From Foster Care to Adulthood: The Role of Income

This study explores the role of income for young people with experience in foster care transitioning to adulthood. It draws on in-depth structured interviews with eight staff members and 38 current and former foster youths age 18 years and older, who were participants in an innovative program to build their assets and financial capability. Interviews took place in four sites in three states. This study illuminates how those with experience in foster care seek to obtain and manage money to transition successfully to adult financial roles. Findings suggest that early and practical experiences with money are important for gaining financial capability. The study also highlights the need for child welfare professionals to develop expertise in financial literacy and understand the pitfalls that lie in both traditional and nontraditional financial services. By deepening understanding among staff of the economic realities facing the young people today, child welfare agencies will be more likely to prepare former foster youths for life on their own.     

The potential of artificial aging for modelling of natural aging processes of ballpoint ink

Artificial aging has been used to reproduce natural aging processes in an accelerated pace. Questioned documents were exposed to light or high temperature in a well-defined manner in order to simulate an increased age. This may be used to study the aging processes or to date documents by reproducing their aging curve. Ink was studied especially because it is deposited on the paper when a document, such as a contract, is produced. Once on the paper, aging processes start through degradation of dyes, solvents drying and resins polymerisation. Modelling of dye's and solvent's aging was attempted. These processes, however, follow complex pathways, influenced by many factors which can be classified as three major groups: ink composition, paper type and storage conditions. The influence of these factors is such that different aging states can be obtained for an identical point in time. Storage conditions in particular are difficult to simulate, as they are dependent on environmental conditions (e.g. intensity and dose of light, temperature, air flow, humidity) and cannot be controlled in the natural aging of questioned documents. The problem therefore lies more in the variety of different conditions a questioned document might be exposed to during its natural aging, rather than in the simulation of such conditions in the laboratory. Nevertheless, a precise modelling of natural aging curves based on artificial aging curves is obtained when performed on the same paper and ink. A standard model for aging processes of ink on paper is therefore presented that is based on a fit of aging curves to a power law of solvent concentrations as a function of time. A mathematical transformation of artificial aging curves into modelled natural aging curves results in excellent overlap with data from real natural aging processes.     

Successful female aging for beginners: Carolyn Heilbrun/Amanda Cross and perspectives of gendered aging in The Players Come Again

Although Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (1926–2003) is best known for her best-selling mystery novels, published under the pseudonym of Amanda Cross, she also authored remarkable pieces of non-fiction which evidence an intense reflection upon female aging as well as her long-standing commitment to feminism. Works such as Reinventing Womanhood (1979), The Representation of Women in Fiction (1983), Writing a Woman's Life (1988), and The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty (1997) explore the ways in which women in general and the author in particular experience the changes that maturity involves as an enriching process rather than as a path into decay and loss. This paper contends that these might perhaps shed a new light into her fiction as Amanda Cross, which includes The Players Come Again (1990). Taking her essays in feminism and literary criticism as a basis, my aim was to reveal the extent to which Heilbrun's commercial mystery novels represented a springboard to the theories she put forward in her essays, which vindicated the difficulties as well as the joys involved in a gendered experience of aging.     

Stand-up comedy and the legacy of the mature vagina

This article explores the work of older female comedians who explicitly refer to their sexed bodies, and their vaginas in particular, as a playfully political discursive strategy. At its heart are a number of stand-up performances made since 2000 by Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers and Roseanne Barr, informed and supported by their performances in a variety of other forms and media (including reality television, talk shows and auto/biographical writing). These performances draw attention to the relationship between performative utterance and visuality through the tropes of public confession and allusions to cosmetic surgery and aging genitalia. This can be risky in a genre in which staged persona, body and performance material are so closely yoked. Despite their different ages and signature practices, Diller, Rivers and Barr can be seen to be working in a professional lineage of female comedians, including Sophie Tucker, Jackie “Moms” Mabley, Belle Barth, Pearl Williams and LaWanda Page, who have foregrounded their own sexuality as aging women. In their redeployment of taboos which mark the female body as grotesque and unruly, these women expose the scopic regimes that limit how post-menopausal women are read, and thereby erased, in the public realm.     

代际支持、社会网络对老年人生活质量的影响——基于老化态度的中介效应分析

促进家庭代际赡养,营造适合老年人互动的社会环境,激励老年人形成积极的老化态度,以更好地提高老年人生活质量,对于老年人、家庭和社会都具有重要意义.本研究基于中国老年社会追踪调查(CLASS)2014年的数据,探讨代际支持、社会网络对老年人生活质量的影响,同时从老化态度层面分析代际支持、社会网络在对老年人生活质量影响过程中...     

日本禁止就业年龄歧视法律制度探析

为了解决中高龄者就业年龄歧视问题,日本建立了禁止就业年龄歧视法律制度。日本力图通过禁止就业年龄歧视的立法在确保高龄者安定雇佣和禁止在招录员工时设定年龄限制这两个方面有所作为。我国在禁止就业年龄歧视立法方面尚处于空白阶段,日本的相关经验带给我国诸多有益的启示。     

Spiritual Support： Media＇s Responsibility in an Aging Society Case Study of＂News Decoded＂

After decades of rapid economic growth, China has been increasingly confronted with the aging society issue. The unique one-child policy and unbalanced development between the urban and the rural have brought drastic changes in elder care. The lack of elder care professionals and the deceased-single-child families have attracted public attention through media reports. Increasing concerns of elderly emotional care are considered as a good sign for Chinese society. To treat elders well is the new goal to achieve of high quality life. Nevertheless, the improvement of qualification of media reports has been limited by many factors, such as the incapability to resolve complex issues, the lack of applicability of recommendations, and the short of professional reporters. Governments and media need to work together to turn the slogan of respecting elders into actions. Journalists should learn experience from their foreign peers and deliver the new approaches and ideas of respecting elders to the entire society, to enhance the quality of lives of elders, and to create a better public opinion environment. High-quality news coverage will play an important role in the improvement of quality of elders＇ lives.     

An investigation of model forensic bone in soil environments studied using infrared spectroscopy

Infrared spectroscopy has been used to examine changes to bone chemistry as a result of soil burial. Pig carcasses were buried as part of a controlled field study, and pig bone was used in soil environments established in the laboratory. The variables of species type, bone pretreatment, soil type and pH, moisture content, temperature, and burial time were investigated. The crystallinity index (CI) and the organic and carbonate contents of the bones were monitored. The data revealed decreasing trends in the organic and carbonate contents and an increase in the CI of the bone with burial time. An acidic soil environment and soil type are the factors that have the most influence on bone chemistry as a result of burial. The study demonstrates the potential of infrared spectroscopy as a straightforward method of monitoring the changes associated with aging of bones in a variety of soil environments.     

Current practices by forensic anthropologists in adult skeletal age estimation

When determining an age estimate from adult skeletal remains, forensic anthropologists face a series of methodological choices. These decisions, such as which skeletal region to evaluate, which methods to apply, what statistical information to use, and how to combine information from multiple methods, ultimately impacts the final reported age estimate. In this study, a questionnaire was administered to 145 forensic anthropologists, documenting current trends in adult age at death estimation procedures used throughout the field. Results indicate that the Suchey-Brooks pubic symphysis method (1990) remains the most highly favored aging technique, with cranial sutures and dental wear being the least preferred, regardless of experience. The majority of respondents stated that they vary their skeletal age estimate process case-by-case and ultimately present to officials both a narrow and broad possible age range. Overall, respondents displayed a very high degree of variation in how they generate their age estimates, and indicated that experience and expertise play a large role in skeletal age estimates.