A statistical assessment of maritime socioeconomic indicators for the European Atlantic area

Ever since the introduction into marine and maritime policy strategies worldwide of the relatively new concept of Blue Growth there has been an increasing interest in developing integrated systems of indicators for the maritime economy. The Marnet project has been a recent attempt to develop a comparative maritime socioeconomic framework for the European Atlantic area and its database contains a large number of socioeconomic indicators for many maritime activities at different territorial levels that provide the information needed to help analyze and compare the maritime economy of the European Atlantic regions. However, there are still many gaps with respect to the spatial and sectoral coverage of the statistical information available. This paper aims to assess the statistical coverage of the main maritime economic sectors in order to contribute to filling these gaps. To help determine where future statistical efforts should focus the paper gives a list of indicators classified by maritime sectors and activities with information on the degree of territorial coverage of each indicator as measured by the percentage of EU Atlantic regions with data at each territorial level. Based on this information, a list of failed indicators is presented in terms of EU Atlantic countries with no data plus the percentage of Atlantic regions with missing data in the rest of EU countries. Also, a Data Envelopment Analysis based statistical method is proposed to evaluate and compare the relative importance of each maritime sector on the European Atlantic economy. Finally, variation among both sectoral and regional DEA scores is also discussed with the help of a combination of distribution and box-and-whisker plots, as it may offer novel insights into the influence of the maritime economy on the European Atlantic area

Developing a comparative marine socio-economic framework for the European Atlantic Area

Availability and easy access to a wide range of natural and human-activity data on the oceans and coastal regions of Europe is the basis for strategic decision-making on coastal and marine policy. Strategies within Europe’s Integrated Maritime Policy, including the Maritime Strategy for the Atlantic Area, Blue Growth, Maritime Spatial Planning and Marine Data and Knowledge, require coherent and comparable socio-economic data across European countries. Similarly, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive requires member states to carry out economic and social analysis of their waters and the reformed Common Fisheries Policy includes a social dimension requiring socio-economic data. However, the availability of consistent, accessible marine socio-economic data for the European Atlantic Arc regions is limited. Ocean economy studies have been undertaken in some countries (for example, Ireland, France, and UK) but timescales and methodologies are not necessarily comparable. Marnet is an EU transnational co-operation project involving eight partners from five member states of the Atlantic Area (Ireland, Spain, UK, France and Portugal). Marnet has developed a methodology to collate comparable marine socio-economic data across the Atlantic regions. The comparative marine socio-economic information system developed by Marnet could provide a template for other European States to follow that could potentially facilitate the construction of a Europe-wide marine economic information system as envisaged under the EU Integrated Maritime Policy

Challenges in measuring indicators of progress for the Atlantic Action Plan

The EU Atlantic Action Plan (AAP) has recently been updated and revised to support ‘blue growth’ along Europe’s western coastal regions. The revisions reflect recent challenges facing the Atlantic Arc maritime economies including the Covid-19 crisis, Brexit and the new requirements of the European Green Deal. This new revision, termed AAP 2.0, also addresses some of the weaknesses highlighted in the original Atlantic Action Plan particularly regarding identifying indicators that may be used to measure progress in the achievement of the Plan’s objectives. Using a database with comparable marine socio-economic data across the Atlantic regions, a number of indicators are identified that may be used to monitor progress of the AAP 2.0. Recent trends and spatial distributions across the Atlantic Arc region are shown for these indicators. The challenges in measuring progress are also highlighted, including where some AAP objectives and associated indicators may conflict with other EU policy aims and where the current monitoring framework can be bolstered with the inclusion of new indicators

Clonal chromosomal mosaicism and loss of chromosome Y in elderly men increase vulnerability for SARS-CoV-2

The pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19) had an estimated overall case fatality ratio of 1.38% (pre-vaccination), being 53% higher in males and increasing exponentially with age. Among 9578 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the SCOURGE study, we found 133 cases (1.42%) with detectable clonal mosaicism for chromosome alterations (mCA) and 226 males (5.08%) with acquired loss of chromosome Y (LOY). Individuals with clonal mosaic events (mCA and/or LOY) showed a 54% increase in the risk of COVID-19 lethality. LOY is associated with transcriptomic biomarkers of immune dysfunction, pro-coagulation activity and cardiovascular risk. Interferon-induced genes involved in the initial immune response to SARS-CoV-2 are also down-regulated in LOY. Thus, mCA and LOY underlie at least part of the sex-biased severity and mortality of COVID-19 in aging patients. Given its potential therapeutic and prognostic relevance, evaluation of clonal mosaicism should be implemented as biomarker of COVID-19 severity in elderly people. Among 9578 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the SCOURGE study, individuals with clonal mosaic events (clonal mosaicism for chromosome alterations and/or loss of chromosome Y) showed an increased risk of COVID-19 lethality

A test for the null of multiple cointegrating vectors

This paper examines a test for the null of cointegration in a multivariate system based on the discrepancy between the OLS estimator of the full set of n cointegrating relationships in the n + k system and the OLS estimator of the corresponding relationships among first differences without making specific assumptions about the short-run dynamics of the multivariate data generating process. It is shown that the proposed test statistics are asymptotically distributed as standard chi-square with n + k degrees of freedom and are not affected by the inclusion of deterministic terms or dynamic regressors, thus offering a simple way of testing for cointegration under the null without the need of special tables. Small sample critical values for these statistics are tabulated using Monte Carlo simulation and it is shown that these non residual-based tests exhibit appropriate size and good power even for quite general error dynamics. In fact, simulation results suggest that they perform quite reasonably when compared to other tests of the null of cointegration

Medicion de impactos economicos a partir de una matriz de contabilidad social: el sector pesquero en Galicia

En este articulo se presenta una Matriz de Contabilidad Social (SAM) para el sector pesquero gallego. La informacion contenida en la SAM muestra la importancia del sector pesquero dentro de la economica gallega, permitiendo detectar que sectores contribuyen en mayor medida a la expansion economica regional, asi como su gran dpendencia respecto del exterior, en particular en relacion a la demanda proveniente del resto de Espana. Estos hechos sustentan el analisis subsiguiente en el que se han estimado, mediante los miltiplicadores contables calculados a partir de la SAM, los impactos economicos que un incremento de la demanda exterior de productos pesqueros genera en el conjunto de la economia gallega. la descomposicion de estos multiplicadores refleja ademas el peso de los distintos circuitos de interdependencia en la generacion de impactos economicos. Los resultados muestran que un incremento de las exportaciones hacia el resto del estado generarian importantes impactos sobre la produccion, la renta y el empleo en Galicia, no solo dentro del setor pesquero sino tambien en el resto de su economia...This article presents a Social Accounting Matric (SAM) for the Galician fishing sector, The data included in the SAM show the importance of the fishing sector within the Galician economy, allowing us to detect the sectors that contribute in greater measure to the regional economic expansion as well as its great external dependence, especially upon the demand from the rest of Spain. These facts uphold the subsequent analysis where the economic impacts of an increment in the external demand of fishing products on the rest of the Galician economy have been estimated through accounting multipliers calculated from the SAM. In addition, the breakdown of these multipliers shows the importance of the different interdependent circuits in generating these economic impacts. The results demonstrated that an increment in the exports to the rest of Spain would not generate important impacts on production, income and employment in Galicia, not only within the fishing sector but also in the rest of its economy

Enhancement of Adjuvant Functions of Natural Killer T Cells Using Nanovector Delivery Systems: Application in Anticancer Immune Therapy

Type I natural killer T (NKT) cells have gained considerable interest in anticancer immune therapy over the last decade. This “innate-like” T lymphocyte subset has the unique ability to recognize foreign and self-derived glycolipid antigens in association with the CD1d molecule expressed by antigen-presenting cells. An important property of these cells is to bridge innate and acquired immune responses. The adjuvant function of NKT cells might be exploited in the clinics. In this review, we discuss the approaches currently being used to target NKT cells for cancer therapy. In particular, we highlight ongoing strategies utilizing NKT cell-based nanovaccines to optimize immune therapy

Indicadores sinteticos de aceleraciones y desaceleraciones en la actividad economica

Centro de Informacion y Documentacion Cientifica (CINDOC). C/Joaquin Costa, 22. 28002 Madrid. SPAIN / CINDOC - Centro de Informaciòn y Documentaciòn CientìficaSIGLEESSpai