Born to be wide? Exploring correlations in mother and adolescent body mass index using data from the British household panel survey

The channels contributing to the intergenerational correlation in body mass are not well understood. Decomposition analysis is used to estimate the contribution of maternal characteristics, household income, and adolescent behaviours related to eating and physical activity on the intergenerational correlation in BMI. The analysis uses data on mothers and their adolescent children aged 11 to 15 from the British Household Panel Survey (2004 and 2006). The overall intergenerational correlation in BMI is 0.25. Maternal educational attainment and adolescent participation in some form of physical activity on a daily basis are the largest contributing factors to the intergenerational correlation in BMI. Maternal employment and more than four hours a day of television viewing by the adolescent are also important contributing factors. Overall, observable characteristics explain 11.2% of the intergenerational correlation in BMI

Going the same 'weigh': spousal correlations in obesity in the UK

The obesity epidemic has received widespread media and research attention. However, the social phenomenon of obesity is still not well understood. Data from the 2004 and 2006 waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) show positive and significant correlations in spousal body mass index (BMI). This paper explores three mechanisms of shared individual characteristics, social influence and shared environment to explain this correlation. A number of econometric specifications are used to investigate the role of observed individual characteristics, own health, spouse health, social influence, contextual effects and unobserved individual effects on the influence of these three hypotheses on the correlation in spousal BMI. Results indicate that social influence and shared individual characteristics, which may arise through assortative matching, both contribute to correlation in spousal BMI

Strategic Behaviour of Firms in a Duopoly and the Impact of Extending the Patenting Period

This paper deals with strategic behaviour of firms in a duopoly, subsequent to the claim by one firm that it has reduced the unit cost of production. A variety of possible strategic equilibria are discussed in the context of a duopoly game between a multinational and a local firm. In the context of an extended uniform period of patenting, as finally agreed in the Uruguay round (1994), firms have increased incentive to take patents. In the presence of cost differences, the act of taking process-patents has implications for the equilibrium output strategies of the duopoly firms and sometimes may have a negative overall welfare effect for the local producer and consumers

An approach to market analysis for lighter than air transportation of freight

An approach is presented to marketing analysis for lighter than air vehicles in a commercial freight market. After a discussion of key characteristics of supply and demand factors, a three-phase approach to marketing analysis is described. The existing transportation systems are quantitatively defined and possible roles for lighter than air vehicles within this framework are postulated. The marketing analysis views the situation from the perspective of both the shipper and the carrier. A demand for freight service is assumed and the resulting supply characteristics are determined. Then, these supply characteristics are used to establish the demand for competing modes. The process is then iterated to arrive at the market solution

Cardiovascular Effects of Vibration Semiannual Report, 1 Aug. 1965 - 28 Feb. 1966

Vibration induced cardiovascular changes in anesthetized dog

Anisotropic magnetoresistance contribution to measured domain wall resistances of in-plane magnetised (Ga,Mn)As

We demonstrate the presence of an important anisotropic magnetoresistance contribution to the domain wall resistance recently measured in thin-film (Ga,Mn)As with in-plane magnetic anisotropy. Analytic results for simple domain wall orientations supplemented by numerical results for more general cases show this previously omitted contribution can largely explain the observed negative resistance.Comment: 4 pages; submitted to Phys Rev

The Dependence of Dynamo α\alpha-Effect on Reynolds Numbers, Magnetic Prandtl Number, and the Statistics of MHD Turbulence

We generalize the derivation of dynamo coefficient $\alpha$ of Field et al (1999) to include the following two aspects: first, the de-correlation times of velocity field and magnetic field are different; second, the magnetic Prandtl number can be arbitrary. We find that the contributions of velocity field and magnetic field to the $\alpha$ effect are not equal, but affected by their different statistical properties. In the limit of large kinetic Reynolds number and large magnetic Reynolds number, $\alpha$-coefficient may not be small if the de-correlation times of velocity field and magnetic field are shorter than the eddy turn-over time of the MHD turbulence. We also show that under certain circumstances, for example if the kinetic helicity and current helicity are comparable, $\alpha$ depends insensitively on magnetic Prandtl number, while if either the kinetic helicity or the current helicity is dominated by the other one, a different magnetic Prandtl number will significantly change the dynamo $\alpha$ effect.Comment: 44 pages, 4 figures, to appear in ApJ (vol. 552