Does the kin orientation of a British woman�s social network influence her entry into motherhood?

BACKGROUND The influence of family and friends on an individual's fertility has long been an important topic within demography. Researchers who focus on social network effects and evolutionary demography have shown a renewed interest in this issue in recent years. However, only a few studies have been conducted in contemporary low-fertility, resource-rich settings. OBJECTIVE This study investigates whether a British woman's entry into motherhood (i.e., her first birth) is influenced by the kin orientation of her close social network. Specifically, we test the prediction derived from evolutionary theory that individuals with a kin-oriented network will have higher fertility than those with fewer relatives in their close social networks. We consider two potential proximate mechanisms by which kin may influence fertility. First, relatives could provide practical resources, such as childcare, which reduce the costs of reproduction, thereby increasing fertility. Second, family members might communicate relatively pro-natal messages that could help to "persuade" childless women to become mothers. METHODS We use data from the British Household Panel Study (1992 to 2003), and base the degree of kin orientation on the number of relatives a woman includes when identifying her three closest non-household associates. We conduct a discrete-time event history analysis to measure the risk of firstbirth, controlling for household composition and socio-economic background.RESULTS We find that when a woman has more kin in her close social network, her risk of havinga first birth increases at all ages. This suggests that relatives may influence fertility behaviour in this contemporary resource-rich population. Both of our proposed proximate mechanismsmay be important in driving this effect. © 2013 Paul Mathews & Rebecca Sear

Young people and sexting in Australia: ethics, representation and the law

The Young People and Sexting in Australia report presents the findings of a qualitative study of young people’s understandings of, and responses to, current Australian laws, media and educational resources that address sexting. The project, led by Dr Kath Albury involved a review of both international local and academic research as well as popular media addressing sexting, and a review of educational resources for young people. Three focus groups were conducted with young people aged 16 and 17 in 2012, and a working paper based on those findings was then distributed to adult stakeholders in the fields of law enforcement, youth and children’s legal support, education, criminology, media and communications, youth work, youth health care, counseling and youth health promotion

Do preceding questions influence the reporting of childbearing intentions in social surveys?

For demographers fertility intentions are a long standing source of both interest and scepticism. Scepticism has been expressed because fertility intentions regularly fail to precisely predict fertility and because they are liable to change across the life course. Here we demonstrate an additional consideration: simply changing the questions that precede fertility intentions questions can have a significant influence on responses. We illustrate this risk using a series of randomised experiments with different preceding questions; first, on mortality and risk in two convenience samples of UK undergraduate students. Secondly, we will present provisional results from a ground-breaking longitudinal experiment where the manipulated preceding questions are on close family and friends. As far as we are aware this later study is the first time that question ordering experiment looking at fertility intentions has been embedded in a representative survey, and the first longitudinal measurement of preceding-question effects using the same individuals

Tuberculosis of the middle ear in children: with special reference to its occurrence as a primary lesion

There are numerous considerations which combine to render Tuberculosis of the Middle Ear and Temporal bone a subject of great interest and importance both clinically and pathologically. The number and variety of the channels through which infection may take place, the frequency of the condition, its occurrence during infancy, the gravity of the condition and of its possible complications, the multiplicity of its symptoms and signs, the urgent need for drastic treatment, the possibility of absolute diagnosis and of ultimate cure are the most important of these considerations.Important as the subject undoubtedly is, it is only recently that much attention has been paid to it, and even now its frequency and gravity are not duly appreciated, nor are its signs and symptoms sufficiently detailed in the current text books. Indeed many of them (even of those dealing exclusively with Diseases of the ear) pass it by altogether or treat it with a brevity which it ill deserves.Before discussing the question in detail it is desirable that it should be understood that in the following paper the term 'middle ear' will be held to include not only the cavum tympani, but also the Eustachian Tube and Mastoid Antrum. This is fully warranted by the anatomy and the developmental*histçr of these cavities as has been recently demonstrated by Young and Milligan.'* Owing to the difficulties in determining the primary site of the tuberculous process in these parts it is convenient to consider tuberculosis of the middle ear together with tuberculosis of the temporal bone; for it is rare that cases of the former come under cur notice before there is some involvement of the bone and still less frequently do we encounter tuberculous caries of the temporal bone before some part of the middle ear is involved, except in cases where a temporal caries, unsuspected during life, is revealed on the post mortem table. That the two conditions can and do arise separately scarcely permits of doubt, but it is inconvenient for purposes of practical diagnosis and treatment to dissociate the two conditions

Plasticity, life history and inclusive fitness: an evolutionary demography perspective on individual variation in fertility and fertility preferences in contemporary Britain

This thesis consists of three papers that explore variation in individual fertility and fertility preference. The setting for all three papers is the contemporary UK, though the conclusions have utility for a general understanding of human fertility. All three papers are motivated by theories arising from evolutionary biology, principally inclusive fitness theory and life history theory. The first two papers investigate actualised fertility and whether patterns of fertility in contemporary Britain are consistent with inclusive fitness theory. Both papers conduct secondary data analysis of the British Household Panel Study. Inclusive fitness theory predicts that because relatives share genes an individual may obtain fitness benefits by increasing the reproduction of a relative. Results support this hypothesis showing that for contemporary British women kin having more opportunities to influence reproductive decision-making is associated with pro-fitness fertility outcomes. In the first paper I find kin accelerate the transition to first birth, and the second paper shows kin also accelerate the transition to second birth. The final paper tests a different hypothesis derived from evolutionary theory. Life history theory predicts that reproductive strategy should have ‘plasticity’ and be liable to alter as perceived environmental risk changes. This paper uses primary data collected from University students using an internet experiment and finds that priming respondents using preceding questions on mortality does alter reported fertility preferences, though the effects depend upon the priming, fertility preference measure and the sex of the respondent. The paper also has methodological relevance as it demonstrates the potential for ‘context effects’ from preceding questions to influence the reporting of fertility preferences. All three papers present evidence that the incorporation of theories from evolutionary biology have utility in the understanding of contemporary fertility patterns and processes

Multifaceted COVID-19 Outbreak

The time when everyone is struggling in the cruel hands of COVID19, we present the holistic view on the effects of this pandemic in certain aspects of life. A lot of literature exists in COVID-19, but most of them talk about the social and psychological side of the COVID problems. COVID-19 has affected our day-to-day life and its effects are extensive. Most of the literature presents the adverse effect of the pandemic, but there are very few state-of-the-art approaches that discuss its beneficial effects. We see the multiple faces of the pandemic in this paper. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review that presents the pros and cons of the pandemic. We present a survey that surrounds over effects on education, environment, and religion. The positive side of COVID-19 raises an alarm for us to wake up and work in that direction

Time spent on health related activities associated with chronic illness: a scoping literature review

Background: The management of health care, particularly for people with chronic conditions, combines the activities of health professionals, patients, informal carers and social networks that support them. Understanding the non-professional roles in health management requires information about the health related activities (HRA) that are undertaken by patients and informal carers. This understanding allows management planning that incorporates the capacity of patients and informal carers, as well as identifying the particular skills, knowledge and technical support that are necessary. This review was undertaken to identify how much time people with chronic illness and their informal carers spend on HRA. Methods. Literature searches of three electronic databases (CINAHL, Medline, and PubMed) and two journals (Time and Society, Sociology of Health and Illness) were carried out in 2011 using the following search terms (and derivatives): chronic illness AND time AND consumer OR carer. The search was aimed at finding studies of time spent on HRA. A scoping literature review method was utilised. Results: Twenty-two peer reviewed articles published between 1990 and 2010 were included for review. The review identified limited but specific studies about time use by people with a chronic illness and/or their carers. While illness work was seen as demanding, few studies combined inquiry about both defined tasks and defined time use. It also identified methodological issues such as consistency of definition and data collection methods, which remain unresolved. Conclusions: While HRA are seen as demanding by people doing them, few studies have measured actual time taken to carry out a comprehensive range of HRA. The results of this review suggest that both patients with chronic illness and informal carers may be spending 2 hours a day or more on HRA. Illnesses such as diabetes may be associated with higher time use. More empirical research is needed to understand the time demands of self-management, particularly for those affected by chronic illness

Re-examination of steel frame office buildings in preventing collapse when subject to intense fires

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the extent to which present-day design of steel framed buildings is susceptible to total collapse when subjected to extreme fire events. We select a 50 storey structure in which 2 and 4 adjacent storeys located at different above-ground heights are, in separate scenarios engulfed in raging fires. A total of 8 scenarios are analyzed, employing Newtonian mechanics and realistic energy dissipating properties of H-shaped columns and normal concrete floor slabs possessing secondary (shrinkage and temperature) reinforcement alone. While the present Canadian building code is the basis for our column designs, other standards provide very similar specifications. Although fire proofing is required in virtually all high rise building construction, we are excluding such materials in order to simplify the analyses, but clearly do not advocate its omission – quite the opposite in fact. As well, attributes such as floor beams, partitions and furnishings of every description, all of which would in practice participate in absorbing the kinetic energy of a crush-down upper block are excluded. Despite such a vast array of conservative assumptions, it is shown that partial collapse may occur during crush-down, however, in no case will total collapse be the consequence. These results should provide some comfort to code writers that their requirements should indeed prevent the most catastrophic of failures due to fires

A Distributed Management Scheme for supporting energy-harvested I/O devices

Current wireless technologies for industrial application, such as WirelessHART and ISA100.11a, are not designed to support harvester-powered input/output (I/O) devices, where energy availability varies in a non-deterministic manner. The centralized management approach of these standards makes it difficult and costly for harvester-powered I/O devices (sensor/actuators) to re-join in the network in case of power failure. The communication overhead and delay to cope with the dynamic environment of a large-scale industrial network are also very high for an I/O device. In this paper, we therefore propose a Distributed Management scheme for Hybrid networks to provide Real-time communication (D-MHR) based on the IEEE 802.15.4e and Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks (RPL) standards, which can address the requirements of energy constrained I/O devices. In D-MHR, the routers can dynamically reserve communication resources and manage the I/O devices in the local star sub-networks. We demonstrate that D-MHR achieves higher network management efficiency compared to IS100.11a standard, without compromising the latency and reliability requirements of industrial wireless networks