The gender pay gap in Austria: Tamensi movetur!

Policies to reduce the gender pay gap feature prominently on the political agenda and interventions in the labor market are frequently proposed, claiming a persistent wage gap. We examine the change of the gender wage gap in Austria between 2002 and 2007 with new data from administrative records and find that it declined from 24% in 2002 to 19% in 2007. We observe that women's improved educational attainments were partly ofiset by a shift in the demand for skilled workers that disadvantaged unskilled labor. The main determinant of this decline is however the improvement of women's relative position in unobserved characteristics.gender wage differentials, wage inequality, decomposition, matched employer-employee data

Quantum Information at the Interface of Light with Atomic Ensembles and Micromechanical Oscillators

This article reviews recent research towards a universal light-matter interface. Such an interface is an important prerequisite for long distance quantum communication, entanglement assisted sensing and measurement, as well as for scalable photonic quantum computation. We review the developments in light-matter interfaces based on room temperature atomic vapors interacting with propagating pulses via the Faraday effect. This interaction has long been used as a tool for quantum nondemolition detections of atomic spins via light. It was discovered recently that this type of light-matter interaction can actually be tuned to realize more general dynamics, enabling better performance of the light-matter interface as well as rendering tasks possible, which were before thought to be impractical. This includes the realization of improved entanglement assisted and backaction evading magnetometry approaching the Quantum Cramer-Rao limit, quantum memory for squeezed states of light and the dissipative generation of entanglement. A separate, but related, experiment on entanglement assisted cold atom clock showing the Heisenberg scaling of precision is described. We also review a possible interface between collective atomic spins with nano- or micromechanical oscillators, providing a link between atomic and solid state physics approaches towards quantum information processing

Quantum Teleportation of Dynamics and Effective Interactions Between Remote Systems

Most protocols for Quantum Information Processing consist of a series of quantum gates, which are applied sequentially. In contrast, interactions, for example between matter and fields, as well as measurements such as homodyne detection of light, are typically continuous in time. We show how the ability to perform quantum operations continuously and deterministically can be leveraged for inducing non-local dynamics between two separate parties. We introduce a scheme for the engineering of an interaction between two remote systems and present a protocol which induces a dynamics in one of the parties, which is controlled by the other one. Both schemes apply to continuous variable systems, run continuously in time and are based on real-time feedback

A Practical Data-Flow Verification Scheme for Business Processes

Data in business processes is becoming more and more important. Current standards for process-modeling languages like BPMN 2.0 which include the data flow reflect this. Ensuring the correctness of the data flow in processes is challenging. Model checking, i. e., verifying properties of process models, is a well-known technique to this end. An important part of model checking is the construction of the state space of the model. State-space explosion however typically is in the way of an effective verification. We study how to overcome this problem in our context by means of reduction. More specifically, we propose a reduction on the level of the process model. To our knowledge, this is new for the data-flow analysis of processes. To accomplish this, we specify regions relevant for the verification of properties describing the data flow. Our evaluation shows that our approach works well on real process models

ENAC REGULATION IN THE KIDNEY: THE ROLE OF ANKYRIN G

The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) is the limiting entry point for Na+ reabsorption in the distal kidney nephron and is regulated by numerous hormones, including the mineralocorticoid hormone aldosterone. Previously we identified ankyrin G (AnkG), a cytoskeletal protein involved in vesicular transport, as a novel aldosterone-induced protein that can alter Na+ transport in mouse cortical collecting duct cells. AnkG is highly expressed in the kidney, particularly in the distal nephron. Increasing AnkG expression increases ENaC activity while depleting AnkG reduces ENaC-mediated Na+ transport. The underlying mechanism presiding over this effect; however, was unknown. Here we report that AnkG expression directly regulates Na+ transport by altering ENaC activity in the apical membrane. These changes are due to a change in ENaC directly rather than through alterations to the Na+ driving force created by Na+K+ATPase. Using a constitutively open mutant of ENaC and surface biotinylation, we demonstrate that the augmentation of Na+ transport is caused predominantly by increasing the number of ENaCs at the surface rather than alterations to open probability. To determine the mechanism of AnkG action on ENaC surface number, changes in rates of internalization, recycling, and membrane delivery were investigated. AnkG did not alter ENaC delivery to the membrane from biosynthetic pathways or removal by endocytosis; however, AnkG did alter ENaC insertion from constitutive recycling pathways. We also investigated the potential role of a putative AnkG binding domain in the C-terminus of βENaC, and whether single-site mutations of a charged residue and two regulatory phosphorylation sites could disrupt AnkG augmentation of ENaC current. We did not find any significant evidence that this region is essential for AnkG-ENaC interaction. These findings provide a mechanism to account for the role of AnkG in the regulation of Na+ transport in the distal kidney nephron

Dissipative versus Conditional Generation of Gaussian Entanglement and Spin Squeezing

Spin squeezing of collective atomic spins can be achieved conditionally via probing with light and subsequent homodyne detection, as is done in a Quantum Nondemolition measurement. Recently it has been shown that squeezing can also be created unconditionally by a properly designed dissipative dynamics. We compare the two approaches in a Gaussian description, and optimize over all Gaussian light-matter interactions. We find that in the optimal unconditional scheme based on dissipation the level of squeezing scales as $d^{-1/2}$. In contrast, the optimal conditional scheme based on measurement of light -- which in fact is not a Quantum Nondemolition measurement -- can provide squeezing which scales as $d^{-1}$ in the most relevant regime of moderate optical depths. Our results apply directly also to the creation of entanglement in the form of non-local spin squeezing of two atomic ensembles.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Mediators and Cytokines in Persistent Allergic Rhinitis and Nonallergic Rhinitis with Eosinophilia Syndrome

Background: Patients with nonallergic rhinitis with eosinophilia syndrome (NARES) show typical symptoms of persistent allergic rhinitis (PAR). The aim of the present study was to compare nasal cytokine patterns between NARES and PAR. Methods: Nasal secretions of 31 patients suffering from NARES, 20 patients with PAR to house dust mite and 21 healthy controls were collected using the cotton wool method and analyzed for interleukin (IL)-1 beta, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-7, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13, IL-17, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and macrophage inflammatory protein-1 beta (MIP-1 beta) by Bio-Plex Cytokine Assay as well as eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) and tryptase by UniCAP-FEIA. Results: NARES and PAR presented elevated levels of tryptase, while ECP was markedly increased solely in NARES compared to both the controls and PAR. Elevated levels of IL-1 beta, IL-17, IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha and MCP-1 were found in NARES compared to the controls as well as PAR. MIP-1 beta was elevated in NARES and PAR, while IL-4, IL-6 and G-CSF showed increased levels in NARES, and IL-5 was elevated in PAR only. Conclusions: In patients with NARES and PAR, eosinophils and mast cells appear to be the pivotal cells of inflammation, reflected by high levels of tryptase and ECP as well as IL-5 and GM-CSF as factors for eosinophil migration and survival. The elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokines in NARES may indicate the chronic, self-perpetuating process of inflammation in NARES which seems to be more pronounced than in PAR. IL-17 might be a factor for neutrophilic infiltration or be responsible for remodeling processes in NARES. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base