Towards a Better Understanding of Poverty in the Italian Labour Market

During the last century poverty was mainly associated with unemployment status. Over the years, changes like the globalization process and policies to increase labour market flexibility led to a weakening of labour market institutions and the consequent worsening of workers’ socioeconomic conditions, to the naissance of the working poor class. The literature does not provide a unique definition of working poverty, but several definitions can be obtained by combining the labour market dimension with different poverty definitions. While “in-work poverty” is the EU indicator to detect working poverty in the labour market, it has several limitations because of its hybrid nature: it considers both the sphere of work of the individual and the family dimension. Relying on an advanced version of the 2019 IT-SILC survey dataset, the objective of this study is twofold. First, we propose an alternative measure considering territorial and sectoral disparities to have a better understanding of the low-wage employment in the Italian labour market. Second, we investigate the determinants of each type of working poverty explored and their potential coexistence

I would like to but I cannot. The determinants of involuntary part-time employment: Evidence from Italy

Over the last two decades, involuntary part-time (IPT) employment has become a more and more pressing issue in Europe, especially in the southern countries, where IPT today constitutes most part-time employment. The dualistic nature of voluntary and involuntary employment creates an opportunity to investigate this type of occupation by looking at the intersection between dualisation and gender. Using INAPP-PLUS data and Probit estimations, this paper aims to shed light on whether the determinants of IPT – at the individual, household and labour market levels – follow the trend of labour dualisation, compared to part-timers in voluntary arrangements. In particular, we aim to determine how dualisation related to these determinants varies according to gender and labour market structural changes. Our results confirm that individual and household characteristics count more than professional ones in determining IPT status, especially concerning the well-known gender differences. However, differentiating the analysis by workers' gender highlights interesting differences pointing at a growing polarisation for female workers driven not only by inequality in the work-family balance distribution but also by structural elements in the labour market

rates of latent tuberculosis infection using different diagnostica test

Background.The interferon−g−release assays (IGRA) are emerging as an attractive alternative to the tuberculin skin test (TST) for the diagnosis of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI).The absence of a gold standard for LTBI hampers the assessment of any diagnostic test. Methods.In a prospective study,229 patients (mean age 35.5±24.6 y) from different ward of the Hospital (Respiratory Diseases,Dermatology, Rheumatology, Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, Hematology and Transplant Unit) were simultaneously tested for a suspect of either LTBI or active tuberculosis using all commercially available diagnostics: TST,QuantiFERON−TB Gold (QFT−2G), QuantiFERON−TB Gold In−Tube(QFT−3G) and T−SPOT.TB(TS.TB). Results. 42(18.3%),37(16.2%),59(25.8%) and 79(34.5%) patients were positive with TST,QFT−2G,QFT−3G and TS.TB, respectively.TS.TB(p<0.001) and QFT−3G(p=0.016) provided more positive results than TST, while no difference was found for TST and QFT−2G(p=0.53).All IGRA showed a good overall agreement (TS.TB vs QFT−2G,k=0.55; TS.TB vs QFT−3G,k=0.72;QFT−2G vs QFT−3G, k=0.62). In 22 subjects (9.6%) QFT−3G was positive and QFT−2G negative. Indeterminate results were more frequent with QFT−2G(18.3%) and QFT−3G (12.7%) than with TS.TB(1.3%,p<0.0001). Conclusion. Rates of LTBI as detected by different diagnostic tests may have significant variations. Performances of various IGRA formats were variable in this population

Cytarabine-related lung infiltrates on high resolution computerized tomography: a possible complication with benign outcome in leukemic patients.

Potentially fatal lung toxicity occurs in 12-20% of leukemic patients treated with cytarabine especially at intermediate to high doses, usually presenting as noncardiogenic pulmonary edema (NCPE). Anecdotally the association between cytarabine and the onset of bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP) has been reported. We describe here three cases of patients affected by acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treated with chemotherapeutic regimens including high dose cytarabine, who developed early onset of fever, mild dyspnea, moderate hypoxemia on arterial blood gas analysis and lung infiltrates documented by high-resolution computerized tomography (HRCT), with a more indolent behaviour and a benign clinical outcome, compared with similar cases previously reported in the literature. Our cases widen the spectrum of clinical features of cytarabine-related toxicity in leukemic patients

Waking and sleeping following water deprivation in the rat

Wake-sleep (W-S) states are affected by thermoregulation. In particular, REM sleep (REMS) is reduced in homeotherms under a thermal load, due to an impairment of hypothalamic regulation of body temperature. The aim of this work was to assess whether osmoregulation, which is regulated at a hypothalamic level, but, unlike thermoregulation, is maintained across the different W-S states, could influence W-S occurrence. Sprague-Dawley rats, kept at an ambient temperature of 24 \ub0C and under a 12 h:12 h light-dark cycle, were exposed to a prolonged osmotic challenge of three days of water deprivation (WD) and two days of recovery in which free access to water was restored. Two sets of parameters were determined in order to assess: i) the maintenance of osmotic homeostasis (water and food consumption; changes in body weight and fluid composition); ii) the effects of the osmotic challenge on behavioral states (hypothalamic temperature (Thy), motor activity, and W-S states). The first set of parameters changed in WD as expected and control levels were restored on the second day of recovery, with the exception of urinary Ca++ that almost disappeared in WD, and increased to a high level in recovery. As far as the second set is concerned, WD was characterized by the maintenance of the daily oscillation of Thy and by a decrease in activity during the dark periods. Changes in W-S states were small and mainly confined to the dark period: i) REMS slightly decreased at the end of WD and increased in recovery; ii) non-REM sleep (NREMS) increased in both WD and recovery, but EEG delta power, a sign of NREMS intensity, decreased in WD and increased in recovery. Our data suggest that osmoregulation interferes with the regulation of W-S states to a much lesser extent than thermoregulation