4 Countries with greater inequality typically exhibit less support for redistribution and greater 5 acceptance of inequality (e.g., US versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this 6 pattern, a vicious cycle could form with reduced social concern amplifying primal increases in 7 inequality. Exploring movements around these long-term levels, however, this study finds mixed 8 ev...

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the world’s most common degenerative joint disorder, affecting more than 60% of the population over the age of 651. During this condition, bone surfaces come into contact under ordinary loads, leading to severe pain and disability, and symptoms including subchondral bone sclerosis, progressive articular cartilage loss and synovial fluid viscosity decrease. Economically, t...

On June 24, 2000, the WHO released a report that assessed the world's health-care systems based on an overall index of performance.1 The report had an immediate and enormous impact and was discussed on the front page of almost every major newspaper in the western world and on the broadcast news. The WHO, the health agency of the United Nations (UN), had assessed health-care systems around the w...

Introduction In Japan, per capita use of fluid milk rose 35.3kg to 40.8kg, gaining an average of 3.7 percent annually between 1986 and 1991, however, consumption of late years has been stagnating and also annual consumption of fluid milk is significantly lower than that of Western nations. It is important that the factor of recent trend on fluid consumption be recognized for increasing consumpt...

Among many other legacies, the September 11 terrorist attacks will be remembered by some for catapulting women’s rights to the centre stage of global politics. As the US launched the War on Terror in Afghanistan and then Iraq, the liberation of women from barbaric regimes became a powerful rationale for intervention. Meanwhile, in post-9/11 Australia, protecting ‘Aussie’ women from sexual assau...

Low coral islands are heavily dependent on groundwater for freshwater supplies. The availability, quality, and management of groundwater are central to sustainable development and poverty alleviation in many developing small island nations. The declaration by the Government of Kiribati of water reserves on the atoll of Tarawa, over privately owned land, has lead to conflicts, illegal settlement...

The Flynn effect has been widely researched in Western and European nations, while it has been comparatively understudied in Asian countries. This study examines possible Flynn effects in China from 1985-86 and to 2011-12. Results are reported for an IQ increase among 12 year olds on the Full Scale IQ WISC-R (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children- Revised) of 6.19 IQ points, a gain on the Pe...

As part of a knowledge, attitudes, practices and empowerment (KAPE) project implemented by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) in the Lake Victoria Basin, this paper reports findings from a photovoice study with women in Usoma, a lakeshore community in Western Kenya. Drawing on ecosocial and political ecology theory, findings reveal that access ...

In 1990, the United Nations, in cooperation with the European Space Agency, initiated the organization of a series of annual Workshops on Basic Space Science for the benefit of astronomers and space scientists in Asia and the Pacific, Latin American and the Caribbean, Africa, Western Asia, and Europe. This article summarizes accomplishments of these Workshops (1991-1998) and their follow-up pro...

Since 9/11, many western nations have re-framed their national security decisions in terms of strategic risk management. All have undertaken risk assessments, but valid translation into capability priorities has been abdicated largely by transferring priorities directly from risk magnitudes. Treatment priorities should be determined from risk reduction benefits in relation to costs, but a metho...