NEIGHBORHOOD PERCEPTION OF SAFETY AND THE MOBILITY GAP BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN IN OLD AGE

Background and Objectives: Mobility limitations are a prevalent issue in older adult populations, and an important determinant of disability and mortality. Neighborhood conditions are key determinants of mobility and perception of safety may be one such determinant. Women have more mobility limitations than men, a phenomenon known as the gender mobility gap. The objective of this work was to validate a measure of perception of safety, examine the relationship between neighborhood perception of safety and mobility limitations in seniors, and explore if these effects vary by gender. Methods: This study was cross-sectional, using questionnaire data collected from community-dwelling older adults from four sites in Canada, Colombia, and Brazil. The exposure variable was the neighborhood aggregated Perception of Safety (PoS) scale, derived from the Physical and Social Disorder (PSD) scale by Sampson and Raudenbush. Its construct validity was verified using factor analyses and correlation with similar measures. The Mobility Assessment Tool – short form (MAT-sf), a video-based measure validated cross-culturally in the studied populations, was used to assess mobility limitations. Based on theoretical models, covariates were included in the analysis, both at the neighborhood level (SES, social capital, and built environment) and the individual level (age, gender, education, income, chronic illnesses, depression, cognitive function, BMI, and social participation). Multilevel modeling was used in order to account for neighborhood clustering. Gender specific analyses were carried out. SAS and M-plus were used in this study. Results: PoS was validated across all sites. It loaded in a single factor, after excluding two items, with a Cronbach α value of approximately 0.86. Mobility limitations were present in 22.08% of the sample, 16.32% among men and 27.41% among women. Neighborhood perception of safety was significantly associated with mobility limitations when controlling for all covariates, with an OR of 0.84 (CI 95%: 0.73-0.96), indicating lower odds of having mobility limitations as neighborhood perception of safety improves. Gender did not affect this relationship despite women being more likely to have mobility limitations and live in neighborhoods with poor perception of safety. Conclusion: Neighborhood perception of safety affected the prevalence of mobility limitations in older adults in the studied population.

Expertise Development in Volleyball: the Role of Early Sport Activities and Players’ Age and Height

The purpose of this study was to analyse the developmental pathway of skilled and less skilled volleyball players by focusing on the quantity and type of sporting activities, as well as their age and height in comparison to peers in those experiences. Retrospective interviews were conducted to provide a longitudinal and detailed account of sport involvement of 30 skilled and 30 less skilled volleyball players (15 male and 15 female players per group) throughout different developmental stages (stage 1: 8-12 years; stage 2: 13-16 years; stage 3: 17-20 years). Results indicated that the developmental pathway of these volleyball players (i.e. skilled and less skilled) was characterized by an early diversified sport involvement with a greater participation in sport activities during stages 1 and 2. However, skilled players specialized later in volleyball (between age 14 and 15) and performed more hours of volleyball at stage 3 (from 17 years of age onwards). Also, skilled players (male and female) were younger in both the diversified sport activities and volleyball at the later stages of development (i.e. stages 2 and 3), and skilled female players were taller than peers in those activities in the early stages of development (i.e. stages 1 and 2). The present findings suggest early diversification as a feasible pathway to reach expertise in volleyball and highlight the importance of practicing with older peers once specialization in the main sport has occurred. The findings highlight the need for coaches and sport programs to consider different stimuli existing within the training environment (i.e. characteristics of athletes, such as age and height) that influence the quality of practice and contribute to players’ expertise development.

Supporting the Model-Driven Development of Real-time Embedded Systems with Run-Time Monitoring and Animation via Highly Customizable Code Generation

This paper presents a vision that allows the combined use of model-driven engineering, run-time monitoring, and animation for the development and analysis of components in real-time embedded systems. Key building block in the tool environment supporting this vision is a highly-customizable code generation process. Customization is performed via a configuration specification which describes the ways in which input is provided to the component, the ways in which run-time execution information can be observed, and how these observations drive animation tools. The environment is envisioned to be suitable for different activities ranging from quality assurance to supporting certification, teaching, and outreach and will be built exclusively with open source tools to increase impact. A preliminary prototype implementation is described.