Dual-Career Couples in Academia : Does Wage Growth Suffer When One’s Partner Works for the Same University?

Extending the literature on monopsony in academic labor markets, we find that faculty pay is inversely related to seniority in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets for a large public university in the United States. Fixed-effects results indicate that the negative relationship cannot be explained by lower quality of senior faculty. Arguing that mobility costs are higher when both partners work for the same university, we allow monopsony power to vary by employment status of partner. We find that pay of male faculty is negatively and significantly related to the number of years the partner has been employed by the university and that the penalty is greater when couples are hired together.Monopsony, academic labor market

EVALUATION OF POLYHERBAL UNANI SHAMPOO USED IN DANDRUFF

Objective: The objective of the study was to evaluate the laboratory parameters of polyherbal Unani formulation with simple shampoo base used in seborrheic dermatitis (Huzaz) of scalp. Methods: Evaluation of test drug formulation with shampoo base was done for its appearance, pH, % of solid contents, wetting time, density, viscosity, dirt dispersion test, froth test, and skin irritation test. Results: Polyherbal formulation along with simple shampoo base was dark brown in color, thin in consistency, and with pungent aroma. pH of poly herbal formulation was 8.27 which will have positive effect on greasy and thin hairs. Solid contents were moderately easy to wash. Wetting time was 200 s, density was 1.17 g, and viscosity was 2.33 moderately good. Froth test showed froth >8 cm. Skin sensitivity on albino rats showed no allergic reaction. Conclusion: Polyherbal Unani formulation can be a promising drug with least side-effects and cost-effective in treating dandruff which relapses every now and then

Experimental implementation controlled SPWM inverter based harmony search algorithm

An optimum PI controller using harmony search optimization algorithm (HS) is utilized in this research for the single-phase bipolar SPWM inverter. The aim of this algorithm is to avoid the conventional trial and error procedure which is usually applied in finding the PI coefficients in order to obtain the desired performance. Then, the control algorithm of the inverter prototype is experimentally implemented using the eZdsp F28355 board along with the bipolar sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) to control the output voltage drop under different load conditions. The proposed overall inverter design and the control algorithm are modelled using MATLAB environment (Simulink/m-file Code). The mean absolute error (MAE) formula is used as an objective function with the HS algorithm in finding the adaptive values of  and  parameters to minimize the error of the inverter output voltage. Based on the output results, the proposed voltage controller using HS algorithm based PI (HS-PI) showed that the inverter output performance is improved in terms of voltage amplitude, robustness, and convergence rate speed as compared to PSO algorithm based PI (PSO-PI). This is to say that the proposed controller provides a good dynamic responses in both cases; transient and steady-state. Finally, the experimental setup result of the inverter controller is verified to validate the simulation results

A space-time pseudospectral discretization method for solving diffusion optimal control problems with two-sided fractional derivatives

We propose a direct numerical method for the solution of an optimal control problem governed by a two-side space-fractional diffusion equation. The presented method contains two main steps. In the first step, the space variable is discretized by using the Jacobi-Gauss pseudospectral discretization and, in this way, the original problem is transformed into a classical integer-order optimal control problem. The main challenge, which we faced in this step, is to derive the left and right fractional differentiation matrices. In this respect, novel techniques for derivation of these matrices are presented. In the second step, the Legendre-Gauss-Radau pseudospectral method is employed. With these two steps, the original problem is converted into a convex quadratic optimization problem, which can be solved efficiently by available methods. Our approach can be easily implemented and extended to cover fractional optimal control problems with state constraints. Five test examples are provided to demonstrate the efficiency and validity of the presented method. The results show that our method reaches the solutions with good accuracy and a low CPU time.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper whose final and definite form is with 'Journal of Vibration and Control', available from [http://journals.sagepub.com/home/jvc]. Submitted 02-June-2018; Revised 03-Sept-2018; Accepted 12-Oct-201

Dietary vitamin D supplementation improves haematological status following consumption of an iron-fortified cereal: an 8-week randomised controlled trial

This article has been accepted for publication and will appear in a revised form, subsequent to peer review and/or editorial input by Cambridge University Press, in Proceedings of the Nutrition Society published by Cambridge University Press. Copyright The Authors 2020.Vitamin D, a secosteroid, has recently been implicated in the stimulation of erythroid precursors and ultimately the rate of erythropoiesis. However, there are a paucity of randomised controlled trials (RCT), investigating the effect of vitamin D supplementation iron status, especially in populations at risk of iron deficiency. An eight-week, double-blind RCT was carried out in 50 female (mean age (± SD): 27 ± 9 years), iron-deficient (plasma ferritin concentration < 20 μg/L) participants, randomised to consume an iron-fortified cereal containing 9 mg of iron, with either a vitamin D supplement (1,500 international units (IU)/day, 38 μg/day) or placebo. The effect of dietary vitamin D supplementation on haematological indicators was investigated. Blood samples were collected at baseline, 4-weeks and 8-week timepoints for measurement of iron and vitamin D status biomarkers. The effect of intervention was analysed with a mixed-model repeated measures ANOVA using IBM SPSS statistical software (Version 21, IBM Corporation, New York, USA). Significant increases were observed in two haematological parameters: haemoglobin concentration and haematocrit level from baseline to post-intervention in the vitamin D group, but not in the placebo group. The increase from baseline to post-intervention in haemoglobin concentration in the vitamin D group (135 ± 11 to 138 ± 10 g/L) was significantly higher than in the placebo group (131 ± 15 to 128 ± 13 g/L) (P ≤ 0.05). The increase in haematocrit level from baseline to post-intervention was also significantly higher in the vitamin D group (42.0 ± 3.0 to 43.8 49 ± 3.4%) compared to the placebo group (41.2 ± 4.3 to 40.7 ± 3.6%) (P ≤ 0.05). Despite non-significant changes in plasma ferritin concentration, this study demonstrates that dietary supplementation with 1,500IU vitamin D, consumed daily with an iron-fortified cereal led to improvement in haemoglobin concentration and haematocrit levels in women with low iron stores. Further long-term studies are required, however, these findings suggest a potential role for improvement of vitamin D status as an adjunct therapy for recovery of iron status in iron-deficient populations

The role of endoproteolytic processing in neurodegeneration

Endoproteolysis is a normal post-translational process in the eukaryotic cell that had played a role early on in protein evolution allowing protein catabolism and the generation of amino acids. Endoproteolytic cleavage regulates many crucial cellular processes including the activity of many proteins, their protein-protein interactions and the amplification of cell signals. Not surprisingly, disruption or alternation of endoproteolytic cleavage maybe the root cause of many human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease and prion diseases. Most neurodegenerative diseases (ND) are caused by the build-up of misfolded proteins and the promotion of aggregation events. A common event that occurs in these ND is the alteration of endoproteolytic cleavage due to genetic mutations of the associated-proteases or in the target substrate. Endoproteolytic cleavage resulting in protein truncation has significant effects on the structure and function of a protein representing a common feature of ND. In this review, we will discuss the endoproteolytic cleavage events that lead to ND, namely Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease and prion diseases

EFFECT OF PIGEON ORIGIN NEWCASTLE DISEASE VIRUS ON VARIOUS LIVER ENZYMES AND ASSOCIATED PATHOLOGICAL CHANGES IN EXPERIMENTALLY INFECTED PIGEONS

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) was isolated from a field outbreak in pigeons. The virus was characterized by haemagglutination test (HA) and confirmed by haemagglutination inhibition test (HAI). The pathotyping was done by mean death time (MDT), intracerebral pathogenicity index (ICPI) and intravenous pathogenicity index (IVPI). The ELD50 of the velogenic strain was 10-4.66/0.1 ml. Thirty-nine pigeons were randomly divided into three equal groups. Pigeons of one group were vaccinated with ND vaccine (LaSota strain) intraocularly after 14 days of procurement, while the other two groups served as vaccinated and non-vaccinated controls. Birds of these two groups were challenged with velogenic strain of field isolate of NDV 7 days post-vaccination. Birds were kept under observation for 15 days post-challenge. Haemorrhages and congestion were observed in trachea, lungs, liver, proventriculus and intestine of pigeons infected with NDV. Concentrations of AST, ALT and ALP did not differ among pigeons of the three groups

Al-Huda & its Critics Religious Education for Pakistani Women

In the past decade Pakistan has witnessed the emergence of Al-Huda, an institute offering religious education to women. Its popularity is greeted with hostile scepticism by many in Pakistan. Male religious scholars, feminists, and the mainstream media are amongst those who disagree with the practices of these women and their vision of moral reform. The author argues that by introducing women in new roles Al-Huda disrupts traditional structures for transmitting religious learning

Relative changes from prior reward contingencies can constrain brain correlates of outcome monitoring

It is well-known that the affective value of an environment can be relative to whether it reflects an improvement or a worsening from a previous state. A potential explanation for this phenomenon suggests that relative changes from previous reward contingencies can constrain how brain monitoring systems form predictions about future events. In support of this idea, we found that changes per se relative to previous states of learned reward contingencies modulated the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN), a human brain potential known to index discrepancies between predictions and affective outcomes. Specifically, we observed that environments with a 50% reward probability yielded different FRN patterns according to whether they reflected an improvement or a worsening from a previous environment. Further, we also found that this pattern of results was driven mainly by variations in the amplitude of ERPs to positive outcomes. Overall, these results suggest that relative changes in reward probability from previous learned environments can constrain how neural systems of outcome monitoring formulate predictions about the likelihood of future rewards and nonrewards

Development of a functional near-infrared spectroscopy based objective measure of paediatric cochlear implant outcome

A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted prosthetic device that is used to partially restore the sensation of hearing in deaf individuals. In the United Kingdom, CIs are the therapy of choice for profoundly deaf children. In the case of congenital deafness, CIs are often fitted within the first year of life in order to facilitate spoken language acquisition. However, although most children develop good speech skills, outcomes remain varied. It is important to identify paediatric CI listeners with poor speech perception as early as possible to limit the detrimental consequences of poor access to sound on speech and language development during a critical period for auditory development, particularly in CI users implanted as infants. Whilst behavioural speech assessments cannot be completed reliably until children reach pre-school age, it may be possible for clinicians to recognise poor CI performers from their brain responses to speech. In this project, we aimed to identify cortical measures of speech perception in 6-12 year old normal hearing (NH) children and profoundly deaf CI listeners that could be used to distinguish between good and poor speech recognition. Specifically, we examined whether the left lateralisation of normal speech processing, the ability to distinguish between different levels of speech intelligibly (varied in terms of spectral content or amplitude modulation depth), and the cross-modal activation of auditory brain regions by visual stimuli were related to hearing status and behavioural speech perception scores. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), an optical neuroimaging technique that is safe for repeated use with CI users of all ages, throughout the research. We successfully recorded cortical responses in frontal and temporal brain regions elicited by auditory and visual stimuli in NH children and CI users. We found that fNIRS responses were not left lateralised in paediatric NH individuals. NH children and CI users with good speech perception both elicited statistically significantly stronger responses to modulated and intelligible speech than unmodulated and unintelligible auditory signals. However, good CI users demonstrated statistically significantly greater activation to visual speech than NH listeners, indicating that these two groups process auditory, but not visual, input in a similar way. These promising findings demonstrate the potential for developing fNIRS into an objective measure to evaluate speech perception in paediatric CI users. This research forms an important and valuable step towards not only learning about which stimulus combinations offer the greatest functional contrast between good and poor CI performers, but also identifying cortical mechanisms that may influence CI outcome