Is there an immigrant-gender gap in education? An empirical investigation based on PISA data from Italy.

Gender and origin background are widely accepted in the economics of education literature as factors that highly correlate with educational outcomes. However, little attention has been devoted so far to the interaction of these two dimensions. We use Italian data from PISA 2015 to investigate potential immigrant-gender gaps in education. We find that, as expected, girls outperform boys in reading and are outperformed by them in math and science. In addition, immigrant students\u2019 scores are persistently below those of natives. However, interestingly, we find that being immigrant and female does not imply a double disadvantage in math and science. On the contrary, immigrant girls slightly compensate for the immigrant gap in all disciplines. Moreover, the wider gap we find is that of immigrant boys in reading: it ranges from to 0.66 to 2 school years with respect to native boys. Language spoken at home is one of the main cofactors affecting immigrant boy\u2019s scores. Targeted policies should therefore be implemented

Research Notes : United States : A greenhouse method of screening soybeans for resistance to Fusarium wilt

Fusarium wilt of soybean (causal organism: Fusarium oxysporum Schlecht. emend. Snyd. & Hans.) has become an increasingly severe disease in the breed-ing plots at Gainesville and may be an undiagnosed or misdiagnosed problem in soybean production fields. At Gainesville, severity of Fusarium wilt, or a complex which includes F. oxysporum, has reduced yields in some plots to near-ly zero

Changing patterns of conflict between humans, carnivores and crop-raiding prey as large carnivores recolonize human-dominated landscapes

Large carnivores are making remarkable comebacks in Europe, but how this affects human-wildlife conflict remains unclear. Rebounding carnivore populations lead to increasing livestock depredation, which in turn leads to greater economic losses for farmers. However, returning carnivores could also influence the behavior of wild ungulates, which are themselves responsible for major crop damage and associated economic losses. Here, we exploit the natural experiment of a rebounding wolf population in the Italian Apennines to study how this affected both types of human-wildlife conflic. We used large datasets of wolf occurrences (n = 351), livestock depredation events (n = 165), and crop damage events by wild boar (n = 3442) to independently model the determinants of livestock depredation and crop damage distribution in relation to wolf habitat suitability over a ten-year period of increasing wolf numbers. These analyses yielded two major insights. First, livestock depredations were mainly related to insufficient prevention measures (e.g. lacking fencing) rather than landscape context, providing a clear pathway to conflict mitigation. Second, crop damage decreased in areas of higher wolf habitat suitability and became more likely in areas of lower wolf habitat suitability, closer to settlements. This suggests increasing predation pressure forces wild boars to avoid the most suitable wolf habitat, leading to a redistribution of crop damage in the landscape. More generally, our study highlights complex human-wildlife interactions as large carnivores recover in human-dominated landscapes, suggesting that multiple, cooccurring conflicts need to be assessed jointly and adaptively in order to foster coexistence between humans and wildlife

A random forest approach to estimate daily particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone at fine spatial resolution in Sweden

Air pollution is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. An accurate assessment of its spatial and temporal distribution is mandatory to conduct epidemiological studies able to estimate long-term (e.g., annual) and short-term (e.g., daily) health effects. While spatiotemporal models for particulate matter (PM) have been developed in several countries, estimates of daily nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and ozone (O 3 ) concentrations at high spatial resolution are lacking, and no such models have been developed in Sweden. We collected data on daily air pollutant concentrations from routine monitoring networks over the period 2005-2016 and matched them with satellite data, dispersion models, meteorological parameters, and land-use variables. We developed a machine-learning approach, the random forest (RF), to estimate daily concentrations of PM 10 (PM<10 microns), PM 2.5 (PM<2.5 microns), PM 2.5-10 (PM between 2.5 and 10 microns), NO 2 , and O 3 for each squared kilometer of Sweden over the period 2005-2016. Our models were able to describe between 64% (PM 10 ) and 78% (O 3 ) of air pollutant variability in held-out observations, and between 37% (NO 2 ) and 61% (O 3 ) in held-out monitors, with no major differences across years and seasons and better performance in larger cities such as Stockholm. These estimates will allow to investigate air pollution effects across the whole of Sweden, including suburban and rural areas, previously neglected by epidemiological investigation

Short-term post-harvest stress that affects profiles of volatile organic compounds and gene expression in rocket salad during early post-harvest senescence

Once harvested, leaves undergo a process of senescence which shares some features with developmental senescence. These include changes in gene expression, metabolites, and loss of photosynthetic capacity. Of particular interest in fresh produce are changes in nutrient content and the aroma, which is dependent on the profile of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Leafy salads are subjected to multiple stresses during and shortly after harvest, including mechanical damage, storage or transport under different temperature regimes, and low light. These are thought to impact on later shelf life performance by altering the progress of post-harvest senescence. Short term stresses in the first 24 h after harvest were simulated in wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia). These included dark (ambient temperature), dark and wounding (ambient temperature), and storage at 4 \ub0C in darkness. The effects of stresses were monitored immediately afterwards and after one week of storage at 10 \ub0C. Expression changes in two NAC transcription factors (orthologues of ANAC059 and ANAC019), and a gene involved in isothiocyanate production (thiocyanate methyltransferase, TMT) were evident immediately after stress treatments with some expression changes persisting following storage. Vitamin C loss and microbial growth on leaves were also affected by stress treatments. VOC profiles were differentially affected by stress treatments and the storage period. Overall, short term post-harvest stresses affected multiple aspects of rocket leaf senescence during chilled storage even after a week. However, different stress combinations elicited different responses

Mutation of Arabidopsis copper-containing amine oxidase gene AtCuAOδ alters polyamines, reduces gibberellin content and affects development

Polyamines (PAs) are essential metabolites in plants performing multiple functions during growth and development. Copper-containing amine oxidases (CuAOs) catalyse the catabolism of PAs and in Arabidopsis thaliana are encoded by a gene family. Two mutants of one gene family member, AtCuAOδ, showed delayed seed germination, leaf emergence, and flowering time. The height of the primary inflorescence shoot was reduced, and developmental leaf senescence was delayed. Siliques were significantly longer in mutant lines and contained more seeds. The phenotype of AtCuAOδ over-expressors was less affected. Before flowering, there was a significant increase in putrescine in AtCuAOδ mutant leaves compared to wild type (WT), while after flowering both spermidine and spermine concentrations were significantly higher than in WT leaves. The expression of GA (gibberellic acid) biosynthetic genes was repressed and the content of GA1, GA7, GA8, GA9, and GA20 was reduced in the mutants. The inhibitor of copper-containing amine oxidases, aminoguanidine hydrochloride, mimicked the effect of AtCuAOδ mutation on WT seed germination. Delayed germination, reduced shoot height, and delayed flowering in the mutants were rescued by GA3 treatment. These data strongly suggest AtCuAOδ is an important gene regulating PA homeostasis, and that a perturbation of PAs affects plant development through a reduction in GA biosynthesis

Progressive Telomere Dysfunction Causes Cytokinesis Failure and Leads to the Accumulation of Polyploid Cells

Most cancer cells accumulate genomic abnormalities at a remarkably rapid rate, as they are unable to maintain their chromosome structure and number. Excessively short telomeres, a known source of chromosome instability, are observed in early human-cancer lesions. Besides telomere dysfunction, it has been suggested that a transient phase of polyploidization, in most cases tetraploidization, has a causative role in cancer. Proliferation of tetraploids can gradually generate subtetraploid lineages of unstable cells that might fire the carcinogenic process by promoting further aneuploidy and genomic instability. Given the significance of telomere dysfunction and tetraploidy in the early stages of carcinogenesis, we investigated whether there is a connection between these two important promoters of chromosomal instability. We report that human mammary epithelial cells exhibiting progressive telomere dysfunction, in a pRb deficient and wild-type p53 background, fail to complete the cytoplasmatic cell division due to the persistence of chromatin bridges in the midzone. Flow cytometry together with fluorescence in situ hybridization demonstrated an accumulation of binucleated polyploid cells upon serial passaging cells. Restoration of telomere function through hTERT transduction, which lessens the formation of anaphase bridges by recapping the chromosome ends, rescued the polyploid phenotype. Live-cell imaging revealed that these polyploid cells emerged after abortive cytokinesis due to the persistence of anaphase bridges with large intervening chromatin in the cleavage plane. In agreement with a primary role of anaphase bridge intermediates in the polyploidization process, treatment of HMEC-hTERT cells with bleomycin, which produces chromatin bridges through illegimitate repair, resulted in tetraploid binucleated cells. Taken together, we demonstrate that human epithelial cells exhibiting physiological telomere dysfunction engender tetraploid cells through interference of anaphase bridges with the completion of cytokinesis. These observations shed light on the mechanisms operating during the initial stages of human carcinogenesis, as they provide a link between progressive telomere dysfunction and tetraploidy