Gender divisions of domestic labour and paid domestic services

This article investigates the relationship between sharing domestic tasks in dual-earner mixed-sex couples and using of paid domestic services. Results from a small-scale survey of the domestic outsourcing practices of employees of a large service-sector organisation in the UK show that in households: full-time working by women and presence of younger children is positively associated with using of domestic services; there is no association between the gender division of traditionally female domestic tasks carried out within the couple and paid services; in contrast, men’s greater involvement in traditionally male and traditionally gender-neutral tasks is positively associating with using paid domestic services. These findings tentatively suggest a new arrangement may be emerging whereby some couples address a heavy workload and desire for a less traditional division of domestic labour by men participating more in close-ended domestic tasks and outsourcing more time-consuming tasks traditionally undertaken by women to paid service providers

Cost-Effectiveness of Magnetic Resonance Imaging with a New Contrast Agent for the Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease

Background: Used as contrast agents for brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), markers for beta-amyloid deposits might allow early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of such a diagnostic test, MRI+CLP (contrastophore-linker-pharmacophore), should it become clinically available. Methodology/Principal Findings: We compared the cost-effectiveness of MRI+CLP to that of standard diagnosis using currently available cognition tests and of standard MRI, and investigated the impact of a hypothetical treatment efficient in early AD. The primary analysis was based on the current French context for 70-year-old patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). In alternative ‘‘screen and treat’ ’ scenarios, we analyzed the consequences of systematic screenings of over-60 individuals (either population-wide or restricted to the ApoE4 genotype population). We used a Markov model of AD progression; model parameters, as well as incurred costs and quality-of-life weights in France were taken from the literature. We performed univariate and probabilistic multivariate sensitivity analyses. The base-case preferred strategy was the standard MRI diagnosis strategy. In the primary analysis however, MRI+CLP could become the preferred strategy under a wide array of scenarios involving lower cost and/or higher sensitivity or specificity. By contrast, in the ‘‘screen and treat’’ analyses, the probability of MRI+CLP becoming the preferred strategy remained lower than 5%. Conclusions/Significance: It is thought that anti-beta-amyloid compounds might halt the development of dementia i

CAMAC booster ('CAB' system) A versatile microcomputer for high rate CAMAC data acquisition technical presentation

Reports the present status of CAB from the points of view of hardware and software. CAB is a microprogrammable system, using fast TTL bit- slice technology, designed to improve the capabilities of a standard CAMAC data acquisition chain. It can be implemented as crate controller, branch driver, or computer to CAMAC (or GPIB to CAMAC) interface. It is well adapted to a wide range of complex applications, such as software triggering, event filtering, data compaction and formatting, equipment calibration and monitoring. The basic software includes a cross-assembler, an emulating program and an interactive debugger. Improvements are now under development. Today, more than 15 units are used in different laboratories. (0 refs)

CAMAC booster ("CAB" system): a versatile microcomputer for high rate CAMAC data acquisition

Reports the present status of CAB from the points of view of hardware and software. CAB is a microprogrammable system, using fast TTL bit- slice technology, designed to improve the capabilities of a standard CAMAC data acquisition chain. It can be implemented as crate controller, branch driver, or computer to CAMAC (or GPIB to CAMAC) interface. It is well adapted to a wide range of complex applications, such as software triggering, event filtering, data compaction and formatting, equipment calibration and monitoring. The basic software includes a cross-assembler, an emulating program and an interactive debugger. Improvements are now under development. Today, more than 15 units are used in different laboratories. (0 refs)

A Six Phase LC Based Ring Oscillator for 1.5-3GBit/s SATA

A 3 GHz six phases PLL clock synthesizer embedded in a complete Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) standard compliant oversampling PHY is presented. Multiphase frequency synthesis has been realized using an LC ring structure VCO, featuring improved phase noise and phase accuracy. Integrated in a standard 0.13 /spl mu/m CMOS process the synthesizer has an active area of 0.8 mm/sup 2/ and consumes 35 mW while achieving a phase noise of -120dBc/Hz @ 1MHz and a maximum measured phase error of 0.3/spl deg/. In addition a novel analytical method to investigate the phase accuracy properties of LC ring structures is presented and validated through simulations