Gender in/and/of Health Inequalities

The relationship between gender and health inequalities is potentially complicated, raising questions for health and social research, practice and policy. In this paper, I use two population health case studies – obesity and smoking – to explore the interplay between gender and socioeconomic position. The cases show that, on its own, neither dimension of inequality affords a comprehensive picture of these significant risks to public health. Furthermore, historical change in the socioeconomic and gendered distribution of these health risks suggests that gender is best considered as a dynamic and layered form of differentiation, rather than as a simple or stable dichotomy. A more nuanced approach to the analysis of gender and health has the potential to generate both more fruitful research and more effective health and social policy.     

The economic effects of common agricultural policy on Mediterranean montado/dehesa ecosystem

The decoupling of CAP payments leads production decisions and resources allocation to be more dependent on market prices and competitive advantages. The objective of this paper is to assess the effects of CAP trends on the montado/dehesa traditional ecosystem of Mediterranean regions in terms of farm income, land, labour and capital. A positive mathematical supply model disaggregated by the montado agro-forestry production systems of the Alentejo region in southern Portugal is developed. The results show that decoupling payments of CAP have negative economic effects on agricultural activities and resource use. Agricultural income increases with single farm payments but the foreseen increases in prices do not compensate the loss of the Agenda 2000 area payments in terms of competitiveness. These results reinforce the need to promote alternative agricultural and non-agricultural activities and policies in Mediterranean rural European areas and regions.     

有机硅/四针状氧化锌复合改性聚氨酯的制备和性能研究

本文采用γ-氨丙基三乙氧基硅烷对四针状氧化锌进行表面改性,并用其制备了有机硅/四针状氧化锌复合改性聚氨酯.探讨了四针状氧化锌含量对材料的热学性能、力学性能和抗静电性能的影响,并比较了有机硅/四针状氧化锌复合改性聚氨酯与四针状氧化锌/聚氨酯复合材料的热学、力学、表面性能、抗静电性能及耐候性.     

HIV/AIDS treatments

Although fewer people are being diagnosed with AIDS in the U.S. and deaths continue to decline, the number of adults age 50 and older who are living with HIV/AIDS is larger than ever. It is likely that older people will continue to comprise an increasingly larger proportion of individuals diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, reflecting both the ineffective prevention efforts targeting older adults and the highly effective antiretroviral therapies that allow many people to live for significantly longer periods of time. These recent trends have created two distinct populations of older persons with HIV/AIDS: those who were infected later in life and those infected earlier and now aging with HIV disease. Aging with HIV/AIDS presents unique psychosocial challenges that may be exacerbated by the aging process. HIV-related stigma, social support and coping issues and evidence-based psychosocial interventions for older adults with HIV/AIDS are reviewed in this paper and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The Concept of Consciousness4 The Reflective Meaning

In this article, which is fourth in a series of six articles, I address the fourth concept of consciousness that the Oxford English Dictionary ("the OED") defines in its six main entries under the word consciousness. I first introduce this fourth concept, the concept of consciousness₄. by (a) identifying the previous three OED concepts of consciousness, which I have already discussed in this series of articles, and (b) by indicating how that to which we make reference, respectively, by means of those three concepts is related to the referents of the concept of consciousness₄. I then address the latter concept more directly by pursuing for the remainder of the article where the OED's fourm entry leads. Among other things, I am led to consider two competing accounts of consciousness₄ that figure prominently in the OED entry, namely the intrinsic, self-intimational account of William Hamilton and the inner-eye, perceptionlike account of John Locke. Both kinds of account are very much with us today.     

The Concept of Consciousness5: The Unitive Meaning

This is the fifth of a series of six articles examining respectively the six concepts of consciousness identified in the main entries of the Oxford English Dictionary under the word. I call the concept of consciousness₅ the unitive meaning because it is said to refer to the totality of mental-occurrence instances that constitute a person's conscious being. The present article consists mainly of an effort to answer the question of which totality of mental-occurrence instances it is to which the fifth concept refers. Four possible answers are considered, and the fourth, derived form Locke, is found to capture best the dictionary's meaning. Accordingly, consciousness5 is a certain subjectively determined unity of mental-occurrence instances mat is further specified, of course, in the article. However, I also consider, finally, that the compilers of the dictionary may have had something more objective in mind as well, another meaning toward which the word is tending if it has not already arrived mere. This further sense may amount to an identification of consciousness with those components of James's stream that he described as "the very core and nucleus of our self as we know it, the very sanctuary of our life."