Job Quality in the Economy for the Common Good : conceptualisation and implementation in Austria and Germany

The Economy for the Common Good (ECG) is an Austrian-born movement promoting an alternative economic model built on values oriented to the common welfare such as human dignity, solidarity, ecological sustainability, social justice, transparency and democratic participation. To provide (high) quality of work plays an important role in the ECG philosophy but little is known on the actual labour conditions of workers employed in such type of firms and whether they differ from those of firms in the ?regular? default economy. In this paper we focus on Austria and Germany, the countries where this economic model is most widespread, and present results on the general structure of firms following the ECG model and the working and employment conditions in these firms. We identify three main dimensions of job quality promoted by the ECG model, namely employment quality, information and worker participation, and psychosocial working conditions. Using data published in the Common Good Reports, we extracted data informing about these dimensions of job quality at an organisational level of 59 firms with at least 5 employees in Austria and Germany. We discuss which work-related features are promoted by organisations following the ECG model and compare them to the standards encouraged by the model. Results are also discussed with respect to evidence on the quality of work in the social economy

Association of Variants at 1q32 and STAT3 with Ankylosing Spondylitis Suggests Genetic Overlap with Crohn's Disease

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a common inflammatory arthritic condition. Overt inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) occurs in about 10% of AS patients, and in addition 70% of AS cases may have subclinical terminal ileitis. Spondyloarthritis is also common in IBD patients. We therefore tested Crohn's disease susceptibility genes for association with AS, aiming to identify pleiotropic genetic associations with both diseases. Genotyping was carried out using Sequenom and Applied Biosystems TaqMan and OpenArray technologies on 53 markers selected from 30 Crohn's disease associated genomic regions. We tested genotypes in a population of unrelated individual cases (n = 2,773) and controls (n = 2,215) of white European ancestry for association with AS. Statistical analysis was carried out using a Cochran-Armitage test for trend in PLINK. Strong association was detected at chr1q32 near KIF21B (rs11584383, P = 1.6×10−10, odds ratio (OR) = 0.74, 95% CI:0.68–0.82). Association with disease was also detected for 2 variants within STAT3 (rs6503695, P = 4.6×10−4. OR = 0.86 (95% CI:0.79–0.93); rs744166, P = 2.6×10−5, OR = 0.84 (95% CI:0.77–0.91)). Association was confirmed for IL23R (rs11465804, P = 1.2×10−5, OR = 0.65 (95% CI:0.54–0.79)), and further associations were detected for IL12B (rs10045431, P = 5.2×10−5, OR = 0.83 (95% CI:0.76–0.91)), CDKAL1 (rs6908425, P = 1.1×10−4, OR = 0.82 (95% CI:0.74–0.91)), LRRK2/MUC19 (rs11175593, P = 9.9×10−5, OR = 1.92 (95% CI: 1.38–2.67)), and chr13q14 (rs3764147, P = 5.9×10−4, OR = 1.19 (95% CI: 1.08–1.31)). Excluding cases with clinical IBD did not significantly affect these findings. This study identifies chr1q32 and STAT3 as ankylosing spondylitis susceptibility loci. It also further confirms association for IL23R and detects suggestive association with another 4 loci. STAT3 is a key signaling molecule within the Th17 lymphocyte differentiation pathway and further enhances the case for a major role of this T-lymphocyte subset in ankylosing spondylitis. Finally these findings suggest common aetiopathogenic pathways for AS and Crohn's disease and further highlight the involvement of common risk variants across multiple diseases

Genome-Wide Association Study Using Extreme Truncate Selection Identifies Novel Genes Affecting Bone Mineral Density and Fracture Risk

Osteoporotic fracture is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Low bone mineral density (BMD) is a major predisposing factor to fracture and is known to be highly heritable. Site-, gender-, and age-specific genetic effects on BMD are thought to be significant, but have largely not been considered in the design of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of BMD to date. We report here a GWAS using a novel study design focusing on women of a specific age (postmenopausal women, age 55–85 years), with either extreme high or low hip BMD (age- and gender-adjusted BMD z-scores of +1.5 to +4.0, n = 1055, or −4.0 to −1.5, n = 900), with replication in cohorts of women drawn from the general population (n = 20,898). The study replicates 21 of 26 known BMD–associated genes. Additionally, we report suggestive association of a further six new genetic associations in or around the genes CLCN7, GALNT3, IBSP, LTBP3, RSPO3, and SOX4, with replication in two independent datasets. A novel mouse model with a loss-of-function mutation in GALNT3 is also reported, which has high bone mass, supporting the involvement of this gene in BMD determination. In addition to identifying further genes associated with BMD, this study confirms the efficiency of extreme-truncate selection designs for quantitative trait association studies

Comparing genotyping algorithms for Illumina's Infinium whole-genome SNP BeadChips

The Brassica napus 60K Illumina Infinium™ SNP array has had huge international uptake in the rapeseed community due to the revolutionary speed of acquisition and ease of analysis of this high-throughput genotyping data, particularly when coupled with the newly available reference genome sequence. However, further utilization of this valuable resource can be optimized by better understanding the promises and pitfalls of SNP arrays. We outline how best to analyze Brassica SNP marker array data for diverse applications, including linkage and association mapping, genetic diversity and genomic introgression studies. We present data on which SNPs are locus-specific in winter, semi-winter and spring B. napus germplasm pools, rather than amplifying both an A-genome and a C-genome locus or multiple loci. Common issues that arise when analyzing array data will be discussed, particularly those unique to SNP markers and how to deal with these for practical applications in Brassica breeding applications

Association of variants in MMEL1 and CTLA4 with rheumatoid arthritis in the Han Chinese population

Background The genome-wide association study era has made great progress in identifying susceptibility genes and genetic loci for rheumatoid arthritis ( RA) in populations of White European ancestry. However, few studies have tried to dissect disease aetiopathogenesis in other ethnic populations

Bisphenol A replacement chemicals, BPF and BPS, induce protumorigenic changes in human mammary gland organoid morphology and proteome.

SignificanceBisphenol A (BPA), found in many plastic products, has weak estrogenic effects that can be harmful to human health. Thus, structurally related replacements-bisphenol S (BPS) and bisphenol F (BPF)-are coming into wider use with very few data about their biological activities. Here, we compared the effects of BPA, BPS, and BPF on human mammary organoids established from normal breast tissue. BPS disrupted organoid architecture and induced supernumerary branching. At a proteomic level, the bisphenols altered the abundance of common targets and those that were unique to each compound. The latter included proteins linked to tumor-promoting processes. These data highlighted the importance of testing the human health effects of replacements that are structurally related to chemicals of concern

Bisphenol A replacement chemicals, BPF and BPS, induce protumorigenic changes in human mammary gland organoid morphology and proteome

Environmental chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) are thought to contribute to carcinogenesis through their endocrine-disrupting properties. Due to accumulating evidence about negative human health effects, BPA is being phased out, but in parallel, exposures to replacement chemicals such as bisphenol S (BPS) and bisphenol F (BPF) are increasing. Little is known about their biologic effects, but because of their high degree of chemical relatedness, they may have overlapping as well as distinct actions as compared with BPA. We investigated this theory using a nonmalignant, human breast tissue-derived organoid system and two end points: morphologic and proteomic alterations. At low-nanomolar doses, replacement chemicals—particularly BPS—disrupted normal mammary organoid architecture and led to an increased branching phenotype. Treatment with the various bisphenols (vs. 17-β-estradiol or a vehicle control) produced distinct proteomic changes. For example, BPS up-regulated Cdc42-interacting protein 4, which supports the formation of invadopodia and a mesenchymal phenotype. In summary, this study used a highly physiologically relevant organoid system to provide evidence that replacement bisphenols have protumorigenic effects on the mammary gland at morphologic and proteomic levels, highlighting the importance of studies to evaluate the potential harmful effects of structurally related environmental chemicals

Evaluating the performance of fine-mapping strategies at common variant GWAS Loci

The growing availability of high-quality genomic annotation has increased the potential for mechanistic insights when the specific variants driving common genome-wide association signals are accurately localized. A range of fine-mapping strategies have been advocated, and specific successes reported, but the overall performance of such approaches, in the face of the extensive linkage disequilibrium that characterizes the human genome, is not well understood. Using simulations based on sequence data from the 1000 Genomes Project, we quantify the extent to which fine-mapping, here conducted using an approximate Bayesian approach, can be expected to lead to useful improvements in causal variant localization. We show that resolution is highly variable between loci, and that performance is severely degraded as the statistical power to detect association is reduced. We confirm that, where causal variants are shared between ancestry groups, further improvements in performance can be obtained in a trans-ethnic fine-mapping design. Finally, using empirical data from a recently published genome-wide association study for ankylosing spondylitis, we provide empirical confirmation of the behaviour of the approximate Bayesian approach and demonstrate that seven of twenty-six loci can be fine-mapped to fewer than ten variants