Frail men's perspectives on food and eating

Food shopping, preparation, and serving traditionally tend to be the domain of women. This article, however, focuses on the rarely examined world of frail old men who live in the community and on the meanings and themes that underlie their attitudes and behaviors in relation to food and eating. Based on the analyses of face-to-face qualitative interviews with 15 men, 76–95 years old, four inter-related themes emerged: (1) eating to live and wish to survive, (2) centrality of concern about the physical body, (3) the pervasive need for maintenance of masculinity, and (4) importance of sociality to the eating experience. Findings demonstrate how themes of masculinity in these men affect their narratives and perceptions about food and eating.     

Heideggerian existentialism and social work practice with death and survivor bereavement

Heideggerian existentialism has not been applied on a widespread basis to the Generalist Social Work Practice Model. This paper explores the relationship between social work practice with bereavement issues and Heideggerian existentialism. Applications of Heideggerian existentialism in the social work profession with clients and families experiencing bereavement are examined. Conceptual applications also address future utilization of Heideggerian existentialism.     

On discrimination procedure with mixtures of continuous and categorical variables

A discrimination procedure, based on the location model is described and suggested for use in situation where the discriminating variables are mixtures of continuous and binary variables. Some procedures that have been previously employed, in a similar situation, like Fisher's linear discriminant function and the logistic regression were compared with this method using error rate (ER). Optimal ERs for these procedures are reported using real and simulated data for the case of varying sample size and number of continuous and binary variables and were used as a measure for assessing the performance of the various procedures. The suggested procedure performed considerably better in the cases considered and never did produce a result that is poor when compared with other procedures. Hence, the suggested procedure might be considered for such situations.     

Inversion of the Renewal Density with Dead-time

Stationary renewal point processes are defined by the probability distribution of the distances between successive points (lifetimes) that are independent and identically distributed random variables. For some applications it is also interesting to define the properties of a renewal process by using the renewal density. There are well-known expressions of this density in terms of the probability density of the lifetimes. It is more difficult to solve the inverse problem consisting in the determination of the density of the lifetimes in terms of the renewal density. Theoretical expressions between their Laplace transforms are available but the inversion of these transforms is often very difficult to obtain in closed form. We show that this is possible for renewal processes presenting a dead-time property characterized by the fact that the renewal density is zero in an interval including the origin. We present the principle of a recursive method allowing the solution of this problem and we apply this method to the case of some processes with input dead-time. Computer simulations on Poisson and Erlang (2) processes show quite good agreement between theoretical calculations and experimental measurements on simulated data.     

The gallon-jug shelf-transfer test: an instrument to evaluate deteriorating function in older adults

This study examined the validity, reliability, and discriminatory capacity of the gallon-jug shelf-transfer (GJST) test. Six hundred fifty-three independent-living older adults (463 women age 72.9 +/- 7.0 years, 190 men age 74.3 +/- 6.7 years) participated. Participants moved five 1-gallon jugs (approximately 3.9 kg) from a knee-high to a shoulder-high shelf as quickly as possible. The GJST showed an exponential performance decline with age, and there were significant correlations between the GJST and common functional tests (p<.001). High within-day and between-days reliability was detected. The test also detected differences resulting from training status (p<.01) and training protocols (p<.05). The GJST is a valid, reliable, inexpensive, safe, and easily administered clinical test for identifying physically vulnerable elders who could benefit from interventions such as exercise to improve their physical capacities and maintain independence.     

柏拉图《理想国》中城邦和灵魂的类比

城邦和灵魂的类比关系的论证构成了柏拉图的<理想国>一书中正义论证的一块基石,从某种意义上说,柏拉图的正义论证的成立与否完全取决于其关于城邦和灵魂的类比关系能否成立.伯纳德·威廉姆斯发表于1973年的这篇文章即是针对这一类比关系所展开的深入的逻辑分析.在这篇文章中,威廉姆斯指出,正是在城邦和灵魂的类比上,柏拉图的论证存在着基本的逻辑混乱,他交替而不加区别地使用了两种性质截然不同的类比原则,即基于内涵的一致性的类比原则,以及基于整体和部分的一致性的类比原则,结果造成了他在关于城邦的正义和个人的正义的论证上的种种自相矛盾.威廉姆斯细致地分析了柏拉图由于混用这两种不同的类比原则所带来的种种理论上的困难,从而将人们通常在阅读<理想国>时所感到的各类疑难以分析哲学的方式给予了清晰的表达.显然,威廉姆斯的这篇文章不仅有助于我们深入认识柏拉图的<理想国>中的论证,而且也有助于我们了解分析哲学作为一种哲学史研究方法的价值.     

领导最需学习的句子

“我错了。”这个简单的句子，恰恰是领导们最难说出口的，也是他们最需要学习的。     

Social support in later life: a study of three areas

Summary The research reported in this article examines elderly people'sfamily and community networks in three urban areas of England:Bethnal Green, Wolverhampton and Woodford. These were the locationsfor a number of major studies in the 1940s and 1950s. Four decadeson from the original studies, a social network approach wasused to explore changes in the social relationships in thesethree areas. The research sought to assess whom older peopleidentified as 'important' in their lives, and the role suchpeople played in the provision and receipt of support. The studyfound that respondents do not mobilize the whole of their socialnetwork when looking for support. Instead, a section of thesocial network is drawn upon (mainly immediate family) to providespecific kinds of assistance. In addition, locally availablefriends offer complementary or alternative sources of help.This is a change from the earlier Wolverhampton and BethnalGreen studies, although it is consistent with the significanceof friendship highlighted in the original study of Woodford.The paper also reports clear evidence of older people beingactive in reciprocal exchanges across their networks, particularlyin respect of confiding in and talking to people about healthissues but much less so in relation to instrumental support,such as help with household chores, transport and financialadvice.