Results of the European thematic network ageing and disability: improving the quality of life of elderly persons through more physical activity

Experts in Adapted Physical Activity (APA) for elderly persons from 66 higher education institutions of 29 European countries worked during 3 years together (2004–2007) in producing education materials to promote an active lifestyle, the content of an APA programme for the elderly at master and bachelor level, a motivational DVD (Never too old to be Active: The Joy of Movement and practical active ageing activity cards and a brochure with a European survey and recommendations. During the dissemination year (2009–2010) these materials were translated from English into 15 European languages and disseminated in all countries in institutions of Higher Education (physical education, physiotherapy, sport science), nursing homes for elderly persons and caregivers). In each country, as many as possible elderly persons were approached as well as the concerned ministries, sports organizations and the press. A consortium was created between the universities of Amiens (France), Groningen (The Netherlands) and Verona (Italy), to start up the European Masters programme in APA for the elderly and the motivating products disseminated the urgent message of the Thematic Network for all elderly persons with and without disabilities in Europe “Save yourself by more physical activity” This same approach applied in all European countries at the same time during these 4 years, gave a boost to the better education of students in this matter: stimulating the responsibility and motivation of elderly persons for bringing more physical activity in their daily schedule, during at least 30 min each day. The established cooperation between the actors of the network should however be continued through the European Master in APA for the elderly and further dissemination of the products through the website     

Why does transformational leadership matter for employee turnover? A multi-foci social exchange perspective

Drawing on social exchange theory, the present study investigates the underlying mechanisms through which transformational leadership influences employee turnover. Leader–member exchange (LMX) and affective commitment (AC) are proposed as supervisor-based and organization-based social exchange mechanisms respectively, exemplifying how social exchange processes occur between an employee and his/her supervisor, and between the employee and his/her organization as a whole to underpin the effect of transformational leadership on turnover outcomes. Results of structural equation modeling on a sample of 490 full-time employees working in a large telecommunication company in the PRC provided support for the notion that transformational leadership is related to both social exchange mechanisms – LMX and AC – turnover intention and turnover behavior. Furthermore, the results revealed that AC rather than LMX mediated the link between transformational leadership and turnover intention. Turnover intention also only mediated the relationship between AC and turnover behavior over time.     

Testing stationarity and trend stationarity against the unit root hypothesis

In this paper we propose a family of relativel simple nonparametrics tests for a unit root in a univariate time series. Almost all the tests proposed in the literature test the unit root hypothesis against the alternative that the time series involved is stationarity or trend stationary. In this paper we take the (trend) stationarity hypothesis as the null and the unit root hypothesis as the alternative. The order differnce with most of the tests proposed in the literature is that in all four cases the asymptotic null distribution is of a well-known type, namely standard Cauchy. In the first instance we propose four Cauchy tests of the stationarity hypothesis against the unit root hypothesis. Under H1 these four test statistics involved, divided by the sample size n, converge weakly to a non-central Cauchy distribution, to one, and to the product of two normal variates, respectively. Hence, the absolute values of these test statistics converge in probability to infinity 9at order n). The tests involved are therefore consistent against the unit root hypothesis. Moreover, the small sample performance of these test are compared by Monte Carlo simulations. Furthermore, we propose two additional Cauchy tests of the trend stationarity hypothesis against the alternative of a unit root with drift.     

Cross-Currents in Practice,Undergraduate, and Graduate Education in Social Work

Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale was administered to master's level social work students at the beginning, midpoint, and end of their two-year educational program to determine the impact of social work education on the vital personality ingredient, open-mindedness. Scores were also used to compare levels of performance in the practicum at the conclusion of training. Students were found to be significantly more open-minded at the conclusion of training, indicating greater student permeability than indicated by previous studies. The mean performance level of open-minded students was not significantly different from that of the closed-minded group.     

Designing a “Think-Along Dwelling” for People With Dementia: A Co-Creation Project Between Health Care and the Building Services Sector

Ageing-in-place is the preferred way of living for older individuals in an ageing society. It can be facilitated through architectural and technological solutions in the home environment. Dementia poses additional challenges when designing, constructing, or retrofitting housing facilities that support ageing-in-place. Older adults with dementia and their partners ask for living environments that support independence, compensate for declining and vitality, and lower the burden of family care. This study reports the design process of a demonstration home for people with dementia through performing a literature review and focus group sessions. This design incorporates modifications in terms of architecture, interior design, the indoor environment, and technological solutions. Current design guidelines are frequently based on small-scale studies, and, therefore, more systematic field research should be performed to provide further evidence for the efficacy of solutions. The dwellings of people with dementia are used to investigate the many aspects of supportive living environments for older adults with dementia and as educational and training settings for professionals from the fields of nursing, construction, and building services engineering.     

Geriatric enrichment: guaranteeing a place for aging in the curriculum

Two years ago, the School of Social Work embarked upon a new and challenging initiative to create sustainable structural changes that enrich gerontological learning experiences for all our BSW and MSW students, faculty, fieldwork instructors and community practitioners. We envisioned that participation in this initiative would enable us to expand and embed geriatric content in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum, to increase our geriatric fieldwork placement opportunities, to evaluate and enhance our teaching and learning resources on aging, and to develop two new aging specific courses. Having reached our third year of operation, we find ourselves reflecting on what have been our successes, what could we have done differently, and where do we go in the future. This article will describe our process of developing a model of curriculum change that will guarantee a place for aging in both our undergraduate and graduate curricula.     

In Search of More Meaningful Search

The amount of online scholarly information is rapidly expanding and residing in increasingly disparate sources, while user behavior is evolving to demand single search interfaces like Google. Federated search enables librarians to meet these challenges by supplying efficient, effective access and delivery of the most relevant content from diverse sources to their patrons. Introducing the ability to simultaneously search multiple databases, however, can quickly lead to information overload. Dynamic categorization of search results is one way to manage and organize the large volume of content returned. This article will examine various federated search technologies and important considerations that librarians should undertake when evaluating federated search applications, as well as address how SwetsWise Searcher supports the fundamental aspects of federated searching within that context.     

Nonparametric Nonlinear Cotrending Analysis,With an Application to Interest and Inflation in the United States

Given the assumption that the components of a vector time series are stationary around nonlinear deterministic time trends, nonlinear cotrending is the phenomenon that one or more linear combinations of the time series are stationary around a linear trend or a constant; hence, the series have common nonlinear deterministic time trends. In this article, I develop nonparametric tests for nonlinear cotrending, and I derive nonparametric estimators of the cotrending vectors. I apply this approach to the federal funds rate and the consumer price index inflation rate in the United States, using monthly data, to analyze the price puzzle.     

The relation between unemployment and interest rate:

In bierens (1987) a granger casual relation was found between unemployment and the interest rate for the netherlands. In the present paper we will investigate whether there exists a similar granger casual relation between unemployment and interest rate for a number of other countries. It appears that, with our ARMAX modeling approach, this relationship is not confined to the netherlands, but also holds for the USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, the UK and France. For these countries the interest rate is the main explanatory variable, together with industrial production (the latter with one exception), whereas for most countries the wage rate is of minor or no importance as a determinant of unemployment. A number of economic theories can explain these phenomena of which the revenue maximization theory of baumol (1959) augmented with a flexible labor effort rate seems quite realistic