The Returns to Cognitive Abilities and Personality Traits in Germany

We provide the first joint evidence on the relationship between individuals' cognitive abilities, their personality and earnings for Germany. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we employ scores from an ultra-short IQ-test and a set of measures of personality traits, namely locus of control, reciprocity and all basic items from the Five Factor Personality Inventory. Our estimates suggest a positive effect of so-called fluid intelligence or speed of cognition on males' wages only. Findings for personality traits are more heterogeneous. There however is a robust wage penalty for an external locus of control for both men and women

Maintaining (locus of) control? : Assessing the impact of locus of control on education decisions and wages

This paper establishes that individuals with an internal locus of control, i.e., who believe that reinforcement in life comes from their own actions instead of being determined by luck or destiny, earn higher wages. However, this positive effect only translates into labor income via the channel of education. Factor structure models are implemented on an augmented data set coming from two different samples. By so doing, we are able to correct for potential biases that arise due to reverse causality and spurious correlation, and to investigate the impact of premarket locus of control on later outcomes

One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants

Abstract: Green plants (Viridiplantae) include around 450,000–500,000 species1, 2 of great diversity and have important roles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, as part of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative, we sequenced the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida), including green plants (Viridiplantae), glaucophytes (Glaucophyta) and red algae (Rhodophyta). Our analysis provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining the evolution of green plants. Most inferred species relationships are well supported across multiple species tree and supermatrix analyses, but discordance among plastid and nuclear gene trees at a few important nodes highlights the complexity of plant genome evolution, including polyploidy, periods of rapid speciation, and extinction. Incomplete sorting of ancestral variation, polyploidization and massive expansions of gene families punctuate the evolutionary history of green plants. Notably, we find that large expansions of gene families preceded the origins of green plants, land plants and vascular plants, whereas whole-genome duplications are inferred to have occurred repeatedly throughout the evolution of flowering plants and ferns. The increasing availability of high-quality plant genome sequences and advances in functional genomics are enabling research on genome evolution across the green tree of life

Computed tomography-guided percutaneous catheter drainage of primary and secondary iliopsoas abscesses

AIM: To report our experience with computed tomography (CT)-guided percutaneous catheter drainage (PCD) of iliopsoas abscesses

Magnetic resonance imaging in osteomalacic insufficiency fractures of the pelvis

AIMS: To report the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of osteomalacic insufficiency fractures of the pelvis

Unsteady flow around two square cylinders in staggered arrangements

Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Turkey, 19-21 July, 2010.In this study, the flow around two staggered square cylinders, placed in a uniform flow field, has been studied. The numerical simulations have been performed by use of a commercial CFD software Fluent. The Reynolds number, defined as a function of cylinder width D, has been chosen as 100 and 200. In the simulations, the dimensionless distance P/D, between the cylinder centers was changed from 2 to 5, and the incidence angle 8 also has been changed from 0' to 90' by 25' increments. In order to evaluate the flow field, isovorticity curves were obtained at different values of dimensionless distance P/D and incidence angle 8. The deviation of the mean drag coefficients and of the square root values of the lift coefficient with P/D and 8 also determined. The power spectrums of the lift coefficient have been obtained for different flow fields.ksb201

Lipid peroxidation, DNA damage and coenzyme Q10 in lung cancer patients - Markers for risk assessment?

Objectives: Early diagnosis and prevention is very important for lung cancer patients. Previous studies have emphasized that the level of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), present primarily in mitochondria, decreases with age and is low in patients with chronic diseases. Our goal was to find out if there is any relationship between lung cancer and CoQ10 and lipid peroxidation levels. Design and Methods: Blood samples from lung cancer patients were collected. Total and oxide CoQ10 levels, 8-OHdG (product of DNA damage), and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels (lipid peroxidation) were analyzed with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Results: The MDA level (P<0.001) and DNA damage rate (8-OHdG) (P<0.001) was higher in cancer patients than in the control group; in contrast, theCoQ10 enzyme level was significantly lower (P<0.001). Conclusion: The results suggest that the aforementioned parameters can be useful for lung cancer risk assessment