Narrowing Sex Differential in Life Expectancy in Canada and Austria: Comparative Analysis

Throughout most of the 20th century the sex gap in life expectancy in the industrialised countries widened in favour of women. By the early 1980s a reversal in the long-term pattern of this differential occurred in some countries, where it reached a maximum and thereafter has followed a declining trend. It is argued in this study that this development represents an emerging feature of the epidemiological profile of post-industrial societies. I look at Canada and Austria as two representative cases of this phenomenon over roughly three decades, between 1970 and 2001. Decomposition analysis shows that reduced sex differences in life expectancy in the 1980s and 1990s obtained mainly from the effects of reduced sex differences in mortality with respect to heart disease, and secondarily accidents and violence and lung cancer. Heart disease has played a larger role in Canada, whereas differential mortality from accidents and violence has been of greater importance in Austria. A further aspect of the investigation links sex differences in smoking prevalence to sex differences in life expectancy. A model is suggested that incorporates female labour force participation and a measure of gender role traditionalism in society as factors in female smoking prevalence. These variables are also postulated to correlate with change in the sex gap in life expectancy by a time lag of twenty years. It is found that sex differences in smoking prevalence in the past are related to sex difference in life expectancy in the present, and that female labour force participation and gender role traditionalism are also associated with the sex gap in expectation of life. The findings are interpreted in reference to epidemiological transition theory and the literature concerning change in the position of women and sex differences in mortality in high-income nations.

The Canadian Population Society at age thirty: a retrospective and prospective

This article concerns the history and the future of the Canadian Population Society. It is the Presidential Address of the CPS Annual Meeting, 2004

Mortality Differences Among The Native And Foreign-born Populations In Canada, 1951-1971

This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of mortality variations among the native and foreign-born components of Canada\u27s population encompassing the census periods 1950-52 to 1970-72. The study develops and tests four hypotheses. The life stresses explanation posits that differences in the odds of death are due to social, psychological and structural inequities experienced by a given sector of society such as immigrants or native Indians. The immigrant selection hypothesis predicts lower death rates for the foreign-born sector due to the nature of immigration which tends to be inherently selective. The assimilation hypothesis relates to the time factor in mortality differentials with particular reference to native and immigrant subpopulations. It assumes that as time progresses, differences in mortality will converge as a function of assimilation in socioeconomic levels, health and life style patterns of subgroups. The compositional explanation predicts that only age and sex composition account for subgroup differences in longevity.;After a series of data adjustments, due to the incompleteness of information on such variables as nativity and ethnicity, a logit regression analysis revealed that of the four hypotheses, the assimilation hypothesis received the least empirical support. The analysis in the first section of this thesis focuses on general mortality while in a subsequent section subgroup differences are examined on the basis of four broad categories of causes of death: neoplasms, cardiovascular, accident-violence and all other (residual) causes. In the former aspect, the supremacy of the British native-born and British foreign-born subpopulations in longevity is established. Relative to the remaining groups in the analysis they have experienced the lowest odds of dying. On the other hand, the most disadvantaged have been Native Indians, French Canadians and Other foreign-born, while Other European foreigners have been in an intermediate position in the probability of death. The relative positions are explored further and qualified when causes of death are examined. The thesis concludes that the mortality patterns generally conform to the empirically established rankings of the subpopulations on the socio-economic structure of Canadian society

Test of cold denaturation mechanism for proteins as a function of water's structure

In a recent paper [PRL 91, 138103 (2003)] a new mechanism to explain the cold denaturation of proteins, based on the loss of local low-density water structure, has been proposed. In the present paper this mechanism is tested by means of full atom numerical simulations. In good agreement with this proposal, cold denaturation resulting in the unfolded state was found at the High Density Liquid (HDL) state of water, at which the amount of open tetragonal hydrogen bonds decreases at cooling.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

A possible mechanism for cold denaturation of proteins at high pressure

We study cold denaturation of proteins at high pressures. Using multicanonical Monte Carlo simulations of a model protein in a water bath, we investigate the effect of water density fluctuations on protein stability. We find that above the pressure where water freezes to the dense ice phase ($\approx2$ kbar), the mechanism for cold denaturation with decreasing temperature is the loss of local low-density water structure. We find our results in agreement with data of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A.Comment: 4 pages for double column and single space. 3 figures Added references Changed conten

Observation of Exclusive Gamma Gamma Production in p pbar Collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We have observed exclusive \gamma\gamma production in proton-antiproton collisions at \sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV, using data from 1.11 \pm 0.07 fb^{-1} integrated luminosity taken by the Run II Collider Detector at Fermilab. We selected events with two electromagnetic showers, each with transverse energy E_T > 2.5 GeV and pseudorapidity |\eta| < 1.0, with no other particles detected in -7.4 < \eta < +7.4. The two showers have similar E_T and azimuthal angle separation \Delta\phi \sim \pi; 34 events have two charged particle tracks, consistent with the QED process p \bar{p} to p + e^+e^- + \bar{p} by two-photon exchange, while 43 events have no charged tracks. The number of these events that are exclusive \pi^0\pi^0 is consistent with zero and is < 15 at 95% C.L. The cross section for p\bar{p} to p+\gamma\gamma+\bar{p} with |\eta(\gamma)| < 1.0 and E_T(\gamma) > 2.5$ GeV is 2.48^{+0.40}_{-0.35}(stat)^{+0.40}_{-0.51}(syst) pb.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Combined search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a bb pair using the full CDF data set

We combine the results of searches for the standard model Higgs boson based on the full CDF Run II data set obtained from sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV p-pbar collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45/fb. The searches are conducted for Higgs bosons that are produced in association with a W or Z boson, have masses in the range 90-150 GeV/c^2, and decay into bb pairs. An excess of data is present that is inconsistent with the background prediction at the level of 2.5 standard deviations (the most significant local excess is 2.7 standard deviations).Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev. Lett (v2 contains minor updates based on comments from PRL