Home bitter home? Gender, living arrangements, and the exclusion from homeownership among older Europeans

Abstract Homeownership is the most important asset among the elderly in Europe, but very little is known about gender and living arrangement differences in this domain. This paper aims at exploring patterns of exclusion from homeownership among middle-aged and older Europeans from a gender perspective, and with a special focus on their household composition. The analysis is based on the fourth wave of the “Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe” and includes a sub-sample of about 56,000 individuals aged 50 or over, living in 16 European countries. We estimated a set of multinomial logit models to examine the probability of being either tenant or rent-free occupiers versus homeowners. Our findings show that women are generally more likely to be excluded from homeownership than men. Nevertheless, a closer look suggests that the gender gap in homeownership is essentially generated by compositional differences between men and women, with the most relevant factor being household type. Older women are almost as twice as likely as men to live alone, which is associated—other things being equal—with a particular low likelihood to be homeowners virtually in every European country

Immunochemical analysis of cathepsin B in lung tumours: an independent prognostic factor for squamous cell carcinoma patients

In order to evaluate the possible role of the proteolytic enzyme cathepsin B (cath B) in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) we examined cath B concentrations (cath Bc) and activities (cath BA) in homogenates of 127 pairs of lung tumour tissues and corresponding non-tumourous lung parenchyma. Total cath B activity (cath BAT) and enzymatic activity of the fraction of cath B, which is stable and active at pH 7.5 (cath BA7.5) were determined by a fluorogenic assay using synthetic substrate Z-Arg-Arg-AMC. The immunostaining pattern of cath B was determined in 239 lung tumour tissue sections, showing the presence of the enzyme in tumour cells (cath BT-I) and in tumour-associated histiocytes (cath BH-I). The median levels of cath BAT, cath BA7.5 and cath BC were 5.6-, 3.2- and 9.1-fold higher (P < 0.001), respectively, in tumour tissue than in non-tumourous lung parenchyma. Out of 131 tissue sections from patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 59.5% immunostained positively for cath B, while among the 108 adenocarcinoma (AC) patients 48.2% of tumours showed a positive reaction. There was a strong relationship between the levels of cath BAT, cath BA7.5, cath BC and cath BT-I in the primary tumours and the presence of lymph node metastases. Significant correlation with overall survival was observed for cath BT-I and cath BA7.5 (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05, respectively) in patients suffering from SCC. In these patients positive cath B in tumour cells (cath BT-I) and negative cath B in histiocytes (cath BH-I) indicated significantly shorter survival rate compared with patients with negative cath BT-I and positive cath BH-I (P < 0.0001). In contrast, in AC patients, both, positive cath BT-I and positive cath BH-I, indicated poor survival probability (P < 0.014). From these results we conclude that the proteolytic enzyme cath B is an independent prognostic factor for overall survival of patients suffering from SCC of the lung. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Thermal Conductivity Performance of Polypropylene Composites Filled with Polydopamine-Functionalized Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Mussel-inspired approach was attempted to non-covalently functionalize the surfaces of boron nitride (BN) with self-polymerized dopamine coatings in order to reduce the interfacial thermal barrier and enhance the thermal conductivity of BN-containing composites. Compared to the polypropylene (PP) composites filled with pristine BN at the same filler content, thermal conductivity was much higher for those filled with both functionalized BN (f-BN) and maleic anhydride grafted PP (PP-g-ma) due to the improved filler dispersion and better interfacial filler-matrix compatibility, which facilitated the development of more thermal paths. Theoretical models were also applied to predict the composite thermal conductivity in which the Nielsen model was found to fit well with the experimental results, and the estimated effective aspect ratio of fillers well corresponded to the degree of filler aggregation as observed in the morphological study