The effects of high- and moderate-resistance training on muscle function in the elderly

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a 12-week resistance-training program on muscle strength and mass in older adults. Thirty-three inactive participants (60-74 years old) were assigned to 1 of 3 groups: high-resistance training (HT), moderate-resistance training (MT), and control. After the training period, both HT and MT significantly increased 1-RM body strength, the peak torque of knee extensors and flexors, and the midthigh cross-sectional area of the total muscle. In addition, both HT and MT significantly decreased the abdominal circumference. HT was more effective in increasing 1-RM strength, muscle mass, and peak knee-flexor torque than was MT. These data suggest that muscle strength and mass can be improved in the elderly with both high- and moderate-intensity resistance training, but high-resistance training can lead to greater strength gains and hypertrophy than can moderate-resistance training.     

Social work for critical peace: a comparative approach to understanding social work and political conflict

ABSTRACT

This paper uses a case study approach to explore issues of social work policy and practice in three sites of political conflict in Europe: Northern Ireland; Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Cyprus. It begins with a review of the international literature on social work and political conflict and then discusses the strengths and limitations in engaging with comparative case study approaches. The authors explain how they view the writing of the paper as an intellectual encounter that helped establish the beginning stages of their comparative analysis. This starts with an analysis of the existing knowledge base about the three case studies that each share similar patterns of colonial histories, political and community conflict and the social work response. The second part of the paper extends this analysis to a critique of the impact of neo-liberal social and economic policies that often adversely impact upon the role of social workers in resolving conflict and building peace. The paper concludes with an appeal for social work to rediscover its rights-based role in working with victims and survivors of political conflict, what the authors describe as: ‘social work for critical peace’.     

UK macroeconomic volatility: Historical evidence over seven centuries

Breaking ground from all previous studies, we estimate a time-varying Vector Autoregression model that examines the time-period 1270–2016 — the entire economic history of the U.K. Focusing on permanent and transitory shocks in the economy, we study the fluctuation in conditional volatilities and time-varying long-run responses of output growth and inflation. Unlike all previous studies that use time invariant linear models, our approach reveals that the pre 1600 period is a turbulent economic period of high volatility that is only repeated in the 20th century. The repeating patterns in the conditional volatilities follow from aggregate supply shocks, while most of the inflation responses follow from aggregate demand shocks. Thus, we uncover that despite the technological growth and the various changes in the structure of the U.K. economy in the last century, the recurring patterns call for an examination of the true impact of the various policies on the economy.     

The Effect of Exercise on Earnings: Evidence from the NLSY

This paper investigates whether engaging in regular exercise leads to higher earnings in the labor market. While there has been a recent surge of interest by economists on the issue of obesity, relatively little attention has been given to the economic effects of regular physical activity apart from its impact on body composition. I find that engaging in regular exercise yields a 6 to 10% wage increase. The results also show that while even moderate exercise yields a positive earnings effect, frequent exercise generates an even larger impact. These findings are fairly robust to a variety of estimation techniques, including propensity score matching.     

The Impact of Job Displacement on Employer Based Health Insurance Coverage

We analyze the effect of job displacement on the probability that employer based health insurance is made available to workers. Using fixed and random effects logit models, we do find that displacement is associated with a lower probability of having access to an employer based health insurance plan. Overall this penalty is quite small (between 2 and 3 percentage points), but it becomes substantial (about 16 percentage points) for displaced workers who have been with the current employer for less than 6 months. While we do not find evidence that the penalty associated with being displaced has worsened in recent years, we do find that employers respond to economic hardship by cutting back on fringe benefits.