Health Insurance: Can Californians Afford It? 2005

Compares health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses to hourly wages and household spending across California to highlight the significant financial pressure healthcare costs are putting on insured Californians

California's Individual and Small Group Markets on the Eve of Reform

Examines baseline demographics and characteristics of California's individual and small group markets as well as of those who will become eligible for subsidies under the 2010 healthcare reform, including the uninsured

Granny Would Be Proud: on Doing Vintage, Practices and Emergent Socialities

It is proposed that vintage consumption must be understood as an embodied practice. This paper seeks to initiate a Vintage Turn within consumer research, to consider vintage as a practice of transformation and togetherness in an alternative consumption space

Load distribution during sit-stand-sit using an instrumented chair

Paper examining the forces through the body during standing up and sitting down by means of force plates and transducers

Evolution: functional evolution of nuclear structure.

The evolution of the nucleus, the defining feature of eukaryotic cells, was long shrouded in speculation and mystery. There is now strong evidence that nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) and nuclear membranes coevolved with the endomembrane system, and that the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) had fully functional NPCs. Recent studies have identified many components of the nuclear envelope in living Opisthokonts, the eukaryotic supergroup that includes fungi and metazoan animals. These components include diverse chromatin-binding membrane proteins, and membrane proteins with adhesive lumenal domains that may have contributed to the evolution of nuclear membrane architecture. Further discoveries about the nucleoskeleton suggest that the evolution of nuclear structure was tightly coupled to genome partitioning during mitosis

California Health Plans and Insurers: A Shifting Landscape

The insurance market in California is set to undergo enormous changes when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes full effect in 2014 and millions of residents become eligible for public insurance or subsidies for private insurance. This report provides a performance baseline for health plans and insurers before the law begins to influence the marketplace. Data primarily from the state's two insurance regulators, the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) and the California department of insurance (CDI), were used to examine market share, enrollment, financial performance, share of premiums devoted to medical care, and consumer satisfaction

Genocide Genres: Reading Atrocity Testimonies

Genocide Genres investigates the transnational circulation of atrocity testimony, writing which describes the most spectacularly failed of human encounters. In particular, my project compares the production and reception of atrocity narratives across three distinct, post-WWII discourses: 1) Holocaust studies, 2) the modern human rights movement, and 3) international criminal law. Each discourse, I argue, sets formal limits on individual testimonies in order to regulate their function institutionally, directing not only which testimonies are read but how those accounts should be read. As a result, testimonies become generic. We see this demonstrated by the emergence of identifiable genres such as Holocaust literature and human rights literature, and the successful passing of faked accounts in each discourse. By contrast, I locate resistance to these representational apparatuses in the increasing transnational circulation of testimony. A complex interplay ensues when these stories come in contact with each other--the translation of Anne Frank\u27s Diary, for instance, now authorizes more contemporary accounts of genocide, giving rise to multiple foreign Anne Franks from such disparate places as Cambodia, Bosnia, North Korea, and Palestine. In exploring the cross-influence of these texts, my project ultimately theorizes an emerging world literature of atrocity

Sometimes, it’s not Right to go Left: The perceived consequences of endorsing political ideologies

The aim of the research within this thesis was to investigate lay people’s beliefs about political ideologies and related constructs. Specifically, I researched whether people recognise the functions of ideologies and recognise when strategically, it makes the most sense to endorse them. In nine studies, participants’ knowledge of ideological constructs was assessed. To begin with, participants’ knowledge was assessed indirectly by asking them about their own endorsement of variables, such as social dominance orientation, while imagining themselves embroiled within an international conflict. As the research progressed, more direct methods were used in which participants were asked whether endorsing left or right wing ideological constructs would promote inequality within society and palliative outcomes for individuals. In my first empirical chapter, I present three studies which assess under what specific conditions people will endorse SDO. These studies demonstrate how people endorse SDO strategically in response to specific contextual features of intergroup conflicts. Study 1 showed that people endorse SDO more when locked in an intergroup dilemma with a group which defects (vs. cooperates). In Study 2, the presence (vs. absence) of sunk costs – previous investments by the ingroup in a conflict – increased SDO. In Study 3, high stakes (compared to none) increased the endorsement of SDO. In Studies 2 and 3, increases in SDO elicited indirect effects of contextual factors on participants’ willingness to make further investments in the conflict. In my second empirical chapter, I consider whether this strategic adoption of ideological positions may be based on knowledge of their consequences for intergroup relations. In Study 4, participants evaluated a group described as being high (compared to low) in SDO as more likely to be committed to a conflict, more likely to invest in that conflict, and as a result, more likely to emerge successfully from that conflict. These results were replicated in Study 5, where I began to utilise more direct measures in order to explore lay theories of ideological variables. Participants were explicitly asked whether they thought endorsing ideological variables (SDO, conservatism and system justification) would promote outcomes including success in conflicts and maintaining inequality along with social cohesion within societies. Participants attributed both SDO and conservatism with promoting inequality and success within conflict whereas system justification was evaluated as likely to promote social cohesion. Chapter 5 provided compelling evidence that lay people have accurate knowledge of the functions of ideological constructs. In my third and fourth empirical chapters, I empirically examine the folk beliefs about political ideologies that may draw people to them. Across four studies, participants attributed both left and right wing ideologies as likely to promote aspects of hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing for others and themselves. Furthermore, participants recognised, with a compelling degree of accuracy, that there are marked differences between left and right wing political ideologies in terms of closed-mindedness and the attitudes they promote towards inequality, just world beliefs and concern for others. Taken together, these findings suggest that lay individuals have accurate knowledge of the consequences of endorsing ideological variables and recognise when it makes strategic sense to do so. Although people’s ideological positions are determined by many factors, the present research suggests that one of these factors may be informed, strategic choice. That is, people may select or modify their ideological positions based on shared and surprisingly sophisticated understandings of their consequences. In the final chapter, I discuss how further research may explore the interplay between lay beliefs about political ideology and their consequences for political choice

Understanding Parent and Child Perceptions of Barriers and Enablers Influencing Active School Travel

Physical activity plays a fundamental role in developing and sustaining the health and well-being of children. Walking is the most common form of physical activity for people of all ages and the daily journey to and from school is a convenient opportunity for children to be physically active through the use of active school travel. This thesis uses a mixed methods approach, using: (a) parent and child surveys to examine how perceptions of barriers influence children’s active school travel; and (b) participatory mapping exercises and qualitative GIS to understand environmental influences on children’s journeys to and from school. Results suggest that parent and child perceptions of barriers vary greatly and are highly influenced by one’s individual environment. The overall aim of this research was to better understand features influencing children’s use of active school travel in order to improve interventions targeting increased physical activity. Findings from this thesis have implications for future research, urban planners, public health professionals, policy makers, educators, and parents