Assessing the Maintenance of Savings Sufficiency Over the First Decade of Retirement

The adequacy of retirement savings is central to the U.S. debate over the effects of Social Security reform and pension changes that would place greater responsibility on individuals for accumulation of retirement resources. We contribute to this discussion by examining the extent to which individuals maintain initial levels of resources over the first decade of retirement. We compare annuitized wealth, including Social Security and pension wealth, to two consumption standards— a household’s preretirement earnings and the poverty threshold. We analyze the relationship of individual characteristics to changes in this ratio over time, including the effects of widowhood and post-retirement work.

Methods For Analyzing Components Of Change In Size And Structure Of The Labor Force With Application To Puerto Rico, 1950-60

The increase or decrease of a country\u27s labor force during a given period of time can be factored into the following components: A. Loss by death of labor force members. B. Net gain or loss by immigration and emigration of labor force members. C. Gain by entry into the labor force of individuals from the economically inactive population. D. Loss by retirement from the labor force into economically inactive status (including involuntary withdrawal on account of disability or for other reasons, as well as voluntary retirement). Likewise the change in number of workers attached to a given occupation or industry group of the labor force can be factored into the same four components, plus the fifth component: E. Net gain or loss by occupational or industrial mobility, i. e. transfers of labor force members from one occupation or industry to another. It is useful to subdivide components C and D as follows: C1 and D1. Labor force entries and retirements which would correspond to the maintenance of unchanging age-specific rates of entry and retirement (in the labor force as a whole and in given occupation or industry categories). C2 and D2. Entries and retirements due to changes during the period in the age-specific entry and retirement rates. The sum of components A, C1, and D1 can be considered as a measure of natural increase in the labor force as a whole or a given occupation or industry. This is the increase which would result from natural increase of the population and associated changes in its age structure without migration and without occupational or industrial mobility. Components B, C2, D2 and E are media through which the natural increase is modified under the influence of supply and demand factors

Agriculture, meteorology and water quality in Ireland: a regional evaluation of pressures and pathways of nutrient loss to water

peer-reviewedThe main environmental impact of Irish agriculture on surface and ground water quality is the potential transfer of nutrients to water. Soil water dynamics mediate the transport of nutrients to water, and these dynamics in turn depend on agro-meteorological conditions, which show large variations between regions, seasons and years. In this paper we quantify and map the spatio-temporal variability of agro-meteorological factors that control nutrient pressures and pathways of nutrient loss. Subsequently, we evaluate their impact on the water quality of Irish rivers. For nitrogen, pressure and pathways factors coincide in eastern and southern areas, which is reflected in higher nitrate levels of the rivers in these regions. For phosphorus, pathway factors are most pronounced in north-western parts of the country. In south-eastern parts, high pressure factors result in reduced biological water quality. These regional differences require that farm practices be customised to reflect the local risk of nutrient loss to water. Where pathways for phosphorus loss are present almost year-round—as is the case in most of the north-western part of the country—build-up of pressures should be prevented, or ameliorated where already high. In south-eastern areas, spatio-temporal coincidence of nutrient pressures and pathways should be prevented, which poses challenges to grassland management

The Sufficiency of Retirement Savings: Comparing Cohorts at the Time of Retirement

Assessing savings sufficiency requires detailed information on both potential retirement benefits and the characteristics of a national sample of older citizens. This chapter uses the Health and Retirement Survey and the New Beneficiary Survey linked to administrative records to assess and compare the saving adequacy of two different cohorts. Specifically we compare the two groups in terms of their annuitized net wealth (ANW) and ANW relative to the poverty line, as well as the near-poverty line. We find that the mean wealth levels of both new retiree cohorts rose over time (by about two-thirds for wealth and by half for ANW), but the chance of meeting social adequacy targets has also risen. This shortfall we believe is concentrated increasingly among nonmarried persons, and those with low human capital and labor force attachment. In other words, vulnerability during the working life appears to persist into retirement

A life-history approach to the early ontogeny of Oreochromis Mossambicus (Peters)

The adult ecophenotype of an animal is the result of interactive events which occur during its early ontogeny through a series of sequential steps of increasing morphological complexity. At the step boundaries, there are qualitative and quantitative changes in the structures present which will allow the developing animal to successfully cope with new trophic features of its internal and external environment. There is some controversy as to whether the shifts that occur at these step boundaries are gradual or saltatory. Environmental parameters, early life-history plasticity and genetic instructions are the interactive events which produce the ecophenotype. The early ontogeny of Oreochromis mossambicus was followed from the time of egg activation until juvenilization. The eggs, embryos and larvae were artificially incubated at 25±0.5ºC. The descriptive text and the figures are composites derived from drawings, photomicrographs and observational notes of live and preserved individuals. It was found that the early ontogeny of O. mossambicus consists of an embryonic period of approximately 11 days and a truncated larval period of about 4-5 days. The embryonic period can be further divided into a cleavage, an embryonic and a free-embryonic phase. Comparisons of the early development of three other mouthbrooding and one substrate-spawning cichlid done by other researchers, revealed that the early ontogeny of O. mossambicus closely resembles that of Sarotherodon melanotheron (also a mouthbrooding species). Embryo length and yolksac area changed gradually in the cleavage and embryonic phases, showed little or no change in the free-embryonic phase, and changed rapidly in the larval period. Heart rate increased gradually in the embryonic phase and peaked just before the shift into the free-embryonic phase. Gradual decrease in heart rate occurred in the free-embryonic phase followed by a second peak at the boundary between the embryonic and larval periods. In the larval period, heart rate levelled off. Although distinctive boundaries were not clearly evident at all steps, it was concluded that there are three definite ontogenetic steps which occur at the boundaries between the embryonic phase, the free-embryonic phase and the larval period. These thresholds occur at a point where shifts in the trophic features of the external environment are expected. Regression analysis revealed that two regimes exist for changes in embryo length and yolksac area and that a breakpoint occurs just prior to the boundary between the embryonic and larval periods. It appears that ontogeny is saltatory at points where a change in the trophic features of the environment requires a new set of interactions to occur between the environment and the ecomorphological and eco-ethological features of the animal

PinR mediates the generation of reversible population diversity in Streptococcus zooepidemicus

Opportunistic pathogens must adapt to and survive in a wide range of complex ecosystems. Streptococcus zooepidemicus is an opportunistic pathogen of horses and many other animals, including humans. The assembly of different surface architecture phenotypes from one genotype is likely to be crucial to the successful exploitation of such an opportunistic lifestyle. Construction of a series of mutants revealed that a serine recombinase, PinR, inverts 114 bp of the promoter of SZO_08560, which is bordered by GTAGACTTTA and TAAAGTCTAC inverted repeats. Inversion acts as a switch, controlling the transcription of this sortase-processed protein, which may enhance the attachment of S. zooepidemicus to equine trachea. The genome of a recently sequenced strain of S. zooepidemicus, 2329 (Sz2329), was found to contain a disruptive internal inversion of 7 kb of the FimIV pilus locus, which is bordered by TAGAAA and TTTCTA inverted repeats. This strain lacks pinR and this inversion may have become irreversible following the loss of this recombinase. Active inversion of FimIV was detected in three strains of S. zooepidemicus, 1770 (Sz1770), B260863 (SzB260863) and H050840501 (SzH050840501), all of which encoded pinR. A deletion mutant of Sz1770 that lacked pinR was no longer capable of inverting its internal region of FimIV. The data highlight redundancy in the PinR sequence recognition motif around a short TAGA consensus and suggest that PinR can reversibly influence the wider surface architecture of S. zooepidemicus, providing this organism with a bet-hedging solution to survival in fluctuating environments

Prevalence of Sensitivity to Sulfiting Agents in Asthmatic Patients

Ingestion of sulfiting agents can induce wheezing in some asthmatic patients. However, neither the prevalence of sulfite sensitivity nor the clinical characteristics of the affected asthmatic population are known. In a prospective single-blind screening study, 120 non-steroid-dependent and 83 steroid-dependent asthmatic patients underwent challenge with oral capsules of potassium metabisulfite. Five non-steroid-dependent and 16 steroid-dependent asthmatic patients experienced a greater than 20 percent reduction in their one-second forced expiratory volume within 30 minutes following the oral challenge. Twelve of these sulfite reactors were rechallenged with metabisulfite capsules in a double-blind protocol. Under these conditions, only three of seven steroid-dependent patients had a positive response. Moreover, only one of five non-steroid-dependent patients had a response to double-blind challenge. On the basis of this challenge study, the best estimate of the prevalence of sulfite sensitivity in the asthmatic patients studied is 3.9 percent. This population, however, contained a larger number of steroid-dependent asthmatic patients than would be found in the general asthmatic population. It is concluded, therefore, that the prevalence of sulfite sensitivity in the asthmatic population as a whole would be less than 3.9 percent and that steroid-dependent asthmatic patients are most at risk