A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Marital Abuse

A brief history of marital violence and statistics from recent studies are presented. Marital abuse data from six societies: United States; Canada; Finland; Israel, with city and Kibbutz sub-samples; Puerto Rico; and Belize (British Honduras) with sub-samples of Spanish speaking, Creoles and Caribs are compared. In general, similarities were found between political/civil profiles of violence and marital violence score within each society. The percentage of husbands and wives using abuse was also similar for each society. The major exception was Puerto Rico, where almost twice as many husbands were reported to have been violent. The percentage of husbands and wives who used violence did not necessarily predict the frequency of violence. Finland, with the highest percentage of violent spouses, had the lowest scores for severity and frequency. Israel, with the lowest percentage of husbands and wives using violence, produced the highest severity and frequency scores for those couples who were violent. This analysis is preliminary and questions for future examination are raised

Photochemical Electrocyclic Ring Closure and Leaving Group Expulsion from N-(9-oxothioxanthenyl)Benzothiophene Carboxamides

N-(9-Oxothioxanthenyl)benzothiophene carboxamides bearing leaving groups (LG− = Cl−, PhS−, HS−, PhCH2S−) at the C-3 position of the benzothiophene ring system photochemically cyclize with nearly quantitative release of the leaving group, LG−. The LG− photoexpulsions can be conducted with 390 nm light or with a sunlamp. Solubility in 75% aqueous CH3CN is achieved by introducing a carboxylate group at the C-6 position of the benzothiophene ring. The carboxylate and methyl ester derivatives regiospecifically cyclize at the more hindered C-1 position of the thioxanthone ring. Otherwise, the photocyclization favors the C-3 position of the thioxanthone. Quantum yields for reaction are 0.01–0.04, depending on LG− basicity. Electronic structure calculations for the triplet excited state show that excitation transfer occurs from the thioxanthone to the benzothiophene ring. Subsequent cyclization in the triplet excited state is energetically favourable and initially generates the triplet excited state of the zwitterionic species. Expulsion of LG− is thought to occur once this species converts to the closed shell ground state

Differential expression of skeletal muscle genes following administration of clenbuterol to exercised horses.

BackgroundClenbuterol, a beta2-adrenergic receptor agonist, is used therapeutically to treat respiratory conditions in the horse. However, by virtue of its mechanism of action it has been suggested that clenbuterol may also have repartitioning affects in horses and as such the potential to affect performance. Clenbuterol decreases the percent fat and increases fat-free mass following high dose administration in combination with intense exercise in horses. In the current study, microarray analysis and real-time PCR were used to study the temporal effects of low and high dose chronic clenbuterol administration on differential gene expression of several skeletal muscle myosin heavy chains, genes involved in lipid metabolism and the β2-adrenergic receptor. The effect of clenbuterol administration on differential gene expression has not been previously reported in the horse, therefore the primary objective of the current study was to describe clenbuterol-induced temporal changes in gene expression following chronic oral administration of clenbuterol at both high and low doses.ResultsSteady state clenbuterol concentrations were achieved at approximately 50 h post administration of the first dose for the low dose regimen and at approximately 18-19 days (10 days post administration of 3.2 μg/kg) for the escalating dosing regimen. Following chronic administration of the low dose (0.8 μg/kg BID) of clenbuterol, a total of 114 genes were differentially expressed, however, none of these changes were found to be significant following FDR adjustment of the p-values. A total of 7,093 genes were differentially expressed with 3,623 genes up regulated and 3,470 genes down regulated following chronic high dose administration. Of the genes selected for further study by real-time PCR, down-regulation of genes encoding myosin heavy chains 2 and 7, steroyl CoA desaturase and the β2-adrenergic receptor were noted. For most genes, expression levels returned towards baseline levels following cessation of drug administration.ConclusionThis study showed no evidence of modified gene expression following chronic low dose administration of clenbuterol to horses. However, following chronic administration of high doses of clenbuterol alterations were noted in transcripts encoding various myosin heavy chains, lipid metabolizing enzymes and the β2-adrenergic receptor

Galactic Halo Stars in Phase Space :A Hint of Satellite Accretion?

The present day chemical and dynamical properties of the Milky Way bear the imprint of the Galaxy's formation and evolutionary history. One of the most enduring and critical debates surrounding Galactic evolution is that regarding the competition between ``satellite accretion'' and ``monolithic collapse''; the apparent strong correlation between orbital eccentricity and metallicity of halo stars was originally used as supporting evidence for the latter. While modern-day unbiased samples no longer support the claims for a significant correlation, recent evidence has been presented by Chiba & Beers (2000,AJ,119,2843) for the existence of a minor population of high-eccentricity metal-deficient halo stars. It has been suggested that these stars represent the signature of a rapid (if minor) collapse phase in the Galaxy's history. Employing velocity- and integrals of motion-phase space projections of these stars, coupled with a series of N-body/Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) chemodynamical simulations, we suggest an alternative mechanism for creating such stars may be the recent accretion of a polar orbit dwarf galaxy.Comment: 12 pages(incl. figures). Accepted for publication in ApJ letters sectio

Where Are the Baryons? II: Feedback Effects

Numerical simulations of the intergalactic medium have shown that at the present epoch a significant fraction (40-50%) of the baryonic component should be found in the (T~10^6K) Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) - with several recent observational lines of evidence indicating the validity of the prediction. We here recompute the evolution of the WHIM with the following major improvements: (1) galactic superwind feedback processes from galaxy/star formation are explicitly included; (2) major metal species (O V to O IX) are computed explicitly in a non-equilibrium way; (3) mass and spatial dynamic ranges are larger by a factor of 8 and 2, respectively, than in our previous simulations. Here are the major findings: (1) galactic superwinds have dramatic effects, increasing the WHIM mass fraction by about 20%, primarily through heating up warm gas near galaxies with density 10^{1.5}-10^4 times the mean density. (2) the fraction of baryons in WHIM is increased modestly from the earlier work but is ~40-50%. (3) the gas density of the WHIM is broadly peaked at a density 10-20 times the mean density, ranging from underdense regions to regions that are overdense by 10^3-10^4. (4) the median metallicity of the WHIM is 0.18 Zsun for oxygen with 50% and 90% intervals being (0.040,0.38) and (0.0017,0.83).Comment: 44 pages, 17 figures, high res version at http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~cen/baryonII.ps.g

Health Workforce Remuneration: comparing wage levels, ranking and dispersion of 16 occupational groups in 20 countries

BackgroundThis article represents the first attempt to explore remuneration in Human Resources for Health (HRH), comparing wage levels, ranking and dispersion of 16 HRH occupational groups in 20 countries (Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, Republic of South Africa (RSA), Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom (UK), and United States of America (USA)). The main aim is to examine to what extent the wage rankings, standardized wage levels, and wage dispersion are similar between the 16 occupational groups and across the selected countries and what factors can be shown to be related to the differences that emerge. MethodThe pooled data from the continuous, worldwide, multilingual WageIndicator web survey between 2008 and 2011 (for selected HRH occupations, n=49,687) have been aggregated into a data file with median or mean remuneration values for 300 occupation/country cells. Hourly wages are expressed in standardized US Dollars (USD), all controlled for purchasing power parity (PPP) and indexed to 2011 levels. ResultsThe wage ranking of 16 HRH occupational groups is fairly similar across countries. Overall Medical Doctors have the highest and Personal Care Workers the lowest median wages. Wage levels of Nursing &amp; Midwifery Professionals vary largely. Health Care Managers have lower earnings than Medical Doctors in all except six of the 20 countries. The largest wage differences are found for the Medical Doctors earning 20 times less in Ukraine than in the US, and the Personal Care Workers, who earn nine times less in the Ukraine than in the Netherlands. No support is found for the assumption that the ratio across the highest and lowest earning HRH occupations is similar between countries: it varies from 2.0 in Sweden to 9.7 in Brazil. Moreover, an increase in the percentage of women in an occupation has a large downward effect on its wage rank. ConclusionsThis article breaks new ground by investigating for the first time the wage levels, ranking, and dispersion of occupational groups in the HRH workforce across countries. The explorative findings illustrate that the assumption of similarity in cross-country wage ranking holds, but that wage dispersion and wage levels are not similar. These findings might contribute to the policies for health workforce composition and the planning of healthcare provisions. <br/

Hysteresis multicycles in nanomagnet arrays

We predict two new physical effects in arrays of single-domain nanomagnets by performing simulations using a realistic model Hamiltonian and physical parameters. First, we find hysteretic multicycles for such nanomagnets. The simulation uses continuous spin dynamics through the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation. In some regions of parameter space, the probability of finding a multicycle is as high as ~0.6. We find that systems with larger and more anisotropic nanomagnets tend to display more multicycles. This result demonstrates the importance of disorder and frustration for multicycle behavior. We also show that there is a fundamental difference between the more realistic vector LLG equation and scalar models of hysteresis, such as Ising models. In the latter case, spin and external field inversion symmetry is obeyed but in the former it is destroyed by the dynamics, with important experimental implications.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure