Program/Abstract #110 will be presented as scheduled, but the abstract cannot be published due to lack of license agreement between authors and publisher.

Background Since it was anticipated that the need for doctors would increase due to demographic changes, the number of positions for medical specialty training programs has increased from the year 2000 onwards. However, the number of permanent positions for young cardiologists did not follow that trend leading to concerns about future employment. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to assess short-term career perspectives of young cardiologists in the Netherlands. Methods All cardiologists who ended their training between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2014 were invited to fill in a questionnaire about their first employment status and were followed yearly until the participant had a permanent position. The timespan between the end of training and the moment of permanent employment was assessed. Furthermore, the association between professional profile and short-term career perspectives was investigated. Results The observed unemployment was 1.6% and lasted less than a year in all cases. Of the participants, 77% started their career with a temporary contract; within four years this was 7%. Of young cardiologists, 46% started their career as a fellow and 24% as an attending physician. A total of 29% of male cardiologists started their career with a permanent contract as compared with 12% of females (p = 0.01). Within two years this difference was no longer observed. Conclusions Unemployment is low among young cardiologists. Most cardiologists start their career with a temporary contract. The time to a permanent contract is slightly longer for female cardiologists as compared with males

Relevance of typology to minimalist inquiry

This article considers to what extent sample based typological research may shed light on questions of central concern within the minimalist program of generative grammar. Focusing on the nature of the structure building operation assumed within the minimalist program (Merge), it is argued that typological data may be relevant to the question whether the product of Merge, a pair of sisters, is symmetric or asymmetric. To this end, a case study is presented showing a fundamental and universal asymmetry between the members of a binary noun phrase coordination, such that the relation between the two conjuncts is invariably marked on the second conjunct. Assuming coordination to present the product of 'pure Merge' (i.e. undisturbed by further movement operations or rearrangements of any other kind), the result suggests that Merge creates an asymmetric sister pair, in which linear order and morphological dependency marking are consistently patterned. The article argues that this is generally the case in contexts of 'restricted syntax', which might equally well be studied using large typological samples. The article furthermore argues that the asymmetry between members of sister pairs involves both phonological and semantic dependence, suggesting that the asymmetry originates within the central syntactic component of grammar. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved