U.S. Unemployment Now As High as Europe

From the early 1990s through the peak of the last business cycle, relatively low U.S. unemployment rates seemed to make the United States a model for the rest of the world's economies. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other international organizations all praised the U.S. unemployment performance and urged the rest of the world's rich countries to emulate the "flexibility" of the U.S. model. However, this report shows that in the current economic crisis, the U.S. unemployment rate ranks 4th to last among the major OECD countries

U.S. Unemployment Now as High as Europe

From the early 1990s through the peak of the last business cycle, relatively low U.S. unemployment rates seemed to make the United States a model for the rest of the world’s economies. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other international organizations all praised the U.S. unemployment performance and urged the rest of the world’s rich countries to emulate the "flexibility" of the U.S. model. However, this report shows that in the current economic crisis, the U.S. unemployment rate ranks 4th to last among the major OECD countries.unemployment, unemployment rate, Europe, United States

Working Families and Economic Insecurity in the States: The Role of Job Quality and Work Supports

Synthesizing previous CEPR research, this report uses a new methodology to better assess the economic security of working families. Rather than using the federal poverty line as a metric for a family's economic hardship, the authors of this report use basic family budgets and consider the role of public works supports to present a more accurate picture of a working family's economic needs for attaining a basic standard of living in their communities. The study includes results for 45 states and the District of Columbia.economic security, working families, standard of living, work supports

Estimating survival rates of quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) veliger larvae under summer and autumn temperature regimes in residual water of trailered watercraft at Lake Mead, USA

On 6 January 2007, invasive quagga mussels [Dreissena rostriformis bugensis (Andrusov, 1897)] were discovered in the Boulder Basin ofLake Mead, Nevada, a popular site for recreational boating in the southwestern United States. Recreational watercraft are considered aprimary vector for overland dispersal of quagga mussel veliger larvae between water bodies. Thus, effective decontamination of veligers inresidual water carried by trailered recreation boats is critical to controlling this species’ spread. The survival rate of quagga mussel veligerswas measured during exposure to environmental temperature conditions mimicking those experienced in the residual water of traileredvessels during warm summer and cooler autumn months in the semi-arid southwestern United States. Under warm summer conditions,quagga mussel veligers survived approximately five days while under cooler autumn conditions they survived 27 days. When tested underautumn temperature conditions veliger survival times increased with increased level of larval development. The results suggested a greaterlikelihood of veliger transport in the residual water of trailered watercraft during autumn months. The results indicated that presentlyrecommended vessel quarantine times to kill all externally attached juvenile and adult dreissenid mussels prior to launching in an uninfested water body should be increased to generate 100% veliger mortality in residual water unable to be fully drained from the internal areas of watercraft

Seasonal variability of multiple leaf traits captured by leaf spectroscopy at two temperate deciduous forests

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Remote Sensing of Environment 179 (2016): 1-12, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2016.03.026.Understanding the temporal patterns of leaf traits is critical in determining the seasonality and magnitude of terrestrial carbon and water fluxes. However, robust and efficient ways to monitor the temporal dynamics of leaf traits are lacking. Here we assessed the potential of using leaf spectroscopy to predict leaf traits across their entire life cycle, forest sites, and light environments (sunlit vs. shaded) using a weekly sampled dataset across the entire growing season at two temperate deciduous forests. The dataset includes field measured leaf-level directional-hemispherical reflectance/transmittance together with seven important leaf traits [total chlorophyll (chlorophyll a and b), carotenoids, mass-based nitrogen concentration (Nmass), mass-based carbon concentration (Cmass), and leaf mass per area (LMA)]. All leaf properties, including leaf traits and spectra, varied significantly throughout the growing season, and displayed trait-specific temporal patterns. We used a Partial Least Square Regression (PLSR) analysis to estimate leaf traits from spectra, and found a significant capability of PLSR to capture the variability across time, sites, and light environment of all leaf traits investigated (R2=0.6~0.8 for temporal variability; R2=0.3~0.7 for cross-site variability; R2=0.4~0.8 for variability from light environments). We also tested alternative field sampling designs and found that for most leaf traits, biweekly leaf sampling throughout the growing season enabled accurate characterization of the leaf trait seasonal patterns. Increasing the sampling frequency improved in the estimation of Nmass, Cmass and LMA comparing with foliar pigments. Our results, based on the comprehensive analysis of spectra-trait relationships across time, sites and light environments, highlight the capacity and potential limitations to use leaf spectra to estimate leaf traits with strong seasonal variability, as an alternative to time-consuming traditional wet lab approaches.This research was supported by the Brown University–Marine Biological Laboratory graduate program in Biological and Environmental Sciences, and Marine Biological Laboratory start-up funding for JT. JT was also partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research grant DE-SC0006951 and the National Science Foundation grants DBI-959333 and AGS-1005663. SPS was supported in part by the U.S. DOE contract No. DE-SC00112704 to Brookhaven National Laboratory. JW was supported by the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF2014)

Glucose production, gluconeogenesis, and hepatic tricarboxylic acid cycle fluxes measured by nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of a single glucose derivative

A triple-tracer method was developed to provide absolute fluxes contributing to endogenous glucose production and hepatic tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle fluxes in 24-h-fasted rats by 2H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis of a single glucose derivative. A primed, intravenous [3,4-13C2]glucose infusion was used to measure endogenous glucose production; intraperitoneal 2H2O (to enrich total body water) was used to quantify sources of glucose (TCA cycle, glycerol, and glycogen), and intraperitoneal [U-13C3] propionate was used to quantify hepatic anaplerosis, pyruvate cycling, and TCA cycle flux. Plasma glucose was converted to monoacetone glucose (MAG), and a single 2H and 13C NMR spectrum of MAG provided the following metabolic data (all in units of [mu]mol/kg/min; n=6): endogenous glucose production (40.4 ± 2.9), gluconeogenesis from glycerol (11.5 ± 3.5), gluconeogenesis from the TCA cycle (67.3 ± 5.6), glycogenolysis (1.0 ± 0.8), pyruvate cycling (154.4 ± 43.4), PEPCK flux (221.7 ± 47.6), and TCA cycle flux (49.1 ± 16.8). In a separate group of rats, glucose production was not different in the absence of 2H2O and [U-13C]propionate, demonstrating that these tracers do not alter the measurement of glucose turnover.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W9V-4BWYNW7-2/1/140b73c9df39bb7829a8519979c37a6

On Enriching the Levin-Wen model with Symmetry

Symmetry protected and symmetry enriched topological phases of matter are of great interest in condensed matter physics due to new materials such as topological insulators. The Levin-Wen model for spin/boson systems is an important rigorously solvable model for studying $2D$ topological phases. The input data for the Levin-Wen model is a unitary fusion category, but the same model also works for unitary multi-fusion categories. In this paper, we provide the details for this extension of the Levin-Wen model, and show that the extended Levin-Wen model is a natural playground for the theoretical study of symmetry protected and symmetry enriched topological phases of matter.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure

Molecular dissection of the migrating posterior lateral line primordium during early development in zebrafish

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Development of the posterior lateral line (PLL) system in zebrafish involves cell migration, proliferation and differentiation of mechanosensory cells. The PLL forms when cranial placodal cells delaminate and become a coherent, migratory primordium that traverses the length of the fish to form this sensory system. As it migrates, the primordium deposits groups of cells called neuromasts, the specialized organs that contain the mechanosensory hair cells. Therefore the primordium provides both a model for studying collective directional cell migration and the differentiation of sensory cells from multipotent progenitor cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Through the combined use of transgenic fish, Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting and microarray analysis we identified a repertoire of key genes expressed in the migrating primordium and in differentiated neuromasts. We validated the specific expression in the primordium of a subset of the identified sequences by quantitative RT-PCR, and by <it>in situ </it>hybridization. We also show that interfering with the function of two genes, <it>f11r </it>and <it>cd9b</it>, defects in primordium migration are induced. Finally, pathway construction revealed functional relationships among the genes enriched in the migrating cell population.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results demonstrate that this is a robust approach to globally analyze tissue-specific expression and we predict that many of the genes identified in this study will show critical functions in developmental events involving collective cell migration and possibly in pathological situations such as tumor metastasis.</p

Plot-level rapid screening for photosynthetic parameters using proximal hyperspectral imaging

Photosynthesis is currently measured using time-laborious and/or destructive methods which slows research and breeding efforts to identify crop germplasm with higher photosynthetic capacities. We present a plot-level screening tool for quantification of photosynthetic parameters and pigment contents that utilizes hyperspectral reflectance from sunlit leaf pixels collected from a plot (∼2 m×2 m) in c,max, R2=0.79) maximum electron transport rate in given conditions (J1800, R2=0.59), maximal light-saturated photosynthesis (Pmax, R2=0.54), chlorophyll content (R2=0.87), the Chl a/b ratio (R2=0.63), carbon content (R2=0.47), and nitrogen content (R2=0.49). Model predictions did not improve when using two cameras spanning 400-1800 nm, suggesting a robust, widely applicable and more 'cost-effective' pipeline requiring only a single VNIR camera. The analysis pipeline and methods can be used in any cropping system with modified species-specific PLSR analysis to offer a high-throughput field phenotyping screening for germplasm with improved photosynthetic performance in field trials.</p