A meta-analytic assessment of the effect of immigration on wages

In our increasingly interconnected and open world, international migration is becoming an important socio-economic phenomenon for many countries. Since the early 1980s, many studies have been undertaken of the impact of immigration on host labour markets. Borjas (2003) noted that the estimated effect of immigration on the wage of native workers varies widely from study to study and sometimes even within the same study. In addition, these effects cluster around zero. Such a small effect is a rather surprising outcome, given that in a closed competitive labour market an increase in labour supply may be expected to exert a downward pressure on wages. We revisit this issue by applying meta-analytic techniques to a sample of eighteen papers, which altogether generated 348 estimates of the percentage change in the wage of a native worker with respect to a one percentage point increase in the ratio of immigrants over native workers. While many studies in our sample employ US data, estimates are also obtained from Germany, The Netherlands, France, Norway, Austria, Israel and Australia. Our analysis shows that results vary across countries and are inter alia related to the type of modelling approach. Technical issues such as publication bias and quality of the estimates are addressed as well. A negative but small effect of immigration on wages of native groups with similar skills appears rather robust

TRWG developmental pathway for biospecimen-based assessment modalities

The Translational Research Working Group (TRWG) was created as a national initiative to evaluate the current status of NCI's investment in translational research and envision its future. The TRWG conceptualized translational research as a set of six developmental processes or pathways focused on various clinical goals. One of those pathways describes the development of biospecimen-based assays that utilize biomarkers for the detection, diagnosis, prognosis, and assessment of response to cancer treatment. The biospecimen-based assessment modality (BM) pathway was conceived not as comprehensive description of the corresponding real-world processes, but rather as a tool designed to facilitate movement of a candidate assay through the translational process to the point where it can be handed off for definitive clinical testing. This paper introduces the pathway in the context of prior work and discusses key challenges associated with the biomarker development process in light of the pathway

Fact and fiction in housing research: utilizing the creative imagination

As much of our conceptual framework is informed by the experience of the imagination, there is much to be learnt from a study of various creative forms. Narrative fiction can be one such form, allowing us to gain a useful insight into complex features of social life. The purpose of this article is to investigate the treatment of housing issues in contemporary literature in order to gain insights into attitudes, experiences and interpretations from the perspective of a broad cultural milieu. Discussions of professionalism, housing tenure and homelessness have tended to be conducted within a narrow framework and adopted orthodox modes of evaluation. Consequently, the neglect of housing within a wider cultural context has reinforced the isolation of housing issues. The article argues that although discussions of housing and housing policy have been seriously limited within the contemporary novel, there are a number of key insights that can be gained from a discussion of issues within a fictional setting

Sample Timing, diagnosis of Subclinical Thyroid Dysfunction and Mortality in Acute Myocardial Infarction: ThyrAMI1 study.

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the impact of blood sample timing on the diagnosis of subclinical thyroid dysfunction (SCTD) and mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). PATIENTS, DESIGN AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Patients with AMI had thyroid function evaluated on admission between December 2014 and December 2016 and those with abnormal serum TSH had repeat thyroid function assessed at least a week later. The association between sample timing and SCTD was evaluated by logistic regression analysis. Secondary outcomes were confirmation of SCTD on repeat testing and all-cause mortality up to June 2018. RESULTS Of the 1806 patients [29.2% women, mean (±SD) age of 64.2 (±12.1) years] analysed, the prevalence of subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) was 17.2% (n=311) and subclinical hyperthyroidism (SHyper) was 1.2% (n=22) using a uniform TSH reference interval. The risk of being diagnosed with SCTD varied by sample timing in fully-adjusted models. The risk of SCH was highest between 00:01-06:00hrs and lowest between 12:01-18:00hrs, p for trend <0.001, and risk of SHyper was highest between 12:01-18:00hrs and lowest between 00:01-06:00hrs. Furthermore, time of the initial sample was associated with the risk of remaining in a SCH state subsequently. Mortality in SCH patients was not elevated when a uniform TSH reference interval was utilised. However, when time-period-specific TSH reference ranges were utilised, the mortality risk was significantly higher in SCH patients with HR (95% CI) of 2.26 (1.01-5.19), p=0.04. CONCLUSIONS Sample timing impacts on the diagnosis and prognosis of SCH in AMI patients. If sample timing is not accounted for, SCH is systemically misclassified, and its measurable influence on mortality is lost