Consumption Patterns around the Time of Retirement: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys

This study,using the Consumer Expenditure Surveys from 1984 through 1998, revisits the widely pronounced retirement-savings puzzle, which claims the existence of a sharp drop in consumption at the time of retirement. In contrast to previous work, I find that consumption of the retired households is consistent with the smoothing behavior implied by the conventional permanent income/life-cycle models. The results present evidence that the elderly actually do not reduce their standard of living around the time of retirement due to a shortage in savings or some other reasons. While the evidence does not favor a dramatic drop in consumption, the composition of consumption changes significantly as households move into the retirement period. The difference between the results of this study and those of the previous work is mainly driven by the fact that I use a comprehensive measure of consumption that includes not only nondurables and services but also service flows from housing and durables. Moreover, using detailed information on the prices faced by the households yields a more accurate measure of household consumptionConsumption, Well-being of the Elderly, Retirement

Do Non-standard Working Hours Cause Negative Health Effects? Some Evidence from Panel Data

What does the around-the-clock economic activity mean for workers’ health? Despite the fact that non-standard work accounts for an increasing share of the job opportunities, relatively little is known about the potential consequences for health and the existing evidence is ambiguous. In this paper I examine the relationship between non-standard job schedules and workers’ physical and mental health outcomes using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA). Specifically, the four health indicators considered are self-rated health and the SF-36 health indices for general health, mental health and physical functioning. In terms of direction of the effects, overall results generally suggest a negative relationship between non-standard work schedules and better health for both males and females. Regarding the statistical significance and magnitudes of the effects, however, we observe apparent differences between males and females. Among females, most of the coefficients in all models are statistically insignificant, which implies very small magnitudes in terms of the correlation between non-standard working hours and health. These results apply uniformly to all health measures investigated. Among males, on the other hand, the negative relationship is more noticeable for self-rated health, general health and physical functioning than for mental health. The pooled OLS and random effects coefficients are usually larger in magnitude and more significant than the fixed effects parameters. Nonetheless, even the more significant coefficients, fortunately, do not imply large effects in absolute terms.Non-standard work, physical health, mental health

Vitamins Reverse Endothelial Dysfunction Through Regulation of eNOS and NAD(P)H Oxidase Activities

Antioxidant vitamins C and E have protective properties in genetic hypertension associated with enhanced oxidative stress. This study investigated whether vitamins C and/or E modulate vascular function by regulating enzymatic activities of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and NAD(P)H oxidase using thoracic aortas of 20- to 22-week-old male spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and their matched normotensive counterparts, Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY). SHR aortas had impaired relaxant responses to acetylcholine but not to sodium nitroprusside, despite an 2-fold increase in eNOS activity and NO release. The levels of superoxide anion (O2 ), a potent NO scavenger, and NAD(P)H oxidase activity were also 2-fold higher in SHR aortas. Mechanical but not pharmacological inactivation of endothelium (by rubbing and 100 mol/L L-NAME, respectively) significantly abrogated O2 in both strains. Treatments of SHR aortas with NAD(P)H oxidase inhibitors, namely diphenyleneiodinium and apocynin, significantly diminished O2 production. The incubation of SHR aortas with different concentrations of vitamin C (10 to 100 mol/L) and specifically with high concentrations of vitamin E (100 mol/L) improved endothelial function, reduced superoxide production as well as NAD(P)H oxidase activity, and increased eNOS activity and NO generation in SHR aortas to the levels observed in vitamin C- and E-treated WKY aortas. Our results reveal endothelial NAD(P)H oxidase as the major source of vascular O2 in SHR and also show that vitamins C and E are critical in normalizing genetic endothelial dysfunction through regulation of eNOS and NAD(P)H oxidase activities

The Design and Use of Speaking Assessment Rubrics

Speaking is the most difficult skill to assess objectively and reliably. It involves a combination of different variables that may have no or little correlation with each other, and all of them may need to be assessed separately to avoid or at least to reduce the subjectivity of the assessment. The aim of this study is to investigate the existing practices in design and use of speaking assessment rubrics. It also reveals and discusses the most common rubrics used in international worldwide excepted English language tests, as well as recommendations for the development of the speaking assessment rubrics.  This work is believed to be useful for educators to revise their teaching methodology in order to strengthen the alignment between the students' learning outcomes and the assessment of speaking skills in order to increase the benefit of the assessment data enabling teachers to provide more constructive feedback and support the improvement of the English as a foreign language speaking skills. Keywords: Learning outcomes, rubrics, criteria, assessment, speaking skills, EF

On the All Order Solutions of Seiberg-Witten Map for Noncommutative Gauge Theories

We review the recursive solutions of the Seiberg--Witten map to all orders in $\theta$ for gauge, matter and ghost fields. We also present the general structure of the homogeneous solutions of the defining equations. Moreover, we show that the contribution of the first order homogeneous solution to the second order can be written recursively similar to inhomogeneous solutions.Comment: Contribution for the Proceedings of SEENET-MTP, Julius Wess 2011 Workshop (August 27 - August 28, 2011, Donji Milanovac, Serbia). References added/correcte