Life Cycle Employment and Fertility Across Institutional Environments

In this paper, we formulate a dynamic utility maximization model of female labor force participation and fertility choices and estimate approximate decision rules using data on married women in Italy, Spain and France. The pattern of estimated state dependence effects across countries is consistent with aggregate patterns in part-time employment and child care availability, suggesting that labor market rigidities and lack of child care options are important sources of state dependence. Simulations of the model reveal that Italian and Spanish women would substantially increase their partic- ipation rates were they to face the French institutional environment.Female Employment, Fertility, Child Care, Institutions, Decision Rules

Trapped atoms in cavity QED: coupling quantized light and matter

On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Albert Einstein's annus mirabilis, we reflect on the development and current state of research in cavity quantum electrodynamics in the optical domain. Cavity QED is a field which undeniably traces its origins to Einstein's seminal work on the statistical theory of light and the nature of its quantized interaction with matter. In this paper, we emphasize the development of techniques for the confinement of atoms strongly coupled to high-finesse resonators and the experiments which these techniques enable

Child care choices by working mothers: the case of Italy

In spite of relatively generous public subsidies and a reputation for high quality, only a very limited proportion of Italian families use public child-care and a large proportion use informal care. In this paper, we attempt to explore the determinants of the use of child-care among dual workers families. Given the limitations of data available we match two different data sets: the Bank of Italy (SHIW) and ISTAT Multiscopo. We find evidence that the availability of public child-care affects in an important way its demand. We also find that increases in costs of public child-care reduce the use of public as well as private indicating a shift to informal child-care. The presence of a grandmother who lives near and is in good health is an important explanation of the choice especially in presence of very small children. An understanding of the importance of these factors is relevant in the evaluation of child-care policies. This is particularly important in Italy, where the majority of families with children have only one child and children would benefit also from the socialization aspects of the child-care system

Cavity QED with Single Atoms and Photons

Recent experimental advances in the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) have opened new possibilities for control of atom-photon interactions. A laser with "one and the same atom" demonstrates the theory of laser operation pressed to its conceptual limit. The generation of single photons on demand and the realization of cavity QED with well defined atomic numbers N = 0, 1, 2,... both represent important steps toward realizing diverse protocols in quantum information science. Coherent manipulation of the atomic state via Raman transitions provides a new tool in cavity QED for in situ monitoring and control of the atom-cavity system. All of these achievements share a common point of departure: the regime of strong coupling. It is thus interesting to consider briefly the history of the strong coupling criterion in cavity QED and to trace out the path that research has taken in the pursuit of this goal

Slow magnetic relaxations in a ladder-type Dy(III) complex and its dinuclear analogue

The complex {[Dy2(PDOA)3(H2O)6]·2H2O}n (1) (H2PDOA = 1, 2-phenylenedioxydiacetic acid) was prepared from aqueous solution. Its crystal structure, built up of {-Dy-O-C-O-}n chains interlinked by PDOA ligands yielding a ladder-like arrangement, was determined at 173 K. 1 exhibits slow magnetic relaxation under a small magnetic field BDC = 0.2 T with two (LF and HF) relaxation channels. The LF relaxation time at BDC = 0.2 T and T = 1.85 K is as slow as t(LF) = 46 ms whereas the HF channel is t(HF) = 1.4 ms. The mole fraction of the LF species is xLF = 0.76 at 1.85 K and it escapes progressively on heating. In the dinuclear analogue [Dy2(PDOA)3(H2O)6]·3.5H2O (2) one PDOA ligand forms a bis(chelate) bridge between the two Dy(iii) atoms yielding a local structure analogous to that in 1; however its AC susceptibility data show slightly different quantitative characteristics of the single-molecule magnetic behaviour

Ambiskew Hopf algebras

Necessary and sufficient conditions are obtained for an ambiskew polynomial algebra A over a Hopf k-algebra R to possess the structure of a Hopf algebra extending that of R, in which the added variables X+ and X- are skew primitive. The coradical filtration is calculated, many examples are described, and properties determined

Observation of the Vacuum-Rabi Spectrum for One Trapped Atom

The transmission spectrum for one atom strongly coupled to the field of a high-finesse optical resonator is observed to exhibit a clearly resolved vacuum-Rabi splitting characteristic of the normal modes in the eigenvalue spectrum of the atom-cavity system. A new Raman scheme for cooling atomic motion along the cavity axis enables a complete spectrum to be recorded for an individual atom trapped within the cavity mode, in contrast to all previous measurements in cavity QED that have required averaging over many atoms.Comment: 5 pages with 4 figure

Quantification and expert evaluation of evidence for chemopredictive biomarkers to personalize cancer treatment.

Predictive biomarkers have the potential to facilitate cancer precision medicine by guiding the optimal choice of therapies for patients. However, clinicians are faced with an enormous volume of often-contradictory evidence regarding the therapeutic context of chemopredictive biomarkers.We extensively surveyed public literature to systematically review the predictive effect of 7 biomarkers claimed to predict response to various chemotherapy drugs: ERCC1-platinums, RRM1-gemcitabine, TYMS-5-fluorouracil/Capecitabine, TUBB3-taxanes, MGMT-temozolomide, TOP1-irinotecan/topotecan, and TOP2A-anthracyclines. We focused on studies that investigated changes in gene or protein expression as predictors of drug sensitivity or resistance. We considered an evidence framework that ranked studies from high level I evidence for randomized controlled trials to low level IV evidence for pre-clinical studies and patient case studies.We found that further in-depth analysis will be required to explore methodological issues, inconsistencies between studies, and tumor specific effects present even within high evidence level studies. Some of these nuances will lend themselves to automation, others will require manual curation. However, the comprehensive cataloging and analysis of dispersed public data utilizing an evidence framework provides a high level perspective on clinical actionability of these protein biomarkers. This framework and perspective will ultimately facilitate clinical trial design as well as therapeutic decision-making for individual patients