Pubic growth study: applicability in sexual and age diagnostic.

The growth of five variables of the ischiopubic area was analyzed from bone material from birth to old age. The main purpose was to evaluate its significance and capacity for age and sex determination during and after growth. The material used consisted of 327 specimens from four documented Western European collections. Growth curves were calculated by polynomial regression for two classical variables of the ischiopubic area (pubis length and ischiopubic index) and three new variables of the pubic acetabular area (horizontal and vertical diameter of the pubic acetabular area and the pubic acetabular index). None of the curves showed lineal growth, with the exception of the ischiopubic index and the masculine vertical diameter of the pubis acetabular area. Pubis length has the most complicated growth, expressed by a five-degree polynomial. All the variables are useful for adult sex determination, except the pubic acetabular index. The ischopubic index, vertical diameter of the pubic acetabular area and the pubic acetabular index seem to be good variables for sub-adult sex determination. For age estimation the best variables, in both archaeological and forensic remains, are the absolute measurements (pubic length, vertical and horizontal diameter of the pubis). However, pubis length is the best variable for age estimation because it can be applied until 25 years of age.

Age-Related Tooth Wear Differs between Forest and Savanna Primates

Tooth wear in primates is caused by aging and ecological factors. However, comparative data that would allow us to delineate the contribution of each of these factors are lacking. Here, we contrast age-dependent molar tooth wear by scoring percent of dentine exposure (PDE) in two wild African primate populations from Gabonese forest and Kenyan savanna habitats. We found that forest-dwelling mandrills exhibited significantly higher PDE with age than savanna yellow baboons. Mandrills mainly feed on large tough food items, such as hard-shell fruits, and inhabit an ecosystem with a high presence of mineral quartz. By contrast, baboons consume large amounts of exogenous grit that adheres to underground storage organs but the proportion of quartz in the soils where baboons live is low. Our results support the hypothesis that not only age but also physical food properties and soil composition, particularly quartz richness, are factors that significantly impact tooth wear. We further propose that the accelerated dental wear in mandrills resulting in flatter molars with old age may represent an adaptation to process hard food items present in their environment.

The effect of gregarine parasite infections, age, and diet on calling song structure and mating behaviour in the Texas field cricket, Gryllus integer

In the past ten years, many researchers have focussed their attention on parasites regarding the role they may play in causing variations in male secondary sexual traits and subsequent effects on female choice. Male age has also been suggested to be an important factor in female choice if old age reflects superior genes. This study investigated the effects that gregarine gut parasites, age, and diet have on the calling and mating behaviour of the male Texas field cricket, Gryllus integer. Male calling songs were recorded in the laboratory using a Digital Signal Processing Network. The song parameters measured were: pulse rate, pulse width, burst duration, pulses per burst, interburst interval, and percent missing pulses. The effects of parasite load and age on the various calling song parameters was investigated in crickets that were fed two different diets varying in nutritional quality. None of the calling song parameters were affected by either parasite load or age in either diet grou p. Courtship behaviour was ob served and recorded using an Eventlog recorder on an IBM computer in the laboratory. Females mated equally with paras(tized and unparasitized males and with old and young males The total duration and proportion of time spent performing each of 9 courtship displays were recorded for males on each diet. Only one display was affected by parasite load. Highly parasitized males fed the nutritionally inferior diet juddered for a proportionately shorter time than males with low parasite loads. Also, older males performed juddering and shaking antennae proportionally longer and juddering and raising wings for longer durations than younger males. Males that successfully mated were observed for performance of 8 post-copulatory guarding behaviour displays. None of the guarding behaviours were affected by parasite load. However, one display was affected by age, with older males performing guard turning for shorter durations than younger males. Results are discuss,ed in terms of the influence of parasites and age on female choice.

Changements dans la répartition des décès selon l'âge : une approche non paramétrique pour l'étude de la mortalité adulte

Au cours du siècle dernier, nous avons pu observer une diminution remarquable de la mortalité dans toutes les régions du monde, en particulier dans les pays développés. Cette chute a été caractérisée par des modifications importantes quant à la répartition des décès selon l'âge, ces derniers ne se produisant plus principalement durant les premiers âges de la vie mais plutôt au-delà de l'âge de 65 ans. Notre étude s'intéresse spécifiquement au suivi fin et détaillé des changements survenus dans la distribution des âges au décès chez les personnes âgées. Pour ce faire, nous proposons une nouvelle méthode de lissage non paramétrique souple qui repose sur l'utilisation des P-splines et qui mène à une expression précise de la mortalité, telle que décrite par les données observées. Les résultats de nos analyses sont présentés sous forme d'articles scientifiques, qui s'appuient sur les données de la Human Mortality Database, la Base de données sur la longévité canadienne et le Registre de la population du Québec ancien reconnues pour leur fiabilité. Les conclusions du premier article suggèrent que certains pays à faible mortalité auraient récemment franchi l'ère de la compression de la mortalité aux grands âges, ère durant laquelle les décès au sein des personnes âgées tendent à se concentrer dans un intervalle d'âge progressivement plus court. En effet, depuis le début des années 1990 au Japon, l'âge modal au décès continue d'augmenter alors que le niveau d'hétérogénéité des durées de vie au-delà de cet âge demeure inchangé. Nous assistons ainsi à un déplacement de l'ensemble des durées de vie adultes vers des âges plus élevés, sans réduction parallèle de la dispersion de la mortalité aux grands âges. En France et au Canada, les femmes affichent aussi de tels développements depuis le début des années 2000, mais le scénario de compression de la mortalité aux grands âges est toujours en cours chez les hommes. Aux États-Unis, les résultats de la dernière décennie s'avèrent inquiétants car pour plusieurs années consécutives, l'âge modal au décès, soit la durée de vie la plus commune des adultes, a diminué de manière importante chez les deux sexes. Le second article s'inscrit dans une perspective géographique plus fine et révèle que les disparités provinciales en matière de mortalité adulte au Canada entre 1930 et 2007, bien décrites à l'aide de surfaces de mortalité lissées, sont importantes et méritent d'être suivies de près. Plus spécifiquement, sur la base des trajectoires temporelles de l'âge modal au décès et de l'écart type des âges au décès situés au-delà du mode, les différentiels de mortalité aux grands âges entre provinces ont à peine diminué durant cette période, et cela, malgré la baisse notable de la mortalité dans toutes les provinces depuis le début du XXe siècle. Également, nous constatons que ce sont précisément les femmes issues de provinces de l'Ouest et du centre du pays qui semblent avoir franchi l'ère de la compression de la mortalité aux grands âges au Canada. Dans le cadre du troisième et dernier article de cette thèse, nous étudions la longévité des adultes au XVIIIe siècle et apportons un nouvel éclairage sur la durée de vie la plus commune des adultes à cette époque. À la lumière de nos résultats, l'âge le plus commun au décès parmi les adultes canadiens-français a augmenté entre 1740-1754 et 1785-1799 au Québec ancien. En effet, l'âge modal au décès est passé d'environ 73 ans à près de 76 ans chez les femmes et d'environ 70 ans à 74 ans chez les hommes. Les conditions de vie particulières de la population canadienne-française à cette époque pourraient expliquer cet accroissement.

Participación de los adultos mayores del municipio de Cachipay – Cundinamarca en la construcción de una política pública que responda al fenómeno del envejecimiento

El interés de esta Investigación Diagnóstica es mostrar la importancia de la participación social de los adultos mayores en el proceso de diseño de políticas públicas en el Municipio de Cachipay. Se demuestra que las necesidades sentidas y las expectativas de atención integral identificadas desde los adultos mayores, aportan información fundamental y complementaria a los diagnósticos elaborados con base únicamente en fuentes institucionales. Tomando conceptos de vulnerabilidad, exclusión social, el principio de respeto a los derechos humanos y siguiendo la norma nacional contenida en la Ley 1251 de 2008 de envejecimiento y vejez, la investigación avanza en la identificación de conceptos, instrumentos y dinámicas de participación social, para que el gobierno local diseñe políticas públicas concertadas que garanticen una vida digna a la población de la tercera edad.

Ahorro para el retiro en Colombia: patrones y determinantes

La decisión de los individuos acerca del ahorro para el retiro ha sido abordada teóricamente bajo la hipótesis de que el sistema de seguridad social se comporta como un sustituto de otros mecanismos de ahorro. Este documento presenta evidencia de los patrones y determinantes del ahorro para el retiro en Colombia a partir de la Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares de 2007. Los resultados muestran que el 63% de los ocupados declaran no ahorrar para su vejez. A partir de modelos de selección discreta se encuentra que individuos jóvenes, de sexo masculino, con menor nivel educativo, residentes en zonas rurales, y trabajadores cuenta propia, presentan menores probabilidades de ah orrar para el retiro; además las características socioeconómicas resultan significativas en la determinación del mecanismo de ahorro utilizado.

Prevalencia de patologías osteomusculares del miembro superior y su relación con factores ocupacionales en trabajadores de una empresa de flores. Bogotá 2015

Antecedentes: Las patologías osteomusculares del miembro superior son una importante causa de morbilidad laboral a nivel mundial y en nuestro país, particularmente en el sector de la floricultura. Del desarrollo de estos desórdenes se derivan importantes costos derivados del ausentismo laboral, incapacidades y secuelas. Objetivo: determinar la prevalencia de patología osteomuscular de miembro superior con calificación de origen de enfermedad laboral, en los trabajadores con diagnóstico de patología musculo esquelética de miembro superior y su relación con algunos factores ocupacionales y demográficos. Metodología: Estudio de corte transversal en el que se revisaron datos secundarios procedentes de una base de datos del servicio de salud ocupacional entre enero y mayo de 2015, correspondiente a 465 operarios (no administrativos) a término indefinido de una empresa floricultora de Bogotá, incluyendo únicamente aquellos trabajadores con patologías osteomusculares de miembro superior, que contaban con la clasificación en el diagnóstico ya sea como enfermedad laboral o enfermedad común y mayores de edad. Se excluyeron 19 trabajadores, quienes habían sido reubicados en nuevos sitios de trabajo y no se contó con la información para determinar su actividad antes de realizar el cambio. Se evaluaron las siguientes variables: sexo, edad, antigüedad y el cargo desempeñados por los operarios. La relación entre variables se realizó con la prueba de chi2 de Pearson. Se midió la magnitud de la asociación por medio de OR con sus respectivos intervalos de confianza del 95%. Resultados: Se incluyó a 373 operarios a término fijo, con una media de edad de 39 años (DE=5.55) y una media de antigüedad en el cargo de 6 años (DE=1.15). El 82.84% correspondió al sexo femenino. La prevalencia de enfermedad laboral osteomuscular de miembro superior fue del 54,4%. En el análisis de relación entre la calificación de la enfermedad, y demás variables (sexo, antigüedad en el cargo, edad, actividad desempeñada, localización de la lesión); se encontró que: estar entre los 40 a 49 años (OR= 1,7; IC-95%:1,12 – 2,79), diagnóstico de síndrome de manguito (OR= 4.45; IC-95%: 2.48 – 8.23) y el síndrome de túnel de carpo (OR= 4.22; IC-95%: 2.45 – 7.41) se asociaron a enfermedad laboral. Conclusiones: La prevalencia de enfermedad laboral de patología osteomuscular de miembro superior en los operarios de un cultivo de flores de la Sabana de Bogotá es del (54,4%). Se encontró una mayor asociación con el síndrome del manguito rotador y enfermedad laboral. No se encontró asociación entre la enfermedad laboral y la actividad desempeñada, el tiempo de exposición, ni con el sexo del trabajador.

Sexuality in older age: essential considerations for healthcare professionals

This review describes the fact that many elderly people enjoy an active sex life and examines the evidence against the general perception of an 'asexual' old age. It offers an overview of the evidence for healthcare professionals who had not previously considered the sexuality of their older patients. It also describes some of the sexual problems faced by older people, especially the difficulties experienced in disclosing such problems to healthcare professionals. It examines why healthcare professionals routinely avoid discussing sexual problems with older patients, and how this can be improved. It also offers some recommendations for future research in the area, as well as a word of caution regarding the temptation of over-sexualising the ageing process.

Processing speed, executive function, and age differences in remembering and knowing

A group of young (n=52, M=23.27 years) and old (n=52, M=68.62 years) adults studied two lists of semantically unrelated nouns. For one list a time of 2 s was allowed for encoding, and for the other, 5 s. A recognition test followed where participants classified their responses according to Gardiner’s (1988) remember–know procedure. Age differences for remembering and knowing were minimal in the faster 2-s encoding condition. However, in the longer 5-s encoding condition, younger persons produced significantly more remember responses, and older adults a greater number of know responses. This dissociation suggests that in the longer encoding condition, younger adults utilized a greater level of elaborative rehearsal governed by executive processes, whereas older persons employed maintenance rehearsal involving short-term memory. Statistical control procedures, however, found that independent measures of processing speed accounted for age differences in remembering and knowing and that independent measures of executive control had little influence. The findings are discussed in the light of contrasting theoretical accounts of recollective experience in old age.

Asset liability modelling and pension schemes: the application of robust optimization to USS

This paper uses a novel numerical optimization technique - robust optimization - that is well suited to solving the asset-liability management (ALM) problem for pension schemes. It requires the estimation of fewer stochastic parameters, reduces estimation risk and adopts a prudent approach to asset allocation. This study is the first to apply it to a real-world pension scheme, and the first ALM model of a pension scheme to maximise the Sharpe ratio. We disaggregate pension liabilities into three components - active members, deferred members and pensioners, and transform the optimal asset allocation into the scheme’s projected contribution rate. The robust optimization model is extended to include liabilities and used to derive optimal investment policies for the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), benchmarked against the Sharpe and Tint, Bayes-Stein, and Black-Litterman models as well as the actual USS investment decisions. Over a 144 month out-of-sample period robust optimization is superior to the four benchmarks across 20 performance criteria, and has a remarkably stable asset allocation – essentially fix-mix. These conclusions are supported by six robustness checks.

Essays on robust portfolio selection and pension finance

This thesis examines three different, but related problems in the broad area of portfolio management for long-term institutional investors, and focuses mainly on the case of pension funds. The first idea (Chapter 3) is the application of a novel numerical technique – robust optimization – to a real-world pension scheme (the Universities Superannuation Scheme, USS) for first time. The corresponding empirical results are supported by many robustness checks and several benchmarks such as the Bayes-Stein and Black-Litterman models that are also applied for first time in a pension ALM framework, the Sharpe and Tint model and the actual USS asset allocations. The second idea presented in Chapter 4 is the investigation of whether the selection of the portfolio construction strategy matters in the SRI industry, an issue of great importance for long term investors. This study applies a variety of optimal and naïve portfolio diversification techniques to the same SRI-screened universe, and gives some answers to the question of which portfolio strategies tend to create superior SRI portfolios. Finally, the third idea (Chapter 5) compares the performance of a real-world pension scheme (USS) before and after the recent major changes in the pension rules under different dynamic asset allocation strategies and the fixed-mix portfolio approach and quantifies the redistributive effects between various stakeholders. Although this study deals with a specific pension scheme, the methodology can be applied by other major pension schemes in countries such as the UK and USA that have changed their rules.

The old metal-poor open cluster ESO 92-SC05: accreted from a dwarf galaxy ?

The study of old open clusters outside the solar circle can bring constraints on formation scenarios of the outer disc. In particular, accretion of dwarf galaxies has been proposed as a likely mechanism in the area. We use BVI photometry for determining fundamental parameters of the faint open cluster ESO 92-SC05. Colour-magnitude diagrams are compared with Padova isochrones, in order to derive age, reddening and distance. We derive a reddening E(B - V) = 0.17, and an old age of similar to 6.0 Gyr. It is one of the rare open clusters known to be older than 5 Gyr. A metallicity of Z similar to 0.004 or [M/H] similar to -0.7 is found. The rather low metallicity suggests that this cluster might be the result of an accretion episode of a dwarf galaxy.

Envelhecimento: campo novo de estudo na psicologia

As pessoas idosas constituem hoje um novo grupo populacional! Também é novo o conhecimento de suas características e do processo do envelhecimento. A pesquisa acadêmica em torno dos diversos aspectos da população de mais idade tem tido um significativo desenvolvimento e a cada ano, mais e mais estudos têm sido feitos. Entretanto, estes são praticamente desconhecidos no Brasil. Ao mesmo tempo, as pessoas idosas estão se tornando cada vez mais importantes sob o ponto de vista da política social e a questão da previdência social e da aposentadoria têm sido debatidas em torno do problema de como a sociedade deveria prover esta etapa da vida. Nosso estudo é sobre a forma de atendimento das pessoas idosas comum no Brasil, isto é, a forma institucional de recolhimento: o asilo. Estudamos três deles, descrevendo suas características e dinâmica interna mostrando a condição de total dependência em que se encontram as pessoas idosas que vivem ali. A finalidade específica do estudo de campo foi a de oferecer uma perspectiva com relação a Psicologia do Envelhecimento e a discussão do papel preventivo e profilático que o psicólogo pode ter no campo do envelhecimento.

"Antes que eu esqueça : trajetórias, laços e memórias produzidas por sujeitos da terceira idade na interação em territórios de sociabilidades

Currently the number of elderly in the world and Brazil is growing increasingly. However, old age is still presented as a complex issue that needs more depth. It is extremely important that society should create a discourse committed to reviewing negative stereotypes of old age as well as studies that allow the construction of new looks inclusive , as well as the creation of public policies that favor the elderly category, such as the National Policy and Elderly Statute established recently. The aim of this study is to analyze the spaces of sociability for the elderly Mossley and understand how the collective experiences in these environments influence the quality of life and influence in their depictions of the elderly subjects. To collect data observations were made, semi-structured interviews and wheels conversations with men and women aged 65 to 80 years old, retired, mostly widows, neighborhood residents Abolition in Mossley, participants (CCI) Coexistence Center Seniors Jose Sarney and (CRAS) Reference Center and Welfare. Thus, the spaces facing the elderly are presented as a good alternative for the rehabilitation, the fun and preserve their memories, while the agents posing as productive, active, and transformers of their reality

Dental caries of lifetime residents in Baixo Guandu, Brazil, fluoridated since 1953: a brief communication

Objectives: This study aimed to verify the dental caries prevalence in Baixo Guandu, the first Brazilian city to fluoridate its public water supplies; to compare the findings with the data from the national survey; and also to compare the prevalence in the 12-year-old age group with the data obtained before the beginning of the fluoridation. Methods: All the lifetime residents aged 5, 12, 15 to 19, and 35 to 44 years old were clinically examined (World Health Organization). Results: The means of dmft/DMFT were lower than in the Brazilian population living in fluoridated communities. The DMFT Index in 12-year-old residents decreased between 1953 and 2005 from 8.61 to 1.55. Conclusions: The addition of fluoride to public water supplies was an important ally in the improvement of the oral health of Baixo Guandu inhabitants.