Publication, especially publication in refereed journals, is the major indicator of research accomplishment. The author of a journal article receives, and deserves, credit within the status systems of scholarship. Despite the importance of authorship in the assignment of professional rewards (recognition, professional advancement, etc.), or perhaps because of it, guidelines concerning authorship are not terribly clear. In the case of papers with multiple authors, either the inclusion of some names or the order of authorship may be a matter of considerable debate and concern. I am convinced that errors of omission and commission are common. The problem is one of ethics but not alone of ethics. It is also a problem of the security or quality control over the processes of scientific and other scholarly writing.

On January 1, 1978, a new Long Term Care Program was introduced in British Columbia. Five levels of care are offered, any one of which may be provided at home or in a facility. This paper presents data from a longitudinal study of Program clients (N = 3516) in two health unit areas, one urban, one semi-rural. The period of analysis is five years from admission. By the end of the five years, 40.2 percent of clients had died; 35.0 percent were still in the Program; 24.7 percent had been discharged alive and were still alive. This paper focuses on the decedents.

It was established that approximately half of the males and half of those aged 75 or over at admission were deceased within five years of admission. Regardless of level of care at admission, at least one-third had died in the five year period. More than one-third of decedents did not change level or location of service prior to death.

While these data may assist care providers in identifying high risk clients, probably the most provocative finding was the similarity in the proportion and pattern of deaths among new clients admitted to care at home and those admitted to facility.

Canada's demographic situation in the future will differ substantially from what we have known in the past. Unless there is an early return to high fertility the average age of both the population and the labour force will increase substantially, while the overall dependency ratio will be low by historical standards. Our analysis suggests that up to about 2010 population change will have less of an impact on the real (i.e., constant—price) level of aggregate government expenditures than on the size of the real gross national product However, we can anticipate compositional changes in government expenditures as a result of population change: very large increases in the real social security costs, lesser (but still large) increases in health costs, and a reduction in education costs. Finally, a relatively large portion of the aggregate expenditure increases will be at the federal government level.

Insulin (0.67 μM) and serum (10% v/v) stimulated hexose transport did not change with in vitro ageing of cultured human skin fibroblasts. Additionally, dexamethasone amplification of the insulin-stimulated response which yielded responses to near physiological concentrations of insulin (i.e. 6.7 nM), showed no changes with in vitro ageing. Basal (i.e. nonstimulated) hexose transport, either in the presence or absence of dexamethasone, did not change with in vitro ageing. The in vitro loss of proliferative potential during in vitro ageing of cultured human fibroblasts probably does not involve changes in short term insulin responses (e.g. stimulation of hexose transport).

An intervention trial with regular physical activity was carried out to test the hypothesis that walking speed is related to the level of cardiovascular fitness (maximal oxygen uptake). Earlier research has demonstrated that when VO2 max is held constant in a multiple regression analysis the association between walking speed and age (29–65 y) is eliminated. To describe the association between self-selected speeds of walking, and level of cardiovascular fitness, 63 men age 60 to 65 were studied before and after a 1 year program of exercise training. VO2 max was determined on a motor driven treadmill. A test of self-selected walking pace was administered over a 240 m indoor course. The men were asked to walk at 3 paces considered by the subjects to be rather slow, normal, and fast, respectively. They were randomly assigned with stratification for white and blue collar occupation to a program of exercise training (n = 33) or control (n = 27). The training program consisted of walking or jogging for 30 min three times per week for one year. After the training program the exercise group increased their VO2 max (9.5%) and their normal walking speed (1.29 to 1.43 m.s−1) significantly compared to the controls. A program of exercise endurance training will result in an increase in the speed of self-selected pace.

Data from the Manitoba Longitudinal Study on Aging were used to focus on the elderly who used 31 or more hospital days in one year and to see if their high use was an isolated event or a persistent pattern by examining their hospital use over a 6-year period. The relationship of several service-provider characteristics to high use was also examined. The majority (58%) of high users were decedents or those about to enter a nursing home and another 22% used 31 or more days in only one of the six years. Indications are that bed/population ratios and physician practice styles are positively related to the hospitalization utilization patterns of high users. These and other findings raise issues requiring further research.

Fifteen subjects with moderate or severe dementia failed to recognize pictures of close relatives. When given a simple preference test which involved choosing the picture they liked from a matrix of four pictures they most frequently chose the picture of their relative. This suggests that while recognition memory may be impaired affective memory appears to remain intact.