Major Metropolitan Centers Research Articles

Distributed Generation System Using Pe Interface

“Distributed generation is an electric power source connected directly to the distribution network or on the customer side of the meter” [1]. Distributed power generation is the future trend due to its ability to accommodate variety of renewable/alternative energy sources, its potential to improve the energy efficiency and power system capability, and its promise for power reliability and security. The smart power grid distributed energy system would provide the platform for the use of renewable sources and adequate emergency power for major metropolitan load centers and would safeguard in preventing the complete blackout of environmental calamity and would provide the ability to break up the interconnected power systems into the cluster smaller regions. This paper describes the integration issues of renewable energy in electric power systems. And the benefits of using PE interface for such applications.

Fifty Years of Sustained Production from the Australian Abalone Fisheries

The sustained production of abalone from the five state-managed (Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, and Western Australia) Australian abalone fisheries has contrasted with many of those elsewhere that exhibited rapid and sustained declines in production. Australian abalone fisheries are significant at local, regional, state, national, and international scales. Key attributes are (1) harvesting, processing, and reinvestment of profits occur away from major metropolitan centers; (2) they are among the most valuable wild-catch species in all states; (3) the combined Australian abalone harvest in 2011 (>4,500 t) had a landed value of ∼AU$200M and represented 15% of the Australian total wild-catch production; and (4) this level of production made these fisheries the dominant contributor (60%) to global wild-catch abalone production. Unlike many other abalone fisheries, total catches were controlled by limited entry, quotas, size limits, and geographic boundaries, overseen by stringent compliance regimes, early in their history. Subsequently, state-based research programs, explicitly tasked with providing scientific advice to support management decisions, undertook assessments to match harvests with stock productivity. This information upon which to base management decisions contributed to long-term (>20 years) stable harvests and enabled relationships among stakeholders to develop around consideration of the information and advice for management. In general, rights-holders developed stewardship for the resource, and this has led to numerous important outcomes, including evolving resource co-management and a nationally representative industry entity, the Abalone Council of Australia. The Abalone Council of Australia, state-based industry entities, and ongoing relationships among rights-holders, fishery managers, and researchers play vital roles in addressing and overcoming current and impending challenges for these fisheries. These difficulties include (1) urban encroachment into coastal regions (the so-called “sea change” phenomenon); (2) a growing interest in access to the abalone resource, reflecting the increasing, culturally diverse Australian population; (3) the ever-present threat of illegal fishing; (4) recent total allowable commercial catch reductions, particularly in Victoria and New South Wales, to facilitate stock rebuilding; (5) changing market conditions; (6) declining profitability from increasing operational costs and appreciation of the Australian dollar; and (7) environmental changes, such as prolonged drought and warmer seas associated with shifts in climate. Overall, this review demonstrates that abalone can be harvested sustainably over extended periods, despite aspects of their demography that suggest higher vulnerability to overexploitation, providing the management systems that control harvesting activities and external impacts that encompass several key underpinning elements. This review also identifies likely challenges to sustained production and shows that the future of these stocks and fisheries will require proactive strategies to mitigate current threats to sustainability and to maintain economically viable productivity.

Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

Sudden cardiac death (SCD), which is responsible for approximately 300 000 deaths in the United States, refers to an unexpected death from a cardiovascular cause in a person with or without preexisting heart disease. Most studies include cases that are associated with death occurring within 1 hour of an acute change in clinical status or an unexpected death that occurred within the previous 24 hours,1 but this definition is not specific for sudden arrhythmic death. The most common sequence of events leading to arrhythmic SCD is the degeneration of ventricular tachycardia (VT) into ventricular fibrillation (VF), often followed by asystole or pulseless electric activity. The transition of shockable rhythms (VT/VF) to more ominous rhythms such as asystole or pulseless electric activity depends on various factors, but is highly dependent on time; the longer the time interval, the more likely the VT/VF degenerates to pulseless electric activity or asystole. Although VF and VT together represent the initial rhythm in half of all outpatient cardiac arrests, data suggest that with each passing minute of untreated VF, the likelihood of survival is reduced by 7% to 10%.2 Preexisting coronary artery disease and its sequelae (eg, acute myocardial ischemia, scarring from previous myocardial infarction, heart failure) are manifest in 80% of SCDs.3 Dilated nonischemic and hypertrophic cardiomyopathies account for the second largest number of SCDs, whereas other cardiac disorders such as congenital heart disease and underlying genetically determined ion channel anomalies account for 5% to 10% of SCDs.3 Although the cascade of events triggering SCD are complex and are currently active areas of investigation, the general goals of reducing SCD are focused on (1) identifying and preventing sudden death in high-risk individuals by using efficacious therapies such as medications and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), (2) organizing resuscitation services to improve …

Strategic Aquifer Storage and Recovery of Desalinated Water to Achieve Water Security in the GCC/MENA Region

Population growth, lack of ground-storage in major metropolitan centers, and a variety of security issues cause the need to develop large storage capacities to meet potable water supply needs during emergency conditions in the GCC/MENA region. Because of the arid nature of the region and the very large storage capacities required, conventional ground-storage and surface reservoirs are not economically feasible to meet strategic storage requirements, but must be used to manage distribution system daily demand fluctuation and short-term emergency needs (fire flow). Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) is an economic and viable technical solution to meet the critical need for strategic long-term storage. ASR systems that can potentially store billions of cubic meters of desalinated water can be economically developed. These systems need to be sited at strategic locations, such as near water treatment facilities, adjacent to major pipelines conveying post-treated desalinated water to municipal population centers or near to pumping stations associated with municipal high water use centers. Great consideration must also be given not only to the strategic positioning of the ASR reservoirs, but also to the hydrogeology of the aquifers in which the systems would be developed. Not all locations and aquifer systems can successfully support a mega-scale ASR system.

Abstract 3067: Independent Quality Assurance for Carotid Endarterectomy

Background: A systematic bias leading to the underreporting of carotid endarterectomy (CEA) complications has been suggested in published reports. The possibility of an evidence-practice gap in conjunction with uncertainties regarding operator and institutional performance impede clinical decisions by practitioners for carotid revascularization. Methods: A prospective, independent monitoring system was implemented alongside an ongoing retrospective, self-reported quality assurance (QA) system for CEA at a major metropolitan tertiary care academic medical center. Independent, trained monitors from the neurology department examined all patients undergoing CEA both preoperatively and postoperatively at 24 hours and 30 days. Data was collected on patient demographics, medical history, and procedural and anatomical variables. Outcome data from the independent QA system was compared against self-reported data for the same cohort of patients, excluding CEA performed concurrently with another procedure (typically cardiac surgeries) or non-vascular surgeons. Results: From July 2008 through June 2010 vascular surgeons performed 462 isolated CEA at the institution. Stroke and death was detected at greater frequency by the independent QA system than was self-reported by the surgical staff (3.7% versus 1.7%, p=0.05). Self-reported outcomes from the study cohort matched those previously published in a peer-reviewed journal using the same self-reporting system (1.7% versus 1.4%, p=0.52). Conclusions: In the same cohort of patients, the reported periprocedural stroke and death rate for CEA is higher comparing prospective, independent, trained monitors to surgeon self-reporting. As public health policy mandates rigorous assessment of outcome, and ultimately, performance-based reimbursement, the validity of QA systems merits heightened attention.

From ‘London’s Burning’ to ‘Sten Guns in Sunderland’

The punk movement between 1976 and 1984 represented a distinct period in the development of youth culture in Britain. Whilst certain principles paralleled earlier generations and youth movements, they were married to an outspoken ideology that declared ‘anyone can do it’ and an overtly nihilistic attitude toward the music industry itself. This led to a situation where ‘anyone’ did, in fact, ‘do it’, and the resulting deluge of independent, do-it-yourself records, concerts and networks of activity threatened to seriously disrupt the commercial stability of the popular music business, albeit temporarily. This period also saw a shift in power from traditional centres of production to smaller, independent hubs of operation with often clear local agendas. The relationship between popular music, geographical location and notions of authenticity is long-standing though discourse on the subject has been largely overlooked in favour of a style and authenticity debate centred on youth cultures and subcultural groups (Hebdige 1979; 1988; Marcus 1989; Home 1995; Muggleton 2000). Although Jon Savage (1991) does make a case for the punk Diaspora from 1978 onwards, the process is still described as one-way in that authentic punk styles originating in London filtered out to the provinces. Much the same case was made by Dick Hebdige, who attempted to validate his own position regarding what he describes as ‘originals’ and ‘hangers-on’, while Dave Muggleton adopted a more pluralistic attitude towards individual modes of ‘authentic’ participation. However, these models are all based on the perceptions of those involved in subcultural groups, and the physical geography of their locations relative to a perceived ‘centre’ is not discussed in any detail. This article explores the relationship between punk aesthetics and graphic identities across the wider regions of the United Kingdom. UK punk has often been portrayed as London-centric, with an occasional ‘nod’ to a small number of other major metropolitan centres, such as Manchester or Leeds; but little attention has been paid to more local interpretations of punk and post-punk styles, or of the groups and clusters of individuals from further afield who responded to punk’s initial call to arms to ‘do it themselves’. Examples of punk output reflecting a connection to geographical localities and regional cultural histories are highlighted; and the sense that often small-scale local agendas operated alongside and in parallel to both national and international punk development is explored. This sense of local identity played out in record sleeves, lyrics, song titles, band names and graphic identities of groups and labels across the UK.

CELEBRATING SHAW'S CHICAGO CENTURY AND BEYOND

Broadly speaking, the geography of Shaw’s dramatic career has been determined to a large degree by major metropolitan centers in Europe and North America and the cultural experiments and avant-garde movements they generated. Moreover, as the historical record shows, the reception of Shaw’s plays in these culture capitals has produced responses ranging from horrified to indifferent to enthusiastic. Yet while scholars have examined at length Shaw’s reception in cities such as Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and New York, they have yet to explore fully the importance of Chicago, a city whose long-standing importance to Shaw’s career challenges more traditional approaches to the dramatist’s life and work. 1 In diverse ways, Chicago has displayed its love affair with GBS for more than a century; indeed, according to bibliographer Sidney Kramer, it was “from Chicago that Shaw conquered America.” 2 In the most interesting ways, Shaw’s literary and professional relationship with Chicago cuts across the encounter of publishers, artists, and intellectuals with a metropolis that not only engendered but also supported and enhanced a revolution in the arts equal to both its American and European counterparts. At one level, the significance of Shaw’s relationship with Chicago—or “Shaw-cago” as we might term it—provides us with an opportunity to consider a counter-reading of the dramatist’s relationship with America; at the same time, the points of contact between Shaw and the “Windy City” speak to an alternative sense of literary history, one that connects the Irish dramatist to American cultural and political life from the late Victorian period through our own postmillennium moment. 3

Para além da cidade: entre fragmentações e permeabilidades, os desafios do planejamento e da gestão urbana no espaço metropolitano de Belém - DOI 10.5216/ag.v4i12.12779

The metropolitan reality emerges as complex and dynamic on the national scene. While it is a relatively recent phenomenom, has structural problems of urbanization old Brazilian, considering that currently, the Brazilian urbanization has also largely in its major metropolitan centers of their achievement In this discussion, we consider the nature of the metropolitan area and his complex character in the brazilian reality in general and in particular the metropolitan region of Belem. Thus, it explores the social production of space underground Belem, highlighting the metropolitan socio-spatial training, their internal dynamics and trends, as well as the practices of urban planning and management over the process of urban ongoing.

The Risks of Blood Transfusion in Patients with Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

To the Editor: I read with much interest the recently published recommendations of the Neurocritical Care Society’s Consensus Conference on the ‘‘Critical Care management of patients following aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH)’’ [1]. These guidelines state ‘‘there was wide agreement... that data supporting restrictive transfusion in medical patients do not apply to SAH’’ and that ‘‘patients should receive packed RBC transfusion to maintain hemoglobin concentration above 8–10 g/dl (moderate quality evidence, strong recommendation).’’ I believe that the literature does not support these recommendations. The pathophysiologic consequences following allogenic red blood cell (RBC) transfusion are complex and poorly understood [2]. It is however well recognized that RBC transfusions result in immunosuppression (perhaps lifelong) with an increased risk of infection (and tumor recurrence), are proinflammatory increasing the risk of acute lung injury and multi-organ failure as well as being prothrombotic [2–6]. The effects of RBC transfusion on tissue oxygenation are complex, with clinical and experimental data demonstrating that an increase in the calculated oxygen delivery does not necessarily translate into increased oxygen uptake, even in patients with an oxygen debt [7, 8]. Dhar et al. [9] evaluated the effect of RBC transfusion on oxygen kinetics in eight anemic patients following a SAH. While transfusion resulted in a 15% rise in hemoglobin and an 18% increase in calculated oxygen delivery, the global cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (in ml/100 g/min) remained unchanged. In addition, it is important to recognize that the mean age of transfused blood in the United States in 24 days, being considerably older in major metropolitan medical centers [10]. ‘‘Aged’’ RBC’s have been shown to paradoxically decrease tissue oxygenation and are independent predictors of hospital complications and death in medical and surgical patients [7, 11–16]. Despite the fact that 13 million units of blood are transfused annually in the US and over 60 million worldwide [17], there is scanty evidence that non-bleeding, hemodynamically stable patients actually benefit from blood transfusion. Indeed, current data suggest that in these patients blood transfusion increases the risk of infection, ARDS, and death [18]. Anemia is a common finding in patients who have suffered a SAH, with over 50% of patients having a nadir hematocrit less than 30% [19–22]. Multiple factors likely contribute to the development of an anemia following SAH, including blood loss during surgery, venesection, gastrointestinal and other sources of blood loss, decreased production of erythropoietin, and impaired erythropoiesis [22]. The nadir hemoglobin is generally related to the admission Hunt and Hess grade [21, 22]. Anemia after SAH has been reported to be associated with worse outcomes [21, 23]. The association between anemia and worse outcomes does not necessarily imply that correction of the anemia with blood transfusions will improve outcome. This is important, as data suggest that between 35 and 60% of patients suffering a SAH receive a blood transfusion during their hospitalization [21–26]. Apart from the risks noted in ICU patients, there may be additional risks of blood transfusion in patients with SAH. Nitric oxide (NO) plays a critical role in regulating vasomotor tone and NO metabolism may influence the risk and severity of vasospasm after SAH [27]. Erythrocytes carry NO for release in vessels, whereas transfused erythrocytes lack stored NO and may exacerbate vasospasm [28, 29]. P. E. Marik (&) Department of Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical School, 825 Fairfax Ave, Suite 410, Norfolk, VA 23507, USA e-mail: marikpe@evms.edu

Do Immigrants Respond to Regional Labor Demand Shocks?

The recent economic boom in the Canadian province of Alberta provides an ideal “natural experiment” to examine immigrants' responses to a strong labor demand outside major metropolitan centers. The key finding of this study based on a unique data set that combines administrative and immigrant records is that not only did immigrants respond to the recent economic boom in Alberta, but that their response was generally stronger than the response of nonimmigrants. We also find, however, a great deal of heterogeneity in the magnitude of the response across different regions and for different categories of immigrants.

Risk Factors for Colonic Perforation after Screening Computed Tomographic Colonography: A Multicentre Analysis and Review of the Literature

Computed tomographic (CT) colonography (or 'virtual' colonoscopy) has become an increasingly popular tool for colorectal cancer screening. Colonic perforation, an uncommon complication, is a risk that has not been widely reported. A systematic review of the literature was undertaken to identify all reported risk factors for colonic perforation following CT colonography. In addition, a retrospective multicentre study was undertaken, evaluating all CT colonographies in 10 major metropolitan tertiary referral centres. All colonic perforations were assessed for risk factors. A range of 'patient'-related and 'procedure'-related risk factors were identified in the literature. Among 3458 CT colonographies, there were two cases of colonic perforation contributing to an incidence of perforation of 0.06%. There was no statistical correlation between the incidence of perforation and institutional experience (P = 0.66). Risk factors common to both cases and the literature included age, recent colonoscopy and manual colonic insufflation. Diverticular disease and recent colonic biopsy were also notable factors. There is a small but real risk of perforation following CT colonography. Patient selection and preventative procedural measures may reduce this risk. The importance of the consent process is emphasized.

Interruptions Experienced by Registered Nurses Working in the Emergency Department

A descriptive, observational study was performed to determine (a) the frequency (number of interruptions per hour) that a typical ED nurse experiences interruptions, (b) the type of interruptions a typical ED nurse experiences, and (c) the percentage of interruptions that take place during medication related activities. A convenience sample of 30 nurses from 3 emergency departments of a major metropolitan academic medical center were each observed for 120 minutes to determine how many interruptions per hour the ED nurse experienced, the type of interruptions and what percentage of these interruptions took place during medication-related activities. A data collection tool was developed to record tasks performed by the nurses and the type of interruptions experienced. Interrater reliability was established with a Kappa of 0.825. A total of 200 interruptions occurred during the 60 hours of observation, or 3.3 interruptions per hour per RN. Of the 20 possible types of interruptions that were identified a prior to the observation period, 11 different types of interruptions were actually observed. The majority of interruptions (95%) were related to face-to-face communications with others in the ED. The total number of interruptions related to medication activities was 55 (27.5% of the total number of interruptions). The results of this study can serve as the basis for subsequent, larger studies that examine more closely the relationship between interruptions and errors in the ED, with the ultimate goal of developing interventions to reduce medication errors and other adverse events that occur due to nurse interruptions.

Potential on-shore and off-shore reservoirs for CO 2 sequestration in Central Atlantic magmatic province basalts

Identifying locations for secure sequestration of CO(2) in geological formations is one of our most pressing global scientific problems. Injection into basalt formations provides unique and significant advantages over other potential geological storage options, including large potential storage volumes and permanent fixation of carbon by mineralization. The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province basalt flows along the eastern seaboard of the United States may provide large and secure storage reservoirs both onshore and offshore. Sites in the South Georgia basin, the New York Bight basin, and the Sandy Hook basin offer promising basalt-hosted reservoirs with considerable potential for CO(2) sequestration due to their proximity to major metropolitan centers, and thus to large industrial sources for CO(2). Onshore sites are suggested for cost-effective characterization studies of these reservoirs, although offshore sites may offer larger potential capacity and additional long-term advantages for safe and secure CO(2) sequestration.

Implications of human pharmaceutical occurrence in the Sindian river of Taiwan: A strategic study of risk assessment

Contamination of natural aquatic environments with human-use pharmaceuticals poses a significant potential threat to local ecosystems. However studies of the risk assessment of this contamination are limited, in part because currently the environmental concentration prediction is logistically and technically difficult to perform. In this study, 1) a strategic method to determine occurrence and risk of pharmaceutical compounds in an aquatic environment is proposed, and 2) this method is applied to study ten human-use pharmaceuticals in Taiwan's Sindian river, which traverses and supplies drinking water for Taipei, a major metropolitan center. In river-water samples collected over a three-week period, concentrations of NSAIDs (acetaminophen, diclofenac, ibuprofen, naproxen, and ketoprofen), steroids (estrone, 17alpha-ethinylestradiol and 17beta-estradiol), the anti-hypertensive agent propranolol, and the lipid regulator gemfibrozil were found at ng/L to microg/L levels; night-time concentrations were often doubled or even greater, compared to day-time levels. With the exception of the estrogens, predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) of the target pharmaceuticals agreed well with measured environmental concentrations (MECs). In the Sindian river, which is impacted by both regional and hospital discharges, the pattern of pharmaceutical occurrences and concentrations observed here is due to variations in source release rather than to natural attenuation phenomena. In addition, the environmental risk posed by acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and the estrogens was observed to be imminent, while risk from the other drugs targeted was found to be lower, even when maximum MECs were considered.

Moment release rate of Cascadia tremor constrained by GPS

A comparison of GPS and seismic analyses of 23 distinct episodic tremor and slip events, located throughout the Cascadia subduction zone over an 11‐year period, yields a highly linear relationship between moment release, as estimated from GPS, and total duration of nonvolcanic tremor, as summed from regional seismic arrays. The events last 1–5 weeks, typically produce ∼5 mm of static forearc deformation, and show cumulative totals of tremor that range from 40 to 280 h. Moment released by each event is estimated by inverting GPS‐measured deformation, which is sensitive to all rates of tremor‐synchronous faulting, including aseismic creep, for total slip along the North American‐Juan de Fuca plate interface. Tremor, which is shown to be largely invariant in amplitude and frequency content both between events and with respect to its duration, is quantified using several different parameterizations that agree to within 10%. All known Cascadia events detected since 1997, which collectively span the Cascadia arc from northern California to Vancouver Island, Canada, release moment during tremor at a rate of 5.2 ± 0.4 × 1016 N m per hour of recorded tremor. This relationship enables estimation of moment dissipation, via seismic monitoring of tremor, along the deeper Cascadia subduction zone that poses the greatest threat to its major metropolitan centers.

Dentistry in Brazil: Its History and Current Trends

The objectives of this article are to provide a short history of dentistry and dental education in Brazil and to analyze the nature of its development to date. The databases consulted are those provided by the Brazilian Federal Council of Dentistry, Brazilian Ministry of Health, Brazilian Ministry of Education, National Institute of Studies and Educational Research Anísio Teixeira, and Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Formal dental education in Brazil started in the late nineteenth century with the creation of courses annexed to existing schools of medicine in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. Today, there are 191 institutions of higher education nationwide granting degrees in dentistry (137 private [71.7 percent] and fifty-four public [28.3 percent]), with a total of 17,157 student positions offered annually. These schools graduate around 10,000 professionals per year-one of the highest rates in the world. Both the distribution of schools of dentistry and of dentists varies among the regions of the country, with the greatest concentrations in major metropolitan centers with high population density, resulting in limited coverage in the more deprived regions. A review of epidemiological data for oral health and distribution of dentists in Brazil indicates that there is a lack of systematic planning for the allocation of the dental workforce and a lack of consideration of regional needs in the development of dental training programs in Brazil today.

"A Dynamic Force in Our Community": Women's Clubs and Second-Wave Feminism at the Grassroots

"A Dynamic Force in Our Community":Women's Clubs and Second-Wave Feminism at the Grassroots Melissa Estes Blair (bio) An historian today looking for second-wave feminist action in Durham, North Carolina during the 1960s and 1970s would, at first glance, find very little. Several efforts were made to found a National Organization for Women (NOW) chapter in the city, but none were successful.1 Consciousness-raising groups and other radical feminist organizations often left little paper trail; one such group appears in neighboring Chapel Hill, but there is no documentary evidence of these groups in Durham.2 But when one looks beyond these second-wave groups, feminist activism in Durham comes into focus. The public face of feminism in Durham was not pickets or rallies, but rather workshops and a women's center run by the city's Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), and efforts by the local League of Women Voters (LWV) to secure ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. This is not to say that there were no consciousness-raising groups in Durham. But no public actions by radical feminist groups were reported in the city's newspapers, either the African American weekly the Carolina Times or the daily Durham Sun. The feminist work of established women's groups was the work with which community members would have been most familiar. The leadership of these established women's groups in Durham's feminist community was not anomalous to this Southern town. Existing women's organizations were key channels for feminism in cities throughout the country.3 This essay sheds light on how the second wave looked in cities far from the movement's intellectual heart in a handful of large cities, examining the opportunities and limitations created when grassroots women undertook feminist action from within women's clubs that had been founded well before the second wave. It also argues that conducting feminist action through existing groups determined who would and would not participate in public feminist action in one Southern town. This essay has two main goals. By documenting the role of established women's clubs in spreading second-wave feminism beyond the metropole, [End Page 30] it expands our understanding of how the women's movement functioned as a grassroots movement that received little explicit direction from the movement's theorists or media-identified leaders. While grassroots activists took cues from national leaders about which issues were appropriate for feminist action, they developed their own methods of addressing those issues, crafting programs to be successful in their cities. In examining the feminist community in one Southern town, this essay also shows how the race and class relations in that town shaped the city's feminist community. Durham's women's clubs had worked hard to integrate over the course of the 1960s. Channeling feminist action through those clubs created a feminist community that was racially integrated. But these were middle-class clubs, and working-class women of neither race participated in feminist activities in large numbers. In the early 1970s the ideas and analyses of the women's liberation movement moved through the country primarily by means of mass media coverage.4 Most leading intellectuals of second-wave feminism did not develop mechanisms for widely disseminating their ideas.5 This omission has been replicated in the scholarship on the second wave, which has largely failed to examine how the movement proceeded outside of major metropolitan centers.6 Established women's organizations—clubs like the YWCA and the League of Women Voters—were vital channels for feminist activism in cities and towns throughout the United States. For women around the country, women's clubs provided communication networks through which ideas could flow. These networks were strikingly similar to those that existed among young women who participated in the civil rights movement and the New Left, and scholars have long recognized the importance of these networks to the leaders of the women's movement, and to the movement's success.7 But the comparable role played by women's clubs in the lives of women without leftist backgrounds, and the potential of women's clubs as conduits for feminism, has not been explored. Women's...

The decline of pay inequality in Argentina and Brazil following the crises and retreat from the neo-liberal model

We analyze the distribution of payment in Argentina and Brazil to develop a new insight into trends of economic inequality in the two countries. The use of the between-groups component of Theil’s T statistic, which is decomposable in several different ways, permits us to illuminate the specific winners and losers, by region and by economic activity (sector), as inequality changes. In both countries we find that inequality rose in the neoliberal period, but that it declined following the severe crises of neoliberal policy, in 1998 in Brazil and in late 2001 in Argentina. Economically, this period of post-neoliberalism is characterized in both countries by a decline in the economic weight of the financial sector and a recovery of the position of the civil service. In both countries, the rise in inequality leading to the crisis produced an increase in the relative position of the major metropolitan centers; this positional advantage also declined modestly in the post-crisis recovery period.

International migration to non‐metropolitan areas of high income countries: editorial introduction

AbstractIncreasing levels of immigration in response to ageing and fertility decline is one of the most significant demographic trends in OECD countries. Most of this immigration has focused on major metropolitan centres, but in recent years the proportion settling outside of these centres has increased. This phenomenon has largely got under the radar of policy makers and researchers alike but is significant for at least three reasons. The impact of ageing and fertility decline has been exacerbated in rural areas by outmigration so that immigration can potentially play a major role in reversing population decline and maintaining economic and social sustainability. In fact while immigration is much smaller in these areas, its impact can be magnified because of smaller local populations. Secondly, immigration is a neglected dimension of the much studied counterurbanistion phenomenon. Thirdly, the settlement experiences and integration processes for migrants in rural areas may be different to those of their urban counterparts. The countryside in high income countries is undergoing a transformation and international migration will play an increasingly important role in this over the next two decades. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Epidemiology, etiology, and diagnosis of hospital-acquired pneumonia and ventilator-associated pneumonia in Asian countries

Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) are significant public health issues in Asian countries, as they are worldwide. Mortality attributable to HAP and especially VAP can be very high. The present review aims to determine whether the incidence and prevalence of HAP and VAP are higher in Asian countries than in Western countries, whether the organisms causing these nosocomial infections differ etiologically, and whether they are more difficult to treat (ie, demonstrate greater resistance). The implementation of available guidelines can be best achieved through an understanding of local epidemiology, etiology, and resistance patterns, which can facilitate optimal treatment choices. The current review presents data on epidemiology, etiology, and diagnosis of HAP and VAP drawn from an expert panel of clinicians representing 10 Asian countries.