Epidemiological Trend of Hepatitis B in Shandong Province of China, 1990 - 2007 []

Objective To analyze the epidemiological trend of hepatitis B from 1990 to 2007 in Shandong province, and to find the high risk population so as to explore the further control strategy. Methods Based on the routine reporting incidence data of hepatitis B and demographic data of Shandong province, the incidence rates and sex - specific, age - specific incidence rates of hepatitis B were calculated and statistically analyzed in the simple linear regression model. Results The total number of hepatitis B was 437 094, the annual average morbidity was 27132 per 100 000 population during 1990 to 2007. The incidence of men (38142 per 100 000) was higher than that for women (15183 per 100 000) 1The annual incidence rate of hepatitis B indicated an increasing trend for the whole population, while a decreased trend for the 0～9 year - old children p resented in the past 18 years. It showed that the average age of onset moved to the older. Conclusion Young adult men are the high-risk groups for the onset of hepatitis B. For the prevention of hepatitis B, the immunization of hepatitis B vaccine should be enhanced for other groups, especially for the high - risk population on the basis of imp roving the immunization coverage rate for newborns.

Determinants of plant performance dynamics : empirical analysis of the manufacturing sector in Indonesia, 1990-2000

We identify determinants of plant dynamics and find their differences before, during, and after the Asian financial crisis. The results show that the distinction of the crisis is important and the effects of the crisis do not seem to persist after 1998. Furthermore, we reject Gibrat's law as the right functional form to describe plant growth. We are not able to support empirically the theoretical results that smaller and efficient plants tend to grow faster than larger and inefficient plants with the exception of the crisis period. The results reflect that there was a trickle down effect of economic development.

Challenging the myth of an "epidemic" of common mental disorders : trends in the global prevalence of anxiety and depression between 1990 and 2010

Background Anxiety disorders and major depressive disorder (MDD) are common and disabling mental disorders. This paper aims to test the hypothesis that common mental disorders have become more prevalent over the past two decades. Methods We conducted a systematic review of prevalence, remission, duration, and excess mortality studies for anxiety disorders and MDD and then used a Bayesian meta-regression approach to estimate point prevalence for 1990, 2005, and 2010. We also conducted a post-hoc search for studies that used the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) as a measure of psychological distress and tested for trends to present a qualitative comparison of study findings. Results This study found no evidence for an increased prevalence of anxiety disorders or MDD. While the crude number of cases increased by 36%, this was explained by population growth and changing age structures. Point prevalence of anxiety disorders was estimated at 3.8% (3.6-4.1%) in 1990 and 4.0% (3.7-4.2%) in 2010. The prevalence of MDD was unchanged at 4.4% in 1990 (4.2-4.7%) and 2010 (4.1-4.7%). However, 8 of the 11 GHQ studies found a significant increase in psychological distress over time. Conclusions The perceived "epidemic" of common mental disorders is most likely explained by the increasing numbers of affected patients driven by increasing population sizes. Additional factors that may explain this perception include the higher rates of psychological distress as measured using symptom checklists, greater public awareness, and the use of terms such as anxiety and depression in a context where they do not represent clinical disorders.

Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions, 1990-2010: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

BACKGROUND Measuring disease and injury burden in populations requires a composite metric that captures both premature mortality and the prevalence and severity of ill-health. The 1990 Global Burden of Disease study proposed disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) to measure disease burden. No comprehensive update of disease burden worldwide incorporating a systematic reassessment of disease and injury-specific epidemiology has been done since the 1990 study. We aimed to calculate disease burden worldwide and for 21 regions for 1990, 2005, and 2010 with methods to enable meaningful comparisons over time. METHODS We calculated DALYs as the sum of years of life lost (YLLs) and years lived with disability (YLDs). DALYs were calculated for 291 causes, 20 age groups, both sexes, and for 187 countries, and aggregated to regional and global estimates of disease burden for three points in time with strictly comparable definitions and methods. YLLs were calculated from age-sex-country-time-specific estimates of mortality by cause, with death by standardised lost life expectancy at each age. YLDs were calculated as prevalence of 1160 disabling sequelae, by age, sex, and cause, and weighted by new disability weights for each health state. Neither YLLs nor YLDs were age-weighted or discounted. Uncertainty around cause-specific DALYs was calculated incorporating uncertainty in levels of all-cause mortality, cause-specific mortality, prevalence, and disability weights. FINDINGS Global DALYs remained stable from 1990 (2·503 billion) to 2010 (2·490 billion). Crude DALYs per 1000 decreased by 23% (472 per 1000 to 361 per 1000). An important shift has occurred in DALY composition with the contribution of deaths and disability among children (younger than 5 years of age) declining from 41% of global DALYs in 1990 to 25% in 2010. YLLs typically account for about half of disease burden in more developed regions (high-income Asia Pacific, western Europe, high-income North America, and Australasia), rising to over 80% of DALYs in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1990, 47% of DALYs worldwide were from communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional disorders, 43% from non-communicable diseases, and 10% from injuries. By 2010, this had shifted to 35%, 54%, and 11%, respectively. Ischaemic heart disease was the leading cause of DALYs worldwide in 2010 (up from fourth rank in 1990, increasing by 29%), followed by lower respiratory infections (top rank in 1990; 44% decline in DALYs), stroke (fifth in 1990; 19% increase), diarrhoeal diseases (second in 1990; 51% decrease), and HIV/AIDS (33rd in 1990; 351% increase). Major depressive disorder increased from 15th to 11th rank (37% increase) and road injury from 12th to 10th rank (34% increase). Substantial heterogeneity exists in rankings of leading causes of disease burden among regions. INTERPRETATION Global disease burden has continued to shift away from communicable to non-communicable diseases and from premature death to years lived with disability. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, many communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional disorders remain the dominant causes of disease burden. The rising burden from mental and behavioural disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and diabetes will impose new challenges on health systems. Regional heterogeneity highlights the importance of understanding local burden of disease and setting goals and targets for the post-2015 agenda taking such patterns into account. Because of improved definitions, methods, and data, these results for 1990 and 2010 supersede all previously published Global Burden of Disease results.

Spatiotemporal pattern of bacillary dysentery in China from 1990 to 2009: What is the driver behind?

BACKGROUND Little is known about the spatiotemporal pattern of bacillary dysentery (BD) in China. This study assessed the geographic distribution and seasonality of BD in China over the past two decades. METHODS Data on monthly BD cases in 31 provinces of China from January 1990 to December 2009 obtained from Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and data on demographic and geographic factors, as well as climatic factors, were compiled. The spatial distributions of BD in the four periods across different provinces were mapped, and heat maps were created to present the seasonality of BD by geography. A cosinor function combined with Poisson regression was used to quantify the seasonal parameters of BD, and a regression analysis was conducted to identify the potential drivers of morbidity and seasonality of BD. RESULTS Although most regions of China have experienced considerable declines in BD morbidity over the past two decades, Beijing and Ningxia still had high BD morbidity in 2009. BD morbidity decreased more slowly in North-west China than other regions. BD in China mainly peaked from July to September, with heterogeneity in peak time between regions. Relative humidity was associated with BD morbidity and peak time, and latitude was the major predictor of BD amplitude. CONCLUSIONS The transmission of BD was heterogeneous in China. Improved sanitation and hygiene in North-west China, and better access to clean water and food in the big floating population in some metropolises could be the focus of future preventive interventions against BD. BD control efforts should put more emphasis on those dry areas in summer.

Modernity, postmodernity and identity of jazz in Chile : The cases of the generation of 1990 and Ángel Parra

This research is about jazz in Chile in relation to modernity and identity. Final chapters focus and detach latest jazz musician s generation in 1990 decade and composer guitarist Angel Parra. An historic and sociological approach is developed, which will be useful for modernity and identity analysis, and so on post modernity and globalization. Modernity has been studied in texts of Adorno, Baudrillard, Brünner, García Canclini, Habermas and Jameson. Identity has been studied in texts of Aharonián, Cordúa, Garretón, Gissi, Larraín and others. Chapter 3 is about Latin-American musicology and jazz investigations, in relation to approach developed in chapter 2. Chapters 4 and 5 are about history of jazz in Chile until beginning of XXI century. Chapter 6 focuses in Ángel Parra Orrego. Conclusions of this investigation detach the modernist mechanical that has conducted jazz development in Chile, which in Ángel Parra´s case has been overcame by a post modernist behaviour. This behaviour has solved in a creative way, subjects like modernity and identity in jazz practice in a Latin-American country.

Vikuroivia vilkaisuja : Ruumis, sukupuoli, seksuaalisuus ja visuaalisen kulttuurin tutkimus

The PhD dissertation "Bucking Glances: On Body, Gender, Sexuality and Visual Culture Research" consists of theoretical introduction and five articles published between 2002-2005. The articles analyze the position of visual representations in the processes of knowledge production on acceptable genders, bodies, and sexualities in contemporary Wes¬tern societies. The research material is heterogeneous, consisting of representations of contemporary art, advertisements, and fashion images. The ideological starting point of the PhD dissertation is the politics of the gaze and the methods used to expose this are the concepts of oppositional gaze, close reading, and resisting reading. The study situates visual representations in dialogue with the concepts of the grotesque and androgyny, as well as with queer-theory and theories of the gaze. The research challenges normative meanings of visual representations and opens up space for more non-conventional readings attached to femininity and masculinity. The visual material is read as troubling the prevailing heteronormative gender system. The dissertation also indicates how visual culture research utilizing the approach of queer theory can be fruitful in opposing and re-visioning changes in the repressive gender system. The article "A Heroic Male and A Beautiful Woman. Teemu Mäki, Orlan and the Ambivalence of the Grotesque Body" problematizes the concept of heroic masculinity through the analysis of the Finnish artist Teemu Mäki's masochistic performance The Good Friday (1989). It also analyzes cosmetic surgery, undertaken by the French artist Orlan, as a cultural tool in constructing and visualizing the contemporary, com¬mercial ideals of female beauty. The article "Boys Will Be Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls. The Ambivalence of Androgyny in Calvin Klein' Advertisements" is a close reading of the Calvin Klein perfume advertisement One (1998) in reference to the concept of androgyny. The critical point of the article is that androgynous male bodies allow the extension of the categorical boundaries of masculinity and homosexuality, whereas representations of androgynous women feed into the prevailing stereotypes of femininity, namely the fear of fat. The article "See-through Closet: Female Androgyny in the 1990s Fashion Images, New Woman and Lesbian Chic" analyzes the late 1990s fashion advertisements through the concept of female androgyny. The article argues that the figures of the masculine female androgynes in the late 1990s fashion magazines do not problematize the dichotomous gender binary. The women do not pass as men but produce a variation of heterosexual desirability. At the same time, the representations open up space for lesbian gazing and desiring. The article "Why are there no lesbian advertisements?" addresses the issue of femme gaze and desire in relation to heterosexual fashion advertisements from the British edition of the mainstream fashion magazine Vogue. The article considers possibilities for resistant femme visibility, identification, and desire. The article "Woman, Food, Home. Pirjetta Brander's and Heidi Romo's Works as Bucking Representations of Femininity" analyses the production and queering of heteronormative femininity and family through the analysis of art works. The article discusses how the term queer has been translated into Finnish. The article also introduces a new translation for the term queer: the noun vikuuri, i.e. faulty form and the verb vikuroida, i.e. to buck. In Finnish, the term vikuuri is the vernacular or broken form of the term figure, i.e. figuuri. Vikuuri represents all forms situated outside the norm and the normative.

Kognitiva system i namngivningen av finländska handelsfartyg 1838-1938

This dissertation is an onomastic study of Finland s stock of ship names (nautonomasticon) recorded over the period 1838 1938. The primary material investigated consists of 2 066 examples of ship names from the fleets of coastal towns, distributed over five sample years. The material is supplemented with two bodies of comparative data; one that consists of 2 535 examples of boat names from the archipelago area at the corresponding time, and another that comprises 482 examples of eighteenth century Finnish ship names. This study clarifies the categories of names that appear the frequency of the names, formation, morphology, linguistic origin, functions, and semantic qualities. By comparing the material with boat names from previous centuries, and from other countries, the characteristics of Finnish vessel names are further highlighted. Additional clarification is brought to the chronological, regional, and social variations, and to the emergence of various forms of systematic naming. This dissertation builds on older research from other countries, and uses traditional onomastic methods alongside a more modern methodology. The approach is interdisciplinary, meaning that the names are explored using facts not only from nautical history, but also from a range of other historical disciplines such as economics, culture, art, and literature. In addition, the approach is socio-onomastic, i.e. that the variations in names are studied in a societal context. Using a synchronised perspective, cognitive linguistic theories have provided the tools for this exploration into the metaphorical and the prototypical meaning of the names, and the semantic domains that the names create. The quantitative analysis has revealed the overall picture of Finnish boat names. Personal names, names from mythology, and place names, emerge as significant categories, alongside nonproprial names in Swedish and Finnish. The interdisciplinary perspective has made it possible to explain certain trends in the stock of boat names, for example, the predisposition towards names from classical mythology, the breakthrough of names taken from the national epos Kalevala, names in the Finnish language from around the middle of the nineteenth century, and the continuing rise of place names during the latter part of the period 1838 1938. The socio-onomastic perspective has also identified clear differences between those ship names used in towns, and those ship names used in the archipelago, and it has clarified how naming conventions tend to spread from town centres to peripheral areas. The cognitive linguistic methods have revealed that the greater part of the vessel names can be interpreted as metaphors, in particular personifications, and that many names are related in their content and also form semantic networks and cognitive systems. The results indicate that there is a mental nautonomasticon that consists of a standard set of traditional ship names, but they also reveal the existence of conscious or unconscious cognitive systems (rules and conventions) that guide the naming of boats.

Kilpailukykyvaltion koululainsäädännön rakentuminen : Suomen eduskunta ja 1990-luvun koulutuspoliittinen käänne

Finnish education policy, educational legislation and the entire education system changed significantly during the 1990s as part of a general restructuring of public administration. There has been a clear divergence from the former tradition of a system of regulation, founded on detailed legislation and the principle of equality. The new governance, which is based more on individual choice, efficiency and evaluation, emphasizes that the development of a high standard of education is a necessity in the light of global competition. This study explores the legislative process regarding education policy in the Finnish Parliament during the 1990s, and highlights in particular how the international discourse on education policies was restructured in the context of Finnish legislation. The research material consists of all the public parliamentary documents relating to education, including government proposals, minutes from the discussions in the chamber and archive material (final protocols, reports and statements) for the Committee for Education and Culture. The discourse on the process of drafting and passing education legislation is modelled on three interrelated policy technologies (market, management and performance), which are understood here as mechanisms connecting general political ideas to normative legislation. The changes in the regulation of education were part of a general public administration reform instigated during the mid 1980s. The research results will prove that during the left-right coalition cabinet of PM Harri Holkeri, new policy technologies affected the parliamentary discourse on education policy. This was particularly influenced by a change in the preconditions for the management of education that was created as a result of the numerous demands to deregulate and delegate decision-making authority to the local and school levels while rendering the whole education system more effective. At the turn of the decade, market-type mechanisms were more indirectly manifested in the forms of individuality and freedom of choice, which were reflected, for example, in proposals to “lower the hurdles” by separating general from vocational secondary education with a view to encouraging students to select courses from other educational establishments, in addition to relaxing the requirements for establishing private schools and abolishing a hundred-year-old strict national catchment-area system. Later, in the course of the 1990s, after the subjects, players, and methods of evaluation had been more precisely defined, evaluation based on performance would result in the active measurement of the attainment of set objectives. In the spring of 1991, from the outset of PM Esko Aho's right-centre coalition cabinet, the education budget suffered cutbacks as a result of a global recession and this influenced the legislative work of, and discourses in, parliament. Representatives of the parties in power regarded the recession solely as an external factor that was remote from the political arena. In their view, the education system should rise to the challenge by ensuring the efficient and innovative use of the resources available and by developing new forms of indicators for evaluating results. Representatives of the opposition opposed the cabinet’s standpoint as a result of the recession, criticized the measures taken by pointing out the harmful effect of constantly cutting the budget and argued that the government had made political capital out of the recession by using it as an opportunity to give more room to market, management and performance technologies within the Finnish education system. Criticism of the new education policy became even stronger during PM Paavo Lipponen's first “rainbow” coalition cabinet with critical views being expressed not only from the opposition but also from representatives within the government. Representatives from the left demanded legislative restrictions and the instigation of measures to relieve the presumed negative effects of market, management and performance in the name of educational equality. The new management by results steering method within the university sector and the introduction of commercial education services in compulsory education were fiercely criticized. The argument over “setting outer limits” including, for example, the demands for more detailed legislation and earmarked state subsidies was characteristic of Parliament’s legislative discourse in the latter part of the 1990s. Keywords: education policy, education legislation, Parliament of Finland

A Comparison of the Implementation of the Employment Provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) in the United States and the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 in the United Kingdom

This summarizes the results of recently conducted surveys in the United States and Britain to assess employer response in each of these countries to their respective employment disability nondiscrimination legislation.

BLS Publications, 1972-77, Bulletin 1990

The catalog contain listings for BLS publications from 1972-77. Numerical listings for BLS Bulletins and Reports as well as subject indexes for these and other BLS publications are included.

Kouluromaanien opettajakuva 1930-luvulta 1990-luvulle : ihanteellisia, kapinallisia ja oman tien kulkijoita

The aim of this research is to define what kind of characters and images of teachers appear in Finnish school novels describing social changes and educational political reform from the 1930s to the 1990s written by teachers, particularly grammar school teachers. As comparison material, I use school novels written by Swedish school teachers, in which the changes in Swedish society and educational system and their expressions in the characters of teachers of the school novels are studied. The main focus of my study is centred particularly on school novels in which the images of grammar school teachers are described during times of school reform. From these starting points, the main objectives of the study are novels written by Finnish school teachers Anneli Toijala and Sampo Haahtela and Swedish school teacher Hugo Swensson, who was inspired by Haahtela. The research is qualitative multidisciplinary case analysis. The research method is content analysis, and the approach is hermeneutic. The research is divided into eight main chapters. After the introduction I introduce the essential concepts of my research. In the third main chapter I define the research function. In that context, besides the research objectives, I introduce former research on character description in literature, I define the methodological solutions with grounds and present the research material. Both literary research methods and sociological terminology are applied in the research alongside with pedagogical research. The research results show that images of teachers are diverse. At one end of the spectrum these represent immature pictures of teachers withdrawn into the routines of everyday life; at the other, they advance and reflect the reformist teacher. This becomes clearly evident when comparing the teacher "monsters" of the classic authors to the educational optimists at the end of the 20th century. The results show that the images of teachers in school novels are almost without exception coherent, psychologically credible and consistent, and hardly any different from the images of teachers in the Swedish school novels used as comparison material. On the contrary, plenty of similarities are found. The comprehensive school reform, educational political discourse and teachers' feelings are realistically clarified in the school novels that describe the period. Keywords: literature image, school reform, school novel, teacher image, reflection, internal co-operation in school