Economic reforms and rising inequality in Panama in the 1990s

In the first years of the 1990s, Panama’ s economy strongly recovered from the deep crisis at the end of the previous decade. The government implemented a stabilization programme and initiated a reform process geared at economic liberalization in the spirit of those implemented throughout Latin America. The surge in capital inflows was the key factor underlying the boom in private consumption and in construction investment, which drove the high growth performance. This allowed for a reduction of unemployment and an increase of wage employment in the formal sector of the economy. Both these labour market outcomes were conducive of a reduction in urban poverty and inequality between 1991 and 1994. Growth slowed down and poverty stabilized during the period of economic reforms implemented between 1994 and 1998, but urban inequality increased again. Applying an innovative method of counterfactual microsimulations, the paper shows that the reduction of both urban and rural poverty and inequality between 1990 and 1997 was principally due to the macroeconomic effects that led to higher rates of economic participation and employment. This positive impact of macroeconomic effects was partially offset by that of the changes in the structure of the labour market, in particular the shift towards greater demand for skilled labour relative to unskilled labour and a rise in the share of informal sector employment. These labour market adjustments associated with the process of trade liberalisation and other economic reforms had the effect of a rise in inequality

Ювілеї та пам’ятні дати

Native mass spectrometry is emerging as a powerful tool for the characterization of intact antibodies and antibody-based therapeutics. Here, we demonstrate new possibilities provided by the implementation of a high mass quadrupole mass selector on the recently introduced Orbitrap Exactive EMR mass spectrometer. This configuration allows precursor ion selection, and thus tandem mass spectrometry experiments, even on analytes with masses in the hundreds of kilodaltons. We apply tandem mass spectrometry to localize the drug molecules in the therapeutic antibody-drug conjugate brentuximab vedotin, which displays a heterogeneous drug load. Our tandem MS data reveal that drug conjugation takes place nonhomogeneously to cysteine residues both on the light and heavy chains. Next, we analyzed how many antigens bind to IgG hexamers, based on a recently described antibody mutant IgG1-RGY that forms hexamers and activates complement in solution. The fully saturated IgG1-RGY-antigen complexes displayed a stoichiometry of IgG:CD38 of 6:12, possessing a molecular weight of about 1.26 MDa and demonstrating that IgG assembly does not hamper antigen binding. Through tandem MS experiments, we retrieve information about the spatial arrangement and stoichiometry of the subunits within this complex. These examples underscore the potential of this further modified Orbitrap-EMR instrument especially for the in-depth characterization by native tandem mass spectrometry of antibodies and antibody-based constructs

Conformational studies of peptides representing a segment of TM7 from H+-VO-ATPase in SDS micelles

The conformation of a transmembrane peptide, sMTM7, encompassing the cytoplasmic hemi-channel domain of the seventh transmembrane section of subunit a from V-ATPase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae solubilized in SDS solutions was studied by circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy of the single tryptophan residue of this peptide. The results show that the peptide adopts an α-helical conformation or aggregated β-sheet depending on the peptide-to-SDS ratio used. The results are compared with published data about a longer version of the peptide (i.e., MTM7). It is concluded that the bulky, positively charged arginine residue located in the center of both peptides has a destabilizing effect on the helical conformation of the SDS-solubilized peptides, leading to β-sheet formation and subsequent aggregation

Nuclear Localization of CXCR4 Determines Prognosis for Colorectal Cancer Patients

Chemokines and their receptors are implicated in formation of colorectal cancer metastases. Especially CXCR4 is an important factor, determining migration, invasiveness, metastasis and proliferation of colorectal cancer cells. Object of this study was to determine expression of CXCR4 in tumor tissue of colorectal cancer patients and associate CXCR4 expression levels to clinicopathological parameters. Levels of CXCR4 expression of a random cohort of patients, who underwent primary curative resection of a colorectal carcinoma, were retrospectively determined by quantitative real-time RT-PCR and semi-quantitative analyses of immunohistochemical stained paraffin sections. Expression levels were associated to clinicopathological parameters. Using RT-PCR we found that a high expression of CXCR4 in the primary tumor was an independent prognostic factor for a poor disease free survival (p = 0.03, HR: 2.0, CI = 1.1–3.7). Immunohistochemical staining showed that nuclear distribution of CXCR4 in the tumor cells was inversely associated with disease free and overall survival (p = 0.04, HR: 2.6, CI = 1.0–6.2), while expression in the cytoplasm was not associated with prognosis. In conclusion, our study showed that a high expression of nuclear localized CXCR4 in tumor cells is an independent predictor for poor survival for colorectal cancer patients

Efficiency of immediate postoperative inpatient physical therapy following total knee arthroplasty: an RCT

BACKGROUND: The main goal of physical therapy treatment (PT) in the clinical stage following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is to prepare patients for discharge from the hospital as soon as possible after their operation. Although aggressive rehabilitation is believed to be important, evidence of effects of different exercise programmes following TKA is limited. This led to the question whether the intensity of PT (once versus twice daily) following TKA affects short-term recovery, measured as range of motion. METHODS: A randomised controlled trial compared an exercise regimen of two sessions per day with a similar programme administered once daily. Primary outcome measure was ROM. RESULTS: At the time of hospital discharge, there was no difference between the experimental and control groups in range of motion. CONCLUSION: This study shows that in our setting twice daily PT sessions do not produce different results as daily PT sessions. It may be questioned whether multiple daily therapy sessions are needed as an in-hospital PT regimen in OA total knee patients

The Herschel–ATLAS data release 2, Paper I. Submillimeter and far-infrared images of the South and North Galactic Poles: the largest Herschel survey of the extragalactic sky

We present the largest submillimeter images that have been made of the extragalactic sky. The Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) is a survey of 660 deg2 with the PACS and SPIRE cameras in five photometric bands: 100, 160, 250, 350, and 500 μm. In this paper we present the images from our two largest fields, which account for ~75% of the survey. The first field is 180.1 deg2 in size, centered on the north Galactic pole (NGP), and the second is 317.6 deg2 in size, centered on the south Galactic pole. The NGP field serendipitously contains the Coma cluster. Over most (~80%) of the images, the pixel noise, including both instrumental noise and confusion noise, is approximately 3.6, and 3.5 mJy pix−1 at 100 and 160 μm, and 11.0, 11.1 and 12.3 mJy beam−1 at 250, 350 and 500 μm, respectively, but reaches lower values in some parts of the images. If a matched filter is applied to optimize point-source detection, our total 1σ map sensitivity is 5.7, 6.0, and 7.3 mJy at 250, 350, and 500 μm, respectively. We describe the results of an investigation of the noise properties of the images. We make the most precise estimate of confusion in SPIRE maps to date, finding values of 3.12 ± 0.07, 4.13 ± 0.02, and 4.45 ± 0.04 mJy beam−1 at 250, 350, and 500 μm in our un-convolved maps. For PACS we find an estimate of the confusion noise in our fast-parallel observations of 4.23 and 4.62 mJy beam−1 at 100 and 160 μm. Finally, we give recipes for using these images to carry out photometry, both for unresolved and extended sources

In-depth Characterization of Vaccine Breakthrough Infections With SARS-CoV-2 Among Health Care Workers in a Dutch Academic Medical Center

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection after coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination raises concerns about the emergence of vaccine escape variants. Here we characterize 14 breakthrough infections among 5860 fully vaccinated Dutch health care workers ≥14 days after the final dose of vaccination with either BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, or Ad26.COV2.S. These breakthrough infections presented with regular B.1.1.7 (Alpha) and B.1.617.2 (Delta) variants and high viral loads, despite normal vaccine-induced B- and T-cell immune responses detected by live virus neutralization assays and ELISpot. High-risk exposure settings, such as in households, indicate a potential risk of viral transmission despite full vaccination