The caring commodity : transformations in the exchange character of medicine in New Zealand (1840-1985) : a thesis presented to the Dept. of Geography, Massey University in complete fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Retrospective analysis of actions and interactions connected with health care makes evident their place as constituted and constitutive components of capitalist social relations. The contextually constrained activity of individuals to achieve certain ends has contributed to the production of outcomes which appear to be beyond individual control and which shape the social world. In explaining the main transformations in the character of medical services since the early days of European settlement emphasis is placed upon the multiple and differentiated emergence of various structures of relationships between, principally, doctors and patients, doctors and doctors, and those who, at various stages, have attempted to intervene in those relations. Over the period 1840-1985, medical practice has been transformed from a service provided on a user-pays basis, to one of collective provision, and back towards the "private" sector. In the six decades after 1840 medicine and the State became enmeshed. Some moves towards the State provision of health care services occurred. The period 1900-35 saw the supporters of both free enterprise and socialistic medicine inexorably drawn towards advocacy of some grand scheme of collective care, the character of which was extensively debated from 1935 until 1942. The outcome brought "free" provision of most medical care to those in need and also served the long term interests of capital. Since then, health care has been returning to the market. In part, the broad sweep from, and back to, commodity relations has arisen from actions to "solve" problems of health care provision and use. The solutions arrived at, however, have been compromises between conflicting demands. Although at times "solutions" may have facilitated the more humane allocation of medical services, the general tendency is for them to reproduce capitalist social relations

A locally connected continuum without convergent sequences

We answer a question of Juhasz by constructing under CH an example of a locally connected continuum without nontrivial convergent sequences.Comment: 6 pages. Reprinted from Topology and its Applications, in press, Jan van Mill, A locally connected continuum without convergent sequence

LOX/GOX sensitivity of fluoroelastomers

The effect of formulation components and the addition of fire retardants on the impact sensitivity of Viton B fluoroelastomer in liquid oxygen was studied with the objective of developing a procedure for reliably reducing this sensitivity. Component evaluation, carried out on more than 40 combinations of components and cure cycles, showed that almost all the standard formulation agents, including carbon, MgO, Diak-3, and PbO2, will sensitize the Viton stock either singly or in combinations, some combinations being much more sensitive than others. Cure and postcure treatments usually reduced the sensitivity of a given formulation, often dramatically, but no formulated Viton was as insensitive as the pure Viton B stock. Coating formulated Viton with a thin layer of pure Viton gave some indication of reduced sensitivity, but additional tests are needed. It is concluded that sensitivity in formulated Viton arises from a variety of sources, some physical and some chemical in origin. Elemental analyses for all the formulated Vitons are reported as are the results of a literature search on the subject of LOX impact sensitivity

A homogeneous space whose complement is rigid

We construct a homogeneous subspace of $2^\omega$ whose complement is dense in $2^\omega$ and rigid. Using the same method, assuming Martin's Axiom, we also construct a countable dense homogeneous subspace of $2^\omega$ whose complement is dense in $2^\omega$ and rigid.Comment: 9 page

Forbidden rectangles in compacta

We establish negative results about "rectangular" local bases in compacta. For example, there is no compactum where all points have local bases of cofinal type \omega x \omega_2. For another, the compactum \beta\omega has no nontrivially rectangular local bases, and the same is consistently true of \beta\omega \ \omega: no local base in \beta\omega has cofinal type \kappa x c if \kappa < m_{\sigma-n-linked} for some n in [1,\omega). Also, CH implies that every local base in \beta\omega \ \omega has the same cofinal type as one in \beta\omega. We also answer a question of Dobrinen and Todorcevic about cofinal types of ultrafilters: the Fubini square of a filter on \omega always has the same cofinal type as its Fubini cube. Moreover, the Fubini product of nonprincipal P-filters on \omega is commutative modulo cofinal equivalence.Comment: 15 page