The effect of disability on the net worth of elderly people

As demographic shifts make the Social Security program financially vulnerable, the responsibility for income security in old age will shift from the government to elderly people. In this changing environment, the accumulation of wealth will be a crucial issue because wealth holders can draw income from assets, which can supplement retirement income. Thus, wealth (or net worth) is a proximate indicator of economic well-being of the elderly. This article presents the findings of a study of the net worth of elderly people with disabilities. The major findings were that a smaller proportion of elderly people with disabilities has assets of any type compared with elderly people with no disability; the dollar value of each type of asset is smaller among elderly people with disabilities than among elderly people with no disability; and the net worth of people with disabilities is smaller than that of elderly people with no disability even after other variables were controlled.     

Environmental changes to increase physical activity: perceptions of older urban ethnic-minority women

Despite the numerous benefits of physical activity, older adults continue to be more sedentary than their younger counterparts, and sedentary behavior is more prevalent among older racial and ethnic minorities than among Whites. This study used the nominal group technique (NGT) to examine participants' perceptions of what neighborhood environmental changes would encourage greater physical activity for older African American and Hispanic women. Participants age 50-75 years were recruited from 2 urban community health clinics. Nine NGT sessions (45 participants) were conducted. The women were asked what changes in their neighborhood environment would encourage them to become more physically active. Responses to the research question were tabulated, and qualitative analysis was used to identify themes and categories. Major categories were physical environment changes, safety, and activities/social support. Although the physical environment received the greatest number of points, concerns for personal safety cut across categories. Participants indicated the need for more facilities in which to be active.     

The effect of a novel ADL-based training program on performance of activities of daily living and physical fitness

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which a novel training program based on activities of daily living (ADL) would affect performance of ADLs, as well as the fitness of older adults. Fourteen individuals (mean age 82 years) took part in a 10-week control period followed by a 10-week ADL-based training program. Pre- and posttests included the Physical Performance Test (PPT), the Physical Functional Performance-10 (PFP-10), and the Senior Fitness Test (SFT). After the training period, improvements ranging from 7% to 33% (p<.05) were seen on the PPT and PFP-10 and on three items of the SFT. After conversion to standard scores, the magnitude of change in the PPT and the PFP10 was significantly greater (p<.05) than the magnitude of change in the SFT. These data support the idea that this novel ADL-based training program was able to facilitate improved performance of ADLs, as well as select measures of fitness among older adults.     

The Research Environment Norm Inventory (RENI): a study of integrity in research administrative systems

University research administrators have been generally ignored in basic studies of research integrity. Hensley noted that research administrators are "essential... to the achievement of the specific missions of postsecondary institutions... and to science and the academic infrastructure". The following study sought to extend the scope of research on research integrity to research administrative structures with a new instrument called the Research Environment Norm Inventory or RENI. University research administrators and their professional association were targeted for data collection. Evidence suggested that research administration in the United States supports integrity in the research environment through: (1) respect for community; (2) respect for institutional boundaries; (3) professionalism; (4) respect for authority structures; (5) sensitivity to system conflicts. The study suggested that integrity structures are dictated largely by the institutional settings and environments.     

Virtual Interpersonal Touch and Digital Chameleons

We studied the characteristics of hand touch with a mechanical device that approximated a handshake, and we then examined the effect of handshake mimicry on assessment of a partner. Two participants interacted with a force-feedback joystick that recorded each of their hand movements individually. The two participants then greeted one another by feeling the recording of the other person’s movements via the force-feedback device. For each dyad, one of the participants actually received his or her own virtual handshake back under the guise that it was the other person’s virtual handshake. Results demonstrated three significant findings. First, for any given participant, a metric that took into account position, angle, speed, and acceleration of the hand movements correlated highly within individuals across two handshakes. Second, across participants, these metrics demonstrated specific differences by gender. Finally, there was an interaction between gender and mimicry, such that male participants liked people who mimicked their handshakes more than female participants did. We discuss the implications of these findings and relate them to theories of social interaction.

COST INCREASES DUE TO DEMAND UNCERTAINTY IN MRP LOT SIZING

This paper analyzes the cost increases due to demand uncertainty in single-level MRP lot sizing on a rolling horizon. It is shown that forecast errors have a tremendous effect on the cost effectiveness of lot-sizing techniques even when these forecast errors are small. Moreover, the cost differences between different techniques become rather insignificant in the presence of forecast errors. Since most industrial firms face demand uncertainty to some extent, our findings may have important managerial implications. Various simulation experiments give insight into both the nature and the magnitude of the cost increases for different heuristics. Analytical results are developed for the constant-demand case with random noise and forecasting by exponential smoothing. It is also shown how optimal buffers can be obtained by use of a simple model. Although the analysis in this paper is restricted to simplified cases, the results merit further consideration and study. This paper is one of the first to inject forecast errors into MRP lot-sizing research. As such it attempts to deal with one of the major objections against the practical relevance of previous research in this area.     

Designing and integrating composite networks for monitoring multivariate gaussian pollution fields

Networks of ambient monitoring stations are used to monitor environmental pollution fields such as those for acid rain and air pollution. Such stations provide regular measurements of pollutant concentrations. The networks are established for a variety of purposes at various times so often several stations measuring different subsets of pollutant concentrations can be found in compact geographical regions. The problem of statistically combining these disparate information sources into a single 'network' then arises. Capitalizing on the efficiencies so achieved can then lead to the secondary problem of extending this network. The subject of this paper is a set of 31 air pollution monitoring stations in southern Ontario. Each of these regularly measures a particular subset of ionic sulphate, sulphite, nitrite and ozone. However, this subset varies from station to station. For example only two stations measure all four. Some measure just one. We describe a Bayesian framework for integrating the measurements of these stations to yield a spatial predictive distribution for unmonitored sites and unmeasured concentrations at existing stations. Furthermore we show how this network can be extended by using an entropy maximization criterion. The methods assume that the multivariate response field being measured has a joint Gaussian distribution conditional on its mean and covariance function. A conjugate prior is used for these parameters, some of its hyperparameters being fitted empirically.     

Factors influencing Soay sheep survival

We present a survival analysis of Soay sheep mark recapture and recovery data. Unlike previous conditional analyses, it is not necessary to assume equality of recovery and recapture probabilities; instead these are estimated by maximum likelihood. Male and female sheep are treated separately, with the higher numbers and survival probabilities of the females resulting in a more complex model than that used for the males. In both cases, however, age and time aspects need to be included and there is a strong indication of a reduction in survival for sheep aged 7 years or more. Time variation in survival is related to the size of the population and selected weather variables, by using logistic regression. The size of the population significantly affects the survival probabilities of male and female lambs, and of female sheep aged 7 or more years. March rainfall and a measure of the North Atlantic oscillation are found to influence survival significantly for all age groups considered, for both males and females. Either of these weather variables can be used in a model. Several phenotypic and genotypic individual covariates are also fitted. The only covariate which is found to influence survival significantly is the type of horn of first-year female sheep. There is a substantial variation in the recovery probabilities over time, reflecting in part the increased effort when a population crash was expected. The goodness of fit of the model is checked by using graphical procedures.