Health inequalities in the older population: the role of personal capital, social resources and socio-economic circumstances.

Older people now constitute the majority of those with health problems in developed countries so an understanding of health variations in later life is increasingly important. In this paper, we use data from three rounds of the Health Survey for England, a large nationally representative sample, to analyse variations in the health of adults aged 65-84 by indicators of attributes acquired in childhood and young adulthood, termed personal capital; and by current social resources and current socio-economic circumstances, while controlling for smoking behaviour and age. We used six indicators of health status in the analysis, four based on self-reports and two based on nurse collected data, which we hypothesised would identify different dimensions of health. Results showed that socio-economic indicators, particularly receipt of income support (a marker of poverty) were most consistently associated with raised odds of poor health outcomes. Associations between marital status and health were in some cases not in the expected direction. This may reflect bias arising from exclusion of the institutional population (although among those under 85 the proportion in institutions is very low) but merits further investigation, especially as the marital status composition of the older population is changing. Analysis of deviance showed that social resources (marital status and social support) had the greatest effect on the indicator of psychological health (GHQ) and also contributed significantly to variation in self-rated health, but among women not to variation in taking three or more medicines and among men not to self-reported long-standing illnesses. Smoking, in contrast, was much more strongly associated with these indicators than with self-rated health. These results are consistent with the view that self-rated health may provide a holistic indicator of health in the sense of well-being, whereas measures such as taking prescribed medications may be more indicative of specific morbidities. The results emphasise again the need to consider both socio-economic and socio-psychological influences on later life health

PROGRAMMED EFFECTS OF SURFACE WATER PRICE LEVELS ON U.S. AGRICULTURAL WATER USE AND PRODUCTION PATTERNS: COMMENT

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Institutional delivery in rural India: the relative importance of accessibility and economic status.

BACKGROUND: Skilled attendance at delivery is an important indicator in monitoring progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5 to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. In addition to professional attention, it is important that mothers deliver their babies in an appropriate setting, where life saving equipment and hygienic conditions can also help reduce the risk of complications that may cause death or illness to mother and child. Over the past decade interest has grown in examining influences on care-seeking behavior and this study investigates the determinants of place of delivery in rural India, with a particular focus on assessing the relative importance of community access and economic status. METHODS: A descriptive analysis of trends in place of delivery using data from two national representative sample surveys in 1992 and 1998 is followed by a two-level (child/mother and community) random-effects logistical regression model using the second survey to investigate the determinants. RESULTS: In this investigation of institutional care seeking for child birth in rural India, economic status emerges as a more crucial determinant than access. Economic status is also the strongest influence on the choice between a private-for-profit or public facility amongst institutional births. CONCLUSION: Greater availability of obstetric services will not alone solve the problem of low institutional delivery rates. This is particularly true for the use of private-for-profit institutions, in which the distance to services does not have a significant adjusted effect. In the light of these findings a focus on increasing demand for existing services seems the most rational action. In particular, financial constraints need to be addressed, and results support current trials of demand side financing in India

Using the Longitudinal Study database with Stata

The Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONS/LS) is a huge, well maintained, database of linked census records for 1% of the population of England and Wales. With the imminent addition of 2001 census records it provides longitudinal data o n nearly a million people over a 30-year period. Although a wealth of research has flowed out of the LS since the mid-1970's it is probably still under-utilised, given its potential. This may be due to non-awareness of the richness of the dataset, or because it has a reputation of being "difficult" to work with. Access to the LS is indeed not so straightforward as some other studies but an academic support team is available to academic users free of charge and this takes much of the drudge out of access, as well as providing very constructive support for projects. The support team use Stata as the software medium of choice and academic Stata users will therefore find the interchange of code between themselves and the support team familiar. Procedures common to Stata users, such as stsetting and stsplitting longitudinal data, are now in common use for LS data. Release of LS data from ONS is subject to certain restrictions and these will be explained using an example of survival analysis following diagnosis of cancer.

Electron correlations in two-dimensional small quantum dots

We consider circular and elliptic quantum dots with parabolic external confinement, containing 0 - 22 electrons and with values of r_s in the range 0 < r_s < 3. We perform restricted and unrestricted Hartree-Fock calculations, and further take into account electron correlations using second-order perturbation theory. We demonstrate that in many cases correlations qualitatively change the spin structure of the ground state from that obtained under Hartree-Fock and spin-density-functional calculations. In some cases the correlation effects destroy Hund's rule. We also demonstrate that the correlations destroy static spin-density waves observed in Hartree-Fock and spin-density-functional calculations.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures. This replacement contains new content. Results have been recalculated for dots with zero effective thickness (true 2D). For 6 electrons, results have been compared with configuration interaction results from the literatur

'Delirious Monologues': Christina Stead's 'Egotistical Monsters'

A discussion of Stead's polyphonic style with particular reference to A Little Tea, A Little Chat

When errors aren\u27t: How comprehenders selectively violate Binding Theory

It has been claimed that comprehenders use the Binding Theory (Chomsky, 1986) to restrict the search for a reflexive’s antecedent in early stages of comprehension (Dillon, Mishler, Sloggett, & Phillips, 2013; Sturt, 2003; Nicol & Swinney, 1989) However, recent findings challenge this view, demonstrating that comprehenders occasionally access antecedents on the basis of their match with a reflexive’s morphosyntactic features (Chen, Jäger, & Vasishth, 2012; Patil, Lewis, & Vasishth, 2016, Parker, & Phillips, 2017). In this dissertation, I investigate the source of this ’grammatical fallibility’ in the real-time application of Principle A of the Binding Theory. Specifically, I ask whether this pattern of behavior is the direct consequence of an error-prone retrieval mechanism, or if it is instead the result of a discourse-oriented, logophoric interpretation of reflexive forms. This work presents four experiments demonstrating that comprehenders only consider non-Principle A antecedents which act as prominent perspective holders in the discourse. I explain these findings by appealing to local, logophoric center available for reflexive reference

Socioeconomic inequalities in cancer survival in England and Wales.

BACKGROUND: Cancer survival often has been reported as lower for the poor than the rich, but, to the authors' knowledge, systematic national estimates of deprivation gradients in survival over long periods of time have not been available. METHODS: The authors estimated national population-based survival rates for almost 3 million people who were diagnosed with 1 of 58 types of cancers (47 in adults, 11 in children) in England and Wales during the 20-year period 1971-1990 and followed through December 31, 1995. Cancer patients were assigned by their address at diagnosis to 1 of 5 categories (quintiles of the national distribution) of material deprivation by using a standard index derived from census data on unemployment, car ownership, household overcrowding, and social class that was available for all 109,000 census tracts in Great Britain. The authors used relative survival rates: the ratio of observed survival among the cancer patients to the survival that would have been expected if they had had the same background mortality as the general population. Background mortality differed widely among socioeconomic categories, and the authors constructed life tables from raw national mortality data by gender, single year of age, calendar period of death, and socioeconomic category to adjust for it. The authors used variance-weighted least squares regression to estimate both time trends in age standardized survival and socioeconomic gradients in survival. The number of avoidable deaths was estimated from the observed mortality excess compared with the expected mortality in each group of patients. RESULTS: Survival rose steadily for most cancers over 25 years to 1995 in England and Wales, but inequalities in survival between patients living in rich and poor areas were geographically widespread and persistent over this period of time. These patterns existed for 44 of 47 adult cancers examined but not for 11 childhood cancers. These inequalities in survival represented more than 2500 deaths that would have been avoided each year if all cancer patients had had the same chance of surviving up to 5 years after diagnosis as patients in the most affluent group. CONCLUSIONS: The largest national cancer survival study has provided strong evidence of systematic disadvantage in outcome among patients who lived in poorer districts compared with those who lived in wealthier districts

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SALICYLALDOXIME, CYSTEINE AND BENZOTRIAZOLE AS INHIBITORS FOR THE ACTIVE CHLORIDE-BASED CORROSION OF COPPER AND BRONZE ARTIFACTS

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of salicylaldoxime and cysteine as potential replacements to benzotriazole, the widely used but environmentally unfriendly and not always effective copper corrosion inhibitor. Coupons of modern copper, 5% tin bronze, and 12% tin bronze samples were corroded using an accelerated electrochemical procedure, which involved anodically polarizing the coupons in a solution of 0.5M NaCl + 0.1M CuCl2.2H2O. X-ray diffraction analysis of the corrosion products showed the presence of copper (I) chloride (CuCl) on the surfaces of the three reference materials. Tin (IV) oxide (SnO2) was also detected on the surface of the 12% tin bronze.The interaction of the corrosion inhibitors with the corrosion products was investigated by visual examination and scanning electron microscopy. Benzotriazole and salicylaldoxime formed a surface adherent and aesthetically acceptable green complexes for the corroded copper and bronze, while cysteine formed grey patches that cover the green corrosion on copper and bronze. Accelerated corrosion in an environmental chamber of high relative humidity and temperature (84% RH and 38oC) showed that salicylaldoxime was the most effective inhibitor for the three reference materials against corrosion in these severe environmental conditions. However, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy's results showed that the benzotriazole was the most effective inhibitor in chloride solutions, and that the effective of cysteine increases with the increase of tin content in the alloy. It was concluded that salicylaldoxime presented a relevant and effective corrosion inhibitor for most conservation applications on corroded copper and bronze, while cysteine presented an environmentally friendly replacement for benzotriazole to protect uncorroded or previously treated by reduction back to metal artifacts