Private Schooling, Educational Transitions, and Early Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Three Anglophone Countries

This article considers the extent to which private-state school differences in post-secondary outcomes can be explained by family background, secondary school achievement, or neither of the above. We find that privately educated children’s more advantaged family backgrounds and higher levels of school achievement are the main reasons why this group is more likely to enter university and work in professional jobs. However, even after accounting for family background and high school achievement, non-trivial private-state school differences in later lifetime outcomes remain. Empirical evidence is presented for three industrialized nations (Australia, England, and the United States), with broadly similar patterns of association observed within each

Bridges over troubled waters: an interdisciplinary framework for evaluating the interconnectedness within fragmented domestic flood risk management systems

Diversification of strategies in Flood Risk Management (FRM) is widely regarded as a necessary step forward in terms of lessening the likelihood and magnitude of flooding, as well as minimizing the exposure of people and property, and in turn the disruption, economic damage, health impacts and other adverse consequences that ensue when floods occur. Thus, diversification is often heralded as an essential condition for enhancing societal resilience to flooding. However, an inevitable consequence of diversifying strategies and practices in FRM is that it can lead to fragmentation within FRM systems, in terms of the distribution of responsibilities between actors and governing rules enacted within different policy domains. This can prove detrimental to the effectiveness of FRM. Building upon the notion of fragmentation developed in legal and governance literature, this paper introduces the concept of ‘bridging mechanisms’, i.e. instruments that remedy fragmentation by enhancing interconnectedness between relevant actors through information transfer, coordination and cooperation. This paper develops a typology of both fragmentation and bridging mechanisms and analyzes their relations, partly drawing upon empirical research conducted within the EU ‘STAR-FLOOD’ project. In turn, this paper outlines a novel interdisciplinary methodological framework for evaluating the degree and quality of the interconnectedness within fragmented domestic FRM systems. A pragmatic, flexible and broadly applicable tool, this framework is both suited for academic purposes, as well as for practically oriented analysis and (re)development of fragmented FRM systems, and potentially other fragmented systems, within the EU and abroad

Vascular architecture of the human uterine cervix, as assessed in light and scanning electron microscopy

Objectives. The aim of this study was to visualize and describe the vasculature of the human uterine cervix.Materials and Methods. The material for this study was obtained from women (age between 20 to 45 years) during autopsy. The material was collected not later than 24 hours post-mortem. This study was performed using uteri from cadavers of menstruating nulliparas (33 uteri) and menstruating multiparas (27 uteri). Collected uteri were perfused via the afferent vessels with Mercox resin (for corrosion-casting and SEM assessment) or acrylic paint solution (light microscopy assessment). The research protocol was approved by the Jagiellonian University Ethics Committee (registry KBET/121/8/2007).Results. In all cases bilateral cervical branches (1-4), originating from the uterine artery, were found. Both in the vaginal and supravaginal parts of the cervix, four distinct vascular zones were found. In the pericanalar zone ran small veins, responsible for draining the mucosal capillaries. Both in the muscular layer, as well as in the pericanalar zone, arterioles and venules passed close to each other, often adjoining.Conclusions. This study does not confirm the existence of a single “cervicovaginal” artery, but shows that the vascular supply of the cervix comes from several vessels. It also introduces the idea of two systems, responsible for draining blood from the mucosal capillaries. Neither assessment in light microscopy nor in SEM has revealed any differences between multiparas and nulliparas, as to the vascular architecture of the cervix

A multiwavelength approach to the SFR estimation in galaxies at intermediate redshifts

We use a sample of 7 starburst galaxies at intermediate redshifts (z ~ 0.4 and z ~ 0.8) with observations ranging from the observed ultraviolet to 1.4 GHz, to compare the star formation rate (SFR) estimators which are used in the different wavelength regimes. We find that extinction corrected Halpha underestimates the SFR, and the degree of this underestimation increases with the infrared luminosity of the galaxies. Galaxies with very different levels of dust extinction as measured with SFR(IR)/SFR(Halpha, uncorrected for extinction) present a similar attenuation A[Halpha], as if the Balmer lines probed a different region of the galaxy than the one responsible for the bulk of the IR luminosity for large SFRs. In addition, SFR estimates derived from [OII]3727 match very well those inferred from Halpha after applying the metallicity correction derived from local galaxies. SFRs estimated from the UV luminosities show a dichotomic behavior, similar to that previously reported by other authors in galaxies at z <~ 0.4. Here we extend this result up to z ~ 0.8. Finally, one of the studied objects is a luminous compact galaxy (LCG) that may be suffering similar dust-enshrouded star formation episodes. These results highlight the relevance of quantifying the actual L(IR) of LCGs, as well as that of a much larger and generic sample of luminous infrared galaxies, which will be possible after the launch of SIRTF.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Experimental evaluation of sub-sampling IQ detection for low-level RF control in particle accelerator systems

The low-level radio frequency (LLRF) control system is one of the fundamental parts of a particle accelerator, ensuring the stability of the electro-magnetic (EM) field inside the resonant cavities. It leverages on the precise measurement of the field by in-phase/quadrature (IQ) detection of an RF probe signal from the cavities, usually performed using analogue downconversion. This approach requires a local oscillator (LO) and is subject to hardware non-idealities like mixer nonlinearity and long-term temperature drifts. In this work, we experimentally evaluate IQ detection by direct sampling for the LLRF system of the Polish free electron laser (PolFEL) now under development at the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) in Poland. We study the impact of the sampling scheme and of the clock phase noise for a 1.3-GHz input sub-sampled by a 400-MSa/s analogue-to-digital converter (ADC), estimating amplitude and phase stability below 0.01% and nearly 0.01◦, respectively. The results are in line with state-of-the-art implementations, and demonstrate the feasibility of direct sampling for GHz-range LLRF systems

Evolution of Li, Be and B in the Galaxy

In this paper we study the production of Li, Be and B nuclei by Galactic cosmic ray spallation processes. We include three kinds of processes: (i) spallation by light cosmic rays impinging on interstellar CNO nuclei (direct processes); (ii) spallation by CNO cosmic ray nuclei impinging on interstellar p and 4He (inverse processes); and (iii) alpha-alpha fusion reactions. The latter dominate the production of 6Li and 7Li. We calculate production rates for a closed-box Galactic model, verifying the quadratic dependence of the Be and B abundances for low values of Z. These are quite general results and are known to disagree with observations. We then show that the multi-zone multi-population model we used previously for other aspects of Galactic evolution produces quite good agreement with the linear trend observed at low metallicities without fine tuning. We argue that reported discrepancies between theory and observations do not represent a nucleosynthetic problem, but instead are the consequences of inaccurate treatments of Galactic evolution.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX. The Astrophysical Journal, in pres

Preferential uptake of polyunsaturated fatty acids by colorectal cancer cells

Although a growing body of evidence suggests that colorectal cancer (CRC) is associated with alterations of fatty acid (FA) profiles in serum and tumor tissues, available data about polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content in CRC patients are inconclusive. Our study showed that CRC tissues contained more PUFAs than normal large intestinal mucosa. However, serum levels of PUFAs in CRC patients were lower than in healthy controls. To explain the mechanism of PUFA alterations in CRC, we measured FA uptake by the colon cancer cells and normal colon cells. The levels of PUFAs in colon cancer cell culture medium decreased significantly with incubation time, while no changes were observed in the medium in which normal colon cells were incubated. Our findings suggest that the alterations in tumor and serum PUFA profiles result from preferential uptake of these FAs by cancer cells; indeed, PUFAs are essential for formation of cell membrane phospholipids during rapid proliferation of cancer cells. This observation puts into question potential benefits of PUFA supplementation in CRC patients