Education and earnings in Peru's informal nonfarm family enterprises

This study presents an analysis of non-farm family businesses in Peru. It uses the enterprise rather than the individual as the unit of analysis, and incorporates enterprise characteristics (capital, nonlabor inputs, focus of operation) explicitly. The central question addressed is: does formal schooling make a difference? Women and children are included in the analysis since thay play an important, if not the preeminent, role in Peru's family business sector. We can thus see whether the payoff to education differs between male and female entrepreneurs after controlling for other factors. The paper proceeds as follows. After the introduction, sections 2 and 3 describe, respectively, the data and the regression model. Section 4 presents the empirical results. Section 5 assesses these results, including those for nonschooling variables, and section 6 discusses the implications with regard to education, comparing our findings with those obtained for some of the same people, considered as individuals, in other analysis.Banks&Banking Reform,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies

Web manifestations of knowledge-based innovation systems in the UK

Innovation is widely recognised as essential to the modern economy. The term knowledgebased innovation system has been used to refer to innovation systems which recognise the importance of an economy’s knowledge base and the efficient interactions between important actors from the different sectors of society. Such interactions are thought to enable greater innovation by the system as a whole. Whilst it may not be possible to fully understand all the complex relationships involved within knowledge-based innovation systems, within the field of informetrics bibliometric methodologies have emerged that allows us to analyse some of the relationships that contribute to the innovation process. However, due to the limitations in traditional bibliometric sources it is important to investigate new potential sources of information. The web is one such source. This thesis documents an investigation into the potential of the web to provide information about knowledge-based innovation systems in the United Kingdom. Within this thesis the link analysis methodologies that have previously been successfully applied to investigations of the academic community (Thelwall, 2004a) are applied to organisations from different sections of society to determine whether link analysis of the web can provide a new source of information about knowledge-based innovation systems in the UK. This study makes the case that data may be collected ethically to provide information about the interconnections between web sites of various different sizes and from within different sectors of society, that there are significant differences in the linking practices of web sites within different sectors, and that reciprocal links provide a better indication of collaboration than uni-directional web links. Most importantly the study shows that the web provides new information about the relationships between organisations, rather than just a repetition of the same information from an alternative source. Whilst the study has shown that there is a lot of potential for the web as a source of information on knowledge-based innovation systems, the same richness that makes it such a potentially useful source makes applications of large scale studies very labour intensive.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Indentation Plastometry of Particulate Metal Matrix Composites, Highlighting Effects of Microstructural Scale

Herein, it is concerned with the use of profilometry-based indentation plastometry (PIP) to obtain mechanical property information for particulate metal matrix composites (MMCs). This type of test, together with conventional uniaxial testing, has been applied to four different MMCs (produced with various particulate contents and processing conditions). It is shown that reliable stress–strain curves can be obtained using PIP, although the possibility of premature (prenecking) fracture should be noted. Close attention is paid to scale effects. As a consequence of variations in local spatial distributions of particulate, the “representative volume” of these materials can be relatively large. This can lead to a certain amount of scatter in PIP profiles and it is advisable to carry out a number of repeat PIP tests in order to obtain macroscopic properties. Nevertheless, it is shown that PIP testing can reliably detect the relatively minor (macroscopic) anisotropy exhibited by forged materials of this type

ER and HER2 expression are positively correlated in HER2 non-overexpressing breast cancer

PMCID: PMC3446380This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

PRENOLIN project. Results of the validation phase at sendai site

One of the objectives of the PRENOLIN project is the assessment of uncertainties associated with non-linear simulation of 1D site effects. An international benchmark is underway to test several numerical codes, including various non-linear soil constitutive models, to compute the non-linear seismic site response. The preliminary verification phase (i.e. comparison between numerical codes on simple, idealistic cases) is now followed by the validation phase, which compares predictions of such numerical estimations with actual strong motion data recorded from well-known sites. The benchmark presently involves 21 teams and 21 different non-linear computations. Extensive site characterization was performed at three sites of the Japanese KiK-net and PARI networks. This paper focuses on SENDAI site. The first results indicate that a careful analysis of the data for the lab measurement is required. The linear site response is overestimated while the non-linear effects are underestimated in the first iteration. According to these observations, a first set of recommendations for defining the non-linear soil parameters from lab measurements is proposed. PRENOLIN is part of two larger projects: SINAPS@, funded by the ANR (French National Research Agency) and SIGMA, funded by a consortium of nuclear operators (EDF, CEA, AREVA, ENL)

HNF4A and GATA6 loss reveals therapeutically actionable subtypes in pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) can be divided into transcriptomic subtypes with two broad lineages referred to as classical (pancreatic) and squamous. We find that these two subtypes are driven by distinct metabolic phenotypes. Loss of genes that drive endodermal lineage specification, HNF4A and GATA6, switch metabolic profiles from classical (pancreatic) to predominantly squamous, with glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3β) a key regulator of glycolysis. Pharmacological inhibition of GSK3β results in selective sensitivity in the squamous subtype; however, a subset of these squamous patient-derived cell lines (PDCLs) acquires rapid drug tolerance. Using chromatin accessibility maps, we demonstrate that the squamous subtype can be further classified using chromatin accessibility to predict responsiveness and tolerance to GSK3β inhibitors. Our findings demonstrate that distinct patterns of chromatin accessibility can be used to identify patient subgroups that are indistinguishable by gene expression profiles, highlighting the utility of chromatin-based biomarkers for patient selection in the treatment of PDAC

Cost-effectiveness of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in infants (IPTi) for averting anaemia in Gabon: a comparison between intention to treat and according to protocol analyses

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: In Gabon, the impact of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in infants (IPTi) was not statistically significant on malaria reduction, but the impact on moderate anaemia was, with some differences between the intention to treat (ITT) and the according to protocol (ATP) trial analyses. Specifically, ATP was statistically significant, while ITT analysis was borderline. The main reason for the difference between ITT and ATP populations was migration. METHODS: This study estimates the cost-effectiveness of IPTi on the reduction of anaemia in Gabon, comparing results of the ITT and the ATP clinical trial analyses. Threshold analysis was conducted to identify when the intervention costs and protective efficacy of IPTi for the ATP cohort equalled the ITT cost-effectiveness ratio. RESULTS: Based on IPTi intervention costs, the cost per episode of moderate anaemia averted was US$12.88 (CI 95$11.30 (CI 95% 4.56, 26.66) using the ATP analysis. In order for the ATP results to equal the cost-effectiveness of ITT, total ATP intervention costs should rise from US$118.38 to US$134 or the protective efficacy should fall from 27% to 18.1%. The uncertainty surrounding the cost-effectiveness ratio using ITT trial results was higher than using the ATP results. CONCLUSIONS: Migration implies great challenges in the organization of health interventions that require repeat visits in Gabon. This was apparent in the study as the cost-effectiveness of IPTp-SP worsened when drop out from the prevention was taken into account. Despite such challenges, IPTi was both inexpensive and efficacious in averting cases of moderate anaemia in infant

Targeting DNA Damage Response and Replication Stress in Pancreatic Cancer

Background and aims: Continuing recalcitrance to therapy cements pancreatic cancer (PC) as the most lethal malignancy, which is set to become the second leading cause of cancer death in our society. The study aim was to investigate the association between DNA damage response (DDR), replication stress and novel therapeutic response in PC to develop a biomarker driven therapeutic strategy targeting DDR and replication stress in PC. Methods: We interrogated the transcriptome, genome, proteome and functional characteristics of 61 novel PC patient-derived cell lines to define novel therapeutic strategies targeting DDR and replication stress. Validation was done in patient derived xenografts and human PC organoids. Results: Patient-derived cell lines faithfully recapitulate the epithelial component of pancreatic tumors including previously described molecular subtypes. Biomarkers of DDR deficiency, including a novel signature of homologous recombination deficiency, co-segregates with response to platinum (P < 0.001) and PARP inhibitor therapy (P < 0.001) in vitro and in vivo. We generated a novel signature of replication stress with which predicts response to ATR (P < 0.018) and WEE1 inhibitor (P < 0.029) treatment in both cell lines and human PC organoids. Replication stress was enriched in the squamous subtype of PC (P < 0.001) but not associated with DDR deficiency. Conclusions: Replication stress and DDR deficiency are independent of each other, creating opportunities for therapy in DDR proficient PC, and post-platinum therapy