Body Clock: Matching Personalized Multimorbidity and Fast Aging Using Information Entropy

With aging, most older adults are at risk of having more than two diseases, conventionally defined as multimorbidity. We determined body organ disease number (BODN) as a new multimorbidity index. We measured the degree to which each disease level, from mild to severe, predicts longitudinal BODN uncoupled from chronological age. We determined Body Clock using global disease levels burden from all systems predicting longitudinal BODN for each individual, which is a proxy of the personalized rate of biological aging. Change in Body Clock predicts late-life age-related outcomes and can be used for geriatric clinics and clinical trials for precision medicine.

Bayesian Multivariate GARCH Models for Within-Person Variance Forecasting

We present a multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) model to forecast model averaged (co-)variances, correlations, and means in behavioral data for single individuals. We consider four MGARCH model parameterizations; three classic models (CCC, DCC, andBEKK) as well as a recently introduced model (pdBEKK) optimized for behavioral research. To obtain the averaged forecasts across the four models, we will first need to compute the model weights, obtained from a model stacking method. To do so, we need to approximate the expected log predictive density via a fully Bayesian leave-future-out cross validation technique. This approach has not been described so far in the literature. We provide an illustrative implementation using real data on two individuals from the longitudinal Intelligent Systems for Assessing Aging Change (ISAAC) study covering up to 4 years of daily measurements on individual computer use and walking speed. The individual participants show distinct patterns in the model weights, suggesting that individuals differ in the parameterizations that best capture their behavior. We generate weighted forecasts for up to 5 consecutive two-week periods for both individuals. These foreceast are compared to forecasts from the single best model. The resulting predictions are shown to be superior or at least equivalent to the forecasts from the single best model. We close with a discussion on limitations and an outlook. We provide an R package

Would Population Aging Change the Output Effects of Fiscal Policy?

Would population aging affect the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus? Despite the renewed focus on population aging, there are few empirical studies on the output effects of fiscal policy in aging economies. Our study fills this gap by analyzing this issue in OECD countries. We find that, as population ages, the output effects of fiscal spending shocks are weakened. We also find that, while high-debt countries generally face weaker fiscal multipliers, high-debt aging economies face even weaker multipliers. These results point to important policy implications: population aging would call for a larger fiscal stimulus to support aggregate demand during recession and thus require larger fiscal space to allow a wider swing of the fiscal position without creating concerns for fiscal sustainability. Our analysis also suggests that policy measures to promote labor supply could help increase the output effect of fiscal stimulus in aging economies.

FROM WRINKLES TO WISE: DISRUPTING AGING PERCEPTIONS AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

What words come to mind when students are asked about aging? Wrinkles, grumpy, gray. What words come to mind when students are asked about aging after Disrupt Aging Classroom? Wise, wisdom, opportunity. Disrupt Aging Classroom is a successful curriculum created by AARP Connecticut and Borrow My Glasses to help dispel the myths of aging among college students in multiple disciplines. In comparison to a control group, pre-and post-test results show college students’ perceptions of aging change to a more positive frame after being exposed to this intervention administered in the classroom. There is also evidence to suggest that this program has a positive effect on behavior with students reporting they talked differently about aging and acted differently toward older adults since participating in this program. Presenters will describe the curriculum as well as the evaluation design and results collected in 2018-2019 from this successful intervention program.

The Use of Bolted Side Plates for Shear Strengthening of RC Beams: A Review

Reinforced concrete (RC) beams may need to be strengthened because of material deterioration, structure aging, change of building function, defective design, and the decrease of structural reliability caused by accidental disasters such as earthquake and fire. Thus, the retrofitting of RC beams has become a crucial problem, especially for the old buildings constructed before 1980 in mainland China. A variety of studies have proven that the bolted side-plating (BSP) method is feasible and effective for rehabilitating RC beams in existing buildings and infrastructures. The aim of this paper is mainly to review the previous studies conducted by the authors on the shear performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beams retrofitted using the BSP technique, including experimental, theoretical, and numerical studies.