“Better safe than sorry”—Reasons for consulting care due to decreased fetal movements

Background

Experience of reduced fetal movements is a common reason for consulting health care in late pregnancy. There is an association between reduced fetal movements and stillbirth.

On Exact Simulation of Markov Random Fields Using Coupling from the Past

A general framework for exact simulation of Markov random fields using the Propp–Wilson coupling from the past approach is proposed. Our emphasis is on situations lacking the monotonicity properties that have been exploited in previous studies. A critical aspect is the convergence time of the algorithm; this we study both theoretically and experimentically. Our main theoretical result in this direction says, roughly, that if interactions are sufficiently weak, then the expected running time of a carefully designed implementation is O ( N log N ), where N is the number of interacting components of the system. Computer experiments are carried out for random q -colourings and for the Widom–Rowlinson lattice gas model.     

Children's Intent Participation in a Pediatric Community of Practice

This study analyzes informal learning, drawing on video recordings of staff-child interaction in a pediatric unit. It is shown that even very young patients engage in intent community participation, carefully noting fine variations in examination and treatment practices. They orient to everyday routines in successively more complex ways, gradually acquiring novel repertoires of practices; advancing from nonverbal uptake to an active use of medical terminology, and to actively assisting staff members. Ultimately, the children themselves assume almost full responsibility for routine procedures. The unit had adopted partnership-oriented routines, and the doctors and nurses spent much time in securing the children's consent and participation in their own treatment. In contrast to much earlier work in pediatric settings which has shown children to be marginal participants; even the youngest patients were engaged, and they successively acquired a set of novel practices related to treatment procedures. Together with doctors and nurses, the children could be seen to form a community of practice. But community is not something fixed; instead it is seen as an emergent phenomenon, dependent on staff members' and children's mutual alignments and collaborative action. Learning is thus analyzed as a social and relational phenomenon.     

Underwriting slavery: insurance and slavery in the Dutch Republic (1718–1778)

This article shows that slavery was more connected to Dutch society and economy than has been previously assumed. It does so by investigating the people involved in Dutch slavery insurance in the period 1718–1734, when the Dutch slave trade was monopolized by the state-chartered West India Company (WIC) and the period 1763–1778, when the private slave trade reached its peak and slavery insurance was more common. This article analyzes a variety of primary sources that have not been studied in this light before. The analysis shows that a large and varied group was involved and that slavery insurance was not a regional institution that only affected the Dutch colonies.     

The Discursive Construction of Women Politicians in the European Press

The appointment of the first majority female government in Spain generated a significant amount of coverage in newspapers across Europe, synthesising the multi-faceted debate about the relationship between gender and political leadership. Through the combination of qualitative thematic and quantitative content analysis, this article examines the construction of women politicians across different European nations. By analysing the coverage of the issue in the main newspapers of four European countries (France, Italy, Spain and the UK) in the two weeks after the new Spanish cabinet was appointed, this article explores the values and ideal roles the media assign to female politicians. The article is based on the premise that mediated representations of female politicians can tell us important things about the relations between gender, power and politics. Such representations embody a set of assumptions about how successful women should look, behave and speak, and thus implicitly express judgments on models of femininity. Ultimately, such representations construct heroines and villains that inform our conceptions of women's political participation, thereby encouraging some forms of gendered political discourse and discouraging others. Our research found that while certain discourses celebrate women ministers for their (symbolic) emancipatory value, others judge them by their physical appearance or their performance as wives, mothers, and mothers-to-be.     

Comfortable and leisurely: Old women on style and dress

Abstract

This article uses wardrobe interviews with women in the ages of 62–94 to explore transitions and continuities during the life course. During interviews the women have defined their style preferences. One categorization favored by several of them was comfortable. Different meanings were attached to this concept. Practical and convenient outfits were described as increasingly important when aging. Garments that did not expose the body—and its changes with aging—were preferred. The informants talked about the importance of feeling at ease, appropriately dressed for the occasion and situation. They were concerned with feeling nice in their outfits but also stressed becoming more laid-back and prioritizing convenience in their later years. All of these examples had to do with comfort and being comfortable. Uncomfortable clothes were too tight, deemed wrong for the occasion, and unwanted sources of self-consciousness and visibility. Transitions in their style of dress had been gradual, slowly adapting to changes in everyday life as well as in their bodies.     

Balancing informality and need – policy responses to informal East-West migration in Austria,the Netherlands and Sweden

The article provides an analysis of policy responses to mobile EU citizens without legal residence in the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden. A comparative case study design uses qualitative survey and interview data to identify national and local policy responses to the implications of EU citizens from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) living without legal residence in the aforementioned countries. The theoretical framework specifies how the institutional logic of welfare regimes is likely to generate policy responses that address need, sanction informality or do both. The choice indicates the priority given to redistributive outcomes, administrative procedures, or both. The results reveal similar responses to those implications relating to the labour market, but slightly different approaches to the implications in the social domain. Policy responses to labour market implications have predominantly focused on sanctioning informality. Swedish and Austrian policy responses in the social domain have focused on addressing need. Dutch policy responses to social issues instead focused on sanctioning informality, prioritizing procedure. The results indicate that local and national policy responses to implications of informal intra-EU migration may be fruitfully understood through the prism of welfare regimes and related approaches to need and informality.