Variations in attitudinal gender preferences for children across 50 less-developed countries

While a number of studies have examined gender preferences for children by studying behavioral measures, such as skewed sex ratios, sex imbalance in infant mortality, and sibling size/order; attitudinal measures have been analyzed less systematically. Using 50 Demographic and Health Surveys conducted between 2000 and 2008, this paper seeks to advance our understanding of gender preferences in developing countries by examining attitudinal measures cross-nationally. This study’s findings show that, while balance preference is the most common type of preference in the vast majority of countries, countries/regions vary in the prevalence of son and daughter preferences. A preference for sons is not always found; and, indeed, a preference for daughters is shown to prevail in many societies.comparative, cross-national, gender preferences for children

Legal Review Concerning the Use of Health Impact Assessments in Non-Health Sectors

Examines laws supporting the use of health impact assessments in the areas of environment and energy, transportation, agriculture, and waste disposal and recycling, and issues regarding authority to conduct HIAs in these sectors. Makes recommendations

Nekhoroshev theorem for perturbations of the central motion

In this paper we prove a Nekhoroshev type theorem for perturbations of Hamiltonians describing a particle subject to the force due to a central potential. Precisely, we prove that under an explicit condition on the potential, the Hamiltonian of the central motion is quasi-convex. Thus, when it is perturbed, two actions (the modulus of the total angular momentum and the action of the reduced radial system) are approximately conserved for times which are exponentially long with the inverse of the perturbation parameter

Electric Dipolar Susceptibility of the Anderson-Holstein Model

The temperature dependence of electric dipolar susceptibility \chi_P is discussed on the basis of the Anderson-Holstein model with the use of a numerical renormalization group (NRG) technique. Note that P is related with phonon Green's function D. In order to obtain correct temperature dependence of P at low temperatures, we propose a method to evaluate P through the Dyson equation from charge susceptibility \chi_c calculated by the NRG, in contrast to the direct NRG calculation of D. We find that the irreducible charge susceptibility estimated from \chi_c agree with the perturbation calculation, suggesting that our method works well.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

A Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Survey of Low-Redshift AGN

Using the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) we have obtained 87 spectra of 57 low-redshift (z<0.15) active galactic nuclei (AGN). This sample comprises 53 Type 1 AGN and 4 Type 2. All the Type 1 objects show broad O VI 1034 emission; two of the Type 2s show narrow O VI emission. In addition to O VI, we also identify emission lines due to C III 977, N III 991, S IV 1062,1072, and He II 1085 in many of the Type-1 AGN. Of the Type 1 objects, 30 show intrinsic absorption by the O VI 1032,1038 doublet. Most of these intrinsic absorption systems show multiple components with intrinsic widths of 100 km/s spread over a blue-shifted velocity range of less than 1000 km/s. Galaxies in our sample with existing X-ray or longer wavelength UV observations also show C IV absorption and evidence of a soft X-ray warm absorber. In some cases, a UV absorption component has physical properties similar to the X-ray absorbing gas, but in others there is no clear physical correspondence between the UV and X-ray absorbing components. Models in which a thermally driven wind evaporates material from the obscuring torus naturally produce such inhomogeneous flows.Comment: Contributed paper to appear in the proceedings of the Guillermo Haro 2003 Conference on Multiwavelength AGN Surveys; 3 pages, 1 figur

Spin effects in single-electron transport through carbon nanotube quantum dots

We investigate the total spin in an individual single-wall carbon nanotube quantum dot with various numbers of electrons in a shell by using the ratio of the saturation currents of the first steps of Coulomb staircases for positive and negative biases. The current ratio reflects the total-spin transition that is increased or decreased when the dot is connected to strongly asymmetric tunnel barriers. Our results indicate that total spin states with and without magnetic fields can be traced by this method.Comment: 5pages, 5figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.