Xinyue Kong

Individual health savings accounts are an important part of the current basic medical insurance system for urban workers in China. Since 1998 when the system of personal medical insurance accounts was first implemented, there has been considerable controversy over its function and significance within different social communities. This paper analyzes the main problems in the practical implementation of individual medical insurance accounts and discusses the social and cultural foundations for the establishment of family health savings accounts from the perspective of Chinese Confucian familism. Accordingly, it addresses the direction of the reform and the development of the current system of individual health insurance accounts in China

To better understand the molecular evolution of the large α-gliadin gene family, a half-million bacterial artificial chromosome library clones from tetraploid durum wheat, Triticum turgidum ssp. durum, were screened for large genomic segments carrying the α-gliadin genes of the Gli-2 loci on the group 6 homoeologous chromosomes. The resulting 220 positive BAC clones - each containing between one and four copies of α-gliadin sequences - were fingerprinted for contig assembly to produce contiguous chromosomal regions covering the Gli-2 loci. While contigs consisting of as many as 21 BAC clones and containing up to 17 α-gliadin genes were formed, many BAC clones remained as singletons. The accuracy of the order of BAC clones in the contigs was verified by Southern hybridization analysis of the BAC fingerprints using an α-gliadin probe. These results indicate that α-gliadin genes are not evenly dispersed in the Gli-2 locus regions. Hybridization of these BACs with probes for long terminal repeat retrotransposons was used to determine the abundance and distribution of repetitive DNA in this region. Sequencing of BAC ends indicated that 70% of the sequences were significantly similar to different classes of retrotransposons, suggesting that these elements are abundant in this region. Several mechanisms underlying the dynamic evolution of the Gli-2 loci are discussed. © Springer-Verlag 2004.