The prevalence and risks of injury for masters athletes : current findings

textRegular physical activity and exercise are important clinical tools that can be used to improve our health. This is especially true due to the prolonged lifespan of the average adult and the declines in physical function that are attributed to advancing age. Those functional detriments can be controlled or reversed via regular exercise, and as a result, the growth of competitive sports targeted to the elderly is on the rise. These events have created generations of Masters athletes. However, continued growth of and successful participation in these competitions may be limited by an unfounded belief that an increased risk of sports injury occurs as we age. This notion is not supported by the available scientific literature. The preponderance of epidemiological evidence demonstrates no age-associated increase in injury for Masters athletes. This remains true even when the research has focused on specific injury types such as connective tissue. To unequivocally answer question of whether elderly athletes are at a high risk of injury, future research will need to focus on providing more rigorous controls over activity levels and training status as both of these variables are likely confounding the current conclusions that can be drawn when comparing young and old athletes. It will also be beneficial to specifically study the association between altered muscle function, age and injury. This association has not been addressed within the Masters athlete population, but could provide potent insight into the aging process of habitual exercisers.Kinesiology and Health Educatio

An Incongruent Amalgamation: John Stuart Mill\u27s Utilitarianism on Naturalism

John Stuart Mill\u27s utilitarian principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, often surfaces in cultural debates in the contemporary West over the extent and foundations of moral duties. Given the drift from its historical Judeo-Christian moorings, naturalism now provides much of the epistemic grounding in Western culture in relation to moral duties. The amalgamation of Mill’s utilitarianism and naturalism has resulted in a cultural and epistemic disconnect. Naturalism is hard-pressed to provide consistent epistemic support for Mill’s utilitarian principle. This essay provides a number of suggestions as to why Mill’s utilitarianism may be inconsistent on naturalism

An Overview of NASA's Integrated Design and Engineering Analysis (IDEA) Environment

Historically, the design of subsonic and supersonic aircraft has been divided into separate technical disciplines (such as propulsion, aerodynamics and structures), each of which performs design and analysis in relative isolation from others. This is possible, in most cases, either because the amount of interdisciplinary coupling is minimal, or because the interactions can be treated as linear. The design of hypersonic airbreathing vehicles, like NASA's X-43, is quite the opposite. Such systems are dominated by strong non-linear interactions between disciplines. The design of these systems demands that a multi-disciplinary approach be taken. Furthermore, increased analytical fidelity at the conceptual design phase is highly desirable, as many of the non-linearities are not captured by lower fidelity tools. Only when these systems are designed from a true multi-disciplinary perspective, can the real performance benefits be achieved and complete vehicle systems be fielded. Toward this end, the Vehicle Analysis Branch at NASA Langley Research Center has been developing the Integrated Design and Engineering Analysis (IDEA) Environment. IDEA is a collaborative environment for parametrically modeling conceptual and preliminary designs for launch vehicle and high speed atmospheric flight configurations using the Adaptive Modeling Language (AML) as the underlying framework. The environment integrates geometry, packaging, propulsion, trajectory, aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics, engine and airframe subsystem design, thermal and structural analysis, and vehicle closure into a generative, parametric, unified computational model where data is shared seamlessly between the different disciplines. Plans are also in place to incorporate life cycle analysis tools into the environment which will estimate vehicle operability, reliability and cost. IDEA is currently being funded by NASA?s Hypersonics Project, a part of the Fundamental Aeronautics Program within the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. The environment is currently focused around a two-stage-to-orbit configuration with a turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) first stage and a reusable rocket second stage. IDEA will be rolled out in generations, with each successive generation providing a significant increase in capability, either through increased analytic fidelity, expansion of vehicle classes considered, or by the inclusion of advanced modeling techniques. This paper provides the motivation behind the current effort, an overview of the development of the IDEA environment (including the contents and capabilities to be included in Generation 1 and Generation 2), and a description of the current status and detail of future plans

Partners or predators? : the impact of regional trade liberalization on Indonesia

The authors empirically assess regional integration and liberalization scenarios impact on Indonesia and other Pacific Rim economies, including the complete Uruguay Round, further global liberalization and the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) free trade areas. They consider how major international exchange rate realignments affect the world trade pattern, and Indonesia in particular. The analysis uses a multi-country, computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to quantify the trade liberalization impact on countries, sectors, and factors. The extended APEC-CGE model consists of nine linked country models: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (together), the Philippines, Thailand, China (including Hong Kong), Korea and Taiwan, Japan, the United States and the European Union. Each country model is linked through explicit bilateral trade flows modeling for each traded sector. The empirical results lead to several conclusions: a) eliminating tariff and non tariff barriers in industrial countries (especially the Multifibre Agreement) gives Asian developing countries the opportunity to expand exports and achieve productivity gains; b) creation of an APEC free trade area gives participants significant benefits, with little effect on nonmembers while creation of an ASEAN free trade area gives its members little benefit, thus ASEAN countries should work toward more liberalization under GATT or hasten the APEC free trade area creation; c) all economies gain the most from further multilateral liberalization; and d) major exchange rate realignments significantly affect bilateral trade balances and world trade volume and direction. However, they have less effect than trade liberalization on the internal production and trade structure. Sectoral protection andsubsidy rates vary greatly and their elimination yields significant efficiency gains. Changes in exchange rates have less effect.Trade Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Transport and Trade Logistics,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade and Regional Integration,Trade Policy

After the negotiations: assessing the impact of free trade agreements in Southern Africa

After protracted and difficult negotiations, agreement was recently reached on the dimensions of a South African-EU free trade deal. Because of South Africa's prominence in the sub-region, implementation of this agreement will have an impact not only on South Africa, but on all the SADC economies. This paper traces how this impact may be felt over time, using a multi-region model constructed to focus on the determination of sectoral and geographic trade patterns. By separatelymodeling South Africa and the rest of southern Africa, the model can be used to evaluate how alternative SADC regional trade strategies can influence how the EU deal affects the region's economies; by distinguishing among major trading partners (EU, North America, East Asia), the simulations can help illuminate how the trade deal will likely affect current trade patterns The empirical results lead to a number of conclusions: (1) trade creation dominates trade diversion for the region under all FTA arrangements; (2) the rest of southern Africa benefits from an FTA between the EU and South Africa — the recently signed bilateral agreement is not a “beggar thy neighbor” policy; (3) the rest of southern Africa gains more from zero-tariff access to EU markets than from a partial (50 percent) reduction in global tariffs; and (4) the South African economy is not large enough to serve as a growth pole for the region. Access to EU markets provides substantially bigger gains for the rest of southern Africa than does access to South Africa.Trade policy Africa., Free trade., South Africa.,

Analyzing the Impact of Excluding Rural People from Protected Forests: Spatial Resource Degradation and Rural Welfare

This paper examines how forest-dependent villagers meet a resource requirement when they are excluded from some area of a forest. Forest managers who value both pristine and degraded forest should take into account a .displacement effect. resulting in more intensive villager extraction elsewhere, and a .replacement effect. in which villagers purchase more of the resource from the market. Similarly, forest managers who have poverty concerns should recognize that exclusion zones tend to be more costly to villagers without market access and those with low opportunity costs of labour- typically the poorest villagers.

Are factor endowments fate?

In recent theories of comparative development, the role of institutional differences has been crucial. Yet, what explains comparative institutional evolution? We investigate this issue by studying the coffee exporting economies of Latin America. Although homogeneous in many ways, they experienced radically different paths of economic (and political) development, which is conventionally traced to the differential organization of the coffee industry. We show that the different forms that the coffee economy took in the 19th century was critically determined by the legal environment determining access to land, and that different laws resulted from differences in the nature of political competition and the backgrounds of political elites. Our analysis suggests that explanations of institutional differences that stress economic fundamentals can only be part of the story. At least in the economies that we study, while geography, factor endowments and technology are clearly important, their implications for the institutional structure and thus development are conditional on the form that political competition takes in society. For interesting variations in economic outcomes, endowments are not fate.El papel de las diferencias institucionales ha sido crucial en las teorías recientes del desarrollo comparativo. Pero ¿Qué explica las diferencias comparativas en la evolución institucional? En este trabajo investigamos este asunto estudiando las economías exportadoras de café en Latinoamérica. Aunque similares, estas economías experimentaron diferentes modelos de desarrollo económico (y político) convencionalmente explicados en relación con su diferente organización de la industria cafetera. Este artículo muestra que las diferentes formas adoptadas por la economía cafetera en el siglo XIX estuvieron especialmente determinadas por el entorno legal del acceso a la tierra y de las diferentes leyes resultantes de las diferencias en la naturaleza de la competición política y de la formación de las elites políticas. Nuestro análisis sugiere que las explicaciones de diferencia institucional que presionan los fundamentos de la economía pueden ser sólo una parte de la explicación. Al menos en las economías que hemos estudiado, mientras la geografía, la dotación de recursos y la tecnología son claramente importantes en la explicación, sus implicaciones sobre la estructura institucional y, en consecuencia, sobre el desarrollo, dependen de la forma de competición política adoptada por la sociedad. Para las interesantes variaciones de los resultados económicos los recursos no son el destino

Perceived weight status and risk of weight gain across life in US and UK adults

Background: Correctly identifying oneself as being overweight is presumed to be a prerequisite to successful weight management. The present research examined the effect that perceiving oneself as being ‘overweight’ has on risk of future weight gain in US and UK adults. Methods: Data from three longitudinal studies; US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) 2001/2002–2008/2009, UK National Child Development Study (NCDS) 1981–2002/2004, and Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) 1995/1996–2004/2005, were used to examine the impact of perceiving oneself as being overweight on weight gain across adulthood in over 14 000 US and UK adults. Results: Participants who perceived their weight status as being overweight were at an increased risk of subsequent weight gain. This effect was observed irrespective of weight status at baseline and whether weight status perceptions were accurate or inaccurate. In the MIDUS sample, perceiving oneself as being overweight was associated with overeating in response to stress and this mediated the relationship between perceived overweight and weight gain. Conclusions: Perceiving oneself as being ‘overweight’ is counter-intuitively associated with an increased risk of future weight gain among US and UK adults