Subsurface Fish Handling to Limit Decompression Effects on Deepwater Species

A method of handling hooked fish at intermediate depth was developed for species which occur deeper than conventional scuba depths. Juvenile pink snappers, Pristipomoides filamentosus, were hauled from 65-100 m to a depth of only 30 m, where the ambient pressure change was a fraction of that produced by hauling fish to the sea surface. This method afforded a unique opportunity to acoustically tag deepwater, physoclistous fish without the need to alter the fish's original swim bladder volume and without the high risk of further injury associated with surface handling. Tagged P. filamentosus survived and behaved well and were tracked successfully. This basic method could be applied to a variety of deepwater species in a number of research approaches, including tagging and dietary studies

Relative pleopod length as an indicator of size at sexual maturity in slipper (Scyllarides squammosus) and spiny Hawaiian (Panulirus marginatus) lobsters

Body size at gonadal maturity is described for females of the slipper lobster (Scyllarides squammosus) (Scyllaridae) and the endemic Hawaiian spiny lobster (Panulirus marginatus) (Palinuridae) based on microscopic examination of histological preparations of ovaries. These data are used to validate several morphological metrics (relative exopodite length, ovigerous condition) of functional sexual maturity. Relative exopodite length (“pleopod length”) produced consistent estimates of size at maturity when evaluated with a newly derived statistical application for estimating size at the morphometric maturation point (MMP) for the population, identified as the midpoint of a sigmoid function spanning the estimated boundaries of overlap between the largest immature and smallest adult animals. Estimates of the MMP were related to matched (same-year) characterizations of sexual maturity based on ovigerous condition — a more conventional measure of functional maturity previously used to characterize maturity for the two lobster species. Both measures of functional maturity were similar for the respective species and were within 5% and 2% of one another for slipper and spiny lobster, respectively. The precision observed for two shipboard collection series of pleopod-length data indicated that the method is reliable and not dependent on specialized expertise. Precision of maturity estimates for S. squammosus with the pleopod-length metric was similar to that for P. marginatus with any of the other measures (including conventional evidence of ovigerous condition) and greatly exceeded the precision of estimates for S. squammosus based on ovigerous condition alone. The two measures of functional maturity averaged within 8% of the estimated size at gonadal maturity for the respective species. Appendage-to-body size proportions, such as the pleopod length metric, hold great promise, particularly for species of slipper lobsters like S. squammosus for which there exist no other reliable conventional morphological measures of sexual maturity. Morphometric proportions also should be included among the factors evaluated when assessing size at sexual maturity in spiny lobster stocks; previously, these proportions have been obtained routinely only for brachyuran crabs within the Crustacea

Helping the Working Poor: Employer- vs. Employee-Based Subsidies

In the United States and Europe there has been renewed interest in subsidizing firms that employ disadvantaged workers as a means of addressing poverty and other social problems. In contrast, the prevailing practice is largely to provide social welfare benefits directly to individuals. Which approach is better? We re-examine the relative merits of employee- versus employer-based labor market subsidies and conclude there are good reasons to continue to rely on the direct, employee-based approach. In practice, low-wage workers are seldom either low-skill or low-income workers. Furthermore, workers who might quality for a firm-based subsidy are reluctant to so identify themselves for fear of being stigmatized or labeled as needy. Thus, employer-based subsidy programs have lower participation rates and correspondingly higher per capita expenditures than employee-based subsidy programs

A Multigenerational View of Inequality

The study of intergenerational mobility and most population research are governed by a two-generation (parent-to-offspring) view of intergenerational influence, to the neglect of the effects of grandparents and other ancestors and nonresident contemporary kin. While appropriate for some populations in some periods, this perspective may omit important sources of intergenerational continuity of family-based social inequality. Social institutions, which transcend individual lives, help support multigenerational influence, particularly at the extreme top and bottom of the social hierarchy, but to some extent in the middle as well. Multigenerational influence also works through demographic processes because families influence subsequent generations through differential fertility and survival, migration, and marriage patterns, as well as through direct transmission of socioeconomic rewards, statuses, and positions. Future research should attend more closely to multigenerational effects; to the tandem nature of demographic and socioeconomic reproduction; and to data, measures, and models that transcend coresident nuclear families

The global distribution and diversity of protein vaccine candidate antigens in the highly virulent Streptococcus pnuemoniae serotype 1

Serotype 1 is one of the most common causes of pneumococcal disease worldwide. Pneumococcal protein vaccines are currently being developed as an alternate intervention strategy to pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. Pre-requisites for an efficacious pneumococcal protein vaccine are universal presence and minimal variation of the target antigen in the pneumococcal population, and the capability to induce a robust human immune response. We used in silico analysis to assess the prevalence of seven protein vaccine candidates (CbpA, PcpA, PhtD, PspA, SP0148, SP1912, SP2108) among 445 serotype 1 pneumococci from 26 different countries, across four continents. CbpA (76%), PspA (68%), PhtD (28%), PcpA (11%) were not universally encoded in the study population, and would not provide full coverage against serotype 1. PcpA was widely present in the European (82%), but not in the African (2%) population. A multi-valent vaccine incorporating CbpA, PcpA, PhtD and PspA was predicted to provide coverage against 86% of the global population. SP0148, SP1912 and SP2108 were universally encoded and we further assessed their predicted amino acid, antigenic and structural variation. Multiple allelic variants of these proteins were identified, different allelic variants dominated in different continents; the observed variation was predicted to impact the antigenicity and structure of two SP0148 variants, one SP1912 variant and four SP2108 variants, however these variants were each only present in a small fraction of the global population (<2%). The vast majority of the observed variation was predicted to have no impact on the efficaciousness of a protein vaccine incorporating a single variant of SP0148, SP1912 and/or SP2108 from S. pneumoniae TIGR4. Our findings emphasise the importance of taking geographic differences into account when designing global vaccine interventions and support the continued development of SP0148, SP1912 and SP2108 as protein vaccine candidates against this important pneumococcal serotype

Benefit-Entitlement Effects and the Duration of Unemployment: An Ex-Ante Evaluation of Recent Labour Market Reforms in Germany

We analyse benefit-entitlement effects and the likely impact of the recent reform of the unemployment compensation system on the duration of unemployment in Germany on the basis of a flexible discrete-time hazard rate model estimated on pre-reform data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP). We find (i) relatively strong benefit-entitlement effects for the unemployed who are eligible to means-tested unemployment assistance after the exhaustion of unemployment benefit, but not for those without such entitlement; (ii) non-monotonic benefit-entitlement effects on hazard rates with pronounce spikes around the month of benefit-exhaustion, and (iii) relatively small marginal effects of the amount of unemployment compensation on the duration of unemployment. Our simulation results show that the recent labour market reform is unlikely to have a major impact on the average duration of unemployment in the population as a whole, but will significantly reduce the level of long-term unemployment among older workers

Gene-Environment Interaction in the Etiology of Mathematical Ability Using SNP Sets

Mathematics ability and disability is as heritable as other cognitive abilities and disabilities, however its genetic etiology has received relatively little attention. In our recent genome-wide association study of mathematical ability in 10-year-old children, 10 SNP associations were nominated from scans of pooled DNA and validated in an individually genotyped sample. In this paper, we use a ‘SNP set’ composite of these 10 SNPs to investigate gene-environment (GE) interaction, examining whether the association between the 10-SNP set and mathematical ability differs as a function of ten environmental measures in the home and school in a sample of 1888 children with complete data. We found two significant GE interactions for environmental measures in the home and the school both in the direction of the diathesis-stress type of GE interaction: The 10-SNP set was more strongly associated with mathematical ability in chaotic homes and when parents are negative

Adolescentes y drogas : su relación con la delincuencia

Esta investigación describe la relación con las drogas de una muestra de 286 Adolescentes en Conflicto con la Ley de la ciudad de Valencia (España). Tiene por objeto analizar relación entre trayectoria delictiva y consumo de drogas. Los resultados informan que a mayor incidencia delictiva, mayor dependencia. En cuanto a patrones de consumo por tipo de sustancia, el cannabis se asocia a trayectorias delictivas iniciales y la cocaína a trayectorias consolidadas. El consumo se produce en escenarios habituales diurnos, se extiende a otros de ocio nocturno, y particularmente forma parte de la vida cotidiana de los adolescentes en conflicto con la ley de trayectoria consolidada