Do Multinational enterprises push up wages of domestic firms in the Italian Manufacturing sector?

This paper analyzes the effects of foreign direct investment on wages paid by domestic firms in the Italian manufacturing sector over the period 2002–2007. In particular, the authors investigate the im-pact of multinational enterprises on wages paid by local firms which operate in the same industry, known and horizontal wage spillovers, or have linkages with multinational enterprises in both downstream and upstream industries, known as vertical wage spillovers. By using a large panel dataset, consisting of 551,000 observations, the authors find evidence of wage spillovers only at inter-industry level and, more specifically, for those firms who supply their goods to multinational enterprises, described as backward wage spillovers. Moreover, findings suggest that the wage spillover effect is strongly affected by the technological gap between local and foreign firms: only workers employed in domestic firms with a low-medium technological absorptive capacity seem to benefit from the presence of multinational enterprises in terms of higher wages

Effects of decentralized health care financing on maternal care in Indonesia

We exploit variation in the design of sub-national health care financing initiatives in Indonesian districts to assess the effects of these local schemes on maternal care from 2004 to 2010

Investigation of low-percentage graphene reinforcement on the mechanical behaviour of additively manufactured polyethylene terephthalate glycol composites

The current work investigates the influence of graphene on the mechanical properties of additive-manufactured polyethylene terephthalate glycol (Prince Edward IslandTG) composites. To this end, the graphene content is varied by 0.02 wt.%, 0.04 wt.%, 0.08 wt.%, and 0.1 wt.% to obtain different compositions of PETG/graphene composites. The filaments were prepared by mixing the PETG pellets and graphene flakes into the required quantity. Further, the mixture is extruded using a single screw extruder into small filaments with a 1.75 mm diameter. Using fused deposition modelling (FDM), the specimens were 3D printed following ASTM requirements. The fabricated PETG/graphene specimens are assessed for their mechanical properties, such as tensile, compression, flexural and impact characteristics. Finally, the fractography of the tested specimens is analysed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The experimentation of PETG/graphene composites reveals that the optimum mechanical properties can be achieved when PETG is reinforced with 0.04 wt.% of graphene. As opposed to virgin PETG, an increment of 89.71%, 81.76%, 21.60%, and 81.25% is witnessed in the tensile, compression, flexural, and impact strengths of the PETG/0.04 wt.% graphene composite. The outcome of this work is believed to pave the way for broadening the applications of graphene-based composites in electromechanical and smart structure engineering domains

Effects of Decentralized Health Care Financing on Maternal Care in Indonesia

We exploit variation in the design of sub-national health care financing initiatives in Indonesian districts to assess the effects of these local schemes on maternal care from 2004 to 2010. The analysis is based on a district pseudopanel, combining data from a unique survey among District Health Offices with the Indonesian Demographic and Health Surveys, the national socioeconomic household surveys and the village census. Our results show that these district schemes contribute to an increase in antenatal care visits and the probability of receiving basic recommended antenatal care services for households that are not targeted by the national health insurance programs. We observe a decrease in home births. However, there is no effect on professional assistance at birth. We also observe variation in scheme design across districts as well as constraints to the effectiveness of local schemes. Including antenatal and delivery services explicitly in benefit packages and contracting local rather than national health care providers increases the effects on maternal care. Increasing population coverage reduces effectiveness, delineating limitations to local funding and risk pooling. Furthermore, we do not find any effects for districts outside Java and Bali, where access to basic health care remains a key policy concer

Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135686/1/jum201635112413.pd

Novel “nano-phage” interfaces for wireless biosensors

The prevention of food-borne illness has become a very important factor in public health. Meantime, the conventional microbiological detection techniques are time consuming, require proficiency and appropriate laboratory conditions. Recently, there has been an extensive work undertaken towards the development of diagnostic biosensor devices for on-site detection of biological threats that explore a diversity of transduction mechanisms and bio-recognition elements. In particular, the environmentally robust filamentous phages have been successfully used as an alternative to fragile antibodies in wireless biosensor system for real-time pathogen detection. However, when phages are used as interface, they can aggregate forming bundles of fibers that cannot cover completely the sensor’s interface leading to the decrease in sensor’s performance. In this work we developed novel wireless magnetoelastic biosensors with interface formed by biorecognition nanoparticles called “nano-phage”. “Nano-phage” comprises nanoparticles with diameter ~11 nm composed of self-assembled fusion major coat protein of landscape phages selected against the target analyte. For proof-of-concept, we investigated interfaces formed by three model phages selected from landscape libraries: streptavidin binders 7b1 and SAE10 and clone E2 highly specific and selective for S. typhimurium. Beside food borne pathogens, this new approach can be used to develop biosensors with increased performance for early detection of cancer diseases and other pathologies