Ageing

In this paper, laboratory test methods reproducing phenomena affecting pavement skid resistance evolution are presented. Polishing tests are performed by Wehner/Schulze machine to simulate the polishing induced by traffic and the binder removal phase (typical for bituminous asphalt concrete). Accelerated ageing tests are performed by a weatherometer, operating conditions being adjusted according to local weather conditions, to simulate the binder ageing responsible for friction increase at early age. With respect to seasonal variations, a new test was developed to evaluate the effect of pollutants deposited on the road and the washing effect of rainfalls. Description of specimens and test procedures is given. Simulations are compared to observations to check their relevance. A model is developed to combine, in a physical way, laboratory test results and give place to a prediction of the friction-polishing duration curve. Conversions are done to predict actual skid resistance variati...

En las actuales publicidades de productos cosméticos para el cuidado del cutis femenino se realizan exhortaciones para que las mujeres eludan y eviten lo que allí se denomina como signos de envejecimiento. Consideramos que estas enunciaciones publicitarias son el resultado de extensos procesos de institución de sentidos peyorativos sobre la pérdida cualidades de juventud y belleza facial de las mujeres. Así, el proceso de envejecimiento femenino estaría más relacionado con la vivencia de la pérdida de dichas cualidades que con la llamada vejez. A lo largo de este trabajo habremos de analizar aspectos generativos de imaginarios sociales de vejez femenina en discursos publicitarios de productos cosméticos para el cuidado de la piel en la revista argentina Para Ti. Realizaremos un análisis crítico de discurso de enunciaciones publicitarias comprendidas entre 1920 y 2015 con el objetivo de indagar sobre las formas de referencia al rostro femenino como máscara social y sobre las maneras en que se procede a configurar la noción de envejecimiento y vejez femenina.

Social work in the UK and US had similar origins with a historical focus on both community-based work, similar to Jane Addams’ settlement house, and individual casework/care management aligned with Mary Richmond’s approach to care (Gollins et al., 2016). The visit by Jane Addams in the 1880s to Toynbee Hall, a settlement house founded in London in 1884 to assist the poor through providing opportunities that would lead to social reform, is often cited as a key inspiration for the inception of social work in the US (Addams, 1910). In Addam’s description, there was an early recognition of a need to balance focus on youth and older people and to create intergenerational capacity in strengths. That interest remains present today and, with burgeoning numbers of people growing older globally (WHO, 2018), countries have responded in varying ways to this challenge to prepare for the future. Often this is driven by a need to reconcile competing agendas. The move to personalisation and persona...

Der Essay unterscheidet zwei Formen des Alterns und entwickelt eine Idee der Jugend, die nicht vom empirischen Alter abhängig ist. Ausgehend von Fragmenten des Romans "Voyage au bout de la nuit" von Louis-Ferdinand Céline aus dem Jahr 1932 wird gezeigt, dass Jugend auf einer undifferenzierten Liebe beruht. Zeitgenössischen Tendenzen der Kritik hingegen mangelt es sowohl an Jugend als auch an Liebe: Liebe wird verraten, wenn man sie als das Ergebnis von Kritik denkt; und Kritik wiederum kann nur dann kraftvoll sein, wenn sie auf einer undifferenzierter Liebe beruht.
(https://www.lettre.de/magazin/li-127)
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The essay distinguishes two forms of ageing and develops an idea of youth that is not dependent on empirical age. Based on fragments of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel "Voyage au bout de la nuit" from 1932, it shows that youth consists in undifferentiated love. Contemporary tendencies of criticism, on the other hand, lack both youth and love: Love is betrayed when it is thought to be the result of critique; and critique can only be powerful if it is based on undifferentiated love.
(https://www.lettre.de/magazin/li-127)

... NEW IMAGES FOR A NEW AGE* MARY M. GERGEN AND KENNETH J. GERGEN ... Her children, in their high school years, came to live with her in her small loft apartment, in which she carved spaces adequate for tiny bedrooms for her daughter, son and herself. ...

This book explores the diversity of methodological approaches to researching ageing, considering which methodological paradigm best captures the phenomenon. Interdisciplinary in scope, it brings together research and USA to uncover the conditions under which qualitative and quantitative approaches to research on ageing can best be reconciled and rendered complementary. Presenting international reflection on methods for studying old age from a variety of research backgrounds, Researching Ageing showcases the latest research in the field and will appeal to scholars across the social sciences, including sociology, demography , psychology, economics and geography, with interests in gerontology, ageing and later life.

It seems rather obvious that the experience of ageing is not indifferent to gender, and that studies of gender ought to account for ageing and old age. Yet, the two subject matters have been rarely investigated together. This is due to the tendency to reduce ageing (as well as its gendered aspects) either to supposedly biological necessities or to their social construction and restrictions. Notwithstanding, both ageing and gender are first and foremost bodily phenomena. Aging, as well as gender are dimensions we experience, incorporate and express through our bodies.
The aim of the proposed paper is to bridge the gap between the biological and social approaches to ageing and gender with a phenomenological-anthropological approach. In this respect, I want to argue that the biological and the social are intertwined in human embodiment. The paper thus addresses ageing and gender neither as purely biological nor as merely discursive phenomena, but as phenomena of an embodied experience. Experience in this sense is necessarily situated, constituted by biological, material, historical and socio-cultural circumstances. As situated bodily beings, we not only have a first, but also a second nature: social norms are incorporated in the ways we habitually relate to the world, ourselves and others. While the process of ageing always confronts us with the finitude and materiality of our bodily being in general, with respect to gender and ageing, this means, as situated, specific circumstances and norms influence not only the way we think about ageing, but also the processes of becoming older and the experience of our aged bodies.

У дослідженні розглядаються особливості матеріального забезпечення людей похилого віку в 1920-1930-ті рр. на прикладі радянської України за доби раннього сталінізму. У статті аналізуються типові риси конструювання радянського суспільства та визначення в ньому місця старого покоління, котре представляло собою окрему групу споживачів, до якої належали особи у віці від 60 років і старше. У своїй ідеологічній риториці більшовицька влада надавала пріоритетну роль дітям і молоді, водночас позиціонуючи себе як нову молоду державу, котра стояла на сторожі інтересів робітничого класу. У дослідженні було встановлено, що така політика залишала поза увагою людей похилого віку, що зумовило їх «невидимість» у суспільному дискурсі. У статті показано, що їхнє матеріальне забезпечення залежало від багатьох факторів, у т. ч. від стану здоров'я для продовження працевлаштування, наявності пенсії, соціального страхування тощо. У сільській місцевості матеріальне забез-печення людей похилого віку було в складнішому стані. Встановлено, що на селі з метою покращення їхнього матеріального становища з середини 1930-х рр. у колгоспах та артілях стали з'являтися спеціальні фонди матеріальної допомоги. Попри пропаговану соціальну орі-єнтованість, радянська держава не передбачила реалізацію заходів щодо боротьби з бідністю і жебрацтвом серед людей похилого віку, у т. ч. у сфері задоволення їхніх повсякденних споживчих потреб. Соціальна політика радянської влади була спрямована на пріоритетне задоволення інтересів працюючих робітників, що мало наслідком проведення великої кількості обстежень робітничих бюджетів. Внаслідок такого курсу питання матеріального забезпечення робітників, які виходили на пенсію, а також непрацюючого населення непрацез-датного віку та представників інших соціальних груп старшої вікової категорії були витіснені на периферію державного та суспільного дискурсу. Значна кількість представників цієї соціальної групи споживачів була обмежена у доступі до соціальних та економічних ресурсів, у т. ч. до товарів і послуг. Ключові слова: споживач похилого віку, матеріальне забезпечення, повсякденні потреби, радянське суспільство, радянська Україна.

Gerontology together with its subfields, such as social gerontology (sociology of ageing), geragogy, educational gerontology, political gerontology, environmental gerontology, and financial gerontology, is still a relatively new academic discipline that is currently intensively developing, expanding research fields and combining various theoretical and practical perspectives. The interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and multidisciplinarity of research on ageing and old age, despite its vast thematic, methodological and theoretical diversity, have a common denominator, which is the focus of research work on improving the quality of life of older people (see Fabiś et al., 2015). It is the concern for the components of quality of life such as welfare and well-being as well as focus on learning about phenomena conditioning successful ageing that has become motivators and premises hidden or visible in many texts included in the Research Topic “Perspectives and Theories of Social Inn...

Population ageing and depopulation are dominant demographic processes in Slovakia.
Population age structure-the comparative size of specific age groups relative to the population
as a whole-can help illustrate where countries' risks and opportunities lie in relation to critical
issues such as democracy, development and security. In fact, the influence of age structure on
a state's governance, risk of an outbreak of civil conflict, and economic development is both
significant and quantifiable. The paper reports on the development of characteristics of the
burden carried by the productive population in consequence of the demographic ageing of
population in the conditions of the Slovakia regions and member states of EU. Population was
divided into age groups and burden on the productive population was analyzed using burden
coefficients, age index and coefficients describing the dynamics of burden changes, specifically
the inflow, outflow and substitution coefficients. This article expresses a degradation of all
coefficients values, according to the trend imitating more and more situation in the advanced
European countries. In years to come it is anticipated further setback, when the increase of the
productive population charging (as a result of expected reducing of the pre-productive
population rate) will be due more to post-productive population charging.
Keywords: age structure, pre-productive population rate, post-productive population charging,
depopulation, Slovakia, European Union

Aging is currently stimulating intense interest of both researchers and the general public. In developed countries, the average life expectancy has increased by roughly 30 years within the last century, and human senescence has been delayed by around a decade. Although aging is arguably the most familiar aspect of human biology, its proximate and ultimate causes have not been elucidated fully and understood yet. Nowadays there are two main approaches to the ultimate causes of aging. These are deterministic and stochastic models. The proximate theories constitute a distinct group of explanations. They focus on mechanistic causes of aging. In this view, there is no reason to believe that there is only one biological mechanism responsible for aging. The aging process is highly complex and results from an accumulation of random molecular damage. Currently, the disposable soma theory (DST), proposed by Thomas Kirkwood, is the most influential and coherent line of reasoning in biogerontology. This model does not postulate any particular mechanism underpinning somatic defense. Therefore, it is compatible with various models, including mechanistic and evolutionary explanations. Recently, however, an interesting theory of hyperfunction of mTOR as a more direct cause of aging has been formulated by Mikhail Blagosklonny, offering an entirely different approach to numerous problems and paradoxes in current biogerontology. In this view, aging is quasi-programmed, which means that it is an aimless continuation of developmental growth. This mTOR-centric model allows the prediction of completely new relationships. The aim of this article is to present and compare the views of both parties in the dispute, based on the results of some recent experimental studies, and the contemporary knowledge of selected major aspects of human aging and longevity.

„We Are Getting Old Whilst Always Doing Something...“: Retirement as Free Time?
The paper focuses on the phenomenon of free time or leisure time in retirement, as these phrases are often perceived as equivalents
in public discourse in European space. Research shows, however, that in reality, the life of people in retirement is filled with various
activities that usually do not have to be classified as leisure activities. In line with the concept of third age as an age of fulfilment, the
concept of active or successful ageing and the concept of busy ethics, the paper deals with the way how people obtain different roles
when they do not have to, but they still do. The choices or decisions about retirement are undoubtedly influenced by the discussion
of the right to leisure, the increasing value of leisure time and the re-evaluation of the value of work in personal and social life, on
the one hand, and some pressure to continue to be beneficial to society and active on the other. The author concentrates on how
the sketched discussion is reflected by a group of people who, especially in the European environment, are becoming due to the
demographic development more and more numerous – the oldest generation in society. They are confronted with two different
attitudes at the opposite end of the value spectrum. The empirical basis for the study is qualitative research based on ethnographic
interviews with pre-retirement and retired people in nowadays Slovakia, with a specific theme on preparing for retirement and living
in retirement, as well as the results of several focus groups with this group of people.

I presented this work in progress, of "The Ageing Aerialist: A Work in Progress", at the Dissecting Aerial Symposium on Sunday 26th Jan 2020. I presented it online. A sound recording of the presentation is also available at www.airhedz.co.uk/research as I was unable to attach it here.

The Questions:
1. What can we do to moderate the pain on ourselves as aerial teachers?
2. How can we support students either starting or continuing their aerial journey in their later years?

The Method:
1. Two brief case studies: me, an ageing aerial teacher; Guy, an older student of mine
2. Physical and Psychological changes/challenges of ageing in relation to aerial
3. Medical, Sports, and Performing Arts Science research

Acknowledgement:
1. This is a work in progress.
2. Writing an auto-ethnographic book on becoming an ageing aerialist.
3. Due for publication in spring 2021.
4. Presentation offered as a taster of my approach. I start from myself, then reach out to others, and the wider literature.
5. Related topics not covered here but some covered in the book:
a. aesthetics of ageing
b. the challenges facing older performers
c. the gender divide etc.
d. cultural differences of ageing
e. ageing in non-aerial disciplines
6. Sorry not with you in person, and thanks to Lindsey for trialling an alternative approach.

The number and size of elderly homes are increasing in urban areas in Nepal, indicating that the number of elderly people living in old age homes is increasing. Anecdotal information indicates that some of the elderly residents experienced abuse prior to their residence in old age homes. The main objective of this article is to explore the nature of the abuse they experienced before they arrived at old age homes in the Kathmandu Metropolitan City. This study has used both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. Data were collected from five old age homes in Kathmandu. The research was conducted in the month of September in 2016 for three weeks. Total sample size for this study was 76 and three case studies were carried out. Mean age of the respondents was 78.34 (±10.18) years. The findings show that a majority (58 percent) of the respondents experienced five different types of abuse before they arrived at the old age homes. Neglect was the most common form of abuse that was experienced by 47% respondents, followed by behavioural or emotional abuse (37%), financial abuse (32%), physical abuse (8%) and 3% of abused elderly reported that they were sexually abused. Main reason of elderly abuse faced by abused elderly were disability (physical, mental) to look after themselves (42%), having no partner (death) (28%), the family was busy and there were no extra persons for care giving task (20%) and 16% reported they had no property. This finding based on sample of small population cannot be generalized to whole population. A detailed in depth study related to abuse of older adults living in urban area is required and government should make strict policy for the control of elder abuse.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how physical activity and social interaction assist in generating better performance of the ageing body. A multifaceted ethnographic material was collected from January to February 2018 at a health and training centre called Gerdahallen, located in Lund, Sweden. The main empirical material consists of recorded and transcribed semi-structured in-depth interviews of six people aged 71-81 years old. Participant observations, a series of go-along interviews, and a questionnaire were also applied as supplementary methods to people aged 65 and above. The analyses focused on the experiences on and interpretations of the ageing body within its cultural context. In order to shape the analyses and findings of this study, the theoretical model MoSIBA – Motivation, Social Interaction, Being Active – was designed to investigate the three emerging cultural themes from the fieldwork. Several main theories were used to apprehend better understanding of the themes, such as Abraham H. Maslow’s human needs theory (1943), Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory (1991), Erving Goffman’s rules of conduct (1956), and Robert J. Havighurst’s activity theory of ageing (1961). By combining theories, methods, and materials, it generated broader, different, more comprehensive, and even new cultural analytical perspectives on the embodied ageing in Gerdahallen, how the embodiment of the ageing body is affected by social interactions, as well as the embodied performance of the ageing body. This research study revealed that (1) the ageing body and Gerdahallen culturally construct each other, (2) through its existence and characteristics, Gerdahallen provides a platform for the social interaction of the ageing body, (3) the quality of any kinds of activities holds the utmost significance to the ageing body, and (4) integrating certain ‘accentuation points’ with regular physical and social activity in more than just one place – not just in Gerdahallen – will ultimately affect the daily performance of the ageing body.

Since 2005, Thailand has emerged as an ageing society, as the proportion of the population more than 60 years of age accounted for more than 10% of the total population. The Thai government developed the National Plan on the Elderly (2002-2021) which was revised in 2009, and a second revision was made in 2020 by extending the plan to the end of 2022. This plan emphasises that the elderly are valuable assets to the society. In 2019, the total Thai population was around sixtysix million people with the number of people over 60 years around 12 million (18.8%); and those over 65 years old amounted to approximately 8 million (12.1%). Recent research in Thailand shows that elderly people are still capable of learning and want to engage with society. The chapter analyses the Thai government policy which is aligned with the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: 'promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all'.