Real and nominal wage rigidities and the rate of inflation : evidence from West German micro data

The paper examines real and nominal wage rigidities. We estimate a switching regime model, in which the observed distribution of individual wage changes, computed from West German register data for 1976-1997, is generated by simultaneous processes of real, nominal or no wage rigidity, and measurement error. The fraction of workers facing wage increases that are due to nominal, but mostly real wage rigidity is substantial. The extent of real rigidity rises with inflation, whereas the opposite holds for nominal rigidity. Overall, the incidence of wage rigidity, which accelerates unemployment growth, is most likely minimized in an environment with moderate inflation

Constitutions and economic development: Evidence from the American Indian Nations

This paper presents an empirical examination of economic and institutional development. Utilizing a novel data set on American Indian tribal nations, we investigate how constitutional design affects economic development, while holding the broader legal and political environment fixed. Instrumental variables regressions, using the party of the US President at the time of the initial adoption of tribal constitutions as an instrument for constitutional design, indicate that parliamentary systems (versus presidential) have a strong positive effect on economic development, while ordinary least squares regressions of current economic outcomes on parliamentary systems of government show no effects. Robustness checks suggest that the results are not explained by differences in other institutions or geographic characteristics. Additional results provide some suggestive evidence that the effects may operate through channels that are typically associated with parliamentary systems, such as larger public employment, and more equitable income distribution

Digestibility in selected rainbow trout families and modelling of growth from the specific intake of digestible protein

The experiments aimed to clarify variations in digestibility of dietary nutrients in rainbow trout. Furthermore, the objective was to study how differences in digestibility might be related to growth and feed utilisation at various growth rates. When comparing the results from the experiments it appeared that particularly protein digestibility was closely related to specific growth rate and feed conversion ratio at high growth rates. As a tool to visualise the relationship between protein digestibility and growth of rainbow trout a growth model was developed based on the specific intake of digestible protein, and general assumptions on protein content and protein retention efficiency in rainbow trout. The model indicated that increased protein digestibility only partly explained growth increase and that additional factors were important for growth increment

Adult advanced life support: Section 3 of the European Resuscitation Council Guidelines for Resuscitation 2015

Erweiterte lebensrettende Maßnahmen für Erwachsene („advanced life support“, ALS) kommen zum Einsatz, nachdem Basismaßnahmen zur Wiederbelebung („basic life support“, BLS) begonnen und, wenn sinnvoll, ein automatisierter externer Defibrillator (AED) verwendet wurde. Die Basismaßnahmen zur Wiederbelebung eines Erwachsenen und der Einsatz von AEDs wird in Kap. 2 ausgeführt. Basis- und erweiterte Maßnahmen sollen nahtlos ineinander übergehen, da erstere fortgeführt werden und sich mit den erweiterten überschneiden. Dieses Kapitel über die erweiterten Maßnahmen beinhaltet die Vermeidung des Kreislaufstillstands, spezielle Aspekte des außerklinischen ALS, den Start der innerklinischen Reanimation, den ALS-Algorithmus, die manuelle Defibrillation, das Atemwegsmanagement während der Reanimaton, Medikamente und ihre Anwendung während der Reanimation sowie die Behandlung von Periarrest-Arrhythmien. Es gibt zwei Änderungen in der äußeren Form dieser Leitlinien des Europäischen Rats für Wiederbelebung seit den Leitlinien von 2010: [1] Das Kapitel „Elektrotherapie“ [2] ist nicht mehr eigenständig, sondern Teil dieses Kapitels; und die Leitlinien zur Behandlung nach Reanimation sind in ein neues Kapitel ausgegliedert, welches die Bedeutung dieses letzten Glieds der Überlebenskette unterstreicht [3]. Diese Leitlinien basieren auf den International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) Consensus on Science and Treatment Recommendations (CoSTR) für ALS von 2015 [4]. Die Überprüfung der ILCOR-Empfehlungen von 2015 konzentrierte sich auf 42 Themen, entsprechend der zeitlichen Abfolge der erweiterten Maßnahmen: Defibrillation, Atemwege, Oxygenierung und Ventilation, Kreislaufunterstützung und Überwachung und Einsatz von Medikamenten während der Reanimation. Für diese Leitlinien wurden die ILCOR-Empfehlungen durch ein gezieltes Literatur-Review ergänzt, welches von der ERC-ALS-Leitlinien Autorengruppe zu den Themen die nicht in den ILCOR-CoSTR-Empfehlungen von 2015 überarbeitet wurden erstellt wurde. Die Leitlinien wurden ausgearbeitet, von den ALS-Verfassern geprüft und abschließend von der ERC-Vollversammlung und dem ERC-Vorstand abgesegnet

Prediction of peptide and protein propensity for amyloid formation

Understanding which peptides and proteins have the potential to undergo amyloid formation and what driving forces are responsible for amyloid-like fiber formation and stabilization remains limited. This is mainly because proteins that can undergo structural changes, which lead to amyloid formation, are quite diverse and share no obvious sequence or structural homology, despite the structural similarity found in the fibrils. To address these issues, a novel approach based on recursive feature selection and feed-forward neural networks was undertaken to identify key features highly correlated with the self-assembly problem. This approach allowed the identification of seven physicochemical and biochemical properties of the amino acids highly associated with the self-assembly of peptides and proteins into amyloid-like fibrils (normalized frequency of β-sheet, normalized frequency of β-sheet from LG, weights for β-sheet at the window position of 1, isoelectric point, atom-based hydrophobic moment, helix termination parameter at position j+1 and ΔGº values for peptides extrapolated in 0 M urea). Moreover, these features enabled the development of a new predictor (available at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/appnn/index.html) capable of accurately and reliably predicting the amyloidogenic propensity from the polypeptide sequence alone with a prediction accuracy of 84.9 % against an external validation dataset of sequences with experimental in vitro, evidence of amyloid formation

Selenoprotein gene nomenclature

The human genome contains 25 genes coding for selenocysteine-containing proteins (selenoproteins). These proteins are involved in a variety of functions, most notably redox homeostasis. Selenoprotein enzymes with known functions are designated according to these functions: TXNRD1, TXNRD2, and TXNRD3 (thioredoxin reductases), GPX1, GPX2, GPX3, GPX4 and GPX6 (glutathione peroxidases), DIO1, DIO2, and DIO3 (iodothyronine deiodinases), MSRB1 (methionine-R-sulfoxide reductase 1) and SEPHS2 (selenophosphate synthetase 2). Selenoproteins without known functions have traditionally been denoted by SEL or SEP symbols. However, these symbols are sometimes ambiguous and conflict with the approved nomenclature for several other genes. Therefore, there is a need to implement a rational and coherent nomenclature system for selenoprotein-encoding genes. Our solution is to use the root symbol SELENO followed by a letter. This nomenclature applies to SELENOF (selenoprotein F, the 15 kDa selenoprotein, SEP15), SELENOH (selenoprotein H, SELH, C11orf31), SELENOI (selenoprotein I, SELI, EPT1), SELENOK (selenoprotein K, SELK), SELENOM (selenoprotein M, SELM), SELENON (selenoprotein N, SEPN1, SELN), SELENOO (selenoprotein O, SELO), SELENOP (selenoprotein P, SeP, SEPP1, SELP), SELENOS (selenoprotein S, SELS, SEPS1, VIMP), SELENOT (selenoprotein T, SELT), SELENOV (selenoprotein V, SELV) and SELENOW (selenoprotein W, SELW, SEPW1). This system, approved by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee, also resolves conflicting, missing and ambiguous designations for selenoprotein genes and is applicable to selenoproteins across vertebrates

Friend or foe? The current epidemiologic evidence on selenium and human cancer risk.

Scientific opinion on the relationship between selenium and the risk of cancer has undergone radical change over the years, with selenium first viewed as a possible carcinogen in the 1940s then as a possible cancer preventive agent in the 1960s-2000s. More recently, randomized controlled trials have found no effect on cancer risk but suggest possible low-dose dermatologic and endocrine toxicity, and animal studies indicate both carcinogenic and cancer-preventive effects. A growing body of evidence from human and laboratory studies indicates dramatically different biological effects of the various inorganic and organic chemical forms of selenium, which may explain apparent inconsistencies across studies. These chemical form-specific effects also have important implications for exposure and health risk assessment. Overall, available epidemiologic evidence suggests no cancer preventive effect of increased selenium intake in healthy individuals and possible increased risk of other diseases and disorders

Emergency intraosseous access in a helicopter emergency medical service: a retrospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Intraosseous access (IO) is a method for providing vascular access in out-of-hospital resuscitation of critically ill and injured patients when traditional intravenous access is difficult or impossible. Different intraosseous techniques have been used by our Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) since 2003. Few articles document IO use by HEMS physicians. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of intraosseous access in pre-hospital emergency situations handled by our HEMS.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We reviewed all medical records from the period May 2003 to April 2010, and compared three different techniques: Bone Injection Gun (B.I.G^®- Waismed), manual bone marrow aspiration needle (Inter V - Medical Device Technologies) and EZ-IO^®(Vidacare), used on both adults and paediatric patients.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During this seven-year period, 78 insertion attempts were made on 70 patients. Overall success rates were 50% using the manual needle, 55% using the Bone Injection Gun, and 96% using the EZ-IO^®. Rates of success on first attempt were significantly higher using the EZ-IO^®compared to the manual needle/Bone Injection Gun (p < 0.01/p < 0.001). Fifteen failures were due to insertion-related problems (19.2%), with four technical problems (5.1%) and three extravasations (3.8%) being the most frequent causes. Intraosseous access was primarily used in connection with 53 patients in cardiac arrest (75.7%), including traumatic arrest, drowning and SIDS. Other diagnoses were seven patients with multi-trauma (10.0%), five with seizures/epilepsy (7.1%), three with respiratory failure (4.3%) and two others (2.9%). Nearly one third of all insertions (n = 22) were made in patients younger than two years. No cases of osteomyelitis or other serious complications were documented on the follow-up.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Newer intraosseous techniques may enable faster and more reliable vascular access, and this can lower the threshold for intraosseous access on both adult and paediatric patients in critical situations. We believe that all emergency services that handle critically ill or injured paediatric and adult patients should be familiar with intraosseous techniques.</p

Shallow waters: social science research in South Africa's marine environment

This paper provides an overview of social science research in the marine environment of South Africa for the period 1994–2012. A bibliography based on a review of relevant literature and social science projects funded under the SEAChange programme of the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR) was used to identify nine main themes that capture the knowledge generated in the marine social science field. Within these themes, a wide diversity of topics has been explored, covering a wide geographic area. The review suggests that there has been a steady increase in social science research activities and outputs over the past 18 years, with a marked increase in postgraduate dissertations in this field. The SEAChange programme has contributed to enhancing understanding of certain issues and social interactions in the marine environment but this work is limited. Furthermore, there has been limited dissemination of these research results amongst the broader marine science community and incorporation of this information into policy and management decisions has also been limited. However, marine scientists are increasingly recognising the importance of taking a more holistic and integrated approach to management, and are encouraging further social science research, as well as interdisciplinary research across the natural and social sciences. Possible reasons for the lack of communication and coordination amongst natural and social scientists, as well as the limited uptake of research results in policy and management decisions, are discussed and recommendations are proposed.Web of Scienc