Large Age Gap Research Articles

Disentangled Lifespan Synthesis via Transformer‐Based Nonlinear Regression

AbstractLifespan face age transformation aims to generate facial images that accurately depict an individual's appearance at different age stages. This task is highly challenging due to the need for reasonable changes in facial features while preserving identity characteristics. Existing methods tend to synthesize unsatisfactory results, such as entangled facial attributes and low identity preservation, especially when dealing with large age gaps. Furthermore, over‐manipulating the style vector may deviate it from the latent space and damage image quality. To address these issues, this paper introduces a novel nonlinear regression model‐Disentangled Lifespan face Aging (DL‐Aging) to achieve high‐quality age transformation images. Specifically, we propose an age modulation encoder to extract age‐related multi‐scale facial features as key and value, and use the reconstructed style vector of the image as the query. The multi‐head cross‐attention in the W+ space is utilized to update the query for aging image reconstruction iteratively. This nonlinear transformation enables the model to learn a more disentangled mode of transformation, which is crucial for alleviating facial attribute entanglement. Additionally, we introduce a W+ space age regularization term to prevent excessive manipulation of the style vector and ensure it remains within the W+ space during transformation, thereby improving generation quality and aging accuracy. Extensive qualitative and quantitative experiments demonstrate that the proposed DL‐Aging outperforms state‐of‐the‐art methods regarding aging accuracy, image quality, attribute disentanglement, and identity preservation, especially for large age gaps.

Spousal Age Difference and Mental Health by Sex: Korean Survey Results

Purpose: Problems in marital relationships due to age gap between a couple may lead to depression and other mental health issues. However, there is a lack of studies that investigated the association between age gap in couples and mental health. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the relationship between spouse age differences and mental health.Methodology: The data of 7,454 couples from the 2008 and 2012 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys were used. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed.Findings: Women who were ≥10 years older or younger than their husbands displayed poor mental health. Odds ratios (ORs) for women who were ≥10 years younger were 1.72, 1.77, 2.24, and 1.69 for stress perception, depression experiences, depression diagnosis, and suicidal ideation, respectively. Furthermore, in women who were older than their husbands, the ORs for cognition of stress and suicidal ideation were 1.32 and 1.41, respectively.Conclusion: These findings support the development of mental health programs and couples’ education via national promotions and projects. Managing women's mental health in couples with large age gap groups could contribute to family stability and reduce divorce rates.

KESENJANGAN USIA DALAM PERNIKAHAN MENURUT FIQH MUNAKAHAT DI KECAMATAN WARUNGASEM

This research aims to explain the age gap that occurs in marriage. The subjects in this study were husband and wife couples whose ages were more than 8 years apart. Interviews and observations were conducted in October 2023. This research used descriptive qualitative research methods. The aspects discussed in this research are the meaning of marriage itself, the factors that cause the age gap in marriage, and also the impact of this large age difference. The results of this research are that marriages with a large age gap do not affect the household situation becoming strained, even if the husband is more mature, then he will be able to guide his wife and children. Couples who are ready to get married physically and mentally are also expected to have a prosperous and quality family.

Performance Evaluation of Face Recognition Model in Deep Learning using Old Facial Photos: A Mathematical Modelling Using SVM Supervised Learning

Deep Learning has been a remarkable state-of-the-art method in any classification challenge, particularly in face recognition applications. In this paper, Feature Extraction in face recognition using Deep CNNs handpicked pre-trained CNN architectures such as InceptionV3, MobileNetV2, ResNet50, and VGG19 were experimentally explored. Initially, these architectures extracted important features from eight (8) classes of face photos with large age differences of ten (10) years from the present age of an individual. The features were processed with the application of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier to enhance its performance. The evaluation of each model was based on average scores ofaccuracy, precision, recall, and f1-score. The results concluded an accuracy of 84.60%, a weighted precision of 85%, a weighted recall of 84.60%, and a weighted f1-score of 84.60% obtained by ResNet50.Further, ResNet50 has the highest obtained 98% generated ROC-AUC score. With the results presented, ResNet50 isrecommended for application development related to face recognition with the consideration of large age gaps of 10 years.

Artefacts from Ban Chiang, Thailand: Pre-metal Age cord-marked pottery

Abstract Pottery excavated from the archeological UNESCO world heritage site Ban Chiang in Thailand stem from distinct periods. Black vessels with cord-mark design from Pre-metal Age (ca. 3000–1000 BC), Bronze Age pottery (ca 1000–300 BC) with yellow-brown surface and Iron Age samples (ca. 300 BC–200 AD) with red pictorial surface patterns. In a previous work [Bismayer U., Srilomsak S., Treekamol Y., Tanthanuch W., Suriyatham K. Artefacts from Ban Chiang, Thailand: pottery with hematite-red geometric patterns. Z. Kristallogr. 2020, 235, 559–568] we studied the mineralogical composition and their surface colour materials of shards from Bronze and Iron Age. In this work we focus on bulk features of the dark Pre-metal Age cord-marked ceramic shard PSN2-S10E13 and compare its elemental and mineralogical composition with bulk composition of sample 5412-S6E15 from Bronze Age. Experimental techniques are electron microprobe, X-ray powder diffraction, FTIR spectroscopy, optical microscopy and X-ray tomographic microscopy (XTM). Sample PSN2-S10E13 contains more quartz than 5412-S6E15. In the bulk of the Pre-metal Age shard, diffraction signals of mullite occur, indicating higher firing temperatures compared to the younger sample. Phyllosilicate signals are seen in FTIR spectra of both shards. E-modes of quartz dominate FTIR spectra of both samples. Optical thin sections show voids around micro-particles in PSN2-S10E13 and XTM indicates that the pore volume percentage of sample PSN2-S10E13 is higher than in 5412-S6E15. Because of the large age gap to younger samples from Ban Chiang, the proper age of our oldest sample PSN2-S10E13 was determined using an accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) by simultaneous 14C/12C and 13C/12C isotope ratio measurements which yielded a radiocarbon age of 3609 ± 29 BP (resp. 1659 ± 29 BC).

Image-Based Biological Heart Age Estimation Reveals Differential Aging Patterns Across Cardiac Chambers.

Biological heart age estimation can provide insights into cardiac aging. However, existing studies do not consider differential aging across cardiac regions. To estimate biological age of the left ventricle (LV), right ventricle (RV), myocardium, left atrium, and right atrium using magnetic resonance imaging radiomics phenotypes and to investigate determinants of aging by cardiac region. Cross-sectional. A total of 18,117 healthy UK Biobank participants including 8338 men (mean age=64.2± 7.5) and 9779 women (mean age=63.0 ± 7.4). A 1.5T/balanced steady-state free precession. An automated algorithm was used to segment the five cardiac regions, from which radiomic features were extracted. Bayesian ridge regression was used to estimate biological age of each cardiac region with radiomics features as predictors and chronological age as the output. The "age gap" was the difference between biological and chronological age. Linear regression was used to calculate associations of age gap from each cardiac region with socioeconomic, lifestyle, body composition, blood pressure and arterial stiffness, blood biomarkers, mental well-being, multiorgan health, and sex hormone exposures (n= 49). Multiple testing correction with false discovery method (threshold=5%). The largest model error was with RV and the smallest with LV age (mean absolute error in men: 5.26 vs. 4.96 years). There were 172 statistically significant age gap associations. Greater visceral adiposity was the strongest correlate of larger age gaps, for example, myocardial age gap in women (Beta=0.85, P= 1.69 × 10-26 ). Poor mental health associated with large age gaps, for example, "disinterested" episodes and myocardial age gap in men (Beta=0.25, P= 0.001), as did a history of dental problems (eg LV in men Beta=0.19, P= 0.02). Higher bone mineral density was the strongest associate of smaller age gaps, for example, myocardial age gap in men (Beta=-1.52, P= 7.44 × 10-6 ). This work demonstrates image-based heart age estimation as a novel method for understanding cardiac aging. 1. Stage 1.

Age Related Functional Connectivity Signature Extraction Using Energy-Based Machine Learning Techniques.

The study of brain connectivity plays an important role in understanding the functional organizations of the brain. It also helps to identify connectivity signatures that can be used for evaluating neural disorders and monitoring treatment efficacy. In this work, age-related changes in brain connectivity are studied to obtain aging signatures based on various modeling techniques. These include an energy-based machine learning technique to identify brain network interaction differences between two age groups with a large (30 years) age gap between them. Disconnectivity graphs and activation maps of the seven prominent resting-state networks (RSN) were obtained from functional MRI data of old and young adult subjects. Two-sample t-tests were performed on the local minimums with Bonferroni correction to control the family-wise error rate. These local minimums are connectivity states showing not only which brain regions but also how strong they are working together. They work as aging signatures that can be used to differentiate young and old groups. We found that the attention network's connectivity signature is a state with all the regions working together and young subjects have a stronger average connectivity among these regions. We have also found a common pattern between young and old subjects where the left and right brain regions of the frontal network are sometimes working separately instead of together. In summary, in this work, we combined machine learning and statistical approaches to extract connectivity signatures, which can be utilized to distinguish aging brains and monitor possible treatment efficacy.

Distance and Direction Based Deep Discriminant Metric Learning for Kinship Verification

Image-based kinship verification is an important task in computer vision and has many applications in practice, such as missing children search and family album construction, among others. Due to the differences in age, gender, expression and appearance, there usually exists a large discrepancy between the facial images of parent and child. This makes kinship verification a challenging task. In this article, we propose a Distance and Direction Based Deep Discriminant Metric Learning (D 4 ML) approach for kinship verification. The basic idea of D 4 ML is to make full use of the discriminant information contained in the facial images of parent and child such that the network can learn more a discriminating distance metric. Specifically, D 4 ML learns the metric by utilizing the discriminant information from two perspectives: distance-based perspective and direction-based perspective. From the distance-based perspective, the designed loss function is used to minimize the distance between images having kinship and maximize the distance between images without kinship. In practice, the gender difference and large age gap may significantly increase the distance between facial images of parent and child. Therefore, learning the metric only from a distance-based perspective is insufficient. Considering that two vectors with a large distance may appear with high similarity in direction, D 4 ML also employs the direction-based loss function in the training process. Both kinds of loss function work together to improve the discriminability of the learned metric. Experimental results on four small size publicly available datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Source code of our approach can be found at https://github.com/lclhenu/D4ML .

Investigation on the Status Quo and Influencing Factors of Sibling Relationship in Two Children Families with Large Age Gap —From the Perspective of the Eldest Children

Sibling relationship; Older child; Two children families with large age gap

Face recognition under large age gap using age face generation

Age invariant face recognition (AIFR) is a challenging problem in the area of the face recognition. To handle large age gap for face recognition, we proposed a robust approach based on deep learning for face recognition under a large age gap. The presented approach consists of four important steps. The pre-processing is done for face detection. Age face generation is processed with the help of modified age conditional generative adversarial network (acGAN). Generated age face images are mixed with train dataset and augmentation is applied to increase the size of training data for handling biasness of the deep learning models towards dataset size. A modified residual convolutional neural network is applied for training and testing of face images. The performance has been evaluated using two-fold cross-validation on standard and challenging LAG dataset. The proposed approach achieved the 92.5% recognition accuracy, which is better than the existing face recognition approaches for a large age gap.

Assessing the Impact of the “Two-child Policy” in China: The Effects of the Second Child on the Growth of Teenagers

Purpose: China’s new universal two-child policy has brought a baby boom of the second child in 2016. With the changing family structures, elder children in adolescence may have more and more emotional and even psychological problems such as “two-child syndrome”. This paper aims to explore the “influence factors and mechanism of the second child on the growth of teenagers” and has great practical significance to promote the physical and mental health of teenagers and the harmony of two-child families. Design/methodology/approach: By means of literature analysis, in-depth interview, questionnaire survey and statistical analysis, the elder children aged 12 to 18 in the two-child family were taken as the main body of the survey, and an empirical research based on NLP understanding hierarchy theory was carried out. Major Findings: (1) The most significant influence on the growth of teenagers is the attitude of parents, and then the gender of the first child. (2) Parents’ favouritism towards the second child would lead to decline in the first child’s academic performance. (3) The higher the family income, the less the influence on the first child’s life. (4) When the age difference is large, the first child and the second child are not easy to have conflicts. Practical implications: Parents should try to treat any children equally. Parents should pay attention to the sibling relationship of their two children with small age gap. Parents who have two children with a large age gap should properly guide the elder child to help take care of the younger brother or sister. Originality/value: This study contributes to the growing literature focusing on the influence factors and mechanism of the second child on the growth of teenagers in the context of China’s new universal two-child policy. It adds some early empirical insights on the physical and mental health of teenagers in twochild families.

Spousal age-gaps, partner preferences, and consequences for well-being in four Colombian communities

Across cultures, women tend to marry older men. This phenomenon is commonly described as the result of evolved mate choice preferences, which cause men to base reproductive decisions on cues of youth and fertility in women, and women to base such decisions on cues of wealth and status in men. Other researchers have challenged this idea, arguing that husband-older spousal age-gaps might not be consistent with the joint preferences of men and women; age-gaps might instead arise as the result of sexual conflict. In such cases, the realized age-gap could benefit one party at a cost to the other. In practice, large age-gaps may result in negative outcomes for younger women married to older men—e.g., because of power differences in these relationships. Testing for the existence of sexual conflict over the size of the spousal age-gap in Tanzania, researchers found no evidence that large age-gaps are harmful to women. Here, we conceptually replicate this previous work, and assess the relationship between spousal age-gaps, partner preferences, and individual well-being in four communities in Colombia. We extend prior methods by inferring the size of idealized age-gaps using network structured mate-choice games, and measuring the realized age-gap directly among ever-married partners. Our analyses suggest that there is limited evidence of sexual conflict over the size of the spousal age-gap in these communities. First, realized age-gaps are not large on average—around 1–7 years across communities. Second, the age-gaps that do exist are consistent with the preferences of both men and women—at least during their early to middle reproductive periods. And, lastly, large age-gaps are not negatively associated with measures of fertility or well-being for either sex. Our results underscore the importance of appreciating the cultural context within which behavioral practices with potentially negative consequences are situated.

An Interpretative Phenomenological Study on the Marriage Maintenance Experiences of Couples with a 10-Year Age Gap or Greater:Focusing on Younger Wives’ Experiences

본 연구의 목적은 연하아내의 경험을 중심으로 연령차 10년 이상 부부의 결혼유지 경험에 대하여 탐색하는 것이다. 연령차 10년 이상 부부인 연하아내 6명을 대상으로 심층 면접을 진행하였고, 해석현상학적 분석(Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis)을 적용하여 자료를 분석하였다. 본 연구 결과 5개의 주제와 16개의 하위주제가 도출되었으며, 5개의 주제는 ‘지금보다 안락한 공간으로’, ‘타인의 시선이 늘 함께 함’, ‘부부라는 같은 이름, 그러나 다른 궤도’, ‘남편의 시간 속으로 건너감’, ‘신체의 유한성을 바라보며 돌봄이 교차되다’로 나타났다. 본 연구는 연하아내의 경험을 중심으로 연령차 10년 이상 부부의 결혼유지 경험과 의미를 탐색함으로써, 연령차 큰 부부관계에 대한 학문적 이해를 높이고 이들을 위한 부부상담의 기초자료를 제시하였다는 점에서 의의가 있다.Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the marital maintenance experience of married couples with a 10-year age gap or greater, focusing on the younger wives’ perception. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with six younger wives, and the data was analysed based on interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: A total of 5 large themes and 16 small themes with components were derived: “into a more comfortable place than now,”; “with others attentions followed always,”; “sometimes we are considered under the same title ‘married couple’, but sometimes not,”; “going into husband’s time,”; and “role of caring changes due to physical limitations.”. Conclusions: This study is significant in that it raises the academic understanding of the marital relationship where a large age gap instructs basic data for couples counseling for those couples.

Parents’ and older siblings’ socialization of younger siblings’ empathy: a sample case in China

In 2016, China officially ended its One-Child policy and started allowing urban married couples to have up to two children. Beginning in 2021, Chinese policy officially began encouraging couples to have up to three children in response to low birth rates and increasing needs for workers and care providers in an aging country. Siblinghood in China has thus begun to re-emerge as a social phenomenon among urban Chinese. Given the important role sibling relationships have in the development of empathy, this relaxation and policy shift provides a unique context in which to investigate family dynamics among two-child families where there is a large age gap between children. Guided by family systems theory, the current study examined family level factors that help socialize younger sibling’s empathy in mainland China by testing direct associations between autonomy supportive parenting, marital quality, coparenting, and secondborn children’ (ages 3–5) empathy in mainland China. Direct and indirect associations with secondborn children’s empathy via older sibling’s relationship quality with their younger sibling were also tested. Results revealed coparent conflict and positive sibling relationship were directly associated with younger sibling’s empathy; further, marital quality and coparent support were indirectly associated with younger sibling’s empathy via positive sibling relationship. Parents, educators, and practitioners may consider addressing family level factors as an avenue for promoting younger sibling’s empathy development.

A genuine Large Magellanic Cloud age gap star cluster

ABSTRACT We confirm the existence of a second Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) star cluster, KMHK 1592, with an age that falls in the middle of the so-called LMC star cluster age gap, a long period of time (∼4–11 Gyr) where no star cluster had been uncovered, except ESO 121-SC 03. The age (8.0 ± 0.5 Gyr) and the metallicity ([Fe/H] = −1.0 ± 0.2 dex) of KMHK 1592 were derived from the fit of theoretical isochrones to the intrinsic star cluster colour–magnitude diagram sequences, which were unveiled using a robust star-by-star membership probability procedure. Because of the relative low brightness of the star cluster, deep GEMINI GMOS images were used. We discuss the pros and cons of three glimpsed scenarios that could explain the presence of both LMC age gap star clusters in the outskirts of the LMC, namely: in situ star cluster formation, capture from the Small Magellanic Cloud, or accretion of a small dwarf galaxy.

Teaching for chemical process technicians

In recent years, a talent shortage has been one of the biggest threats facing chemical and petrochemical organizations. This, together with declining employment, looming retirements, and large demographic age gaps in the workforce has made us, together with industry, determine to tackle the problem and bridge the gap by developing a formal course between a low-skill operator level and that of the process engineer. The course needed to address the technical knowledge of introductory chemical and mechanical engineering principles, the chemistry involved in process chemistry, and mathematics. On the 'softer’ side, modules such as Academic and Professional Skills and essential Computer Skills were introduced to develop an all-round chemical operator / technician. This paper describes the course materials in brief to provide insight into how this course has been developed and implemented. Feedback from student groups and industry partners on course content and relevance to today’s industry needs confirms the relevance and value of the course.

Neoproterozoic high magmatic addition rate episode building a composite batholith in northeastern Brazil, and implications for the western Gondwana assembly

The composite Santana do Ipanema batholith is made up of several Cryogenian-Ediacaran granitic plutons in the Pernambuco-Alagoas (PEAL) Domain of the Borborema province, northeastern Brazil. The individual plutons in this batholith are high-K calc-alkalic to shoshonitic, metaluminous to peraluminous quartz syenites to granites that belong to magnetite-series and magnesian Cordilleran-type granitoids. They carry comagmatic microgranular mafic enclaves with evidence of magma mixing. Their chemical compositions overlap, and they exhibit enrichment in some incompatible and depletion in HFS elements, with variable initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios that range from 0.70511 to 0.71071. The εNd(0.6Ga) values cluster into two groups, in which plutons with ages ≥ 625 Ma exhibit slightly negative to slightly positive εNd values (average −1.6), in contrast with the younger plutons that have more negative ones (average −8.7), pointing out that mantle contribution to the source decreased with time, while recycled ancient crust augmented. Geochronological data from the literature indicate that the batholith has been constructed by continuous amalgamations of successive magma pulses via diking for ~30 m.y., with no large crystallization age gap among the plutons. A magma supply rate of 0.003 m3/year is estimated considering this batholith together with two other nearby composite batholiths of similar age in the PEAL Domain, and low volcanic-plutonic ratio. This rather high magmatic addition rate episode has been probably triggered by extensive and repeated basaltic underplating stalled in the lower crust in the magmatic arc formed during the convergence of the São Francisco craton and the Pernambuco-Alagoas block in the course of the western Gondwana amalgamation.

Heterogeneity in ‘High Fertility’ Societies. Insights From Compositional Demography

Demographic transition theory has been conducive to a rather dichotomous view of global fertility: traditional versus modern, high versus low fertility. The knowledge that high fertility could be achieved by subpopulations with different characteristics and reproductive behaviors somehow vanished from (historical) demographers' attention. This study unpacks heterogeneity in a 'high fertility' society, i.e. 19th-century Zeeland, the Netherlands. Sequence and cluster analysis were employed to distinguish groups with disparate reproductive trajectories with data from Genlias/LINKS including 15,014 full birth histories and 87,204 observed live births over the period 1811–1911. Multilevel binomial logistic regression models of membership of the two discerned high fertility subgroups were then estimated. The 'Traditional 1' subpopulation, with 10.5 children per woman on average, was composed of skilled, unskilled, and farm workers living in rural areas. Couples married early and were characterized by large spousal age gaps. The 'Traditional 2' subpopulation had on average 7.2 children per woman, more often lived in towns, married significantly later, and had more equal gender relations. Compositional demography, revealing subpopulations with divergent cultures of marital self-restraint and reproductive management, not only nuances previous (historical) demographic findings, but may well offer more tools to develop family planning and reproductive health policies than the demographic transition model does.

He for she? Variation and exaggeration in men's support for women's empowerment in northern Tanzania.

Achieving gender equality fundamentally requires a transfer of power from men to women. Yet data on men's support for women's empowerment (WE) remains scant and limited by reliance on self-report methodologies. Here, we examine men's support for WE as a sexual conflict trait, both via direct surveys (n = 590) and indirectly by asking men's wives (n = 317) to speculate on their husband's views. Data come from a semi-urban community in Mwanza, Tanzania. Consistent with reduced resource competition and increased exposure to relatively egalitarian gender norms, higher socioeconomic status predicted greater support for WE. However, potential demographic indicators of sexual conflict (high fertility, polygyny, large spousal age gap) were largely unrelated to men's support for WE. Contrasting self- and wife-reported measures suggests that men frequently exaggerate their support for women in self-reported attitudes. Discrepancies were especially pronounced among men claiming the highest support for WE, but smallest among men who held a professional occupation and whose wife participated in wage labour, indicating that these factors predict genuine support for WE. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of both individual variation and patriarchal gender norms, emphasising the benefits of greater exchange between the evolutionary human sciences and global health research on these themes.

Exploring Evolution and Survival of Large age-gap Romantic Heterosexual Relationships involving Older Women and Younger Men in Chipata, Zambia

Exploring Evolution and Survival of Large age-gap Romantic Heterosexual Relationships involving Older Women and Younger Men in Chipata, Zambia