Individual Heterogeneity in the Returns to Schooling: Instrumental Variables Quantile Regression Using Twins Data

Considerable effort has been exercised in estimating mean returns to education while carefully considering biases arising from unmeasured ability and measurement error. Recent work has investigated whether there are variations from the “mean” return to education across the population with mixed results. We use an instrumental variables estimator for quantile regression on a sample of twins to estimate an entire family of returns to education at different quantiles of the conditional distribution of wages while addressing simultaneity and measurement error biases. We test whether there is individual heterogeneity in returns to education and find that: more able individuals obtain more schooling and that higher ability individuals (those further to the right in the conditional distribution of wages) have higher returns to schooling consistent with a non-trivial interaction between schooling and unobserved abilities in the generation of earnings. The estimated returns are never lower than 9 percent and can be as high as 13 percent at the top of the conditional distribution of wages but they vary significantly only along the lower to middle quantiles. Our findings may have meaningful implications for the design of educational policies

Does the road to happiness depend on the retirement decision? Evidence from Italy

This study estimates the causal effect of retirement decision on well-being in Italy. To do so, the authors exploit the exogenous variation provided by the changes in the eligibility criteria for pensions that were enacted in Italy in 1995 (Dini’s law) and in 1997 (Prodi’s law, from the names of the prime ministers at the time of their introduction). A sizeable and positive impact of retirement decision is found on satisfaction with leisure time and on frequency of meeting friends. Furthermore, the results are generalized, allowing for the estimation of different moments from different data sources

The communication of a secondary care diagnosis of autoimmune hepatitis to primary care practitioners: a population-based study

Background Autoimmune Hepatitis is a chronic liver disease which affects young people and can result in liver failure leading to death or transplantation yet there is a lack of information on the incidence and prevalence of this disease and its natural history in the UK. A means of obtaining this information is via the use of clinical databases formed of electronic primary care records. How reliably the diagnosis is coded in such records is however unknown. The aim of this study therefore was to assess the proportion of consultant hepatologist diagnoses of Autoimmune Hepatitis which were accurately recorded in General Practice computerised records. Methods Our study population were patients with Autoimmune Hepatitis diagnosed by consultant hepatologists in the Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham University Hospitals (UK) between 2004 and 2009. We wrote to the general practitioners of these patients to obtain the percentage of patients who had a valid READ code specific for Autoimmune Hepatitis. Results We examined the electronic records of 51 patients who had biopsy evidence and a possible diagnosis of Autoimmune Hepatitis. Forty two of these patients had a confirmed clinical diagnosis of Autoimmune Hepatitis by a consultant hepatologist: we contacted the General Practitioners of these patients obtaining a response rate of 90.5% (39/42 GPs). 37/39 of these GPs responded with coding information and 89% of these patients (33/37) used Read code J638.00 (Autoimmune Hepatitis) to record a diagnosis. Conclusions The diagnosis of Autoimmune Hepatitis made by a Consultant Hepatologist is accurately communicated to and electronically recorded by primary care in the UK. As a large proportion of cases of Autoimmune Hepatitis are recorded in primary care, this minimises the risk of introducing selection bias and therefore selecting cases using these data will be a valid method of conducting population based studies on Autoimmune Hepatitis

Extra-gastrointestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease may be less common than previously reported

Extra-intestinal manifestations are well recognized in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). To what extent the commonly recognized extra-intestinal manifestations seen in IBD patients are attributable to IBD is, however, not clear due to the limited number of controlled studies published

The incidence of other gastroenterological disease following diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome in the UK: a cohort study

BACKGROUND: Guidelines recommend Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) diagnosis and management in primary care with minimal investigations; however little evidence exists regarding risk of organic gastrointestinal conditions following diagnosis of IBS and how such risks vary over the long term. This study assesses excess incidence of coeliac disease, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colorectal cancer (CRC) and variation with age and time after IBS diagnosis. METHODS: IBS patients and controls were identified within the UK Clinical Practice Research Dataset. Incidence rates were calculated and stratified by age and time since IBS diagnosis with incident rate ratios generated. RESULTS: Fifteen years after IBS diagnosis there is a significant cumulative excess incidence of coeliac disease, IBD and CRC in IBS of 3.7% compared to 1.7% in controls. For every 10000 patient years, IBS patients experienced an additional 4 diagnoses of coeliac disease, 13 of IBD and 4 CRCs. In each condition peak excess incidence was in the 6 months following diagnosis. After one year, increased incidence of coeliac disease remained consistent without variation by age. IBD incidence fell slowly, with higher rates in those under 30. CRC incidence was increased only in patients aged 30 to 74 during the first 5 years. CONCLUSION: Some IBS patients later receive organic gastrointestinal diagnoses, with the early excess incidence likely detected during diagnostic investigation at the time of IBS diagnosis. More than 5 years after IBS diagnosis there is no increased risk of CRC compared to the general population, but a small excess risk of coeliac disease and IBD persists. Overall, though our findings provide reassurance that non-specialists, especially those in primary care, are unlikely to be missing an organic condition in the majority of their patients. This suggests that current guidelines suggesting avoidance of universal referral for these patients are appropriate

Investigating hyper-vigilance for social threat of lonely children

The hypothesis that lonely children show hypervigilance for social threat was examined in a series of three studies that employed different methods including advanced eye-tracking technology. Hypervigilance for social threat was operationalized as hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion in a variation of the hostile attribution paradigm (Study 1), scores on the Children’s Rejection-Sensitivity Questionnaire (Study 2), and visual attention to socially rejecting stimuli (Study 3). The participants were 185 children (11 years-7 months to 12 years-6 months), 248 children (9 years-4 months to 11 years-8 months) and 140 children (8 years-10 months to 12 years-10 months) in the three studies, respectively. Regression analyses showed that, with depressive symptoms covaried, there were quadratic relations between loneliness and these different measures of hypervigilance to social threat. As hypothesized, only children in the upper range of loneliness demonstrated elevated hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion, higher scores on the rejection sensitivity questionnaire, and disengagement difficulties when viewing socially rejecting stimuli. We found that very lonely children are hypersensitive to social threat

How did the latest increase in fees in England affect student enrolment and inequality?

This paper presents a first analysis of the increase of undergraduate tuition fees to £9,000 (€11.000) in English higher education in 2012. I use a semi-experimental research design to estimate the effect of the reforms, based on student enrolment data drawn from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Taking into account possible anticipation effects of the fee increase, I find that enrolment declined by 15 % in the treated groups as a result of the tuition fee increase. This number is almost three times higher than what previous studies have found, and may represent a serious long term cost for the English economy. The decline in enrolments is particularly pronounced for students in older age groups and students from the service class and the middle class. No effect is visible for students from the working class, indicating that the reforms did not lead to a much-feared increase in class bias in higher education enrolment. The reforms also seem not to have exacerbated ethnic inequality in higher education, as all ethnic groups were negatively affected by the reforms. These results are consistent with earlier research in the United States and the United Kingdom, although they expand our understanding of student price responsiveness in other important ways. The paper argues that younger and older students face different costs and benefits. Older students may be less certain about their benefits, and therefore be more sensitive towards price increases. The strong decrease in mature learners may require a policy response, taking into account these differing incentives

A Sequentially Priming Phosphorylation Cascade Activates the Gliomagenic Transcription Factor Olig2

During development of the vertebrate CNS, the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor Olig2 sustains replication competence of progenitor cells that give rise to neurons and oligodendrocytes. A pathological counterpart of this developmental function is seen in human glioma, wherein Olig2 is required for maintenance of stem-like cells that drive tumor growth. The mitogenic/gliomagenic functions of Olig2 are regulated by phosphorylation of a triple serine motif (S10, S13, and S14) in the amino terminus. Here, we identify a set of three serine/threonine protein kinases (glycogen synthase kinase 3α/β [GSK3α/β], casein kinase 2 [CK2], and cyclin-dependent kinases 1/2 [CDK1/2]) that are, collectively, both necessary and sufficient to phosphorylate the triple serine motif. We show that phosphorylation of the motif itself serves as a template to prime phosphorylation of additional serines and creates a highly charged "acid blob" in the amino terminus of Olig2. Finally, we show that small molecule inhibitors of this forward-feeding phosphorylation cascade have potential as glioma therapeutics.We thank the American Brain Tumor Association for postdoctoral fellowship support (to A.-C.T.) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) for a Anna D. Baker Fellowship in Basic Cancer Research (to A.G.). This work was supported by grants from NIH ( NS057727 to C.D.S. and NS040511 to D.H.R.) and by funding from the Dana-Farber Strategic Research Initiative (to J.A.M.), Howard Hughes Medical Institute (to D.H.R.), and A Kids' Brain Tumor Cure Foundation (to C.D.S.)

Helminth-Associated Systemic Immune Activation and HIV Co-receptor Expression: Response to Albendazole/Praziquantel Treatment

Background: It has been hypothesized that helminth infections increase HIV susceptibility by enhancing systemic immune activation and hence contribute to elevated HIV-1 transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. Objective: To study systemic immune activation and HIV-1 co-receptor expression in relation to different helminth infections and in response to helminth treatment. Methods: HIV-negative adults with (n = 189) or without (n = 57) different helminth infections, as diagnosed by Kato-Katz, were enrolled in Mbeya, Tanzania. Blinded to helminth infection status, T cell differentiation (CD45RO, CD27),activation (HLA-DR, CD38) and CCR5 expression was determined at baseline and 3 months after Albendazole/Praziquantel treatment. Plasma cytokine levels were compared using a cytometric bead array. Results: Trichuris and Ascaris infections were linked to increased frequencies of "activated'' CD4 and/or CD8 T cells (p< 0.05),whereas Hookworm infection was associated with a trend towards decreased HLA-DR+ CD8 T cell frequencies (p = 0.222). In Trichuris infected subjects, there was a linear correlation between HLA-DR+ CD4 T cell frequencies and the cytokines IL-1 beta and IL-10 (p<0.05). Helminth treatment with Albendazole and Praziquantel significantly decreased eosinophilia for S. mansoni and Hookworm infections (p<0.005) but not for Trichuris infection and only moderately modulated T cell activation. CCR5 surface density on memory CD4 T cells was increased by 1.2-fold during Trichuris infection (p-value: 0.053) and reduced after treatment (p = 0.003). Conclusions: Increased expression of T cell activation markers was associated with Trichuris and Ascaris infections with relatively little effect of helminth treatment

Efferent Projections of Prokineticin 2 Expressing Neurons in the Mouse Suprachiasmatic Nucleus

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus is the predominant circadian clock in mammals. To function as a pacemaker, the intrinsic timing signal from the SCN must be transmitted to different brain regions. Prokineticin 2 (PK2) is one of the candidate output molecules from the SCN. In this study, we investigated the efferent projections of PK2-expressing neurons in the SCN through a transgenic reporter approach. Using a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) transgenic mouse line, in which the enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP) reporter gene expression was driven by the PK2 promoter, we were able to obtain an efferent projections map from the EGFP-expressing neurons in the SCN. Our data revealed that EGFP-expressing neurons in the SCN, hence representing some of the PK2-expressing neurons, projected to many known SCN target areas, including the ventral lateral septum, medial preoptic area, subparaventricular zone, paraventricular nucleus, dorsomedial hypothalamic nucleus, lateral hypothalamic area and paraventricular thalamic nucleus. The efferent projections of PK2-expressing neurons supported the role of PK2 as an output molecule of the SCN