodic memories

Religious change, social conflict and legal competition: the emergence of Christian personal law in colonial India

Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010One of the most contentious political issues in postcolonial India is the unfulfilled project of a ‘uniform civil code’ which would override the existing ‘personal laws’ or religion-based laws of domestic relations, inheritance and religious institutions. If the personal laws are admitted to be preserved (if somewhat distorted) remnants of ‘religious laws’, then the legitimacy of state intervention is called into question, especially since the Indian state claims to be secular. This paper, by discussing the history of the lesser-known Christian personal law, demonstrates that this conundrum is of considerable heritage. From the earliest days of British imperial rule in India, the quest to establish a universal body of law conflicted with other legal principles which upheld difference: that of religion, as well as race. It was the historical role of Indian Christians to occasion legal dilemmas regarding the jurisdictions of British and ‘native’ law, and concurrently about the identity of people subject to those different laws. In trying to discover who the Indian Christians were, and what laws ought to apply to them, British judges had perforce to reflect on who the ‘British’ were, whilst also dealing with conflicting collective claims made by Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, and Christians themselves about their own identity and religious rights. The Indian Christian personal law was an unintended by-product of this process, a finding which throws light both on the dynamics of colonial legislation, and on the essentially modern nature of Indian personal laws

Expression of the RERG Gene is Gender-Dependent in Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Regulated by Histone Deacetyltransferases

Ras-related, estrogen-regulated, and growth-inhibitory gene (RERG) is a novel gene that was first reported in breast cancer. However, the functions of RERG are largely unknown in other tumor types. In this study, RERG expression was analyzed in hepatocellular carcinomas of human patients using reverse transcriptase PCR analysis. In addition, the possible regulation of RERG expression by histone deacetyltransferases (HDACs) was studied in several cell lines. Interestingly, the expression of RERG gene was increased in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) of male patients (57.9%) but decreased in HCC of females (87.5%) comparison with paired peri-tumoral tissues. Moreover, RERG gene expression was increased in murine hepatoma Hepa1-6 cells, human breast tumor MDA-MB-231 cells, and mouse normal fibroblast NIH3T3 cells after treated by HDAC inhibitor, trichostatin A. Our results suggest that RERG may function in a gender-dependent manner in hepatic tumorigenesis and that the expression of this gene may be regulated by an HDAC-related signaling pathway

Scripts of Sexual Desire and Danger in US and Dutch Teen Girl Magazines: A Cross-National Content Analysis

The aim of this comparative quantitative content analysis was to investigate how US and Dutch teen girl magazines cover sexual desire (i.e., sexual wanting, and pleasure) and sexual danger (i.e., sexual risk, and negative physical/health consequences of sex). Relying on the sexual scripts framework and Hofstede’s cultural dimension of masculinity/femininity, we examined (a) how the coverage varied for boys and girls, (b) how it differed between the United States and the Netherlands, and (c) how gender differences varied by country. The sample comprised 627 sex-related feature stories from all 2006–2008 issues of three US (i.e., Seventeen, CosmoGirl! United States edition, and Teen) and three Dutch teen girl magazines (i.e., Fancy, CosmoGirl! Netherlands edition, and Girlz!). Overall, sexual wanting occurred more frequently in the US magazines than in the Dutch magazines. In the US coverage, boys’ sexual wanting received more attention than girls’ sexual wanting, whereas in the Dutch coverage sexual wanting was depicted equally often for boys and girls. The depiction of sexual pleasure did not vary by gender in either country, but was generally more visible in the Dutch magazines than in the US magazines. Sexual risks and the negative consequences of sex were associated with girls more than with boys, and were primarily depicted in the US magazines rather than in the Dutch magazines

VIII. Reply to Dr. K elly's letter ( see our last number ) on his supposed discovery of an error in the Nautical Almanac

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XLVIII. Account of the meteor seen on the evening of Sunday, November 13 th. 1803; with some observations on the best means of ascertaining the altitude, bearing, magnitude, distance, and velocity of such phenomena

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