The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of light and strenuous exercise, and self-reported change in exercise status, with different components of cognitive function, and gender differences in this relation, in a large, representative sample included in the Swedish National study on Aging and Care (SNAC). Eight-hundred-and-thirteen participants in age-cohorts from 60-96 years completed a wide range of cognitive function tests, the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) and survey questions concerning exercise behaviour and exercise change with light or strenuous intensity. ANCOVA, controlling for age, education, depression, functional status and co-morbidity, demonstrated a main effect for light exercise, but not for strenuous exercise, on five of the six cognitive tests and the MMSE, for men but nor for women. A negative change in exercise status was associated with lower MMSE scores for men but not for women. Individuals exercising with light intensity several times a week had the highest cognitive test and MMSE scores and the inactive group had the lowest scores. The results of the study may contribute to increased knowledge in the exercise-mental health relationship for elderly and spawn new research specifically on gender differences in this relation.

An experimental procedure which chronically reduces the lumen of the urethra in adult female rats produced distension of the bladder and conspicuous thickening of its wall, resulting within 6-8 weeks in a ten-fold increase in muscle weight (muscle hypertrophy). During this process, the neurons in the pelvic ganglion that innervate the bladder undergo a large increase in size (neuronal hypertrophy). The average neuronal volume increased by 83%; small neurons became less numerous and large neurons became more numerous than in controls, but there was no increase in the maximum neuronal size. Six weeks after re-operation and removal of the urethral obstruction, the weight of the bladder was reduced (although not quite to the control levels), while the average neuronal size reversed to values very close to controls. In separate experiments, the pelvic ganglion of one side was removed. The nerve fibres in the hemidenervated bladder sprouted, grew and spread to innervate the whole bladder. The neurons in the surviving pelvic ganglion hypertrophied, the average cell volume increasing by 50% in seven weeks. The experiments showed that: (i) the pelvic neurons of adult rats are capable of very extensive growth when the tissue they innervate (bladder muscle) undergoes hypertrophy; (ii) the neuronal hypertrophy is reversible. This was taken to imply that there are factors within the bladder, including trophic substances, that regulate nerve cell volume not only by inducing growth but also by inducing the opposite effect, a cell size reduction; (iii) unilateral ganglionectomy, which did not induce muscle hypertrophy but doubled the amount of muscle innervated by the contralateral ganglion, was followed by marked neuronal hypertrophy.

No abstract

The tendency to leave work before the formal pension age is reached has increased in most OECDcountries. The societal economical consequences of these circumstances are worrying and knowledge about the mechanisms behind this trend is urgent. Previous research has focused on the role of pension rules, work environments, health and education. In this study, it was investigated if there are differences in personality and in leisure lifestyle between individuals who have retired at the age of 60 and individuals who still work at the same age. The effects of health, work satisfaction, education level and household economy were taken into account. The sample was drawn from the SNAC-Blekinge database and the participants were 184 randomly selected individuals aged 60 years. The variables were measured using standardised questionnaire data. The results show that early retirement due to health problems was negatively related to visiting museums and art expositions and positively related to number of symptoms of disease. Retirement due to other reasons than disability was negatively related to reading books and to number of symptoms. The study suggests there is a possible stressreducing effect of participation in cultural/intellectual activities. This effect may strengthen the ability and motivation to continue working at the age of 60 years old.

In this paper we consider domino tilings of the Aztec diamond with doubly periodic weightings. In particular a family of models which, for any k ∈ N, includes models with k smooth regions is analyzed as the size of the Aztec diamond tends to infinity. We use a non-intersecting paths formulation and give a double integral formula for the correlation kernel of the Aztec diamond of finite size. By a classical steepest descent analysis of the correlation kernel we obtain the local behavior in the smooth and rough regions as the size of the Aztec diamond tends to infinity. From the mentioned limit the macroscopic picture such as the arctic curves and in particular the number of smooth regions is deduced. Moreover we compute the limit of the height function and as a consequence we confirm, in the setting of this paper, that the limit in the rough region fulfills the complex Burgers' equation, as stated by Kenyon and Okounkov.