Education, Unemployment and Migration

This paper studies a two-region model in which unemployment, education decisions and interregional migration are endogenous. The poorer region exhibits both lower wages and higher unemployment rates, and migrants to the richer region are disproportionally skilled. The brain drain from the poor to the rich region is accompanied by stronger incentives to acquire skills even for immobile workers. Regional shocks tend to affect both regions in a symmetric fashion, and skilled-biased technological change reduces wages of the unskilled. Both education and migration decisions are distorted by a uniform unemployment compensation, which justifies a corrective subsidization.education, unemployment, interregional migration, externalities, brain drain

Education, unemployment and migration

This paper studies a two-region model in which unemployment, education decisions andinterregional migration are endogenous. The poorer region exhibits both lower wagesand higher unemployment rates, and migrants to the richer region are disproportionallyskilled. The brain drain from the poor to the rich region is accompanied by strongerincentives to acquire skills even for immobile workers. Regional shocks tend to affectboth regions in a symmetric fashion, and skilled-biased technological change reduceswages of the unskilled. Both education and migration decisions are distorted by auniform unemployment compensation, which justifies a corrective subsidization.Brain drain, brain gain, education, unemployment, interregional migration, externalities.

Education, unemployment and migration

This paper studies a two-region model in which unemployment, education decisions and interregional migration are endogenous. The poorer region exhibits both lower wages and higher unemployment rates, and migrants to the richer region are disproportionally skilled. The brain drain from the poor to the rich region is accompanied by stronger incentives to acquire skills even for immobile workers. Regional shocks tend to affect both regions in a symmetric fashion, and skilled-biased technological change reduces wages of the unskilled. Both education and migration decisions are distorted by a uniform unemployment compensation, which justifies a corrective subsidization.Brain drain, Brain gain, Education, Unemployment, Interregional migration, Externalities

Natural channel protein inserts and functions in a completely artificial, solid-supported bilayer membrane

Reconstitution of membrane proteins in artificial membrane systems creates a platform for exploring their potential for pharmacological or biotechnological applications. Previously, we demonstrated amphiphilic block copolymers as promising building blocks for artificial membranes with long-term stability and tailorable structural parameters. However, the insertion of membrane proteins has not previously been realized in a large-area, stable, and solid-supported artificial membrane. Here, we show the first, preliminary model of a channel membrane protein that is functionally incorporated in a completely artificial polymer, tethered, solid-supported bilayer membrane (TSSBM). Unprecedented ionic transport characteristics that differ from previous results on protein insertion into planar, free-standing membranes, are identified. Our findings mark a change in understanding protein insertion and ion flow within natural channel proteins when inserted in an artificial TSSBM, thus holding great potential for numerous applications such as drug screening, trace analyzing, and biosensing

Beyond dyadic coupling: The method of multivariate Surrogate Synchrony (mv-SUSY)

Measuring interpersonal synchrony is a promising approach to assess the complexity of social interaction, which however has been mostly limited to dyads. In this study, we introduce multivariate Surrogate Synchrony (mv-SUSY) to extend the current set of computational methods. Methods: mv-SUSY was applied to eight datasets consisting of 10 time series each, all with n = 9600 observations. Datasets 1 to 5 consist of simulated time series with the following characteristics: white noise (dataset 1), non-stationarity with linear time trends (dataset 2), autocorrelation (dataset 3), oscillation (dataset 4), and multivariate correlation (dataset 5). Datasets 6 to 8 comprise empirical multivariate movement data of two individuals (datasets 6 and 7) and between members of a group discussion (dataset 8.) Results: As hypothesized, findings of mv-SUSY revealed absence of synchrony in datasets 1 to 4 and presence of synchrony in dataset 5. In the empirical datasets, mv-SUSY indicated significant movement synchrony. These results were predominantly replicated by two well-established dyadic synchrony approaches, Surrogate Synchrony (SUSY) and Surrogate Concordance (SUCO). Conclusions: The study applied and evaluated a novel synchrony approach, mv-SUSY. We demonstrated the feasibility and validity of estimating multivariate nonverbal synchrony within and between individuals by mv-SUSY

Global expression mapping of mammalian genomes

he aim of genome projects is to decipher all the information contained within the DNA of an organism and to study the way this information is processed in physiological processes. It is believed that more than 95% of the information content of the mammalian genome is represented in the protein coding sequences that make up only approximately 2% of the DNA sequence. Consequently much effort is being invested in the study of coding sequences in the form of cDNA analysis. This thesis is concerned with the development of a new strategy for a highly parallel approach to analyse entire cDNA libraries. The strategy is based upon generating sufficient sequence information to identify uniquely more than 100,000 cDNA clones by hybridisation with short oligonucleotides, typically 7 - 10 mers. Each oligonucleotide is hybridised to all cDNA clones in parallel and under stringent conditions positively identifies a subset (3 - 10%) of clones. Oligonucleotides are designed in such a way that each will positively identify a different subset of clones and statistical simulations estimate that approximately 200 such hybridisation events are required to identify uniquely upto 100,000 cDNA sequences. Such a fingerprint can be generated from many cDNA libraries constructed from different tissue mRNAs and will not only lead to the identification of most sequecnes expressed from the genome but also indicate the level of expression by determining the number of times any given sequence is represented across different cDNA libraries. A human foetal brain cDNA library has been constructed and 100,000 clones arrayed into microtitre plates and on nylon membranes. All the required technological developments have been carried out successfully and are presented. In excess of 200 oligonucleotide hybridisations have been performed on a subset of 32,000 cDNA clones and 1,000 sequenced control clones. A detailed analysis of the data on the control clones is presented and the implications for cDNA fingerprinting discussed

Synthesis and complex self-assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers with a branched hydrophobic poly(2-oxazoline) into multicompartment micelles, pseudo-vesicles and yolk/shell nanoparticles

We report on the synthesis and self-assembly of poly(ethylene oxide)-block-poly(2-(3-ethylheptyl)-2-oxazoline) (PEO-b-PEHOx), a new amphiphilic diblock copolymer obtainedviamicrowave-assistedpolymerization of EHOx using a new nosylated PEO macroinitiator. The kinetics of the polymerization indifferent solvents was crucial to optimize the synthesis and revealed a controlled, yet fast polymerizationof the AB diblock copolymer. Differential scanning calorimetry proved that PEO-b-PEHOx shows glasstransition temperatures below room temperature, making it suitable for a wide range of self-assemblymethods, especially under mild and solvent-free conditions. Self-assembly of PEO-b-PEHOx was thenperformed usingfilm rehydration and solvent switch. In both cases, we were able to show the formationof various complex structures (multi-compartment micelles (MCMs), pseudo-vesicles and yolk/shellnanoparticles) by light scattering, TEM and Cryo-TEM. Our results show that PEO-b-PEHOx is a potentnew AB diblock copolymer due to its fast synthesis and unique self-assembly behavior