The Living Standards, Incomes and Accommodation Costs of Older New Zealanders Revisited

In 2001 the then Ministry of Social Policy published a comprehensive study of the living standards of older New Zealanders. The current paper revisits the estimated relationship between material well-being and the current income and accommodation costs of older people, and questions the extent to which income and accommodation costs directly affect well-being or proxy for other factors. We first extend the estimated relationship between material well-being and current income to include the source of the income as well as its level. We find that controlling for different income sources roughly halves the estimated associative effect of income on material well-being. Furthermore, for a given level of income, those with higher fractions of either employment earnings or capital investment income have significantly higher material well-being scores, while those with a higher fraction of income from benefit allowances have lower scores. One interpretation is that these factors may proxy for other causal factors, such as health and wealth effects, rather than reflecting a direct income effect. Next, we extend the original specification between material well-being and accommodation costs to, first, include property rates as an accommodation cost and, second, to control for the type of housing tenure (freehold homeowner, mortgaged, renter, and no accommodation costs). We find that, controlling for housing tenure, the estimated effect of accommodation costs (including rates) is, at most, half that originally estimated and, for some specifications, insignificantly different from zero. Furthermore, controlling for the level of accommodation costs, mortgage holders and renters have significantly lower material well-being scores than freehold homeowners. These findings suggest that understanding what influences the material well-being outcomes of older people is not as straightforward as might be suggested by the simple association of certain variables.Living standards; material well-being; current income; accommodation costs

Detection of single-threading properties in combinator notations

The detection of a property called single-threading in functional programs or denotational language definitions can be exploited to produce a more efficient implementation of the program or language, by allowing a program variable or semantic domain to be implemented by a global data structure. Earlier work by David A. Schmidt has given sufficient criteria for the detection of the single-threading property in [lambda]-calculus expressions. We extend that work by giving criteria for single-threading detection in combinator notations;Two sets of single-threading criteria are given: one for a particular combinator language, TML, and the other for a generalized combinator notation. In both cases, proofs are given which demonstrate the soundness of the criteria. We also discuss some reasons for the differences in the two sets of criteria;In order to evaluate the usefulness of single-threading detection and the associated globalization transformation in practice, a testbed implementation of the TML criteria is being programmed, using the PSI/DAOS compiler-generation system developed at Aalborg University. Some preliminary results from this work are discussed

The effects of antioxidants on the flavor and color stability of prerigor fresh pork sausage

Fresh prerigor pork sausage links and patties were processed with and without antioxidants to determine if antioxidants had any effect on color or flavor stability. BHA, BHT and citric acid were added for 0% or .003% in finished product. Each of the four treatments were stored at -18°C for 140 days or 4°C for 12 days. Treatments stored at 4°C were analyzed for oxidation (TBA), color, flavor, and psychrophile growth. Treatments stored at -18°C were analyzed for oxidation (TBA) and color. Antioxidants did not reduce oxidation during 4°C storage but links had higher (PAntioxidants had no effect (P10g) indicated antioxidants may have had an antimicrobial effect

A Response to Cross & Rohrmeier's 'Comments on Facilitation and Coherence Between the Dynamic and Retrospective Perception of Segmentation in Computer-Generated Music'

The commentary by Cross and Rohrmeier (2007) attempts to locate our paper (Bailes and Dean, 2007a) as a study of timbre, and points out the ongoing development of research in this area, including attempts to define psychoacoustic thresholds of perception. However, our work is directed to understanding broader psychological phenomena such as the impact of sound duration on the perception of structure in computer music, and the concordance between real-time and retrospective measures. We discuss further our identification of an asymmetrical detection of sound segmentation, questioning the conceptual distinctions of timbre perception that Cross and Rohrmeier propose