Falling through the social safety net? Analysing non‐take‐up of minimum income benefit and monetary social assistance in Austria

Non‐take‐up of means tested benefits is a widespread phenomenon in European welfare states. The paper assesses whether the reform that replaced the monetary social assistance benefit by the minimum income benefit in Austria in 2010/11 has succeeded in increasing take up rates. We use EU‐SILC register data together with the tax‐benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD/SORESI. The results show that the reform led to a significant decrease of non‐take‐up from 53 to 30% in terms of the number of households and from 51 to 30% in terms of expenditure. Following the three‐t's (threshold, trigger, and trade‐off) introduced by Van Oorschot, estimates of a two‐stage Heckman selection model as well as expert interviews indicate that the taken measures include both threshold and trade‐off characteristics. Elements such as the higher degree of anonymity within the claiming process, the provision of health insurance, binding minimum standards, the limitation of the maintenance obligations, new regulations related to the liquidation of wealth, as well as the general coverage of the benefit reform in the media and in public discussions led to an improved access to the benefit

Genetic Control of Biosynthesis and Transport of Riboflavin and Flavin Nucleotides and Construction of Robust Biotechnological Producers†

Summary: Riboflavin [7,8-dimethyl-10-(1′-d-ribityl)isoalloxazine, vitamin B2] is an obligatory component of human and animal diets, as it serves as the precursor of flavin coenzymes, flavin mononucleotide, and flavin adenine dinucleotide, which are involved in oxidative metabolism and other processes. Commercially produced riboflavin is used in agriculture, medicine, and the food industry. Riboflavin synthesis starts from GTP and ribulose-5-phosphate and proceeds through pyrimidine and pteridine intermediates. Flavin nucleotides are synthesized in two consecutive reactions from riboflavin. Some microorganisms and all animal cells are capable of riboflavin uptake, whereas many microorganisms have distinct systems for riboflavin excretion to the medium. Regulation of riboflavin synthesis in bacteria occurs by repression at the transcriptional level by flavin mononucleotide, which binds to nascent noncoding mRNA and blocks further transcription (named the riboswitch). In flavinogenic molds, riboflavin overproduction starts at the stationary phase and is accompanied by derepression of enzymes involved in riboflavin synthesis, sporulation, and mycelial lysis. In flavinogenic yeasts, transcriptional repression of riboflavin synthesis is exerted by iron ions and not by flavins. The putative transcription factor encoded by SEF1 is somehow involved in this regulation. Most commercial riboflavin is currently produced or was produced earlier by microbial synthesis using special selected strains of Bacillus subtilis, Ashbya gossypii, and Candida famata. Whereas earlier RF overproducers were isolated by classical selection, current producers of riboflavin and flavin nucleotides have been developed using modern approaches of metabolic engineering that involve overexpression of structural and regulatory genes of the RF biosynthetic pathway as well as genes involved in the overproduction of the purine precursor of riboflavin, GTP