How powerful is demography? The Serendipity Theorem revisited

Introduced by Samuelson (Int Econ Rev 16(3):531–538, 1975), the Serendipity Theorem states that the competitive economy will converge towards the optimum steady-state provided the optimum fertility rate is imposed. This paper aims at exploring whether the Serendipity Theorem still holds in an economy with risky lifetime. We show that, under general conditions, including a perfect annuity market with actuarially fair return, imposing the optimum fertility rate and the optimum survival rate leads the competitive economy to the optimum steady state. That Extended Serendipity Theorem is also shown to hold in economies where old adults work some fraction of the old age, whatever the retirement age is fixed or chosen by the agents.     

Self-destructive and delinquent behaviors of adolescent female victims of child sexual abuse: rates and covariates in clinical and nonclinical samples

Self-destructive and delinquent behaviors were assessed in three samples of adolescent females. The first sample (N=140) were substantiated victims of sexual abuse recruited from clinical settings. They were contrasted to a second sample (N=430) of secondary school students, and a third sample from the same school setting (N=94), that reported that they had been sexually abused. Few differences were found between the two groups of sexually abused girls, and both groups reported significantly more at-risk behaviors than nonabused girls. Family adversity was a consistent predictor of both self-destructive and delinquent behaviors. However, violence during the abuse, lower quality mother-daughter relationships, and depression were also related to self-destructive behaviors, while family economic problems and self-blame for the abuse were the only correlates of delinquent behavior.     

Force steadiness in the lower extremities as an independent predictor of functional performance in older women

The relationship between isometric force control and functional performance is unknown. Submaximal steadiness and accuracy were measured during a constant force-matching task at 50% of maximal isometric voluntary contraction (MVC) of the knee extensors in 19 older women (70-89 years). Other variables included MVC, rate of torque development, and EMG activity. Functional performance was assessed during maximal performance of walking endurance, chair rising, and stair climbing. Isometric steadiness (but not accuracy) was found to independently predict chair-rise time and stair-climbing power and explained more variance in these tasks than any other variable. Walking endurance was related to muscle strength but not steadiness. These results suggest that steadiness is an independent predictor of brief, stressful functional-performance tasks in older women with mild functional impairment. Thus, improving steadiness might help reduce functional limitations or disability in older adults.     

Occupational variations in drinking and psychological distress: a multilevel analysis

The relationship between alcohol intake and psychological distress has been overlooked in studies on the working population. Using a multilevel multivariate model, this study reports results obtained from a sample of 8812 workers nested in 387 occupations. Results show that alcohol intake and psychological distress vary significantly at the worker and occupation levels, but they do not show a large variation at the occupation level. Occupational socioeconomic status appears to be a common factor explaining the correlation between alcohol intake and psychological distress at the occupation level. Semi-professionals, middle management, foreman and semiskilled clerical-sales-services occupations are particularly at risk. Gender is related to both outcomes, while work schedule and number of weekly working hours are associated only with psychological distress. Implications and limitations of these results are discussed.     

Predictors of maternal support: the point of view of adolescent victims of sexual abuse and their mothers

Maternal support received by sexual abuse victims is considered a key factor in coping with the aftermath of abuse. The present study looked at four groups of potential predictors of maternal support: mothers' psychosocial characteristics, abuse characteristics, victim's characteristics, and disclosure characteristics. A total of 120 adolescents aged 12 to 17 years and their mothers, who were recruited from Child Protective Services, completed questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Multiple regression analyses performed separately on mother and child data sets revealed five significant predictors of maternal support in each analysis, four of which were common to both. The discussion underscores the importance of taking into account both the mother's and the victim's perceptions regarding psychological adjustment and family environment.     

Assessing human health response in life cycle assessment using ED10s and DALYs: part 1--Cancer effects.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a framework for comparing products according to their total estimated environmental impact, summed over all chemical emissions and activities associated with a product at all stages in its life cycle (from raw material acquisition, manufacturing, use, to final disposal). For each chemical involved, the exposure associated with the mass released into the environment, integrated over time and space, is multiplied by a toxicological measure to estimate the likelihood of effects and their potential consequences. In this article, we explore the use of quantitative methods drawn from conventional single-chemical regulatory risk assessments to create a procedure for the estimation of the cancer effect measure in the impact phase of LCA. The approach is based on the maximum likelihood estimate of the effect dose inducing a 10% response over background, ED10, and default linear low-dose extrapolation using the slope betaED10 (0.1/ED10). The calculated effects may correspond to residual risks below current regulatory compliance requirements that occur over multiple generations and at multiple locations; but at the very least they represent a "using up" of some portion of the human population's ability to accommodate emissions. Preliminary comparisons are performed with existing measures, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA's) slope factor measure q1*. By analyzing bioassay data for 44 chemicals drawn from the EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database, we explore estimating ED10 from more readily available information such as the median tumor dose rate TD50 and the median single lethal dose LD50. Based on the TD50, we then estimate the ED10 for more than 600 chemicals. Differences in potential consequences, or severity, are addressed by combining betaED10 with the measure disability adjusted life years per affected person, DALYp. Most of the variation among chemicals for cancer effects is found to be due to differences in the slope factors (betaED10) ranging from 10(-4) up to 10(4) (risk of cancer/mg/kg-day).     

Words of power: The power of words

Conclusion The original hapiness of words (Foucault) is gone ; there are no innocent languages (Barthes) anymore. All are related to social experiences, because a language originates in and has its primary reference to the everyday life. (Berger and Luckman, 1967, p.38) Any language is related to a given society, and both language and society are shaped by history. Obviously, American and French histories have been quite different.     

Assessing human health response in life cycle assessment using ED10s and DALYs: part 2--Noncancer effects.

In Part 1 of this article we developed an approach for the calculation of cancer effect measures for life cycle assessment (LCA). In this article, we propose and evaluate the method for the screening of noncancer toxicological health effects. This approach draws on the noncancer health risk assessment concept of benchmark dose, while noting important differences with regulatory applications in the objectives of an LCA study. We adopt the centraltendency estimate of the toxicological effect dose inducing a 10% response over background, ED10, to provide a consistent point of departure for default linear low-dose response estimates (betaED10). This explicit estimation of low-dose risks, while necessary in LCA, is in marked contrast to many traditional procedures for noncancer assessments. For pragmatic reasons, mechanistic thresholds and nonlinear low-dose response curves were not implemented in the presented framework. In essence, for the comparative needs of LCA, we propose that one initially screens alternative activities or products on the degree to which the associated chemical emissions erode their margins of exposure, which may or may not be manifested as increases in disease incidence. We illustrate the method here by deriving the betaED10 slope factors from bioassay data for 12 chemicals and outline some of the possibilities for extrapolation from other more readily available measures, such as the no observable adverse effect levels (NOAEL), avoiding uncertainty factors that lead to inconsistent degrees of conservatism from chemical to chemical. These extrapolations facilitated the initial calculation of slope factors for an additional 403 compounds; ranging from 10(-6) to 10(3) (risk per mg/kg-day dose). The potential consequences of the effects are taken into account in a preliminary approach by combining the betaED10 with the severity measure disability adjusted life years (DALY), providing a screening-level estimate of the potential consequences associated with exposures, integrated over time and space, to a given mass of chemical released into the environment for use in LCA.     

Children's and Adults' Knowledge of the Distinction Between Enjoyment and Nonenjoyment Smiles

Children's and adults' knowledge of the distinction between enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles was investigated by presenting participants with short video excerpts of smiles prepared in accordance with the Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen, 1978). Enjoyment smiles differed from nonenjoyment smiles by greater symmetry and by appearance changes in the eye region produced by the orbicularis oculi action. The results indicate that 9- and 10-year-old children and adults were sensitive to the appearance changes produced in the eye region, but only when they could view the complete temporal dynamic of the smiles. No evidence of sensitivity was found for the level of asymmetry of the smiles, and no evidence of sensitivity for either of the markers was found in 6- and 7-year-old children.