Economic Inequality in Central, East and Southeast Europe

The article analyses the issue of economic inequality in the transition economies of Central, East and Southeast Europe. It consists of a literature review and a descriptive analysis as well as an econometric modelling exercise. In the fi rst part we point at the fact that the rise in income inequality was triggered by the magnitude of transitional output loss and a reduction of formal employment. Rising wage inequality was at the core of total income dispersion, while government transfers had a redistributional function only in Central and Southeast European countries contrary to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In the econometric analysis it is found that for instance public utilities infrastructure liberalisation has increased inequality in transition, while price and trade liberalisation has decreased it. A high share of employment in industry and high government expenditures are connected with less inequality.income distribution, inequality, transition economies

AUSTRIA 2020: The impact of medium-term global trends on the Austrian economy

This study quantifies possible impacts of medium-term structural changes in the global economy on the Austrian economy. Emphasis is placed on the effects of continued medium term growth in emerging markets, especially in Asia and Latin America, on the structure of the Austrian economy. The issues here include the identification of price effects (due to increased demand for raw materials) that can be expected, as well as how these may impact the commodity composition of both exports and imports. Underlying global trends also involve both investment patterns and total factor productivity trends at a more regional level, also impacting on the Austrian economy. Finally, these structural changes at the global level also lead to changes in household incomes and the cost of living in Austria, impacting on patterns of inequality in Austria at the household level.CGE models, GTAP applications, household inequality

Layered graph approaches for combinatorial optimization problems

Extending the concept of time-space networks, layered graphs associate information about one or multiple resource state values with nodes and arcs. While integer programming formulations based on them allow to model complex problems comparably easy, their large size makes them hard to solve for non-trivial instances. We detail and classify layered graph modeling techniques that have been used in the (recent) scientific literature and review methods to successfully solve the resulting large-scale, extended formulations. Modeling guidelines and important observations concerning the solution of layered graph formulations by decomposition methods are given together with several future research directions

Erholungstendenzen in den MOEL

GERMAN: Das Wirtschaftswachstum belebt sich in den mittel- und osteuropäischen Ländern (MOEL) langsam, bleibt jedoch schwächer als vor der Wirtschaftskrise. Einige der kleinen, offenen Volkswirtschaften der Region wahrten durch Abwertung oder auch Produktivitätssteigerung ihre preisliche Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Der überwiegend starke Exportaufschwung trug zur Erholung der Industrieproduktion bei. Aufgrund der dynamischen Ausfuhrentwicklung und der Schwäche der Inlandsnachfrage verringerten sich die Leistungsbilanzdefizite 2010 weiter; in den kommenden Jahren ist allerdings wieder mit einem leichten Anstieg zu rechnen. Mit der Verbesserung der Kapazitätsauslastung werden die Anlageninvestitionen 2011 in allen MOEL ausgeweitet. Auch die Nachfrage der privaten Haushalte wächst, allerdings eher verhalten. Die weltweite Verteuerung von Nahrungsmitteln und Rohstoffen bewirkt auch in den MOEL eine Inflationsbeschleunigung. Der Kreditmarkt leidet in den MOEL nach wie vor unter einer Kreditklemme und einem relativ großen Anteil uneinbringlicher Kredite. In den meisten MOEL schwenkte die Budgetpolitik 2010 auf einen ausgabenseitigen Konsolidierungspfad. Aufgrund des mäßigen Wirtschaftswachstums wird die Beschäftigung erst ab 2012 so stark zunehmen, dass die Arbeitslosigkeit merklich sinkt. ---- ENGLISH: Stabilization of a Weak Recovery in the CESEE Countries The outlook for the world economy improved in the course of 2010 and the recovery has now gained strength in the EU as well. The Central, East and Southeast European (CESEE) countries have also recovered from the crisis; most of them recorded positive GDP growth rates. On average, their exports have been growing at an even stronger pace than before the crisis. On the other hand, industrial output has so far not surpassed pre-crisis levels. The persistent unfavourable development in construction and fixed investments – both rates echoing the still hesitant credit markets – represents one of the key internal risks that could negatively affect the rather optimistic regional economic forecast. The general outlook for the CESEE region in the baseline scenario expects a gradual strengthening of economic growth over the period of 2011-2013, usually not exceeding 4 per cent p.a. GDP growth will become more broadly based. The formerly predominant role of external demand will weaken somewhat, while both household consumption and gross fixed investments will ultimately contribute positively to GDP growth. With exports, industrial output levels and eventually also GDP growth already recovered or on the road to recovery, the economy is seen as having largely returned ‘back to normal’ – yet with at least two important differences: (i) post-crisis growth will be slower; that slower growth, however, also implies that (ii) the labour market situation will be ‘very far from normal’ as unemployment will remain high, with young and low-skilled workers being especially adversely affected, and any improvement only gradual and delayed. Inflation rose throughout 2010 as food and commodity prices soared; in general, however, it will pose no (or little immediate) threat. The moderate economic upturn and a revival of capital inflows have resulted in renewed pressure to appreciate the currency. The forecasts point to a gradual deterioration of current account positions in all CESEE countries. The financing constraint with respect to both domestic and external loans will constitute one of the key brakes on future economic growth. Given the sorry state of public finances and the ensuing budget consolidation efforts, we cannot expect any further growth-stimulating measures from the public sector – on the contrary, owing to the limited fiscal manoeuvring space government deficits and public debts will have to be scaled back.transitional economies, comparative study, economic growth, fiscal and monetary policy, macroeconomic forecast, macroeconomic analysis

A jumping profile Hidden Markov Model and applications to recombination sites in HIV and HCV genomes

BACKGROUND: Jumping alignments have recently been proposed as a strategy to search a given multiple sequence alignment A against a database. Instead of comparing a database sequence S to the multiple alignment or profile as a whole, S is compared and aligned to individual sequences from A. Within this alignment, S can jump between different sequences from A, so different parts of S can be aligned to different sequences from the input multiple alignment. This approach is particularly useful for dealing with recombination events. RESULTS: We developed a jumping profile Hidden Markov Model (jpHMM), a probabilistic generalization of the jumping-alignment approach. Given a partition of the aligned input sequence family into known sequence subtypes, our model can jump between states corresponding to these different subtypes, depending on which subtype is locally most similar to a database sequence. Jumps between different subtypes are indicative of intersubtype recombinations. We applied our method to a large set of genome sequences from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) as well as to simulated recombined genome sequences. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that jumps in our jumping profile HMM often correspond to recombination breakpoints; our approach can therefore be used to detect recombinations in genomic sequences. The recombination breakpoints identified by jpHMM were found to be significantly more accurate than breakpoints defined by traditional methods based on comparing single representative sequences

jpHMM at GOBICS: a web server to detect genomic recombinations in HIV-1

Detecting recombinations in the genome sequence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) is crucial for epidemiological studies and for vaccine development. Herein, we present a web server for subtyping and localization of phylogenetic breakpoints in HIV-1. Our software is based on a jumping profile Hidden Markov Model (jpHMM), a probabilistic generalization of the jumping-alignment approach proposed by Spang et al. The input data for our server is a partial or complete genome sequence from HIV-1; our tool assigns regions of the input sequence to known subtypes of HIV-1 and predicts phylogenetic breakpoints. jpHMM is available online at

Localization in Strongly Chaotic Systems

We show that, in the semiclassical limit and whenever the elements of the Hamiltonian matrix are random enough, the eigenvectors of strongly chaotic time-independent systems in ordered bases can on average be exponentially localized across the energy shell and decay faster than exponentially outside the energy shell. Typically however, matrix elements are strongly correlated leading to deviations from such behavior.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages + 3 postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Invasion of the Human Lung: First Contact

Early immune responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) invasion of the human lung play a decisive role in the outcome of infection, leading to either rapid clearance of the pathogen or stable infection. Despite their critical impact on health and disease, these early host–pathogen interactions at the primary site of infection are still poorly understood. In vitro studies cannot fully reflect the complexity of the lung architecture and its impact on host–pathogen interactions, while animal models have their own limitations. In this study, we have investigated the initial responses in human lung tissue explants to Mtb infection, focusing primarily on gene expression patterns in different tissue-resident cell types. As first cell types confronted with pathogens invading the lung, alveolar macrophages, and epithelial cells displayed rapid proinflammatory chemokine and cytokine responses to Mtb infection. Other tissue-resident innate cells like gamma/delta T cells, mucosal associated invariant T cells, and natural killer cells showed partially similar but weaker responses, with a high degree of variability across different donors. Finally, we investigated the responses of tissue-resident innate lymphoid cells to the inflammatory milieu induced by Mtb infection. Our infection model provides a unique approach toward host–pathogen interactions at the natural port of Mtb entry and site of its implantation, i.e., the human lung. Our data provide a first detailed insight into the early responses of different relevant pulmonary cells in the alveolar microenvironment to contact with Mtb. These results can form the basis for the identification of host markers that orchestrate early host defense and provide resistance or susceptibility to stable Mtb infection

“Dogged” Search of Fresh Nakhla Surfaces Reveals New Alteration Textures

Special Issue: 74th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, August 8-12, 2011, London, U.K.International audienceCarbonaceous chondrites are considered as amongst the most primitive Solar System samples available. One of their primitive characteristics is their enrichment in volatile elements.This includes hydrogen, which is present in hydrated and hydroxylated minerals. More precisely, the mineralogy is expected to be dominated by phyllosilicates in the case of CM chondrites, and by Montmorillonite type clays in the case of CI. Here, in order to characterize and quantify the abundance of lowtemperature minerals in carbonaceous chondrites, we performed thermogravimetric analysis of matrix fragments of Tagish Lake, Murchison and Orgueil