Regulation of labour market intermediaries and the role of social partners in preventing trafficking of labour

This report aims to contribute to the development of a best practice guide for public authorities on monitoring and enforcing rules and regulations relevant to labour market intermediaries to prevent trafficking for labour exploitation. The report brings together research findings on two main areas: how labour market intermediaries are regulated by public authorities in the different Member States, and to what extent social partners’ activities contribute to preventing trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation. The main focus of the report is on trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation and does not cover trafficking for sexual exploitation. The report is based on information provided by Eurofound’s network of European correspondents across all 28 EU Member States and Norwa

The Youth Labour Market in New Zealand - A Comparison to the Pre-Recession Situation

Historically, youth have difficulties in succeeding in the labour market. They can struggle with successfully making the transition from school to work and securing a decent job. The problem of competing and succeeding in the labour market for youth has worsened since the recession in 2008. This paper describes the labour market performance of youth prior to and after the recession. The suite of labour market indicators for youth – including the youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) indicator – derived from the cross-sectional Household Labour Force Survey is used to describe and analyse changes before and after 2008. The description is complemented by highlighting significant risk factors in the youth labour market. The overview of the New Zealand youth labour market together with the odds ratio analysis provides an understanding of the changing labour market situation for youth as well as an insight into which sections of youth particularly struggle in the labour market

Labour Underutilisation in New Zealand

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a preliminary measure of labour underutilisation in New Zealand using data from the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS). Underutilisation measures add value to the suite of labour market indicators already available from the HLFS. In particular, the underutilisation rate complements the unemployment rate by providing a broader picture of unmet demand for paid employment in New Zealand. The concept of underutilisation and the necessity to measure underutilisation is based on recommendations of an International Labour Organization (ILO) Working Group on Underutilisation made in 2008. The Working Group recommended that ‘... the statistical community should devote serious efforts to introduce, at a par with unemployment, a supplementary concept which measures the employment problem as experienced by individual workers.’ The development of underutilisation measures is also important to mirror changes in increasingly transitional labour markets and to enable analysis and evaluation of these changes

Labour Underutilisation in New Zealand

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a preliminary measure of labour underutilisation in New Zealand using data from the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS). Underutilisation measures add value to the suite of labour market indicators already available from the HLFS. In particular, the underutilisation rate complements the unemployment rate by providing a broader picture of unmet demand for paid employment in New Zealand. The concept of underutilisation and the necessity to measure underutilisation is based on recommendations of an International Labour Organization (ILO) Working Group on Underutilisation made in 2008. The Working Group recommended that ‘... the statistical community should devote serious efforts to introduce, at a par with unemployment, a supplementary concept which measures the employment problem as experienced by individual workers.’ The development of underutilisation measures is also important to mirror changes in increasingly transitional labour markets and to enable analysis and evaluation of these changes

The Youth Labour Market in New Zealand - A Comparison to the Pre-Recession Situation

Historically, youth have difficulties in succeeding in the labour market. They can struggle with successfully making the transition from school to work and securing a decent job. The problem of competing and succeeding in the labour market for youth has worsened since the recession in 2008. This paper describes the labour market performance of youth prior to and after the recession. The suite of labour market indicators for youth – including the youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) indicator – derived from the cross-sectional Household Labour Force Survey is used to describe and analyse changes before and after 2008. The description is complemented by highlighting significant risk factors in the youth labour market. The overview of the New Zealand youth labour market together with the odds ratio analysis provides an understanding of the changing labour market situation for youth as well as an insight into which sections of youth particularly struggle in the labour market

Determinants of L-Aspartate and IMP Recognition in Escherichia coli Adenylosuccinate Synthetase

Adenylosuccinate synthetase governs the first committed step in the de novo synthesis of AMP. Mutations of conserved residues in the synthetase fromEscherichia coli reveal significant roles for Val273 and Thr300 in the recognition ofL-aspartate, even though these residues do not or cannot hydrogen bond with the substrate. The mutation of Thr300 to alanine increases the K m forL-aspartate by 30-fold. In contrast, its mutation to valine causes no more than a 4-fold increase in the K m forL-aspartate, while increasing k catby 3-fold. Mutations of Val273 to alanine, threonine, or asparagine increase the K m forL-aspartate from 15- to 40-fold, and concomitantly decrease the K ifor dicarboxylate analogues ofL-aspartate by up to 40-fold. The above perturbations are comparable with those resulting from the elimination of a hydrogen bond between the enzyme and substrate: alanine mutations of Thr128 and Thr129 increase theK m for IMP by up to 30-fold and the alanine mutation of Thr301 abolishes catalysis supported byL-aspartate, but has no effect on catalysis supported by hydroxylamine. Structure-based mechanisms, by which the above residues influence substrate recognition, are presented

Survival and prognostic factors in conventional G1 chondrosarcoma

Background Chondrosarcoma is the second most frequent malignant bone tumor. Grade I chondrosarcoma (syn.: atypical cartilaginous tumor) is classified as an intermediately and locally aggressive neoplasm and typically is treated less aggressively (i.e., by intralesional curettage). Does the data regarding local recurrence (LR) and metastatic disease justify this? Methods From 1982 to 2014, 37 consecutive patients with G1 chondrosarcoma had been resected or curetted. The margin was defined as R0 (wide resection) or R1 (marginal resection). All patients were followed for evidence of local recurrence or metastatic disease. Overall and recurrence-free survival were calculated, and various potentially prognostic factors were evaluated. Results In 23 patients (62%), the tumor was widely (R0) resected, whereas in 14 patients, (38%) the resection was marginal (R1). Overall survival was 97% after 5 years, 92% after 10 years, and 67% after 20 years. Five-year local recurrence-free survival was 96%. Ten-year local recurrence-free survival was 83%. Local recurrence-free survival showed a significant correlation to margin status but no correlation to location or age. None of the patients with local recurrence died during the follow-up. One patient had metastatic disease at initial presentation, and a further five patients developed metastatic disease during follow-up. Metastatic disease proofed to be a highly significant factor for survival but was not correlated to local recurrence. Conclusions There was no significant correlation between the outcome and the primary tumor location. Marginal resection was a risk factor for LR, but there was no significant difference in the overall survival in patients with or without LR. Metastatic disease (16%) was more common than expected from the literature and a significant predictor for poor overall survival

WRINKLED1 and ACYL‐COA:DIACYLGLYCEROL ACYLTRANSFERASE1 regulate tocochromanol metabolism in Arabidopsis

Photosynthetic organisms such as plants, algae and some cyanobacteria synthesize tocochromanols, a group of compounds that encompasses tocopherols and tocotrienols and that exhibits vitamin E activity in animals. While most vitamin E biosynthetic genes have been identified in plant genomes, regulatory genes controlling tocopherol accumulation are currently unknown.We isolated by forward genetics Arabidopsis enhanced vitamin E (eve) mutants that overaccumulate the classic tocopherols and plastochromanol-8, and a tocochromanol unknown in this species. We mapped eve1 and eve4, and identified the unknown Arabidopsis tocochromanol by using a combination of analytical tools. In addition, we determined its biosynthetic pathway with a series of tocochromanol biosynthetic mutants and transgenic lines.eve1 and eve4 are two seed lipid mutants affecting the WRINKLED1 (WRI1) and ACYL-COA:DIACYLGLYCEROL ACYLTRANSFERASE1 (DGAT1) genes, respectively. The unknown tocochromanol is 11′-12′ γ-tocomonoenol, whose biosynthesis is VITAMIN E 1 (VTE1) - and VTE2-dependent and is initiated by the condensation of homogentisate (HGA) and tetrahydrogeranylgeranyl pyrophosphate.This study identifies the first two regulatory genes, WRI1 and DGAT1, that control the synthesis of all tocochromanol forms in seeds, and shows the existence of a metabolic trade-off between lipid and tocochromanol metabolisms. Moreover, it shows that Arabidopsis possesses a tocomonoenol biosynthetic pathway that competes with tocopherol synthesis

PopTargs: a database for studying population evolutionary genetics of human microRNA target sites

There is an increasing interest in the study of polymorphic variants at gene regulatory motifs, including microRNA target sites. Understanding the effects of selective forces at specific microRNA target sites, together with other factors like expression levels or evolutionary conservation, requires the joint study of multiple datasets. We have compiled information from multiple sources and compared it with predicted microRNA target sites to build a comprehensive database for the study of microRNA targets in human populations. PopTargs is a web-based tool that allows the easy extraction of multiple datasets and the joint analyses of them, including allele frequencies, ancestral status, population differentiation statistics and site conservation. The user can also compare the allele frequency spectrum between two groups of target sites and conveniently produce plots. The database can be easily expanded as new data becomes available and the raw database as well as code for creating new custom-made databases is available for downloading. We also describe a few illustrative examples

Stratospheric aerosol - Observations, processes, and impact on climate

Interest in stratospheric aerosol and its role in climate have increased over the last decade due to the observed increase in stratospheric aerosol since 2000 and the potential for changes in the sulfur cycle induced by climate change. This review provides an overview about the advances in stratospheric aerosol research since the last comprehensive assessment of stratospheric aerosol was published in 2006. A crucial development since 2006 is the substantial improvement in the agreement between in situ and space-based inferences of stratospheric aerosol properties during volcanically quiescent periods. Furthermore, new measurement systems and techniques, both in situ and space based, have been developed for measuring physical aerosol properties with greater accuracy and for characterizing aerosol composition. However, these changes induce challenges to constructing a long-term stratospheric aerosol climatology. Currently, changes in stratospheric aerosol levels less than 20% cannot be confidently quantified. The volcanic signals tend to mask any nonvolcanically driven change, making them difficult to understand. While the role of carbonyl sulfide as a substantial and relatively constant source of stratospheric sulfur has been confirmed by new observations and model simulations, large uncertainties remain with respect to the contribution from anthropogenic sulfur dioxide emissions. New evidence has been provided that stratospheric aerosol can also contain small amounts of nonsulfate matter such as black carbon and organics. Chemistry-climate models have substantially increased in quantity and sophistication. In many models the implementation of stratospheric aerosol processes is coupled to radiation and/or stratospheric chemistry modules to account for relevant feedback processes