The female-male gap in life expectancy in Poland

The difference in life expectancy between the sexes in Poland started to decline only in 1991, equaling 8.4 years in 2009. In addition, with the rapid increase in male excess mortality between 1989 and 1991, the sex gap also increased. With the exception of excess mortality of male infants, the female advantage in mortality grows with age and reaches the maximum at the age of 65–70 years in 2009. The excess mortality of male infants decreased over the studied years from a contribution of over a year to the sex gap in life expectancy at birth in 1959, to less than a month in 2009. Differences in life expectancy at birth between the sexes in Poland are greater in rural than in urban areas and there is a variation between the voivodships: from 7.9 years in 2008 in the Pomorskie voivodship to 10.2 years in Lubelskie. The largest variation in the sex gap in life expectancy was that between different educational groups: and the gap decreased with the level of educational attainment. Diseases of the circulatory system are a major group of causes of death, with the highest contribution to the sex gap in life expectancy, and were the largest factor in the narrowing of the sex gap between 1991 and 2006. External causes of death were the second-largest group contributing to the sex gap in life expectancy at birth in 1991, and to the narrowing of the gap in the studied period. Over the years under study, the importance of malignant neoplasms for the phenomenon in consideration increased, but at the same time life expectancy of both sexes rose due to improvements in mortality from this group of causes. According to our estimates, smoking- and alcohol-related causes of death together explained about 50% of the total difference in life expectancy at birth between the sexes in the years 1989–2006. In this period, the sex gap in life expectancy due to these causes of death increased, which is opposite to what was reported for other developed countries

Developments in Labour Law from a Comparative Perspective

The “Labour Law Education Society”, established in 2012, is one of the academic networks which were brought to life to study labour law from a comparative perspective. This monograph is a result of research made by LLES Members. In its contents latest issues of labour law are being presented. Hence, the essence of the presented studies would be interesting for those who analyze labour law from a comparative perspective. A dynamic development of labour law, connected with its social, political and economic conditions is a reason to study it from many different views. This monograph attempts to accomplish this objective

The concept of the Equivalent Lenght of Life for quantifying differences in age-at-death distributions across countries

Life expectancy, that is the mean age at death in a life table, is the most common measure used to describe and compare mortality distributions. Alternatives to life expectancy that have been proposed so far have also referred to only a single parameter of the mortality distribution. We propose to study mortality distributions by applying Silber’s concept of the Equivalent Length of Life (ELL), which enables comparisons based on up to three parameters of age-at-death distributions: life expectancy, dispersion and skewness. The method, and our decomposition, is used to study convergence/divergence of life-table age-at-death distributions across 35 developed countries of the Human Mortality Database in 1970–2010 and to assess the contribution of the three moments of the distribution to the total differences between countries and trends in the contribution. We observed a divergence of age-at-death distributions across the study countries from 1970 to 2005, followed by a convergence. Differences in life expectancies contributed the most to inequalities between the countries in life-table age-at-death distributions and the observed changes over time for both sexes. An additional important contribution resulted from the growing negative covariance between life expectancy and dispersion of ages at death, indicating that the largest increase in life expectancy occurred in the countries where variation in ages at death was lowest, especially among women. For men, including the skewness parameter resulted in lower differences between countries. The ELL and its decomposition thus have clear added value for studying differences between countries and convergence/divergence of age-at-death distributions

Visualizing Mortality Dynamics in the Lexis Diagram

The goal of this book is simple: We would like to show how mortality dynamics can be visualized in the so-called Lexis diagram. To appeal to as many potential readers as possible, we do not require any specialist knowledge. This approach may be disappointing: Demographers may have liked more information about the mathematical underpinnings of population dynamics on the Lexis surface as demonstrated, for instance, by Arthur and Vaupel in 1984. Statisticians would have probably preferred more information about the underlying smoothing methods that were used. Epidemiologists likewise might miss discussions about the etiology of diseases. Sociologists would have probably expected that our results were more embedded into theoretical frameworks...

Experimental Study of Inconel 718 Surface Treatment by Edge Robotic Deburring with Force Control

We present the results of investigations into the application of robotics for deburring and chamfering to a predefined geometric quality. The robotic application was used for a part of the manufacturing process of an aircraft engine detail.Представлены результаты исследования по оценке использования робототехники для снятия заусенец и фасок с жестким геометрическим допуском. Робототехнические средства использовались для части процесса изготовления деталей авиационных двигателей

Can ceylon leadwort (Plumbago zeylanica L.) acclimate to lead toxicity? - studies of photosynthetic apparatus efficiency

Ceylon leadwort (Plumbago zeylanica) is ornamental plant known for its pharmacological properties arising from the abundant production of various secondary metabolites. It often grows in lead polluted areas. The aim of presented study was to evaluate the survival strategy of P. zeylanica to lead toxicity via photosynthetic apparatus acclimatization. Shoots of P. zeylanica were cultivated on media with different Pb concentrations (0.0, 0.05, and 0.1 g Pb∙l−1). After a four-week culture, the efficiency of the photosynthetic apparatus of plants was evaluated by Chl a fluorescence measurement, photosynthetic pigment, and Lhcb1, PsbA, PsbO, and RuBisCo protein accumulation, antioxidant enzymes activity, and chloroplast ultrastructure observation. Plants from lower Pb concentration revealed no changes in photosynthetic pigments content and light-harvesting complex (LHCII) size, as well as no limitation on the donor side of Photosystem II Reaction Centre (PSII RC). However, the activity and content of antioxidant enzymes indicated a high risk of limitation on the acceptor side of Photosystem I. In turn, plants from 0.1 g Pb∙l−1 showed a significant decrease in pigments content, LHCII size, the amount of active PSII RC, oxygen-evolving complex activity, and significant remodeling of chloroplast ultrastructure indicated limitation of PSII RC donor side. Obtained results indicate that P. zeylanica plants acclimate to lead toxicity by Pb accumulation in roots and, depending on Pb concentration, by adjusting their photosynthetic apparatus via the activation of alternative (cyclic and pseudocyclic) electron transport pathways

Smoking cessation among European older adults: the contributions of marital and employment transitions by gender.

Knowledge about the potential effects of stressful events on smoking cessation is helpful for the design of health interventions. Previous studies on this topic tended to group together adults of all ages and of both genders. We investigate the contribution of marital and employment losses on smoking cessation by gender, specifically among older adults in Europe. We used panel data from waves 4 (2011) and 5 (2013) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe for 3345 male and 3115 female smokers at baseline aged 50 and over from 13 countries. The associations between marital and employment losses and smoking cessation were derived from logistic regression models for each gender, controlling for age, educational attainment, diseases incidence and country of residence. Interactions between gender and marital and employment losses were tested. Over the analysed period, 119 smokers became widowed or divorced (1.8 %), 318 became retired (4.9 %) and 100 became unemployed (1.5 %). Becoming widowed or divorced was associated with lower probability of smoking cessation among both men (OR 0.36, 95 % CI 0.14-0.94) and women (OR 0.46, 95 % CI 0.21-0.99). Transitions to unemployment and to retirement were not significantly associated with smoking cessation (OR 0.62, 95 % CI 0.25-1.49; and OR 0.68, 95 % CI 0.43-1.07, respectively). Gender differences in the association between marital and employment losses and smoking cessation were not statistically significant (p value > 0.05 for all interactions). Health interventions should take into account that male and female older adults affected by marital loss are at risk of continuing smoking