Moving Towards Estimating Sons' Lifetime Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the UK

Estimates of intergenerational economic mobility that use point in time measures of income and earnings suffer from lifecycle and attenuation bias. They also suffer from sample selection issues and further bias driven by spells out of work. We consider these issues together for UK data, the National Child Development Study and British Cohort Study, for the first time. When all three biases are considered, our best estimate of lifetime intergenerational economic persistence in the UK is 0.43 for children born in 1970. Whilst we argue that this is the best available estimate to date, we discuss why there is good reason to believe that this is still a lower bound, owing to residual attenuation bias

Children in jobless households across Europe: Evidence on the association with medium- and long-term outcomes

The proportion of children living in a jobless household is a key indicator of social exclusion across Europe. Yet there is little evidence on the extent to which this measure of childhood deprivation is associated with later life outcomes. We use two harmonised cross-national data sources to consider the association between children experiencing jobless households and three medium- and long- term outcomes for the first time: education, adult joblessness and adult poverty. We find evidence of large penalties across all three outcomes in some countries while in other countries there are no longer-term associations with this indicator of social exclusion

Intergenerational income mobility: Access to top jobs, the low-pay no-pay cycle, and the role of education in a common framework

Studies of intergenerational mobility have typically focused on estimating the average persistence across generations. Here, we use the relatively new unconditional quantile regression technique to consider how intergenerational persistence varies across the distribution of sons’ earnings. We find a J-shaped relationship between parental income and sons’ earnings, with parental income a strong predictor of labour market success for those at the bottom, and to an even greater extent, the top of the earnings distribution. We explore the role of early skills, education and early labour market attachment in shaping this pattern for the first time. Worryingly, we find that the association with childhood parental income dominating that of a high level of education at the top of the distribution of earnings. In this sense education is not as meritocratic as we might hope, as those with the same detailed educational attainment do not achieve equal access to top jobs. Early labour market spells out of work have lasting effects on those at the bottom, alongside parental income

Do selective schooling systems increase inequality?

We investigate the impact on earnings inequality of a selective education system in which school assignment is based on initial test scores. We use a large, representative household panel survey to compare adult earnings inequality of those growing up under a selective education system with those educated under a comprehensive system in England. Controlling for a range of background characteristics and the current location, the wage distribution for individuals who grew up in selective schooling areas is substantially and significantly more unequal. The total effect sizes are large: 24% of the raw 90–10 earnings gap and 19% of the conditional 90–10 earnings gap can be explained by differences across schooling systems

The initiation and development of combustion under cold idling conditions using a glow plug in diesel engines

Factors determining the success or failure of combustion initiation using a glow plug have been investigated through experimental work on a single cylinder, common rail diesel engine with a geometric compression ratio of 15.5, and a quiescent combustion bomb with optical access. A glow plug was required to avoid engine misfires when bulk gas temperature at the start of injection was less than 413 C. The distance between the glow plug and the spray edge, the glow plug temperature, and the bulk gas temperature were important factors in meeting two requirements for successful ignition: a minimum local temperature of 413 C and a minimum air/fuel vapour equivalence ratio of 0.15–0.35

High growth rate 4H-SiC epitaxial growth using dichlorosilane in a hot-wall CVD reactor

Thick, high quality 4H-SiC epilayers have been grown in a vertical hot-wall chemical vapor deposition system at a high growth rate on (0001) 80 off-axis substrates. We discuss the use of dichlorosilane as the Si-precursor for 4H-SiC epitaxial growth as it provides the most direct decomposition route into SiCl2, which is the predominant growth species in chlorinated chemistries. A specular surface morphology was attained by limiting the hydrogen etch rate until the system was equilibrated at the desired growth temperature. The RMS roughness of the grown films ranged from 0.5-2.0 nm with very few morphological defects (carrots, triangular defects, etc.) being introduced, while enabling growth rates of 30-100 \mum/hr, 5-15 times higher than most conventional growths. Site-competition epitaxy was observed over a wide range of C/Si ratios, with doping concentrations < 1x1014 cm-3 being recorded. X-ray rocking curves indicated that the epilayers were of high crystallinity, with linewidths as narrow as 7.8 arcsec being observed, while microwave photoconductive decay (\muPCD) measurements indicated that these films had high injection (ambipolar) carrier lifetimes in the range of 2 \mus

Double-blind randomised controlled trial of percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation versus sham electrical stimulation in the treatment of faecal incontinence: CONtrol of Faecal Incontinence using Distal NeuromodulaTion (the CONFIDeNT trial)

Background: Faecal incontinence (FI) is a common condition which is often under-reported. It is distressing for those suffering from it, impacting heavily on their quality of life. When conservative strategies fail, treatment options are limited. Percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation (PTNS) is a minimally invasive outpatient treatment, shown in preliminary case series to have significant effectiveness; however, no randomised controlled trial has been conducted. Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of PTNS compared with sham electrical stimulation in the treatment of patients with FI in whom initial conservative strategies have failed. Design: Multicentre, parallel-arm, double-blind randomised (1 : 1) controlled trial. Setting: Eighteen UK centres providing specialist nurse-led (or equivalent) treatment for pelvic floor disorders. Participants: Participants aged > 18 years with FI who have failed conservative treatments and whose symptoms are sufficiently severe to merit further intervention. Interventions: PTNS was delivered via the Urgent® PC device (Uroplasty Limited, Manchester, UK), a hand-held pulse generator unit, with single-use leads and fine-needle electrodes. The needle was inserted near the tibial nerve on the right leg adhering to the manufacturer’s protocol (and specialist training). Treatment was for 30 minutes weekly for a duration of 12 treatments. Validated sham stimulation involved insertion of the Urgent PC needle subcutaneously at the same site with electrical stimulation delivered to the distal foot using transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. Main outcome measures: Outcome measures were assessed at baseline and 2 weeks following treatment. Clinical outcomes were derived from bowel diaries and validated, investigator-administered questionnaires. The primary outcome classified patients as responders or non-responders, with a responder defined as someone having achieved ≥ 50% reduction in weekly faecal incontinence episodes (FIEs). Results: In total, 227 patients were randomised from 373 screened: 115 received PTNS and 112 received sham stimulation. There were 12 trial withdrawals: seven from the PTNS arm and five from the sham arm. Missing data were multiply imputed. For the primary outcome, the proportion of patients achieving a ≥ 50% reduction in weekly FIEs was similar in both arms: 39 in the PTNS arm (38%) compared with 32 in the sham arm (31%) [odds ratio 1.28, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.72 to 2.28; p = 0.396]. For the secondary outcomes, significantly greater decreases in weekly FIEs were observed in the PTNS arm than in the sham arm (beta –2.3, 95% CI –4.2 to –0.3; p = 0.02), comprising a reduction in urge FIEs (p = 0.02) rather than passive FIEs (p = 0.23). No significant differences were found in the St Mark’s Continence Score or any quality-of-life measures. No serious adverse events related to treatment were reported. Conclusions: PTNS did not show significant clinical benefit over sham electrical stimulation in the treatment of FI based on number of patients who received at least a 50% reduction in weekly FIE. It would be difficult to recommend this therapy for the patient population studied. Further research will concentrate on particular subgroups of patients, for example those with pure urge FI. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN88559475. Funding: This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 19, No. 77. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information

Alteration of renal respiratory Complex-III during experimental type-1 diabetes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diabetes has become the single most common cause for end-stage renal disease in the United States. It has been established that mitochondrial damage occurs during diabetes; however, little is known about what initiates mitochondrial injury and oxidant production during the early stages of diabetes. Inactivation of mitochondrial respiratory complexes or alteration of their critical subunits can lead to generation of mitochondrial oxidants, mitochondrial damage, and organ injury. Thus, one goal of this study was to determine the status of mitochondrial respiratory complexes in the rat kidney during the early stages of diabetes (5-weeks post streptozotocin injection).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Mitochondrial complex activity assays, blue native gel electrophoresis (BN-PAGE), Complex III immunoprecipitation, and an ATP assay were performed to examine the effects of diabetes on the status of respiratory complexes and energy levels in renal mitochondria. Creatinine clearance and urine albumin excretion were measured to assess the status of renal function in our model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Interestingly, of all four respiratory complexes only cytochrome c reductase (Complex-III) activity was significantly decreased, whereas two Complex III subunits, Core 2 protein and Rieske protein, were up regulated in the diabetic renal mitochondria. The BN-PAGE data suggested that Complex III failed to assemble correctly, which could also explain the compensatory upregulation of specific Complex III subunits. In addition, the renal F₀F₁-ATPase activity and ATP levels were increased during diabetes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In summary, these findings show for the first time that early (and selective) inactivation of Complex-III may contribute to the mitochondrial oxidant production which occurs in the early stages of diabetes.</p