Health, health care, and the environment: econometric evidence from German micro data

The paper develops and applies a Grossman-style health production model set up in discrete time to explain the impact of environmental pollution on the demand for both health and health care. In order to introduce the environment, our analysis takes changes in environmental conditions to influence the rate at which an individual's stock of health depreciates. While the theoretical part of our paper also contains a discussion of the full model, we restrict our analysis to a submodel which is known as the pure investment model. lbis is because the other submodel, the pure consumption model, implies a rather implausible case of satiation with respect to the individual's preferences. Our empirical findings' are based on data taken from the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP). The stock of health capital and environmental pollution are treated as latent variables and estimated using a LINCS model. The quality of the environment turns out to be an important determinant of health capital. From the point of view of health economics, improvements in environmental conditions can be interpreted as preventive measures. In terms of prevention, public policies designed to protect the environment also yield significant health effects. As regards health care demand the influence is not dearcut, i.e. one cannot necessarily expect a reduction in resource use. --

Der langfristige Zusammenhang zwischen demographischen und budgetären Variablen

The German population is aging. Since fewer children are born and simultaneously life expectancy rises, demographic changes will lead to a double aging process. The paper analyzes the effects of demographic changes on the public budget by applying a cointegration analysis to global budget variables. Our procedure, which covers the period between 1950 and 1990, adds to prevailing projections, emphasizing that low vital rates are not the problem but their development over time. The estimation results of several error-correction-models show, that in the long-run an increase in the old age dependency ratio and a decline in the reproduction rate will lead to higher public expenditures. As regards public revenues, the results are ambivalent. The change in the age structures results in higher tax revenues, while the decline of population has the opposite effect. Furthermore, we find empirical evidence that aging increases the debt ratio. Compared to these long-run effects, the short-run dynamics is only of minor importance. Significant parameter estimates can be found mainly in the model for the social security contribution rate. Simulating the development of this rate on basis of an error-correction-model for the next four decades shows, that aging will further increase the tax load ratio and financing pay-as-you-go-systems will become more difficult. Nevertheless, there are a number of instruments the government can take to absorb these negative effects and to limit the burden to future generations. --

A 2.5 ns 8 x 8-b parallel multiplier using 0.5 μm GaAs/GaAlAs heterostructure field effect transistors

To increase performance of GaAs LSI digital circuits, a 0.5 μm recessed gate process has been developed and utilized for an 8x8-b parallel multiplier. The chip contains about 3000 heterostructure field effect transistors and has a power consumption of 1.5 W. The best results of the maximum multiplication time measured were below 2.5 nsec

Chiral Resolution of Spin-Crossover Active Iron(II) [2x2] Grid Complexes

Chiral magnetic materials are proposed for applications in second-order non-linear optics, magneto-chiral dichroism, among others. Recently, we have reported a set of tetra-nuclear Fe(II) grid complex conformers with general formula C/S-[Fe4L4]$^{8+}$ (L: 2,6-bis(6-(pyrazol-1-yl)pyridin-2-yl)-1,5-dihydrobenzo[1,2-d : 4,5-d′]diimidazole). In the grid complexes, isomerism emerges from tautomerism and conformational isomerism of the ligand L, and the S-type grid complex is chiral, which originates from different non-centrosymmetric spatial organization of the trans type ligand around the Fe(II) center. However, the selective preparation of an enantiomerically pure grid complex in a controlled manner is difficult due to spontaneous self-assembly. To achieve the pre-synthesis programmable resolution of Fe(II) grid complexes, we designed and synthesized two novel intrinsically chiral ligands by appending chiral moieties to the parent ligand. The complexation of these chiral ligands with Fe(II) salt resulted in the formation of enantiomerically pure Fe(II) grid complexes, as unambiguously elucidated by CD and XRD studies. The enantiomeric complexes exhibited similar gradual and half-complete thermal and photo-induced SCO characteristics. The good agreement between the experimentally obtained and calculated CD spectra further supports the enantiomeric purity of the complexes and even the magnetic studies. The chiral resolution of Fe(II)- [2×2] grid complexes reported in this study, for the first time, might enable the fabrication of magneto-chiral molecular devices

Festschrift anläßlich der Emeritierung von Prof. Dr.-Ing. Walter Raab

Festschrift zum Festkolloquium am 8. April 1994 anläßlich der Emeritierung von Herrn Prof. Dr.-Ing. Walter Raab, Leiter des Fachgebiets Maschinenlemente und Mechanik an der Technischen Hochschule Darmstadt

Sarcoma classification by DNA methylation profiling

Sarcomas are malignant soft tissue and bone tumours affecting adults, adolescents and children. They represent a morphologically heterogeneous class of tumours and some entities lack defining histopathological features. Therefore, the diagnosis of sarcomas is burdened with a high inter-observer variability and misclassification rate. Here, we demonstrate classification of soft tissue and bone tumours using a machine learning classifier algorithm based on array-generated DNA methylation data. This sarcoma classifier is trained using a dataset of 1077 methylation profiles from comprehensively pre-characterized cases comprising 62 tumour methylation classes constituting a broad range of soft tissue and bone sarcoma subtypes across the entire age spectrum. The performance is validated in a cohort of 428 sarcomatous tumours, of which 322 cases were classified by the sarcoma classifier. Our results demonstrate the potential of the DNA methylation-based sarcoma classification for research and future diagnostic applications

Identification of regulatory variants associated with genetic susceptibility to meningococcal disease.

Non-coding genetic variants play an important role in driving susceptibility to complex diseases but their characterization remains challenging. Here, we employed a novel approach to interrogate the genetic risk of such polymorphisms in a more systematic way by targeting specific regulatory regions relevant for the phenotype studied. We applied this method to meningococcal disease susceptibility, using the DNA binding pattern of RELA - a NF-kB subunit, master regulator of the response to infection - under bacterial stimuli in nasopharyngeal epithelial cells. We designed a custom panel to cover these RELA binding sites and used it for targeted sequencing in cases and controls. Variant calling and association analysis were performed followed by validation of candidate polymorphisms by genotyping in three independent cohorts. We identified two new polymorphisms, rs4823231 and rs11913168, showing signs of association with meningococcal disease susceptibility. In addition, using our genomic data as well as publicly available resources, we found evidences for these SNPs to have potential regulatory effects on ATXN10 and LIF genes respectively. The variants and related candidate genes are relevant for infectious diseases and may have important contribution for meningococcal disease pathology. Finally, we described a novel genetic association approach that could be applied to other phenotypes

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good