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PubMed2004

Radiological characteristics and investigation of the radioactive equilibrium in the ashes produced in lignite-fired power plants.

Coal- and lignite-fired power plants produce significant amounts of ashes, which are quite often being used as additives in cement and other building materials. In many cases, coal and lignite present high concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclides, such as 238U, 226Ra, 210Pb, 232Th and 40K. During the combustion process, the produced ashes are enriched in the above radionuclides. The different enrichment of the various radionuclides within a radioactive series, such as that of 238U, results in the disturbance of radioactive secular equilibrium. An extensive research project for the determination of the natural radioactivity of lignite and ashes from Greek lignite-fired power plants is in progress in the Nuclear Engineering Department of the National Technical University of Athens (NED-NTUA) since 1983. This paper presents detailed results for the natural radioactivity, the secular radioactive equilibrium disturbance and the radon exhalation rate of the fly-ash collected at the different stages along the emission control system of a lignite-fired power plant as well as of the bottom-ash. From the results obtained so far, it may be concluded that 226Ra radioactivity of fly-ash in some cases exceeds 1 kBq kg(-1), which is much higher than the mean 226Ra radioactivity of surface soils in Greece (25 Bq kg(-1)). Furthermore, the radioactivity of 210Pb in fly-ash may reach 4 kBq kg(-1). These results are interpreted in relation to the physical properties of the investigated nuclides, the temperature in the flue-gas pathway, as well as the fly-ash grain size distribution. It is concluded that towards the coldest parts of the emission control system of the power plant, the radioactivity of some natural nuclides is gradually enhanced, secular radioactive equilibrium is significantly disturbed and the radon exhalation rate tends to increase.

Air Pollutants, Radioactive↗
PubMed2006

The decline in Australian young male suicide.

Since the late 1990s there has been a sharp downward trend in Australian young male suicide. It is possible that a major government youth suicide prevention initiative, the National Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy (NYSPS), implemented during 1995-1999 may have influenced the decline. In this article, we examine time trends in age- and means-specific male and female Australian suicide rates in relation to unemployment rates and the NYSPS. Based on Australian suicide data over the period 1966-2003, we assess secular changes in the 20-24 year male suicide to total (crude) male suicide rate ratio in relation to the NYSPS, using interrupted time series analysis (ARIMA), since this was previously found to be significantly associated with the 20-24 year male unemployment to total employment ratio. Results show that a dramatic reduction in Australian young male (aged 20-34 years) suicide has occurred since 1997-1998, declining from approximately 40 per 100,000 in 1997-1998 to approximately 20 per 100,000 in 2003. Most of the decline is due to a decrease in suicide by hanging and to a lesser extent from motor vehicle carbon monoxide and other gases. Further, the previously established strong secular association (lasting over 3 decades from 1966) between the rate ratio of 20-24 year male suicide to total (crude) male suicide, and the rate ratio of 20-24 year male unemployment to total unemployment, appears to have been disrupted. ARIMA modelling of the suicide ratio against the initiative indicates a highly significant statistical association between the NYSPS and the suicide ratio reduction but not between the NYSPS and the unemployment indicator trend, suggesting a break in the link between young male suicide and unemployment. The recent sudden turnaround in Australian young male suicide trends and its extent appears to preclude explanations centring on slow-moving social indices traditionally associated with suicide, or on possible cohort effects. This sudden decrease has occurred mainly in non-impulsive means, and at the same time has broken a long-standing secular link between 20 and 24-year-male suicide and unemployment, lending plausibility to the case for the NYSPS having had an impact on young male suicide in Australia.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Cross-cultural encounters between careproviders: rabbis' referral letters to a psychiatric clinic in Israel.

This paper explores the meaning and social functions of referral letters sent to a mental health clinic in Israel by Haredi (ultra-orthodox) rabbis. The letters exemplify social mechanisms by which various institutions and individuals (careproviders, therapists, and other social actors) negotiate different therapies, advice, and interventions in cross-cultural encounters. We argue that beyond the practical functions of the letters, the rabbis-representatives of a "popular" and religious social sphere-use them to negotiate their position in relation to the psychiatric clinic as a representative of a professional and secular sphere. We show that the rabbis "submit" to the professional and secular therapists by using a local adaptation of Western psychological and psychiatric discourses (instead of a religious or mystical discourse), but also that by choosing a letter as their preferred medium of communication (instead of a personal visit to the clinic), they distance themselves from it. We suggest that the rabbis reconstitute, via the letters, social boundaries within their religious community and between their community and secular society. Hence, through analysis of discourses of mental illness in a cross-cultural encounter we examine ways in which illness is practically managed among diverse groups in society. Specifically, we analyze such discourses as part of a power relationship between careproviders who belong to different therapeutic social spheres, using a phenomenological exploration of how mental illness is perceived and constructed as both "a medical problem" and as "social deviance".

Clergy↗
PubMed1994

Diminished recall and the cohort effect of major depression: a simulation study.

Several large-scale epidemiological surveys have reported increasing lifetime rates of psychopathology among recently born cohorts. In the case of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) younger cohorts tend to manifest higher lifetime prevalences of the condition than older cohorts, at any given age. In some studies, cohort differences are so large that the youngest cohort exceeds the lifetime prevalence of the oldest cohort well before passing through their total period of risk. The data on lifetime prevalences that support the existence of secular differences, however, has typically been collected in cross-sectional studies. Thus, individuals are interviewed at a single point in time and asked to recall all prior psychopathology. Due to poor recall, this design may greatly underestimate earlier experiences. In fact, cohort differences are not limited to MDD; similar results have been reported for a wide range of psychopathology, suggesting methodological problems at data collection. We have conducted a simulation study to examine the magnitude of annual rates of forgetting that could produce the secular trends reported for MDD. Small, but constant annual rates produce striking, 'cohort effect-like' curves. The rates needed to reconstruct the reported effect are compatible with published values for test-retest studies of lifetime recall of MDD. This simulation study does not rule out the existence of a cohort effect in some psychiatric disorders, but stresses the possible limitations of using cross-sectional studies to investigate secular trends.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Medical discourse in religious controversy: the case of the critique of "enthusiasm" on the eve of the Enlightenment.

Medicine is not only a cultural system of its own. It also performs specific roles in the broader culture of society at large. This article examines the role of medical arguments in the critique of "enthusiasm" on the eve of the Enlightenment. The enthusiasts, who claimed to prophesy and to have direct divine inspiration, were increasingly seen in the seventeenth century as melancholics. With the decline of humoral medicine, however, the account of melancholic disturbances--including enthusiasm--that was offered tended to be chemical, mechanistic, and clearly corpuscular. Protestant ministers, in adopting such an account of enthusiasm, also adopted a strict distinction between the realm of the mind (to which true prophecy belonged) and that of the body (in which they located the phenomena of enthusiasm). Such a distinction served in turn to demarcate more specifically the limits between the clerical and medical professions. Yet in relegating the treatment of enthusiasts to the physicians, rather than seeing the enthusiasts as heretics, the ministers stood in danger of relying too much on a secular profession and secular arguments, thus paving the way to a more general secularization of the ideological basis of the social order.

Europe↗
PubMed2001

Age of puberty: data from the United States of America.

In an attempt to determine whether the secular trend toward an earlier onset of puberty has continued over recent decades in the United States of America, published reports concerning the age of attainment of pubertal events have been reviewed. Such reports are very limited and vary in both design and inclusive ages of study subjects. Among females, two recent large cross-sectional studies indicate that fifty percent of females in the United States attain Tanner breast stage 2 at 9.5 to 9.7 years of age. This is younger than previously thought, although adequate earlier studies of girls in the United States are not available for comparison. These two studies also indicate that about 14% of girls attain Tanner stage 2 while 8 years of age; one study extends earlier reporting that about 6% exhibit onset of breast development while 7 years of age. There is no evidence that the age of menarche or the attainment of adult (Tanner 5) breast development has decreased over the past 30 years. The data also suggest an earlier onset of Tanner stage 2 pubic hair but no change in attainment of stage 5. Among males, pubic hair may be appearing at younger ages, but data are inadequate or too inconsistent to allow firm interpretation. The lack of standardization of genital criteria of pubertal onset in the male makes any conclusions regarding secular trends impossible. In summary, earlier secular trends over recent decades related to better health, improved nutrition or socio-economic status, or any putative influence by endocrine disrupters cannot be verified.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Salvaging the self in a world without soul: William James's The Principles of psychology.

This article explores William James's transformation of the religious soul into the secular self in The Principles of Psychology. Although James's views on the self are familiar to many historians of psychology, the article places his treatment of the self within the broader social and cultural context of a secularizing, industrializing society. There were palpable tensions and anxieties that accompanied the cultural shift, and these are particularly transparent in James's Principles. James attempted the project of secularizing the soul in order to promote a natural science of the mind but with marked ambivalence for the project, because it left out some of the moral and metaphysical questions of great interest to him.

Books↗
PubMed1998

Trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Scotland: description and possible explanations.

Secular and cohort trends in mortality from cancer in Scotland during 1953-93, and incidence during 1960-90, were analysed using individual records from the national mortality and registration files. For certain cancer sites, the secular analyses of mortality were extended back to 1911 by use of published data. Mortality from cancer at older ages in Scotland has increased over the last 40 years. In each sex, this trend has been dominated by the effects of smoking: all-cancer rates and rates of lung cancer, now the most common fatal cancer in men and in women in Scotland, reached a peak in the cohort of men born at the turn of the century and the cohort of women born in the 1920s. For much of the period, the Scottish all-age rates of lung cancer were the highest reported in the world; they are now decreasing on a secular basis in men, but are still increasing in women. There have also been large increases at older ages in the incidence and mortality rates for cancer of the prostate in recent years. bladder cancer, nervous system cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, myeloma and leukaemia; for each there is likely to be a considerable artefactual element to the increase, with differing degrees of possibility that there may in addition be an element of real increase. Substantial decreases in mortality at all ages have occurred for stomach and colorectal cancers and substantial increases at all ages for pleural cancer and melanoma. Rates of mortality from breast cancer, the most common cancer in women in Scotland, have generally increased over the past 80 years; a temporary cessation in this upward trend occurred in the years during and after the Second World War, and recently rates have turned downward, probably at least in part because of better treatment. Mortality from ovarian cancer, the second most common reproductive-related female tumour in Scotland, has also increased at older ages. At younger ages, mortality from cancer in Scotland has decreased, especially in men, whereas incidence has not. This divergence, which has been a consequence of better treatment, has occurred especially for cancers of the testis and ovary, Hodgkin's disease and leukaemia. There have been increases at young adult ages, however, in both mortality from and incidence of oral and pharyngeal, oesophageal and laryngeal cancers in men, and melanoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in each sex. Cervical cancer rates at young ages also increased, but this trend has reversed for incidence in the most recent birth cohorts. Incidence rates have also increased for testicular cancer in young adults and leukaemia in children. With the possible exceptions of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and childhood leukaemia, the increasing rates are likely largely to reflect real rises in incidence, and they highlight the need for investigation of the causes of these cancers, and, when causes are known, for preventive action.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Analysing patterns of religious participation in post-communist Eastern Europe.

It is generally thought that processes of modernization generic to industrialized societies have resulted in a process of secularization with respect to conventional religious participation and observance in most Western countries. It is not at all clear, however, whether the post-communist societies of Eastern Europe have followed this pattern. In this we paper we examine whether levels of religiosity in ten post-communist societies--five generally Catholic in orientation and five Orthodox--are consistent with secularization theory, or whether instead they display, as some have suggested, the impact of seven decades of atheistic communism followed by a recent resurgence among the young. For this purpose we examine denominational membership and church attendance using descriptive and multivariate analysis of large-scale national sample surveys conducted in the mid-1990s. We find that age and educational differences in participation rates follow patterns expected on the basis of secularization theory with no evidence of resurgence among younger groups. Also, however, Catholic participation rates are significantly higher than Orthodox ones, indicating the importance of denomination in understanding patterns of religiosity in the post-communist context.

Civil Rights↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Socioeconomic status, body size and physical activity of adults on Rarotonga, the Cook Islands.

Much of the secular trend toward increased body size among populations in the Pacific Region has been attributed to the processes of economic modernization and socioeconomic change. The primary objective of the present analysis was to examine the relationships between socioeconomic factors and stature, weight, body mass index and physical activity level of adult Cook Islanders living a largely modernized lifestyle in the Pacific Region. In a cross-sectional study of physical activity, body size and socioeconomic status, a volunteer sample of 345 Cook Islanders aged 20-65 years was obtained from the total adult population of Rarotonga, and measured at six out-patient clinics. Stature, weight, body mass index (BMI), physical activity level and age were calculated by sex and occupational category, years of education, island of birth and number of years lived on Rarotonga, respectively, using SPSSPC for Windows. Stepwise multiple regression was used to examine the relationships between stature, weight, BMI, PALweekday (a measure of physical activity level), age and non-linear functions of age, and the socioeconomic variables. These analyses indicate that the secular trend in stature is a function of the relative level of modernization on Rarotonga relative to other Cook Islands, and with level of education. These factors associate differently among males and females, the secular trend among males appearing to be a general phenomenon in response to lifestyle change associated with life on Rarotonga, while among females the trend is a function of lifestyle change associated with education and independent of island of origin. The trend toward increasing body fatness is also different for males and females. Weight declines with age for both men and women, in a linear way for the males, but in a non-linear fashion for the females. Body weight is also greater among those males in more skilled and professional occupations than among those with less-skilled professions. For the women, weight is independent of occupation category. Physical activity patterns of modernizing adult Cook Islanders show no relationships with socioeconomic variables for the males, but while older women are less active, those born on Rarotonga are less active than those born elsewhere in the Cook Islands. The number of years spent on Rarotonga shows no significant relationships with any of the physical measures, or with physical activity level. This is likely to be as much a function of small sample size as a lack of effect. Although declines in energy expenditure with increasing age have been demonstrated for both males and females in various populations around the world, on Rarotonga this holds true for females and not males, indicating that physical activity declines with increasing age in modernizing societies do not occur in uniform fashion.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Age at menarche in a Chuvashian rural population.

OBJECTIVES: The secular trend and familial influences on age at menarche among a rural Chuvashian population was examined in a cross-sectional community-based study. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The cohort included 617 females aged 18-80 years, with age at menarche ranging from 10 to 24 years (mean 15.4 +/- 2.1). Statistical analyses included simple linear regression, maximum likelihood estimation and a whiskers plot. RESULTS: Women born during the second through the fourth decade of the 20th century showed increasing mean values of age at menarche from 15.4 (second decade) up to 16.5 (fourth decade). Women born after the fourth decade showed a decrease in mean values from 15.5 (fifth decade) to 13.0 (ninth decade). The highest peak of age at menarche was in women born in 1932. Significant familial correlations were observed between adjusted to year of birth age at menarche in mothers and daughters r = 0.195, p<0.01 and sisters and sisters r = 0.404, p<0.01. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated the certain secular trends of age at menarche in Chuvashian women who matured after World War II. Periods of socio-economic disasters such as war and famine disrupt the secular trend. Our findings also confirm the hypothesis of significant familial influences on menarcheal age.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Reference values and age-related trends for arm muscle area, arm fat area, and sum of skinfolds for United States adults.

Age- and sex-specific percentile distributions for mid-upper arm muscle area (AMA), mid-upper arm fat area (AFA), subscapular skinfold thickness, and sum of triceps and subscapular skinfold thickness for United States adults (18-74 yr) were developed from cross-sectional data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) during the Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1971-1974 (NHANES I). Sample weighting factors were applied to the data to assure the production of the identical data set used to calculate weight-for-height percentiles by NCHS. Smoothed curves developed from the percentile distributions for AMA and AFA are also presented. Arm muscle area and AFA were calculated from the Health Examination Survey of 1960-1962 (HES) which made possible an age-cohort analysis for age-related changes and secular trends. Secular differences were found for arm muscle area for both men and women, while men differed little in fat-related anthropometric parameters. The secular change in arm fat area for women could be explained by the greater amount of fat that surrounded a larger arm, since the ratio of AFA to AMA did not change between the two surveys. Age-cohort analysis revealed increases in AMA with age rather than the apparent decrease observed for the older age groups in the cross-sectional data. Reference values developed from the most recent cross-sectional data are the most appropriate for the nutritional assessment of United States adults, because each age cohort can be seen to display different anthropometric characteristics as well as age-related changes in these parameters.

Adipose Tissue↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Trends in pubertal development in Europe.

The secular changes in growth and maturation can be seen as indicators of socio-economic and health status. In most European countries the age of onset of puberty and of menarcheal age has been decreasing during the past few decades. The duration of puberty seems also to decrease, though few studies provide sufficient data to support this postulation. The four Dutch nationwide growth surveys are useful examples assessing the secular trend in pubertal development over the past 45 years. Genetic and environmental factors contribute to the secular changes. Environmental factors seem to be the most important. Recently, attention has been given to substances with oestrogen-like actions that are present in nutrients. The possible role of these substances in growth and maturation is discussed.

Aging↗
PubMed1993

Talking ethics with strangers: a view from Jewish tradition.

The work of H. Tristram Engelhardt provides an important set of reflections for bioethics in a secular context. Taking Engelhardt's work as its point of departure this article explores the challenges that Jewish ethicists face in contributing to bioethics in a secular context. The article explores how the Jewish tradition can address issues in bioethics in ways that are true to its tradition and at the same time accessible and relevant to "moral strangers" in a secular society.

Abortion, Legal↗
PubMed2002

Effects of capitated mental health services on youth contact with the juvenile justice system.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between Medicaid mental health capitation and youth's involvement with the juvenile justice system. METHOD: A longitudinal, quasi-experimental pre/post design was used. Using administrative databases, juvenile justice contact, defined as any detention or commitment, was assessed for 13,365 Medicaid-eligible youths, aged 10-17 years, who received public mental health services over a 3-year period (1994-1997) in the state of Colorado. RESULTS: There was no significant effect of financing when secular time was controlled for (interaction financing x time: hazard rate = 0.92, p =.62). The main effects model demonstrates a significant secular trend with juvenile justice contacts decreasing over time for both types of financing (hazard rate = 0.80, p =.002) and a significant effect of financing with eventually capitated sites having higher rates of juvenile justice contact compared with sites that remained fee-for-service (hazard rate = 1.24, p =. 009). Multivariate analyses controlled for demographics, mental health and substance use diagnoses, and other risk factors for juvenile justice contact. CONCLUSIONS: After adjustment for secular trends, capitation was not associated with a reduction in juvenile justice contact. Nonetheless, these findings provide evidence that capitation did not increase the risk of juvenile justice contact.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Changes in the self and professional images of student nurses.

This study tested hypotheses concerning the development of self-image and professional orientations among students of nursing in two Israeli schools (n = 235), one of which was religiously affiliated and the other secular. The study involved a longitudinal comparison of attitudes at the beginning of the programme of study and after 3 months, and a cross-sectional comparison of the attitudes of students in each of the 3 years of the nursing programme. Based on a review of the literature, we predicted that the student's self-image and her image of the ideal professional nurse would grow more congruent during her studies. In addition, we predicted that her image of the ideal professional and the image held by her instructor would grow more congruent. The latter hypothesis was partly supported by the panel data and strongly supported by the cross-sectional data, whereas the hypothesis concerning self-image and professional image was not supported. No support was found for two other hypotheses predicting that religious students would show a greater tendency towards the expected changes. Instead we found that the gap between the religious students' professional image and that held by their instructors was greater than it was for the secular students. Moreover, the supervisors in the religious school had different images of the profession than their secular counterparts.

Cross-Sectional Studies↗
PubMed2000

Generalized thermoelastic waves in homogeneous isotropic plates

The propagation of thermoelastic waves in homogeneous isotropic plate subjected to stress-free and rigid insulated and isothermal conditions is investigated in the context of conventional coupled thermoelasticity (CT), Lord-Shulman (LS), Green-Lindsay (GL), and Green-Nagdhi (GN) theories of thermoelasticity. Secular equations for the plate in closed form and isolated mathematical conditions for symmetric and skew-symmetric wave mode propagation in completely separate terms are derived. It is shown that the motion for SH modes gets decoupled from the rest of the motion and remains unaffected due to thermo-mechanical coupling and thermal relaxation effects. The phase velocities for SH modes have also been obtained. The results for coupled and uncoupled theories of thermoelasticity have been obtained as particular cases from the derived secular equations. At short wavelength limits the secular equations for symmetric and skew-symmetric waves in a stress-free insulated and isothermal plate reduce to Rayleigh surface waves frequency equations. Finally, the numerical solution is carried out for aluminum-epoxy composite material and the dispersion curves for symmetric and skew-symmetric wave modes are presented to illustrate and compare the theoretical results.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1996

A Statistical Model of the Fluctuations in the Geomagnetic Field from Paleosecular Variation to Reversal

The statistical characteristics of the local magnetic field of Earth during paleosecular variation, excursions, and reversals are described on the basis of a database that gathers the cleaned mean direction and average remanent intensity of 2741 lava flows that have erupted over the last 20 million years. A model consisting of a normally distributed axial dipole component plus an independent isotropic set of vectors with a Maxwellian distribution that simulates secular variation fits the range of geomagnetic fluctuations, in terms of both direction and intensity. This result suggests that the magnitude of secular variation vectors is independent of the magnitude of Earth's axial dipole moment and that the amplitude of secular variation is unchanged during reversals.

Journal Article↗