Globalization and the health of Canadians: ‘Having a job is the most important thing’

Background Globalization describes processes of greater integration of the world economy through increased flows goods, services, capital and people. Globalization has undergone significant transformation since the 1970s, entrenching neoliberal economics as the dominant model of global market integration. Although this transformation has generated some health gains, since the 1990s it has also increased health disparities. Methods As part of a larger project examining how contemporary globalization was affecting the health of Canadians, we undertook semi-structured interviews with 147 families living in low-income neighbourhoods in Canada’s three largest cities (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver). Many of the families were recent immigrants, which was another focus of the study. Drawing on research syntheses undertaken by the Globalization Knowledge Network of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health, we examined respondents’ experiences of three globalization-related pathways known to influence health: labour markets (and the rise of precarious employment), housing markets (speculative investments and affordability) and social protection measures (changes in scope and redistributive aspects of social spending and taxation). Interviews took place between April 2009 and November 2011. Results Families experienced an erosion of labour markets (employment) attributed to outsourcing, discrimination in employment experienced by new immigrants, increased precarious employment, and high levels of stress and poor mental health; costly and poor quality housing, especially for new immigrants; and, despite evidence of declining social protection spending, appreciation for state-provided benefits, notably for new immigrants arriving as refugees. Job insecurity was the greatest worry for respondents and their families. Questions concerning the impact of these experiences on health and living standards produced mixed results, with a majority expressing greater difficulty ‘making ends meet,’ some experiencing deterioration in health and yet many also reporting improved living standards. We speculate on reasons for these counter-intuitive results. Conclusions Current trends in the three globalization-related pathways in Canada are likely to worsen the health of families similar to those who participated in our study

Fingerprinting an natürlichen und angepflanzten Schilf-Beständen (Phragmites australis) Nordwestdeutschlands

In Folge der Erweiterung des Bremer Flughafens mußte der Flußlauf der Ochtum (Alte Ochtum) verlegt werden (Neue Ochtum). Im Mittelpunkt des Projektes stehen natürliche und artifizielle Schilfbestände der Alten und Neuen Ochtum westlich von Bremen. Mit Hilfe der RAPD-Fingerprinting Methode wurden 13 Phragmites australis Bestände Nordwestdeutschlands untersucht. Die angepflanzten jungen Bestände der Neuen Ochtum unterscheiden sich nicht wesentlich von den spontan angesiedelten Populationen. Die neuen Bestände (Neue Ochtum) sind genetisch variabler als die älteren natürlichen Bestände (Alte Ochtum, sowie zum Vergleich Dümmer, Rubbenbruchsee). Einzelne Stichproben aus den angepflanzten Beständen können eindeutig Ancestorpopulationen (Alte Ochtum) zugeordnet werden. In manchen Beständen der Neuen Ochtum kann ein bedeutender Prozentsatz (bis zu 13%) an Merkmalen identifiziert werden, die in den Beständen der Alten Ochtum nicht vertreten sind. Es muß zu einem Neueintrag von außerhalb gekommen sein, der durch Anschwemmung von Saatgut erfolgt sein könnte. Möglicherweise erfolgte die artifizielle Bepflanzung mit Material, das nicht, wie angegeben, aus autochthonen Beständen der Alten Ochtum stammte. Innerhalb der Populationen sind Stichproben terrestrischer Bereiche von denen überfluteter Bereiche zu unterscheiden. Die Dümmerpopulationen sowie die Rubbenbruchpopulation sind deutlich verschieden von den Ochtum Populationen. Die Bestände der Neuen Ochtum und der Alten Ochtum bilden keine getrennten Cluster.Subsequent to the airport extension near Bremen the course of the river Ochtum (Alte Ochtum) has been moved to another place (Neue Ochtum). Our task was to compare the artificial and natural new stands (Neue Ochtum) with the natural old stands (Alte Ochtum) at the river Ochtum west of Bremen. With RAPD fingerprinting we studied the relationships within and between 13 reed stands of north-west Germany. The planted new stands do not differ essentially from the spontaneous new stands. The new stands (Neue Ochtum) are generally more variable than the old stands (Alte Ochtum, in comparison with Dümmer, Rubbenbruchsee). Single probes from the planted stands have nearly the same RAPD pattern as old stands (Alte Ochtum, ancestral genotypes). Some stands of the Neue Ochtum developed new RAPD markers (up to 13%) which do not occur in the Alte Ochtum populations. This is explained by an input of new genotypes from outside by washed up seeds or air borne pollen. The artificially planted material of the Neue Ochtum is possibly not an outcome of autochthonous stands of the Alte Ochtum as stated in the literature. Within some populations terrestrial and flooded genotypes can be determined. Populations from the Dümmer and the Rubbenbruchsee are clearly distinct from Ochtum populations. Neue Ochtum and Alte Ochtum stands do not create distinct clusters

Cosmological Hydrodynamics with Multi-Species Chemistry and Nonequilibrium Ionization and Cooling

We have developed a method of solving for multi-species chemical reaction flows in non--equilibrium and self--consistently with the hydrodynamic equations in an expanding FLRW universe. The method is based on a backward differencing scheme for the required stability when solving stiff sets of equations and is designed to be efficient for three-dimensional calculations without sacrificing accuracy. In all, 28 kinetic reactions are solved including both collisional and radiative processes for the following nine separate species: H, H+, He, He+, He++, H-, H2+, H2, and e-. The method identifies those reactions (involving H- and H2+) ocurring on the shortest time scales, decoupling them from the rest of the network and imposing equilibrium concentrations to good accuracy over typical cosmological dynamical times. Several tests of our code are presented, including radiative shock waves, cosmological sheets, conservation constraints, and fully three-dimensional simulations of CDM cosmological evolutions in which we compare our method to results obtained when the packaged routine LSODAR is substituted for our algorithms.Comment: Latex and postscript, 24 pages, with 6 figures. The paper is also available at http://zeus.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8080/~abel/PGas/bib.html Submitted to New Astronom

Time Evolution of Spin Waves

A rigorous derivation of macroscopic spin-wave equations is demonstrated. We introduce a macroscopic mean-field limit and derive the so-called Landau-Lifshitz equations for spin waves. We first discuss the ferromagnetic Heisenberg model at T=0 and finally extend our analysis to general spin hamiltonians for the same class of ferromagnetic ground states.Comment: 4 pages, to appear in PR

Temperature Relaxation in Hot Dense Hydrogen

Temperature equilibration of hydrogen is studied for conditions relevant to inertial confinement fusion. New molecular-dynamics simulations and results from quantum many-body theory are compared with Landau-Spitzer (LS) predictions for temperatures T from 50 eV to 5000 eV, and densities with Wigner-Seitz radii r_s = 1.0 and 0.5. The relaxation is slower than the LS result, even for temperatures in the keV range, but converges to agreement in the high-T limit.Comment: 4 pages PRL style, two figure

The Formation of Ultra-Compact Dwarf Galaxies

Recent spectroscopic observations of galaxies in the Fornax-Cluster reveal nearly unresolved `star-like' objects with red-shifts appropriate to the Fornax-Cluster. These objects have intrinsic sizes of about 100 pc and absolute B-band magnitudes in the range -14 < M_B < -11.5 mag and lower limits for the central surface brightness mu_B > 23 mag/arcsec^2 (Phillipps et al. 2001), and so appear to constitute a new population of ultra-compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs). Such compact dwarfs were predicted to form from the amalgamation of stellar super-clusters (Kroupa 1998), which are rich aggregates of young massive star clusters (YMCs) that can form in collisions between gas-rich galaxies. Here we present the evolution of super-clusters in a tidal field. The YMCs merge on a few super-cluster crossing times. Super-clusters that are initially as concentrated and massive as knot~S in the interacting Antennae galaxies (Whitmore et al. 1999) evolve to merger objects that are long-lived and show properties comparable to the newly discovered UCDs. Less massive super-clusters resembling knot 430 in the Antennae may evolve to omega-Cen-type systems. Low-concentration super-clusters are disrupted by the tidal field, dispersing their surviving star clusters while the remaining merger objects rapidly evolve into the mu_B-M_B region populated by low-mass Milky-Way dSph satellites.Comment: MNRAS, accepted, 10 pages, 10 figure

Thermomagnetic instability in hot discs

A linear stability analysis of ionized discs with a temperature gradient and an external axial magnetic field is presented. It is shown that both hydromagnetic and thermomagnetic effects can lead to the amplification of waves and make discs unstable. The conditions under which the instabilities grow are found and the characteristic growth rate is calculated. The regimes at which both the thermomagnetic and magnetorotational instabilities can operate are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, accepted for the publication in MNRA

Can conduction induce convection? The non-linear saturation of buoyancy instabilities in dilute plasmas

We study the effects of anisotropic thermal conduction on low-collisionality, astrophysical plasmas using two and three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations. For weak magnetic fields, dilute plasmas are buoyantly unstable for either sign of the temperature gradient: the heat-flux-driven buoyancy instability (HBI) operates when the temperature increases with radius while the magnetothermal instability (MTI) operates in the opposite limit. In contrast to previous results, we show that, in the presence of a sustained temperature gradient, the MTI drives strong turbulence and operates as an efficient magnetic dynamo (akin to standard, adiabatic convection). Together, the turbulent and magnetic energies contribute up to ~10% of the pressure support in the plasma. In addition, the MTI drives a large convective heat flux, ~1.5% of rho c_s^3. These findings are robust even in the presence of an external source of strong turbulence. Our results on the nonlinear saturation of the HBI are consistent with previous studies but we explain physically why the HBI saturates quiescently by re-orienting the magnetic field (suppressing the conductive heat flux through the plasma), while the MTI saturates by generating sustained turbulence. We also systematically study how an external source of turbulence affects the saturation of the HBI: such turbulence can disrupt the HBI only on scales where the shearing rate of the turbulence is faster than the growth rate of the HBI. In particular, our results provide a simple mapping between the level of turbulence in a plasma and the effective isotropic thermal conductivity. We discuss the astrophysical implications of these findings, with a particular focus on the intracluster medium of galaxy clusters.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures. Submitted to MNRA