Renegotiating Identity and Relationships: Men and women’s adjustments to retirement

Retirement is frequently a period of change, when the roles and relationships associated with individuals’ previous labour market positionings are transformed. It is also a time when personal relationships, including the marital relationship and relationships with friends and family, come under increased scrutiny and may be realigned. Many studies of adjustment to retirement focus primarily on individual motivation; by contrast, this paper seeks to examine the structure of resources within which such decisions are framed. The paper examines the contribution that gender roles and identities make to the overall configuration of resources available to particular individuals. It draws upon qualitative research conducted with older people in four contrasting parts of the UK, looking at the combination of labour market and non-labour market activities they are involved in prior to reaching state retirement age, as they withdraw from paid work. It explores how older people invoke a range of gendered identities to negotiate change and continuity during this time. The paper argues that gender roles and identities are central to this process and that the reflexive deployment of gender may rank alongside financial resources and social capital in its importance to the achievement of satisfying retirement transitions. Amongst those interviewed, traditional gendered roles predominated, and these sat less comfortably with retirement for men than for women.

Hedge Funds, Hot Markets and the High Net Worth Investor: A Case for Greater Protection

shares; that, if proprietary exchanges are allowed to act as regulators, they should be subject to some constraints as to how they perform this function; and that, contrary to the ordinary case where we have reason to believe that markets discipline firms, a vigorous market for control of exchanges could have harmful effects. The concern that underlies these conclusions is a concern that a country\u27s national interest in protecting its domestic capital markets for the benefit of domestic enterprise and investors is likely to be undermined in a world where exchanges act just like any other business. Management, are clearly not in favor today, as the market is still recovering from the shock of the LTCM collapse. In further great contrast to the LTCM style of investing, Jones, who was actively trading in the 50\u27s and 60\u27s, had to devise his strategies without the benefit of the sophisticated mathematical and computing techniques so beloved by the quant jocks of the 90s

Hedge Funds, Hot Markets and the High Net Worth Investor: A Case for Greater Protection

shares; that, if proprietary exchanges are allowed to act as regulators, they should be subject to some constraints as to how they perform this function; and that, contrary to the ordinary case where we have reason to believe that markets discipline firms, a vigorous market for control of exchanges could have harmful effects. The concern that underlies these conclusions is a concern that a country\u27s national interest in protecting its domestic capital markets for the benefit of domestic enterprise and investors is likely to be undermined in a world where exchanges act just like any other business. Management, are clearly not in favor today, as the market is still recovering from the shock of the LTCM collapse. In further great contrast to the LTCM style of investing, Jones, who was actively trading in the 50\u27s and 60\u27s, had to devise his strategies without the benefit of the sophisticated mathematical and computing techniques so beloved by the quant jocks of the 90s

A Dialogue of Devotion

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Moving tales, exploring narrative strategies for scalable locative audio drama.

This paper reports on a recent collaboration between the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts at Middlesex University and the BBC Radio Drama Department, which was designed to investigate the narrative possibilities of locative media in a drama context. The locative drama Scratch is the first outcome of an ongoing research project, Locating Drama, whose aim is to investigate and develop narrative strategies that take full advantage of the current generation of GPS enabled portable computing devices for audio drama. In particular, we are exploring content and modes of interaction, which, while based on location awareness are not in any way site-specific allowing users to experience the drama in a location of their choice. We will refer to this approach as translocational as it allows the translation of locative media experiences to a wide variety of spaces. The translocational approach is of particular interest to broadcasters as it is more scalable than a site-specific paradigm, opening the possibility of downloadable location-aware podcasts featuring professionally authored content for a wide audience

The social adjustment of hearing-impaired children in ordinary schools

A study, by a hearing-impaired individual, of hearing-impaired children integrating into the mainstream in a north east of England education authority. The research involved the observation of two hearing-impaired children one day a week over a six week period. In addition to this there was background investigation done in this authority and one in the south east of England. The children were interviewed and observed so as to enable the investigator to give a more informed interpretation of the formal classroom observations. In particular the study looked at the social skills of the children, how the children coped in the ordinary classroom and those aspects of teaching styles which help or hinder hearing-impaired children in the success of their integration. It was an important aspect of this piece of research that the hearing-impaired children were aware that the investigator shared the same handicap. It was concluded that some hearing-impaired children need to be trained in social skills in order to increase their chances of being accepted by their normally hearing peers. Also more constructive work needs to be done to help teachers to be aware of what aspects of their teaching styles are of benefit or otherwise to the hearing-impaired children integrating in their classes

A short guide to hereditary diffuse gastric cancer

Hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC) is the only known predisposition syndrome dominated by carcinoma of the stomach and with a recognised genetic cause. Germline mutations in the E-cadherin gene (CDH1) co-segregate with the disease in about half of the families with multiple diffuse gastric cancer. In these families, identification of the CDH1 mutation allows for clinical measures to be taken. Importantly, clinical intervention is likely to be therapeutic and associated with tolerable morbidity. This review is thus aimed at providing a current overview of the clinical management and the underlying biology of HDGC

An investigation into the impact of cytomegalovirus infection in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL) is associated with significant immunosuppression, with infection being the predominant cause of death. The immunosuppression is multifactorial and includes hypogammaglobulinaemia and T cell dysfunction. Expanded populations of effector memory T cells which are oligoclonal are postulated to arise in response to common antigenic stimulation. Increased expression of the inhibitory receptor programmed-death 1 (PD-1) has also been reported on the total CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in patients with CLL. Cytomegalovirus is a ubiquitous herpes virus which contributes to the oligoclonal populations of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells described. In the healthy elderly, CMV is associated with an immune risk phenotype and leads to an earlier death. But the impact of CMV on clinical outcome measures in CLL is unknown. Using 60 CMV class I tetramer and for the first time 15 class II tetramer responses, I have characterised the phenotype and function of CMV-specific T cells in patients with CLL. Interestingly, increased expression of PD-1, was observed on CD4+ but not CD8+ CMV-specific T cells which remained constant over time and was not a result of recent T cell activation. Cytokine production of both CD4+ and CD8+ CMV-specific T cells was shown to be impaired in patients with CLL and PD-1 expression on CMV-specific CD4+ T cells contributed to this. Telomere lengths were also greatly reduced in CMV-specific T cells. I have also used droplet digital PCR to successfully measure latent CMV viral load and found in advanced stage disease an increased CMV viral load was detectable. This most likely arises as a result of the increased immunosuppression and T cell dysfunction observed. Despite these findings, this work reports no evidence that CMV infection impacts on clinical outcomes including time to first treatment or overall survival in two large independent cohorts of patients with CLL