The size of the Mexican-origin population in the United States means that its health patterns have important implications for the country’s overall population health. Understanding how this population is woven into the country’s complex social patterning of health is critical to understanding current social disparities in health. Drawing on a health disparities perspective and nationally representative datasets, this dissertation addresses key gaps in the social demographic literature on the health of the Mexican-origin population through three empirical chapters that examine how multiple measures of cardiovascular health are distributed across diverse social status and temporal configurations. I first examine how the obesity epidemic has unfolded across multiple temporal (age, period, and cohort) and social dimensions (gender, nativity, and race) for the Mexican-origin population. I find that period rather than cohort forces have shaped the rise in obesity among the Mexican-origin population. Furthermore, the pronounced group differences in obesity prevalence have remained stable across periods and cohorts, with the exception of a growing nativity gap among Mexican-origin women, among whom obesity has increased faster for U.S.-born individuals compared with foreign-born individuals. I next address the intersection of two additional temporal and social determinants of health: duration of residence in the United States and educational attainment. Building on research documenting a weak relationship between education and health for Mexican immigrants, I assess whether duration of U.S. residence strengthens this association. The patterns vary by outcome, but generally indicate that negative education gradients in health are more pronounced for long-term Mexican immigrants than for recent Mexican immigrants and that the education gradients of long-term Mexican immigrants resemble those of U.S.-born Whites. I then engage the literature linking acculturation to poor health among Mexican immigrants. Acculturation models of immigrant health have come under critique for ignoring the structural determinants of health. I engage in this debate by using segmented assimilation theory—which emphasizes the role of structural factors—to examine whether education conditions the association between acculturation and health. I find support for the idea that the detrimental influence of acculturation on cardiovascular health is concentrated among Mexican immigrant adults with low levels of education. / text

<p>This essay is a corpus study, the aim of which is to investigate the usage of two near-synonymous verb pairs that descend from Germanic and Romance languages. The four verbs begin, commence, hate, and detest were chosen for the study. The analysis is based on occurrences of the verbs in five subcorpora in the COBUILDDIRECT corpus; two subcorpora consist of British and American books and three subcorpora are composed of British and Australian newspapers. Occurrences were also collected from the novel Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë. The primary aims of the essay are to investigate the frequency and occurrence of the verbs in different text types as well as in British and American books, to reveal if the verbs are synonymous and whether they occur with the same collocates. Furthermore, the novel Wuthering Heights gives a diachronic view of the usage of the verbs.</p><p>This analysis suggests that a usage of the verbs of Germanic origin is more frequent than the verbs of Romance origin. The Romance verbs are more common in novels and books, but also in the British newspaper The Times. Furthermore, the usage of commence and detest seems to be restricted to certain contexts which are connected to the field of the English language in which the verbs occurred at first. The Germanic verbs are clearly favoured in all kinds of texts investigated, even though Wuthering Heights has a high number of occurrences of commence.</p><p>On the topic of synonymy, begin and commence have been found to be further apart from each other than hate and detest. This is due to the fact that begin and commence are constructed grammatically different, as well as a restriction in contextual usage of commence. Despite this, commence is used more freely in American books than in British books. The synonymy of hate and detest is connected to the fact that detest expresses a stronger feeling than hate, which makes the two verbs near-synonymous but also gradable. The verbs in the two pairs also collocate with different words, which underlines that they are not real synonyms. These findings support the claim that one should not call the verb pairs synonyms but near-synonyms, and that one has to be careful when choosing a verb.</p>

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<p>This thesis examines the influence of investor protection and legal origin on equity market size. Previous studies have shown a relationship between legal origin and equity markets as well as quality of law. We examine whether there are any relationship between stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP, private property rights, anti director rights and legal origin.</p><p>We use data from 49 countries in our sample that is collected from the World Bank, Heri-tage foundation and La Porta et al. (1998). Our study is based upon a cross-sectional re-gressions and a variance analyzes.</p><p>Our results show that property rights as well as anti director rights have a positive relation-ship to stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP. We could not find any signifi-cant results in our regressions that stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP can be explained by legal origin.</p><p>We consider previous conducted studies regarding legal origin to have exaggerated legal origins’ impact on equity markets. Equity markets are more related to the level of develop-ment in countries, no matter legal origin.</p>

Syftet med denna uppsats var att identifiera hur Filippa K arbetar med sitt svenska ursprung för att skapa konkurrenskraft på internationella marknader samt hur Filippa K:s huvudkontor styr företagets internationella verksamheters arbete med att särskilja varumärket från konkurrenter. Litteraturgenomgången berörde vad forskning tidigare sagt om varumärkes värde och varumärkesidentitet, ”country of origin” samt styrning av ett internationellt företag. Studien realiserades genom en kvalitativ forskningsmetod i form av en fallstudie och insamlingen av material skedde med hjälp av fyra intervjuer med respondenter representerande för olika position och geografiska placering inom företaget. Studien visade att COO används av Filippa K eftersom det differentierar varumärket och skapar konkurrenskraft. Däremot skiljer sig användningen inom företaget då huvudkontoret anser att det svenska ursprunget genomsyrar alla element som utgör varumärkesidentiteten, något som de internationella verksamheterna inte anser i lika stor utsträckning. Filippa K:s verksamhet karaktäriseras av en koordinerad företagsstruktur där de internationella verksamheterna styrs genom både kontroll och självständighet, något som möjliggjort COO betydelse för de internationella verksamheterna.

This research is a study of purchasing intentions and behaviors in China. Consumers from four key cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Guangzhou were studied and differences in intentions and behavior as well as influences on behavior were analyzed. The results of the study provide greater depth to understanding consumer behavior in China and insight into likely responses to marketing strategies. Interviews with Chinese marketing experts were conducted and surveys were administered to samples of the target populations. Interviews assisted in understanding many of the general stereotypes held with respect to various ethnicities and helped with explaining some of the reasons for differences found. The study’s results are categorized into five areas. First, with respect to general purchasing intentions the study found that Chinese consumers from key cities differ significantly with respect to most of the purchasing intentions measured including inclination to try to new products, brand loyalty, use of discount cards, and willingness to purchase substitute brands. Based on five measures of conservatism, Beijing and Shanghai consumers were found to exhibit more conservative consumption behaviors than Chongqing and Guangzhou consumers. Chongqing and Guangzhou consumers are more likely than consumers in Shanghai and Beijing to wait for a friend's recommendation before buying a new brand. Second, with respect to brand choices, the study found that Beijing consumers tend to be more ethnocentric in their purchasing behavior in comparison to consumers from other key cities. The study also found a moderate association between ethnicity and brand purchase repertoire in most product categories. Third, with respect to reasons for purchases, the study found that generally there was only limited association between ethnicity and the reason for selecting brands. Consumers most often cited quality as the main reason for purchase. Fourth, with respect to actual brand purchase frequencies, the study found that Beijing consumers made more frequent purchases more often than other consumers in half of the categories studied. Chongqing consumers tend to purchase favorite brands less frequently than consumers from other key cities. Fifth, with respect to knowledge of country of origin and country of manufacture and their influences on intentions, the study found that for most product categories (nine of twelve studied) country of origin was an important consideration in the purchase decision. In general, many Chinese consumers are misinformed about brands’ country of origin. The research provides insight into important purchase cues and moderators impacting brand choice behavior.

This study's primary aim is to explain Urban Adult Chinese Consumers' preference between foreign and Chinese products. It examines how Country of Origin (COO), Consumer Ethnocentrism (CE) and Consumer Animosity (CA) influence Urban Adult Chinese Consumers' product preference and willingness to buy. The existing knowledge is divided on this issue. By reviewing the relevant literature, it is clear that there are two completely different approaches of investigating the impact of COO on Chinese consumers. The researcher of this current study classified the two opposing methods as 'the simplistic approach' and 'the cautious approach'. Studies follow 'the simplistic approach' firmly believe Chinese consumers overwhelmingly evaluate foreign products positively and they have a strong preference for foreign products. Research follows 'the cautious approach' argues that Chinese consumers' complexity and internal differences cannot be ignored, some of them prefer Chinese products and they cannot be simply considered as in favour of foreign products. Past studies all concluded that Chinese consumers hold low to moderate level of CE beliefs. However, two investigations concluded Chinese consumers harbour strong animosity towards the Japanese. This study follows the philosophical understanding of pragmatism. The research questions are the most important factors that determine the research strategy and quantitative and qualitative methods can complement each other to address the research problem. This study employs a concurrent embedded mixed methods research strategy that consists of a street survey and semi-structured interviews. Due to the distribution pattern of the quantitative data, this study used non-parametric analysis methods including: Chi-Square Test for Independence, Spearman's Rank Order Correlations, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis Test. The qualitative section of the investigation focuses on four issues: how Urban Adult Chinese Consumers (UACC) determine whether a product is foreign or Chinese, sources and background of animosity, the impact of domestic alternatives and areas for Chinese products to improve. This study discovered that UACC's preference between foreign and Chinese products remain divided. They cannot be simply considered overwhelmingly in favour of foreign products or prefer Chinese products. For those UACC have a preference for foreign products, quality and design are the main two reasons. Desire to support China's domestic industry and patriotism are the main driving forces behind some UACC's preference of Chinese products. UACC holds low to moderate level of CE beliefs, which suggests they are worldminded consumers that capable of evaluate foreign products based on merits, without strong negative bias. UACC have strong animosity towards the Japanese, but antagonistic sentiments towards the Americans and French are relatively low. There are complex sources of animosity and this study identified a wide range of factors that contributed to UACC's strong animosity towards the Japanese. The main area of original contribution of this study concentrates on Consumer Animosity. It discovered a wide range of sources of animosity towards the Japanese and constructed an enhanced animosity model.

Tea, from the plant Camellia Sinensis, is after water, the most consumed drink in the world. Green tea, produced by steaming freshly harvested leaves to prevent fermentation, is high in polyphenols known as catechins or flavanols. The major flavanols found in green tea include (-) epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) and (-) epicatechin. Literature reports suggest that green tea flavanols have the potential to exert anti-obesity effects by modulating weight gain and other factors such as lipogenesis, β-oxidation and adipokine release. Key features of obesity and associated insulin resistance are adipokine dysregulation, decreased sensitivity of adipocytes to insulin and subsequently, changes in glucose uptake by cells. The aims of this thesis were firstly to establish an efficient system of differentiated adipocytes and secondly to use this to investigate the effects of the flavanols EGCG and epicatechin on physiological outcomes such as adipokine release and glucose uptake. Thirdly, the question of whether these processes might be regulated by the ERK1/2 pathway and what may be happening upstream of this was explored. Finally, the effect of flavanol treatment on adipocyte gene expression of genes known to be modulated in obesity was investigated. Using the well established cell culture model of 3T3-L1 adipocytes, the studies from this thesis show that EGCG and epicatechin are able to modulate the release of the adipokines adiponectin and resistin, dependent on the media glucose concentration. This modulation may be mediated by the ERK1/2 pathway, since flavanol treatment increased ERK1/2 phosphorylation. Uptake of glucose was not altered by any time or concentration of EGCG or epicatechin, and there were no significant changes in adipocyte gene expression following EGCG or epicatechin treatment. A thorough investigation of adipokine release, ERK signalling, glucose uptake and gene expression, under the influence of flavanol treatment, showed that although molecular changes occurred in the 3T3-L1 system, these did not translate into functional readouts. Therefore, it appears unlikely that these have major direct effects on adipocyte function.

This thesis argues that the origins and evolution of Christian communities in Northern Italy between c. 250 and 381 are comprehensible only within the region's social environment. Whereas previous studies of early Christianity in Italy have sought to explain its origins in terms of modern diocesan structures, this thesis shows that the evidence for this view is untrustworthy and that a new methodology is needed to explain the rise of the church. To this end, the thesis describes the 'north Italian human environment', which consists not just of the physical landscape, but of the social networks within it. This environment allows an understanding of why Christian communities had developed in some places and not in others by c. 300. The development of the church continued to be influenced by this human environment in the fourth century. Christian diffusion remained a partial and variable phenomenon. In the cities Christians found themselves confronted by the adherents of other religions, notably Judaism. Thus, in the fourth century, Christians did not yet dominate the communities in which they lived. Moreover, the active participation in ecclesiastical affairs of emperors after Constantine - particularly the intervention of Constantius II in Italy during the 350s - added a new dimension to the human environment. Such interventions defined how north Italian Christianity came into contact with ecclesiastical and theological affairs throughout the empire. In sum, the history of early Christianity in northern Italy is circumscribed by the social environment within which it developed. This thesis argues that for northern Italy - indeed for the rest of the Mediterranean - a proper understanding of Christian growth can only come from an appreciation of the particular social context of the region within which it occurred.

A brief introduction to the current state of research in the Origins of Life field is given in Part I of this work. Part II covers original research performed by the author and co-workers. Layered Double Hydroxide (LDH) systems are anion-exchanging clays that have the general formula M(II)xM(III)(OH)(2x+2)Y, where M(II) and M(III) are any divalent and trivalent metals, respectively. Y can be nearly any anion, although modern naturally occuring LDH systems incorporate carbonate (CO32-), chloride (Cl-), or sulfate (SO42-) anions. Intercalated cobalticyanide anion shows a small yet observable deviation from local Oh symmetry causing small differences between its oriented and non-oriented infrared spectra. Nitroprusside is shown to intercalate into 2:1 Mg:Al LDH with decomposition to form intercalated ferrocyanide and nitrosyl groups of an unidentified nature. The [Ru(CN)6]4- anion is shown to intercalate into layered double hydroxides in the same manner as other hexacyano anions, such as ferrocyanide and cobalticyanide, with its three-fold rotational axis perpendicular to the hydroxide sheets. The square-planar tetracyano-nickelate(II), -palladate(II), and platinate(II) anions were intercalated into both 2:1 and 3:1 Mg:Al layered double hydroxides (LDH). The basal spacings in the 2:1 hosts are approximately 11 Å, indicating that the anions are inclined approximately 75 degrees relative to the hydroxide layers, while in the 3:1 hosts the square-planar anions have enough space to lie more nearly parallel to the LDH cation layers, giving basal spacings of approximately 8 Å. It has been found that the LDH Mg2Al(OH)6Cl catalyzes the self-addition of cyanide, to give in a one-pot reaction at low concentrations an increased yield of diaminomaleonitrile and in addition, at higher ($0.1M) concentrations, a purple-pink material that adheres to the LDH. We are investigating whether this reaction also occurs with hydrotalcite itself, what is the minimum effective concentration of cyanide, and what can be learned about the products and how they compare with those reported at high HCN concentrations in the absence of catalyst.