Why is the EU the home of high and severe unemployment?

1993年の単一市場の発足以来，ＥＵは高い失業率に苦しんでいる。ヨーロッパでＥＵに参加していない３カ国や日本・アメリカを含む他の先進国と比較して，失業率が高い。またその期間も著しく長期にわたっている。しかしながら，不幸にして，ＥＵは研究者がその問題を特定し，理解するための証拠を集めていない。本稿では，３つの国際比較資料を考察する。経済協力開発機構（OECD）の雇用保護指標，世界銀行（World Bank）の起業容易度指標，そして国連貿易開発会議（UNCTAD）の海外直接投資指標であるが，これらの資料がＥＵの問題を説明するのに役立つかどうかという視点から考察する。本稿から示唆されることとして，これらの資料はＥＵの問題を理解するのに役立ち，また将来の研究への手がかりを与えてくれると考えられる。The EU has experienced a high rate of unemployment since the inauguration of the single market in 1993 when compared either with the three remaining non-member economies in Europe or with other developed economies including Japan and the United States. Moreover the duration of unemployment in EU for those suffering from it has been exceptionally severe. Unfortunately the EU itself does not collect comparative evidence which enable researchers either to identify these peculiar problems or to begin to understand them. This paper examines three sources of cross national evidence, from the OECD on employment protection, the World Bank on ease of doing business, and UNCTAD on foreign direct investment in an attempt to see whether they may help us to explain the EU\u27s problem. It suggests that together they take us some way towards understanding the EU\u27s problem, and provide promising leads for future research

Fifth forces, Higgs portals and broken scale invariance

© 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab. We study the relationship between the strength of fifth forces and the origin of scale breaking in the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. We start with a light scalar field that is conformally coupled to a toy SM matter sector through a Weyl rescaling of the metric. After appropriately normalizing the fields, the conformally coupled scalar only interacts directly with the would-be Higgs field through kinetic-mixing and Higgs-portal terms. Thus, for the first time, we describe the equivalence of conformally coupled scalar-tensor modifications of gravity and Higgs-portal theories, and we find that the usual tree-level fifth forces only emerge if there is mass mixing between the conformally coupled scalar and the Higgs field. The strength of the fifth force, mediated by the light scalar, then depends on whether the mass of the Higgs arises from an explicit symmetry-breaking term or a spontaneous mechanism of scale breaking. Solar System tests of gravity and the non-observation of fifth forces therefore have the potential to provide information about the structure of the Higgs sector and the origin of its symmetry breaking, setting an upper bound on the magnitude of any explicit scale-breaking terms. These results demonstrate the phenomenological importance (both for cosmology and high-energy physics) of considering how scalar-tensor modifications of gravity are embedded within extensions of the SM

Two Forms of Spatial Imagery: Neuroimaging Evidence ​

Spatial imagery may be useful in such tasks as interpreting graphs and solving geometry problems, and even in performing surgery. This study provides evidence that spatial imagery is not a single faculty; rather, visualizing spatial location and mentally transforming location rely on distinct neural networks. Using 3-T functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested 16 participants (8 male, 8 female) in each of two spatial imagery tasks--one that required visualizing location and one that required mentally rotating stimuli. The same stimuli were used in the two tasks. The location-based task engendered more activation near the occipito-parietal sulcus, medial posterior cingulate, and precuneus, whereas the transformation task engendered more activation in superior portions of the parietal lobe and in the postcentral gyrus. These differences in activation provide evidence that there are at least two different types of spatial imagery.Psycholog

Retinoid X Receptor and Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-Gamma Agonists Cooperate to Inhibit Matrix Metalloproteinase Gene Expression

We recently described the ability of retinoid X receptor (RXR) ligand LG100268 (LG268) to inhibit interleukin-1-beta (IL-1-β)-driven matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) and MMP-13 gene expression in SW-1353 chondrosarcoma cells. Other investigators have demonstrated similar effects in chondrocytes treated with rosiglitazone, a ligand for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPARγ), for which RXR is an obligate dimerization partner. The goals of this study were to evaluate the inhibition of IL-1--induced expression of MMP-1andMMP-13 by combinatorial treatment with RXR and PPAR ligands and to investigate the molecular mechanisms of this inhibition

Using Metaphors in Dynamic Social Stratification Visualizations

We present three information visualizations for studying social stratification. Each Web-based applet uses a different metaphor to display U.S. Census income data along with the categories of race, marital status, and profession. Each system is completely dynamic, affording the user the choice of categorical variable to compare, as well as the choice of categories within each visualization. Two different user interfaces have also been implemented. The systems are described, compared, and their respective merits and deficiencies discussed

An efficient algorithm for the parallel solution of high-dimensional differential equations

The study of high-dimensional differential equations is challenging and difficult due to the analytical and computational intractability. Here, we improve the speed of waveform relaxation (WR), a method to simulate high-dimensional differential-algebraic equations. This new method termed adaptive waveform relaxation (AWR) is tested on a communication network example. Further we propose different heuristics for computing graph partitions tailored to adaptive waveform relaxation. We find that AWR coupled with appropriate graph partitioning methods provides a speedup by a factor between 3 and 16

A pandemic strain of calicivirus threatens rabbit industries in the Americas

Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease (RHD) is a severe acute viral disease specifically affecting the European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus. As the European rabbit is the predominant species of domestic rabbit throughout the world, RHD contributes towards significant losses to rabbit farming industries and endangers wild populations of rabbits in Europe and other predatory animals in Europe that depend upon rabbits as a food source. Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease virus (RHDV) – a Lagovirus belonging to the family Caliciviridae is the etiological agent of RHD. Typically, RHD presents with sudden death in 70% to 95% of infected animals. There have been four separate incursions of RHDV in the USA, the most recent of which occurred in the state of Indiana in June of 2005. Animal inoculation studies confirmed the pathogenicity of the Indiana 2005 isolate, which caused acute death and pathological changes characterized by acute diffuse severe liver necrosis and pulmonary hemorrhages. Complete viral genome sequences of all USA outbreak isolates were determined and comparative genomics revealed that each outbreak was the result of a separate introduction of virus rather than from a single virus lineage. All of the USA isolates clustered with RHDV genomes from China, and phylogenetic analysis of the major capsid protein (VP60) revealed that they were related to a pandemic antigenic variant strain known as RHDVa. Rapid spread of the RHDVa pandemic suggests a selective advantage for this new subtype. Given its rapid spread, pathogenic nature, and potential to further evolve, possibly broadening its host range to include other genera native to the Americas, RHDVa should be regarded as a threat

Genome-wide characterization of mitochondrial DNA methylation in human brain

BackgroundThere is growing interest in the role of DNA methylation in regulating the transcription of mitochondrial genes, particularly in brain disorders characterized by mitochondrial dysfunction. Here, we present a novel approach to interrogate the mitochondrial DNA methylome at single base resolution using targeted bisulfite sequencing. We applied this method to investigate mitochondrial DNA methylation patterns in post-mortem superior temporal gyrus and cerebellum brain tissue from seven human donors.ResultsWe show that mitochondrial DNA methylation patterns are relatively low but conserved, with peaks in DNA methylation at several sites, such as within the D-LOOP and the genes MT-ND2, MT-ATP6, MT-ND4, MT-ND5 and MT-ND6, predominantly in a non-CpG context. The elevated DNA methylation we observe in the D-LOOP we validate using pyrosequencing. We identify loci that show differential DNA methylation patterns associated with age, sex and brain region. Finally, we replicate previously reported differentially methylated regions between brain regions from a methylated DNA immunoprecipitation sequencing study.ConclusionsWe have annotated patterns of DNA methylation at single base resolution across the mitochondrial genome in human brain samples. Looking to the future this approach could be utilized to investigate the role of mitochondrial epigenetic mechanisms in disorders that display mitochondrial dysfunction

Methylation QTLs in the developing brain and their enrichment in schizophrenia risk loci

We characterized DNA methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTLs) in a large collection (n = 166) of human fetal brain samples spanning 56-166 d post-conception, identifying >16,000 fetal brain mQTLs. Fetal brain mQTLs were primarily cis-acting, enriched in regulatory chromatin domains and transcription factor binding sites, and showed substantial overlap with genetic variants that were also associated with gene expression in the brain. Using tissue from three distinct regions of the adult brain (prefrontal cortex, striatum and cerebellum), we found that most fetal brain mQTLs were developmentally stable, although a subset was characterized by fetal-specific effects. Fetal brain mQTLs were enriched amongst risk loci identified in a recent large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) of schizophrenia, a severe psychiatric disorder with a hypothesized neurodevelopmental component. Finally, we found that mQTLs can be used to refine GWAS loci through the identification of discrete sites of variable fetal brain methylation associated with schizophrenia risk variants