Can Perceived Returns Explain Enrollment Gaps in Postgraduate Education?

To understand students' motives in obtaining postgraduate qualifications, we elicit intentions to pursue postgraduate education and beliefs about its returns in a sample of 1,002 university students. We find large gaps in perceptions about the immediate and later-life benefits of postgraduate education, both between first- and continuing-generation students and within the latter group. Differences in student beliefs about returns can account for 70% of the socioeconomic gaps in intentions to pursue postgraduate studies. We document large differences in students' current undergraduate experiences by socioeconomic background and find these to be predictive of perceived returns to postgraduate education

The Impact of the Coronavirus Lockdown on Mental Health: Evidence from the US

The coronavirus outbreak has caused significant disruptions to people’s lives. We exploit variation in lockdown measures across states to document the impact of stay-at-home orders on mental health using real time survey data in the US. We find that the lockdown measures lowered mental health by 0.083 standard deviations. This large negative effect is entirely driven by women. As a result of the lockdown measures, the existing gender gap in mental health has increased by 61%. The negative effect on women’s mental health cannot be explained by an increase in financial worries or caring responsibilities

Inequality in the Impact of the Coronavirus Shock: New Survey Evidence for the UK

Using new UK survey data collected on March 25th 2020, we already find that: 57% of workers engaged in less paid work over the past week than usually. 8% of workers in employment a month ago have already lost their job due to COVID-19. For those still in work, the expected probability of job loss within the next four months is 33%. On average, workers expected to earn 35% less in the next four months compared to usual and expect there is a 49% chance of them having problems paying their bills. These harsh impacts are not evenly distributed across the population; the young, and low income earners have been hit hardest. Workers without paid sick leave beyond the statutory minimum are more likely to go to work with a cold or a fever and also work in close proximity to others

Inequality in the Impact of the Coronavirus Shock: Evidence from Real Time Surveys

We present real time survey evidence from the UK, US and Germany showing that the labor market impacts of COVID-19 differ considerably across countries. Employees in Germany, which has a well-established short-time work scheme, are substantially less likely to be affected by the crisis. Within countries, the impacts are highly unequal and exacerbate existing inequalities. Workers in alternative work arrangements and in occupations in which only a small share of tasks can be done from home are more likely to have reduced their hours, lost their jobs and suffered falls in earnings. Less educated workers and women are more affected by the crisis

Furloughing

Over 9 million jobs were furloughed in the UK during the Coronavirus pandemic. Using real time survey evidence from the UK in April and May, we document which workers were most likely to be furloughed and analyze variation in the terms on which they furl

Geometric phases and anholonomy for a class of chaotic classical systems

Berry's phase may be viewed as arising from the parallel transport of a quantal state around a loop in parameter space. In this Letter, the classical limit of this transport is obtained for a particular class of chaotic systems. It is shown that this ``classical parallel transport'' is anholonomic --- transport around a closed curve in parameter space does not bring a point in phase space back to itself --- and is intimately related to the Robbins-Berry classical two-form.Comment: Revtex, 11 pages, no figures

Fatty acid nitroalkenes ameliorate glucose intolerance and pulmonary hypertension in high-fat diet-induced obesity

Aims Obesity is a risk factor for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, with the incidence of these disorders becoming epidemic. Pathogenic responses to obesity have been ascribed to adipose tissue (AT) dysfunction that promotes bioactive mediator secretion from visceral AT and the initiation of pro-inflammatory events that induce oxidative stress and tissue dysfunction. Current understanding supports that suppressing pro-inflammatory and oxidative events promotes improved metabolic and cardiovascular function. In this regard, electrophilic nitro-fatty acids display pleiotropic anti-inflammatory signalling actions. Methods and results It was hypothesized that high-fat diet (HFD)-induced inflammatory and metabolic responses, manifested by loss of glucose tolerance and vascular dysfunction, would be attenuated by systemic administration of nitrooctadecenoic acid (OA-NO2). Male C57BL/6j mice subjected to a HFD for 20 weeks displayed increased adiposity, fasting glucose, and insulin levels, which led to glucose intolerance and pulmonary hypertension, characterized by increased right ventricular (RV) end-systolic pressure (RVESP) and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR). This was associated with increased lung xanthine oxidoreductase (XO) activity, macrophage infiltration, and enhanced expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Left ventricular (LV) end-diastolic pressure remained unaltered, indicating that the HFD produces pulmonary vascular remodelling, rather than LV dysfunction and pulmonary venous hypertension. Administration of OA-NO2 for the final 6.5 weeks of HFD improved glucose tolerance and significantly attenuated HFD-induced RVESP, PVR, RV hypertrophy, lung XO activity, oxidative stress, and pro-inflammatory pulmonary cytokine levels. Conclusions These observations support that the pleiotropic signalling actions of electrophilic fatty acids represent a therapeutic strategy for limiting the complex pathogenic responses instigated by obesity.Fil: Kelley, Eric E.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Baust, Jeff. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Bonacci, Gustavo Roberto. University of Pittsburgh; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Bioquímica Clínica e Inmunología; ArgentinaFil: Golin Bisello, Franca. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Devlin, Jason E.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Croix, Claudette M. St.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Watkins, Simon C.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Gor, Sonia. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Cantu Medellin, Nadiezhda. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Weidert, Eric R.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Frisbee,Jefferson C.. University of Virginia; Estados UnidosFil: Gladwin, Mark T.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Champion, Hunter C.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Freeman, Bruce A.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Khoo, Nicholas K.H.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados Unido

Randomized Data Structures for the Dynamic Closest-Pair Problem

We describe a new randomized data structure, the {\em sparse partition}, for solving the dynamic closest-pair problem. Using this data structure the closest pair of a set of $n$ points in $k$-dimensional space, for any fixed $k$, can be found in constant time. If the points are chosen from a finite universe, and if the floor function is available at unit-cost, then the data structure supports insertions into and deletions from the set in expected $O(\log n)$ time and requires expected $O(n)$ space. Here, it is assumed that the updates are chosen by an adversary who does not know the random choices made by the data structure. The data structure can be modified to run in $O(\log^2 n)$ expected time per update in the algebraic decision tree model of computation. Even this version is more efficient than the currently best known deterministic algorithms for solving the problem for $k>1$