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Background: This study aimed to assess physical activity level and identify specific types of exercises by sex, race/ethnicity, and age for adults 50 years and older. Methods: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2013, 2015, and 2017 data were used to study US adults 50 years and older on their specific types of exercises, stratified by sex, race/ethnicity, and age. Weighted logistic regression was used to model physical exercise level and specific types of exercises. Results: The sample included 460,780 respondents. Non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic were less likely than non-Hispanic White to meet the recommended physical activity level (Odds ratio [OR] = 0.73, P <.0001 and OR = 0.96, P =.04, respectively). Walking was the most participated type of exercise, followed by gardening, for both men and women, all racial/ethnic groups, and all age groups. Non-Hispanic Blacks were more likely to participate in walking (OR = 1.19, P =.02) and less likely to participate in gardening (OR = 0.65, P <.0001) than non-Hispanic Whites. Men were more likely to engage in strenuous exercises than women. The average number of minutes on walking was the longest among all types of specific exercises. Conclusions: The types of exercises were mostly walking and gardening for adults aged 50 and older. Non-Hispanic Black adults had less physical activity than non-Hispanic White and were less likely to engage in gardening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Opioid overdose deaths in the United States remain a major public health crisis. Little is known about counties with high rates of opioid overdose mortality but low availability of opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment facilities. We sought to identify characteristics of United States (US) counties with high rates of opioid overdose mortality and low rates of opioid treatment facilities. Methods: Rates of overdose mortality from 3,130 US counties were compared with availability of opioid treatment facilities that prescribed or allowed medications for OUD (MOUD), from 2018-2019. The outcome variable, "risk-availability mismatch" county, was a binary indicator of a high rate (above national average) of opioid overdose mortality with a low (below national average) rate of opioid treatment facilities. Covariates of interest included county-level sociodemographics and rates of insurance, unemployment, educational attainment, poverty, urbanicity, opioid prescribing, depression, heart disease, Gini index, and Theil index. Multilevel logistic regression, accounting for the clustering of counties within states, was used to determine associations with being a "risk-availability mismatch" county. Results: Of 3,130 counties, 1,203 (38.4%) had high rates of opioid overdose mortality. A total of 1,098 counties (35.1%) lacked a publicly-available opioid treatment facility in 2019. In the adjusted model, counties with an additional 1% of: white residents (odds ratio, OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.03), unemployment (OR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.05-1.19), and residents without insurance (OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.01-1.08) had increased odds of being a mismatch county. Counties that were metropolitan (versus non-metropolitan) had an increased odds of being a mismatch county (OR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.45-2.38). Conclusion: Assessing mismatch between treatment availability and need provides useful information to characterize counties that require greater public health investment. Interventions to reduce overdose mortality are unlikely to be effective if they do not take into account diverse upstream factors, including sociodemographics, disease burden, and geographic context of communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses to what extent, and in what ways, mobile money has affected the financial inclusion of women in Nairobi. Women in Kenya have limited property rights and continue to require approval from their husbands or male family members to conduct financial activities. Besides, most women are concentrated in the informal economy, which has exacerbated their level of financial exclusion since they struggle to provide the documentation that financial institutions require, thus making them more dependent on informal finance. This paper demonstrates how mobile money has significantly decreased the proportion of women in Nairobi excluded from using financial services. Drawing upon survey work conducted by the author across eight areas of Nairobi, this research reveals how mobile money has enabled women to benefit from instant remittance and payment services, and has offered a means of storing money safely, which is an attribute particularly valued by younger women and those with lower levels of educational attainment and income. Although mobile money does not address many of the structural drivers of gendered financial inequality, it has improved levels of financial inclusion by increasing women's access to various financial channels from which they were previously excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a shift control algorithm to improve the shift quality was proposed for an electric vehicle with a dry-type two-speed dual-clutch transmission. To analyse the shift characteristics of the target electric vehicle, dynamic models for the two-speed dual-clutch transmission and the drivetrain were developed. Based on the dynamic models, dynamic equations for the transient shift states were derived, and a shift performance simulator was constructed. From analysis of the transient shift state, it was found that the fluctuations in the driveshaft torque, which cause the shift quality to deteriorate, occurred as a result of the inertia torque. Based on the analytical results, a control algorithm was proposed using traction motor torque control as well as shift actuator stroke control. For traction motor control, a compensation torque was applied during the inertia phase. In that phase, actuator stroke control was performed by considering the torque margin and the kissing point during the torque phase instead of the existing map-based control. To evaluate the performance of the proposed control algorithm, a test bench for the target electric vehicle was developed. From the experimental results, it was found that the variations in the driveshaft torque and in the jerk were reduced by the proposed control algorithm, which thereby provides an improved shift quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]