Aging, physical activity, and hormones in women--a review

Women experience significant changes in endocrine function during aging. Decreasing levels of anabolic hormones may be associated with musculoskeletal atrophy and decrease in function that is observed in older women and, as a result, there has been an increase in the use of pharmacological hormone therapies. It is difficult to distinguish, however, between physiological changes that are truly age related and those that are associated with lifestyle factors such as physical activity participation. Some research has shown that circulating levels of anabolic hormones such as DHEA(S) and IGF-I in older women are related to physical activity, muscle function, and aerobic power. Exercise-intervention studies have generally shown that increasing age blunts the acute hormonal response to exercise, although this might be explained by a lower exercise intensity in older women. There have been relatively few studies that examine hormonal adaptations to exercise training. Physical activity might have an effect on hormone action as a result of changes in protein carriers and receptors, and future research needs to clarify the effect of age and exercise on these other components of the endocrine system. The value and safety of hormone supplements must be examined, especially when used in combination with an exercise program.     

Local dependence functions for extreme value distributions

Kotz & Nadarajah (2002) introduced a measure of local dependence which is a localized version of the Pearson's correlation coefficient. In this paper we provide detailed analyses (both algebraic and numerical) of the form of the measure for the class of bivariate extreme value distributions. We consider, in particular, five families of bivariate extreme value distributions. We also discuss two applications of the new measure. In the first application we introduce an overall measure of correlation and produce evidence to suggest that it is superior than the usual Pearson's correlation coefficient. The second application introduces two new concepts for ordering of bivariate dependence.     

Foreign Competition for the U.S. banking world

A study of 66 New York branches, agencies and subsidiaries of foreign banks was undertaken to evaluate marketing planning strategies. Opinions and perceptions towards planning and promotional options of key officials of foreign banks were examined. Using canonical statistical techniques the analysis differentiated between the various types of strategies by organizational form as well as by regional affiliation. The survey concluded that while promotional philosophies may be somewhat similar, the planning process differs significantly between branches and agencies.     

Technological change,technostress, and industrial humanism

The need for more humanistic imperatives in the management of technological change must be our mandate for corporate and human excellence. Industrial Humanism is our new management creed. The imperatives of humanism such as identity, integrity, self-actualization, individuality, potentiality, responsibility, autonomy, caring, trust, meaning, self-esteem, and character growth must be enriched as the corporation moves to adopt new technologies. The imperatives of technology based on technical rationality, means-ends chain, and industrial engineering methods for programming the workflow for efficiency contain the potential for job alienation, boredom, and technostress. A new psychological contract that integrates both technical and humanistic imperatives is the challenge for the information society. This is an ethical imperative for managing technological change.     

The rational peasant

Conclusion I have made assumptions about individual behavior diverging from those of the moral economists. These assumptions have drawn attention to different features of villages and patron-client ties and have led to questions about the quality of welfare and insurance embedded in both villages and vertical patron-client ties. This, in turn, has demonstrated that there is more potential value to markets, relative to the actual performance level of these other institutions. Commercialization of agriculture and the development of strong central authorities are not wholly deleterious to peasant society. This is not because capitalism and/or colonialism are necessarily more benevolent thàn moral economists assume, but because traditional institutions are harsher and work less well than is often believed.Depending on the specific conditions, commercialization can be good or bad for peasants. In many cases the shift to narrow contractual ties with landlords increases both peasant security and his opportunity to benefit from markets. In Latin America, the patron held life-or-death judicial authority over his dependent serfs, and the murder of peasants or the violation of their wives and daughters was not uncommon. As long ago as the fifth century, a monk described the transformation that overcame freemen who became part of estates: all these people who settled on the big estates underwent a strange transformation as if they had drunk of Circe's cup, for the rich began to treat as their own property these strangers. Single-stranded relationships may be far more secure for the peasant because there may be less coercion, an absence of monopolies, competition among landlords, and less need for submission of self. The development of an independent trading class can give small peasants easy low-risk access to international markets and a way of escaping the domination of large lords who use coercion to control the economy despite inefficient practices. Independent small traders like the Chinese in Vietnam, for example, are opposed not by peasants, but by large landowners. In particular, erosion of the traditional terms of exchange between landlord and tenant is not the only way for peasants to turn against large lords. It is not the case that if the patron guarantees the traditional subsistence level, peasants will cede him continuous legitimacy; peasants can and do fight for autonomy when better alternatives exist in the market. There are often better opportunities for peasants in markets than under lords, and markets can reduce the bargaining power of the lords. Indeed, it was not uncommon in Europe for men to buy their way out of clientage for the security and freedom of markets. One need only note the land rush in the new areas of Cochinchina after the French made it habitable to see that markets can be an enormous opportunity for the poor. Throughout the world, peasants have fought for access to markets when they were secure enough to want to raise their economic level and redefine cultural standards! In medieval England, when peasant conditions were comparatively secure.The essential quarrel between the peasantry and the aristocracy was about access to the market. It was not that the peasants were worried about the impact of the market in a disintegrating sense upon their community; what they wanted was to be able to put their produce on the market and to have a freer market in land which would enable them to take advantage of the benefits of the market. The rise of strong central states and the growth of a market economy, then, even in the guise of colonialism and capitalism cannot always be directly equated with a decline in peasant welfare due to the destruction of traditional villages and/or elite bonds. In the short-run, local village elites with the skills to ally with outside powers may reap the most benefits from new institutional arrangements, but, in the long-run, new elites emerge which ally with the peasantry against both feudalism and colonialism. Indirectly, peasants clearly benefit from the growth of law and order and the resulting stability, as well as the vast improvements in communications. The numerous and onerous taxes of the colonial period - as applied by village elites - increased stratification in the majority of countries, but the colonial infrastructure also led to wider systems of trade, credit, and communications that helped keep peasants alive during local famines. As Day has noted of Java, local crop failures were so serious in precolonial times before there was a developed communications and trade network because it was impossible to supply a deficit in one part of the country by drawing on the surplus which might exist in another. Colonialism is ugly, but the quality of the minimum subsistence floor improved in most countries. By stressing the common investment logic of intra-village patron-client and market relations I have attempted to show that given the actual performance levels of patrons and villages, neither decline nor decay of peasant institutions is necessary for peasants to enter markets. Further, peasant support for revolutions and protests may represent not decline and decay, but political competence.

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