Magnetostratigraphy of the Lower Triassic beds from Chaohu(China) and its implications for the Induan–Olenekian stage boundary.

A magnetostratigraphic study was performed on the lower 44 m of the West Pingdingshan section near Chaohu city, (Anhui province, China) in order to provide a magnetic polarity scale for the early Triassic. Data from 295 paleomagnetic samples is integrated with a detailed biostratigraphy and lithostratigraphy. The tilt-corrected mean direction from the West Pingdingshan section, passes the reversal and fold tests. The overall mean direction after tilt correction is D=299.9º, I=18.3º (κ=305.2, α95=1.9, N=19). The inferred paleolatitude of the sampling sites (31.6ºN, 117.8ºE) is about 9.4º, consistent with the stable South China block (SCB), though the declinations indicate some 101o counter-clockwise rotations with respect to the stable SCB since the Early Triassic. Low-field anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility indicates evidence of weak strain. The lower part of the Yinkeng Formation is dominated by reversed polarity, with four normal polarity magnetozones (WP2n to WP5n), with evidence of some thinner (<0.5 m thick) normal magnetozones. The continuous magnetostratigraphy from the Yinkeng Formation, provides additional high-resolution details of the polarity pattern through the later parts of the Induan into the lowest Olenekian. The magnetostratigraphic and biostratigraphic data shows the conodont marker for the base of the Olenekian (first presence of Neospathodus waageni) is shortly prior to the base of normal magnetozone WP5n. This provides a secondary marker for mapping the base of the Olenekian into successions without conodonts. This section provides the only well-integrated study from a Tethyan section across this boundary, but problems remain in definitively relating this boundary into Boreal sections with magnetostratigraphy

Concilier vie professionnelle et aide informelle à un parent âgé

Cet article met en perspective le taux d’emploi et d’aide informelle parmi les 50-64 ans ayant au moins un parent vivant dans quatre pays européens, sur les deux dernières vagues disponibles l’enquête « Share » 2010 et 2012 (Vagues 4 et 5). En effet, l’allongement de l’espérance de vie et le recul de l’âge de départ à la retraite questionnent l’articulation entre vie professionnelle et aide informelle à un parent âgé. En outre, l’engagement de plus en plus important des femmes sur les marchés du travail en Europe alors que celles-ci sont les principales aidantes des parents âgés fait craindre une pression d’autant plus forte sur les systèmes de protection sociale. La perception de l’état de santé du parent joue un rôle primordial sur l’aide apportée à celui-ci, et l’intensité de cette aide joue également un rôle important dans la probabilité d’être en emploi.This paper puts into perspective employment rates and help given to parents by adults aged 50-64 years with at least one parent alive in four European countries. The data are from the Waves 4 and 5 of the “Share” survey collected in 2010 and 2012. Increasing life expectancy and policies directed towards active ageing and postponing retirement bring into question the articulation between the end of professional life and support given to an ageing parent. The continued increase of older women in the labour market is placing pressure on informal systems of care for older people. The perception of the health status of a parent is an important factor influencing the provision of help and the intensity of help interacts with the probability of being in paid employment

Continuity or Change? Older People in Three Urban Areas

The post war period has witnessed considerable changes affecting family structures and social relationships both within, and between, the generations. Recent research has examined the impact of these changes on the lives of older people living in three contrasting areas of England: Bethnal Green (a deprived, ethnically diverse, inner city are of London with a history of transient populations), Wolverhampton (an industrial and multi-cultural Midlands Metropolitan Borough, which experienced substantial redevelopment and slum clearance) and Woodford (a relatively affluent, ageing suburb in North East London). Against a background of growing concern about the increasing numbers of older people, these three areas provided the locations for a number of classic community studies undertaken in the 1940s and 50s: The Family Life of Old People (Townsend, 1957), Family and Class in a London Suburb (Willmott and Young, 1960), and The Social Medicine of Old Age (Sheldon, 1948). The original studies examined the thesis that, in the context of a developing welfare state, families were leaving the old to fend for themselves. The reality, however, was somewhat different as the rich material about the social and family networks of elderly people was to demonstrate. The focus of the paper is on reporting some of the key changes and continuities in intergenerational contact and support between the baseline studies and research undertaken in the mid 1990s in the three areas. Using both survey data and case study material, ways in which intergenerational support and care is exchanged, reciprocated and managed will be discussed. Particular reference is made to mother- daughter relationships, which highlight continuity in relation to the importance of this relationship within the older person's network, but also illustrates change in the way this is experienced by both older and younger generations.family structure; intergenerational relationships

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2–4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

A blood atlas of COVID-19 defines hallmarks of disease severity and specificity.

Treatment of severe COVID-19 is currently limited by clinical heterogeneity and incomplete description of specific immune biomarkers. We present here a comprehensive multi-omic blood atlas for patients with varying COVID-19 severity in an integrated comparison with influenza and sepsis patients versus healthy volunteers. We identify immune signatures and correlates of host response. Hallmarks of disease severity involved cells, their inflammatory mediators and networks, including progenitor cells and specific myeloid and lymphocyte subsets, features of the immune repertoire, acute phase response, metabolism, and coagulation. Persisting immune activation involving AP-1/p38MAPK was a specific feature of COVID-19. The plasma proteome enabled sub-phenotyping into patient clusters, predictive of severity and outcome. Systems-based integrative analyses including tensor and matrix decomposition of all modalities revealed feature groupings linked with severity and specificity compared to influenza and sepsis. Our approach and blood atlas will support future drug development, clinical trial design, and personalized medicine approaches for COVID-19

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

Gendered impacts of extended working life on the health and economic wellbeing of older workers

This special issue focuses on the gendered impact of extending working life on the health and economic wellbeing of older workers. Since research on this increasingly important area of policy interest is well developed in some countries and newly emerging in others, a special issue provides an opportunity for scholars to access a variety of methods across different national contexts. Extending the working life is today widely promoted by international policy organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and adopted by many governments as a necessary policy response to ageing populations. However, these policies have been introduced rather quickly without adequate consideration of their gender and health implications, and the papers here explore aspects of the often complex effects. Most European and other Western countries have implemented reforms to their public pension systems, mainly by increasing the statutory pension age and applying actuarial discount factors for earlier retirement, but also by closing special early exit pathways, tightening eligibility rules and lengthening the required duration of contributions (OECD, 2017). The structural rise in the labour force participation of women and the growth of service and public-sector employment have also contributed to extending working life (European Commission, 2018). As a result, employment rates in many European countries have risen steadily in the age group 55–64 over the past ten years although the trends vary considerably between men and women and between countries. These trends indicate that besides the institutional context, other macro-level factors also influence the extension of the working life. For instance, the global financial crisis that began in 2008 had a more or less severe impact on the employment prospects of older workers in different countries. In Spain, the employment rate among older men fell from 58.5 per cent in 2004 to 54 per cent in 2015 whereas during the same period it almost doubled in Germany among women – from 34 to 61.2 per cent (Eurostat, 2016). The increasing precariousness of employment also poses global structural challenges to employment prospects for older workers (Vosko, 2008; Standing, 2011; Ní Léime et al., 2015). At the meso-level, the attitudes of employers to maintaining or hiring older workers strongly influence the possibility and nature of their participation in the labour market (Gringart et al., 2005; Loretto and White, 2006; Kluge and Krings, 2008; Conen et al., 2012). At the individual level, factors such as health and disability, and family configurations play an important role in determining the timing of retirement as well as the experience of working longer (Ogg and Renaut, 2006; Berntson and Marklund, 2007; Brugiavini et al., 2008; Calvo et al., 2013). All of these factors interact and give rise to different trends between countries and different experiences of men and women within countries. Extended working life policies have been introduced apparently without adequate consideration of the gender implications for different groups of older workers – those in precarious and secure occupations, physically demanding jobs or sedentary jobs.Each paper in this special issue is based on work from COST Action IS1409 Gender and Health Impacts of Policies Extending Working Life in Western Countries, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).peer-reviewe

Mobilité et choix résidentiels en Grande-Bretagne

INTRODUCTION Pourquoi déménager ? La réponse à cette question n’est pas évidente. Depuis le travail considérable effectué par Peter Rossi à Philadelphia dans les années 1950 [Rossi, 1955], la plupart des chercheurs s’entendent sur le fait que la mobilité résidentielle résulte d’une combinaison de plusieurs facteurs, qui relèvent d’une part des choix individuels et, d’autre part, de l’accessibilité des logements. Ces facteurs dépendent en même temps du contexte institutionnel et culturel de ch..

Transitions and pathways to living alone Changes in living arrangements amongst older people in late modernity

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