Elderly Care: Policy Initiatives and Older Parents’ Perception in Nepali Society

Elderly care in the present day Nepali society is affected with the changes in the family arrangements. The old age situations without children, children away from home, and out migration of children create impacts on the maintenance and care of the elderly parents. The major issues of apprehension with the elderly population are their health status including their social, psychological and emotional conditioning, and elderly support activities. Based on focused group discussions and analysis of the selected narratives collected through personal interviews in Province-1, this paper finds, more or less, a common perspective of the elderly parents that their life situations become lonelier and difficult as they become older and feel helpless in absence of their children. Social inclusion and integration of senior citizens have been two major aspects in the state policy interventions while the daily life issues and activities of the elderly are of equal concern. The initiatives for elderly care shall be based on their interest, choices and needs.

Perceptions about Healthy Eating and Emotional Factors Conditioning Eating Behaviour: A Study Involving Portugal, Brazil and Argentina

This study analysed the perceptions about healthy eating as well as some emotional factors conditioning eating behaviour in a sample of people from Portugal, Brazil and Argentina. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study involving a non-probabilistic sample of 2501 participant. Data was collected through a questionnaire applied to adult citizens residing in their respective countries. For data analysis chi-square tests were used, and associations were evaluated by Cramer’s coefficients. Moreover, a tree classification analysis was conducted for variables related with perceptions about healthy eating and emotional conditioning of eating behaviour. The results revealed that participants’ perceptions are generally in agreement with healthy eating. However, significant differences were found between countries (p = 0.018) and by levels of education (p < 0.0005), with a more accurate perception for Portugal and at the university level. The existence of statistically significant associations between all sociodemographic variables considered and the conditioning of eating behaviour by emotional motivations should be noted. Tree classification analysis showed that the most important discriminant sociodemographic variable for perceptions about healthy eating was education, followed by professional area and country, while the most relevant discriminants for emotional conditioning of eating behaviour were country and then living environment and sex. Thus, it is important to consider these variables in initiatives that aim to promote adherence to behaviours that contribute to the health and well-being of the population.

The changes in connotative meaning of politically relevant terms in Belgrade highschoolers

In this paper, we have tried to ascertain connotative meaning of some relevant political concepts, like: democracy, nation, political left and right, nationalism, etc. and to compare obtained results with a similar research conducted eight years ago (1997.) Those concepts are used in strong emotional contexts, and consequently level of their affective meaning often become stronger by process of emotional conditioning. It is possible to ascertain attitudes toward examined concepts by using this kind of meaning. Therefore, it is possible to ascertain influence of important events and social changes to attitude changes, by such kind of comparation. The sample consisted of 171 subjects, fourth year students of Belgrade's high schools (the same as in 1997.), and adapted Osgood scale of semantic differential was an instrument. Results show that cognitive meaning of some concepts stayed unchanged (socialism, nationalism, political right, present and future), and others had minor (democracy) or more significant changes (nation, leader, peace, left, past). Evaluative changes are negative except in case of leader and left. This could be understand as a kind of disappointment after great expectations after 2000. changes. Results are specified by independent variables, too. They include: type of school, sex, authoritarianism, importance of national belongings, are subjects and their families transitional losers or gainers, etc. It has also pointed out that evaluative dimension of connotative meaning does not express only attitude, but also other emotions and states: anxiety, care, insecure feelings.

Reply to Winston and Peters’ “On the Presentation and Interpretation of International Homicide Data…”

The rationale not previously given for handling a data entry for the USA in a prior paper is carefully described, which makes clear the criticism leveled is not appropriate. Further, brief murder data were presented to illustrate “Brimelow's theory of emotional conditioning,” which suggests a strong taboo against consideration of any genetic contribution to differences among races.

Reply to Winston and Peters' “On the Presentation and Interpretation of International Homicide DATA…”

The rationale not previously given for handling a data entry for the USA in a prior paper is carefully described, which makes clear the criticism leveled is not appropriate. Further, brief murder data were presented to illustrate “Brimelow's theory of emotional conditioning,” which suggests a strong taboo against consideration of any genetic contribution to differences among races.