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Undoubtedly, financial behavior is a particularly complex one, which incorporates a multitude of factors. In order to have a better understanding of the motives that act upon the financial (and investment) behavior, numerous theorists have made efforts to explain what exactly (and how it) impacts decisions. Moving to the pool of investors, the aging rate of population is increasing at a dramatic rate in countries like the United States, or in regions such as Europe (implicitly in Romania). Due to this increase in the proportion of elderly people, it has become of interest to understand how these people can make rational financial decisions. Therefore, we aim to examine whether the elderly make more profitable investment choices as they acquire more knowledge and experience in the field of (stock) investments, or whether aging gives us the exact opposite, causing investing skills to deteriorate with age due to the adverse effects of cognitive aging etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prevalence of asthma and allergy has increased during recent decades. Objective: We investigate the prevalence of asthma and other allergic diseases in children aged 13-14 years and we evaluate the trend of prevalence after an interval of 6 years. Material and methods: We used a core questionnaire designed by the International Study of Asthma and Allergy in Children. In 1991, the questionnaire was administered to 2,866 children from a Romanian city and during 2001 to 1,657 children from the same area. Results: The prevalence of asthma increased from 3.3% in 1995 to 5.5% in 2001 (p<0.001). In 1995, 4.3% of children reported asthma-related symptoms, significantly fewer than the percentage 6 years later (13.6%; p<0.00001). Similar results were obtained with regard to allergic rhinitis (13.6% versus 20%; p<0.00001) and eczema (11.5% versus 16.2%; p=0.00015). As far as gender differences are concerned, in the first stage of study all three allergic disorders were found to occur more frequently in females. In the study undertaken in 2001, females proved to have a higher prevalence of asthma (p=0.226), but a lower prevalence for allergic rhinitis (p=0.121) and eczema (p=0.064). Conclusions: The prevalence of asthma and allergy increased significantly during the past 6 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]