The impact of monetary incentives on general fertility rates in Western Australia

Background: There has been widespread international concern about declining fertility rates and the long-term negative consequences particularly for industrialised countries with ageing populations. In an attempt to boost fertility rates, the Australian Government introduced a maternity payment known as the Baby Bonus. However, major concerns have been raised that such monetary incentives would attract teenagers and socially disadvantaged groups. Methods: Population-level data and generalised linear models were used to examine general fertility rates between 1995 and 2006 by socioeconomic group, maternal age group, Aboriginality and location in Western Australia prior to and following the introduction of the Baby Bonus in July 2004.Results: After a steady decline in general fertility rates between 1995 and 2004, rates increased significantly from 52.2 births per 1000 women, aged between 15 and 49 years, in 2004 to 58.6 births per 1000 women in 2006. While there was an overall increase in general fertility rates after adjusting for maternal socio-demographic characteristics, there were no significant differences among maternal age groups (p=0.98), between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women(p=0.80), maternal residential locations (p=0.98) or socioeconomic groups (p=0.68). The greatest increase in births were among women residing in the highest socioeconomic areas who had the lowest general fertility rate in 2004 (21.5 births per 1000 women) but the highest in 2006 (38.1 births per 1000 women). Conclusions: Findings suggest that for countries with similar social, economic and political climates to Australia, a monetary incentive may provide a satisfactory solution to declining general fertility rates

Excited states in the twisted XXZ spin chain

We compute the finite size spectrum for the spin 1/2 XXZ chain with twisted boundary conditions, for anisotropy in the regime $0< \gamma <\pi/2$, and arbitrary twist $\theta$. The string hypothesis is employed for treating complex excitations. The Bethe Ansatz equtions are solved within a coupled non-linear integral equation approach, with one equation for each type of string. The root-of-unity quantum group invariant periodic chain reduces to the XXZ_1/2 chain with a set of twist boundary conditions ($\pi/\gamma\in Z$, $\theta$ an integer multiple of $\gamma$). For this model, the restricted Hilbert space corresponds to an unitary conformal field theory, and we recover all primary states in the Kac table in terms of states with specific twist and strings.Comment: 16 pages, Latex; added discussion on quantum group invariance and arbitrary magnon numbe

Trópicos Úmidos: resumos informativos.

Agronomia. Botânica geral e sistemática. Ciências florestais. Climatologia e meteorologia. Doençaas e pragas. Ecologia vegetal. Econômia e desenvolvimento agrícola. Fisiologia vegetal. Fitogeografia (florística e distribuição). Fitoquímica. Geologia. Limnologia. Melhoramento de plantas. Morfologia e anatomia vegetal. Recursos naturais. Solos. Tecnologia. Zootecnica. Autores do v. 2 Aloizio de Arruda Pinto, Maria Elita Batista, João Batista Tavares da Silva, Miriam Dalva Lima Martins, Nazira Leite Nassar. Ano de edição 1978. v. 3 Neusa Catarina Pinheiro Garcia, Zilda Maria de Araújo Ribeiro, João Batista Tavares da Silva. Ano de edição 1980. v. 4 Zilda Maria de Araújo Ribeiro, João Batista Tavares da Silva, Maria Elita Batista de Castro, Hozana Alvares de Oliveira. Ano de edição 1986. A 1ª edição do v. 1 foi em 1977 e a 1ª Reimpressão em 1979

Global environmental changes: setting priorities for Latin American coastal habitats.

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.comThe Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) reports that Global Environmental Changes (GEC) are occurring quicker than at any other time over the last 25 million years and impacting upon marine environments (Bellard et al., 2012). There is overwhelming evidence showing that GEC are affecting both the quality and quantity of the goods and services provided by a wide range of marine ecosystems. In order to discuss regional preparedness for global environmental changes, a workshop was held in Ilhabela, Brazil (22- 26 April 2012) entitled "Evaluating the Sensitivity of Central and South American Benthic Communities to Global Environmental Changes" that drew together scientists from ten Latin American and three European countries. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Das CPCJ aos tribunais da relação : caracterização dos processos de promoção e proteção

O progressivo reconhecimento do lugar que as crianças e jovens ocupam na sociedade enquanto sujeitos de direitos e a importância de incentivar, desenvolver e assegurar o exercício efetivo dos mesmos, tem convocado os interventores políticos e sociais para a observância de boas práticas em matéria de infância e juventude. Mas nem sempre foi desta forma, e existirá ainda um longo caminho a percorrer no que respeita a esta temática. Neste trabalho foi feito o enquadramento da evolução dos direitos da criança até se chegar à intervenção no âmbito da Lei 147/99. Esta intervenção foi depois seguida, desde o seu início até à chegada a sede judicial, através da análise de 92 acórdãos que implicam a matéria de facto. Obtiveram-se resultados que apontam para a maior frequência da aplicabilidade das medidas de “confiança a instituição com vista a futura adoção” e “acolhimento residencial” pelos Tribunais de Família e Menores e da Relação. Também foi possível apurar que a maioria dos recursos são indeferidos pelos Tribunais de Relação. Este estudo aponta para a necessidade de intervenção precoce em matéria de promoção e protecção, para que se possam evitar muitas vezes situações remediativas que acontecem, assim como para a importância do trabalho de acompanhamento das famíliasThe progressive recognition of the place that children and young people have in society as subjects of rights and the importance of encourage, develop and secure its effective exercise, has summoned the political and social intervenors to observe good practices within childhood and youth. It hasn’t always been like this and there’s still a long way to run regarding this issue. In this report we’ve approached the children’s rights evolution until reaching the intervention under the law 147/99. This intervention has been followed since its beginning until reaching the judicial seat, through the analysis of judgements which imply this matter.Results were obtained which aim to a greater frequency of the applicability of measures related with “the trust on an institution regarding a future adoption” and “child residential reception”. Among other results, it was also possible to gather that most of the appeals are denied by Supreme Court. This study aims to the need of early intervention, which can avoid many of the fixing situations happening, as well as the importance of working with the families and families monitoring

Engineering Design with Digital Thread

Digital Thread offers the opportunity to use information generated across the product lifecycle to design the next generation of products. In this paper, we introduce a mathematical methodology that establishes the data-driven design and decision problem associated with Digital Thread. Our objectives are twofold: 1) Provide a mathematical definition of Digital Thread in the context of conceptual and preliminary design and establish a methodology for how information along the Digital Thread enters into the design problem as well how design decisions affect the Digital Thread. 2) Develop a data-driven design method that incorporates data from different sources from across the product life cycle. We illustrate aspects of our methodology through an example design of a structural fiber-steered composite component.United States. Air Force. Office of Scientific Research (Grant FA9550-16-1-0108)SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC

Nuclear Vav3 is required for polycomb repression complex-1 activity in B-cell lymphoblastic leukemogenesis

Acute B-cell lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) results from oligo-clonal evolution of B-cell progenitors endowed with initiating and propagating leukemia properties. The activation of both the Rac guanine nucleotide exchange factor (Rac GEF) Vav3 and Rac GTPases is required for leukemogenesis mediated by the oncogenic fusion protein BCR-ABL. Vav3 expression becomes predominantly nuclear upon expression of BCR-ABL signature. In the nucleus, Vav3 interacts with BCR-ABL, Rac, and the polycomb repression complex (PRC) proteins Bmi1, Ring1b and Ezh2. The GEF activity of Vav3 is required for the proliferation, Bmi1-dependent B-cell progenitor self-renewal, nuclear Rac activation, protein interaction with Bmi1, mono-ubiquitination of H2A(K119) (H2AK119Ub) and repression of PRC-1 (PRC1) downstream target loci, of leukemic B-cell progenitors. Vav3 deficiency results in de-repression of negative regulators of cell proliferation and repression of oncogenic transcriptional factors. Mechanistically, we show that Vav3 prevents the Phlpp2-sensitive and Akt (S473)-dependent phosphorylation of Bmi1 on the regulatory residue S314 that, in turn, promotes the transcriptional factor reprogramming of leukemic B-cell progenitors. These results highlight the importance of non-canonical nuclear Rho GTPase signaling in leukemogenesis.This project was funded by the National Institutes of Health Grants R01-CA273016 (N.N.N. and J.A.C.) and U54-DK126108 (J.A.C.), the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of North America (J.A.C and N.N.N.; and N.N.N. and J.A.C.), and William Lawrence & Blanche Hughes Foundation (J.A.C. and N.N.)