Uncorking the past McGovern, Patrick E
2009., 20091030, 2009, c2009., 2009-10-30
eBook
In a lively tour around the world and through the millennia, Uncorking the Past tells the compelling story of humanity's ingenious, intoxicating quest for the perfect drink. Following a tantalizing ...trail of archaeological, chemical, artistic, and textual clues, Patrick E. McGovern, the leading authority on ancient alcoholic beverages, brings us up to date on what we now know about how humans created and enjoyed fermented beverages across cultures. Along the way, he explores a provocative hypothesis about the integral role such libations have played in human evolution. We discover, for example, that the cereal staples of the modern world were probably domesticated for their potential in making quantities of alcoholic beverages. These include the delectable rice wines of China and Japan, the corn beers of the Americas, and the millet and sorghum drinks of Africa. Humans also learned how to make mead from honey and wine from exotic fruits of all kinds-even from the sweet pulp of the cacao (chocolate) fruit in the New World. The perfect drink, it turns out-whether it be mind-altering, medicinal, a religious symbol, a social lubricant, or artistic inspiration-has not only been a profound force in history, but may be fundamental to the human condition itself.
Whether as wine, beer, or spirits, alcohol has had a constant and often controversial role in social life. In his innovative book on the attitudes toward and consumption of alcohol, Rod Phillips ...surveys a 9,000-year cultural and economic history, uncovering the tensions between alcoholic drinks as healthy staples of daily diets and as objects of social, political, and religious anxiety. In the urban centers of Europe and America, where it was seen as healthier than untreated water, alcohol gained a foothold as the drink of choice, but it has been more regulated by governmental and religious authorities more than any other commodity. As a potential source of social disruption, alcohol created volatile boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable consumption and broke through barriers of class, race, and gender.Phillips follows the ever-changing cultural meanings of these potent potables and makes the surprising argument that some societies have entered "post-alcohol" phases. His is the first book to examine and explain the meanings and effects of alcohol in such depth, from global and long-term perspectives.
Vodka Politics Schrad, Mark Lawrence
2014, 2014-04-22, 2013-12-22
eBook
Alcohol-and alcoholism-have long been prominent features in Russian life and culture. But as Mark Schrad vividly shows in Vodka Politics, it has also been central to Russian politics. From the tsars ...to Putin, almost every Russian ruler has utilized alcohol to strengthen his governing power. Tsars used alcohol to exert control over their courts, and the government's monopoly over its sale provided a crucial revenue stream from late Tsarist times through most of the Soviet era. As Schrad reveals, Tsar Nicholas II's decision to ban alcohol in 1914 was a contributing factor to the 1917 revolution. After the revolution, history seemed to replay itself. Once Stalin achieved power, he used alcohol to control his court, and the Soviet state relied heavily on alcohol revenues throughout its existence. The decision by Gorbachev to crack down on alcohol consumption in the 1980s exacerbated the Soviets' fiscal crisis, and played a role in the 1991 collapse. Today, Russians continue to imbibe heavily, and the demographic consequences have been devastating. Chronic alcoholism has created a massive health crisis, and life expectancies for men are alarmingly low as a consequence. Not simply a chronicle of drinking in Russia, Vodka Politics shows how alcohol has been a key shaping force in Russian political history.
Americans assume that workers do not drink on the job and that, if they do, it is because they suffer from alcoholism rather than because they are conforming to occupational expectations. William J. ...Sonnenstuhl disagrees. He contends that some occupational cultures encourage heavy drinking. Moreover, his research suggests that the sense of community which motivates drinking can also sometimes inspire workers to break the pattern and work sober. Revised and updated, this report addresses questions often raised by employers and union leaders developing job-based programs to help alcoholic and other troubled employees. This new edition discusses the efforts of EAP workers, the historical development and key components of EAPs, and the importance of balance in program strategies and in corporate and union responsibilities.
Just under 2.5 million people die annually due to alcohol use. This global estimate, however, excludes most of the health burden borne by others than the alcohol user. Alcohol's harm to others ...includes a multitude of conditions, such as trauma from traffic crashes, fetal disorders due to prenatal exposure to alcohol, as well as interpersonal and intimate partner violence. While alcohol's causal role in these conditions is well-established, alcohol's harm to others' contribution to the overall health burden of alcohol remains unknown. This knowledge gap leads to a situation in which alcohol policy and prevention strategies largely focus on the reduction of alcohol's detrimental health harms on the alcohol users, neglecting affected others and population groups most vulnerable to these harms, including women and children. In this article, we seek to elucidate why estimates for alcohol's harm to others are lacking and offer guidance for future research. We also argue that a full assessment of the alcohol health burden that includes the harm caused by others' alcohol use would enhance the visibility and public awareness of such harms, and advancing the evaluation of policy interventions to mitigate them.
The COVID-19 pandemic and attendant lockdowns have had a substantial negative effect on alcohol consumption and physical activity globally. Pre-pandemic evidence in the adult population suggests that ...higher levels of physical activity were associated with higher levels of drinking, but it is unclear how the pandemic may have affected this. Therefore, this study aims to assess the association between alcohol consumption and physical activity in a UK cohort established during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyses utilized data from the Health Behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic (HEBECO) study involving 2,057 UK adults (greater than or equal to18 years). Participants completed self-report measures of alcohol consumption frequency, quantity, frequency of heavy episodic drinking (HED) and AUDIT-C score and physical activity moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), frequency of muscle strengthening activity (MSA) and sedentary behaviour between November 2020 and January 2021. Ordinal logistic regression models were conducted, adjusting for sociodemographic factors. Fifteen percent of the sample reported abstinence from drinking. Overall, 23.4% of participants drank greater than or equal to4 times/week, 13.9% drank more than 6 units/single drinking occasion (HED), 7.5% reported HED daily/almost daily and 4.2% scored greater than or equal to11 on AUDIT-C. MSA 3 days/week compared with no MSA was significantly associated with higher odds of alcohol frequency OR (95 CI%) = 1.41 (1.04-1.91), quantity OR (95 CI%) = 1.38 (1.02-1.87), HED OR (95 CI%) = 1.42 (1.05-1.94) and possible dependence OR (95 CI%) = 1.47 (1.05-2.06). The association of MVPA and sedentary behaviour with drinking measures was not significant (p>0.05). In contrast with previous research, MSA rather than aerobic physical activity was associated with increased alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is conceivable that during lockdown while drinking was used as a coping strategy, limited opportunities for aerobic exercise made MSA a more convenient form of physical activity. To guide public health interventions, more research is required to examine the temporal relationship between different forms of physical activity and alcohol consumption.
Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is a binder for electrically controlled solid propellants (ECSPs), whose combustion strongly depends on their decomposition characteristics. Thus, the effects of heating ...rate, pyrolysis temperature, and lithium perchlorate content on the thermal decomposition behavior and products of PVA and LiClO.sub.4/PVA composites were investigated via thermogravimetry (TG) and pyrolysis/gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py/GC/MS). The TG curves showed that the heating rate significantly influences the thermal decomposition behavior; according to the Py/GC/MS results, the major pyrolysis products of PVA were water, acetaldehyde, 2-butenal, and 2,4-hexadienal at 573 K and acetaldehyde, cyclic olefinic compounds, and aromatic hydrocarbons at 1173 K. The results also revealed that depolymerization is among the main decomposition mechanisms of LiClO.sub.4/PVA composites and using the optimal LiClO.sub.4 content (40-56 mass%) could enhance the combustion efficiency of ECSPs.
Alcoholism is a worldwide health problem, and diseases caused by alcoholism are killing people every year. Amomum kravanh is a traditional Chinese medicine used to relieve hangovers. However, whether ...its bioactive components improve alcohol metabolism is not clear. In this study, ten new (amomumols A-J, 1–10) and thirty-five known (11–45) compounds were isolated from the fruits of Amomum kravanh by an activity-guided separation. Ten novel compounds were identified as four sesquiterpenoids (1–4), three monoterpene derivatives (5–7), two neolignans (8, 9), and a novel norsesquiterpenoid (10) with a new Csub.14 nor-bisabolane skeleton. Their structures were determined by the comprehensive analysis of high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HRESIMS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) calculation. The effects of all isolated compounds on the activity of alcohol dehydrogenase were evaluated in vitro, and it was found that eight compounds (11, 12, 15, 18, 26, and 36–38) exhibited significant activation effects on the alcohol dehydrogenase at 50 μM.
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