46 research outputs found
Inequality and Income Dynamics in Germany
We provide a comprehensive analysis of income inequality and income dynamics for Germany over the last two decades. Combining personal income tax and social security data allows us – for the first time – to offer a complete picture of the distribution of annual earnings in Germany. We find that cross-sectional inequality rose until 2009 for men and women. After the Great Recession inequality continued to rise at a slower rate for men and fell slightly for women due to compression at the lower tail. We further document substantial gender differences in average earnings and inequality over the life-cycle. While for men earnings rise and inequality falls as they grow older, many women reduce working hours when starting a family such that average earnings fall and inequality increases. Men’s earnings changes are on average smaller than women’s but are substantially more affected by the business cycle. During the Great Recession, men’s earnings losses become magnified and gains are attenuated. Apart from recession years, earnings changes are significantly right-skewed reflecting the good overall state of the German labor market and increasing labor supply. In the second part of the paper, we study the distribution of total income including incomes of self-employed, business owners, and landlords. We find that total inequality increased significantly more than earnings inequality. Regarding income dynamics, entrepreneurs’ income changes are more dispersed, less skewed, less leptokurtic and less dependent on average past income than workers’ income changes. Finally, we find that top income earners have become less likely to fall out of the top 1 and 0.1 percent
Controlling non-stationarity and periodicities in time series generation using conditional invertible neural networks
Enhancing anomaly detection methods for energy time series using latent space data representations
Local intratracheal delivery of perfluorocarbon nanoparticles to lung cancer demonstrated with magnetic resonance multimodal imaging
Unique Cell Type-Specific Junctional Complexes in Vascular Endothelium of Human and Rat Liver Sinusoids
Liver sinusoidal endothelium is strategically positioned to control access of fluids, macromolecules and cells to the liver parenchyma and to serve clearance functions upstream of the hepatocytes. While clearance of macromolecular debris from the peripheral blood is performed by liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) using a delicate endocytic receptor system featuring stabilin-1 and -2, the mannose receptor and CD32b, vascular permeability and cell trafficking are controlled by transcellular pores, i.e. the fenestrae, and by intercellular junctional complexes. In contrast to blood vascular and lymphatic endothelial cells in other organs, the junctional complexes of LSECs have not yet been consistently characterized in molecular terms. In a comprehensive analysis, we here show that LSECs express the typical proteins found in endothelial adherens junctions (AJ), i.e. VE-cadherin as well as α-, β-, p120-catenin and plakoglobin. Tight junction (TJ) transmembrane proteins typical of endothelial cells, i.e. claudin-5 and occludin, were not expressed by rat LSECs while heterogenous immunreactivity for claudin-5 was detected in human LSECs. In contrast, junctional molecules preferentially associating with TJ such as JAM-A, B and C and zonula occludens proteins ZO-1 and ZO-2 were readily detected in LSECs. Remarkably, among the JAMs JAM-C was considerably over-expressed in LSECs as compared to lung microvascular endothelial cells. In conclusion, we show here that LSECs form a special kind of mixed-type intercellular junctions characterized by co-occurrence of endothelial AJ proteins, and of ZO-1 and -2, and JAMs. The distinct molecular architecture of the intercellular junctional complexes of LSECs corroborates previous ultrastructural findings and provides the molecular basis for further analyses of the endothelial barrier function of liver sinusoids under pathologic conditions ranging from hepatic inflammation to formation of liver metastasis
The HMC Information Portal for Enhanced Metadata Collaboration in the Helmholtz FAIR Data Space
Análise de timol em cera de abelha por micro-extracção em fase sólida (SPME)
A aplicação contínua de acaricídas lipofílicos sintéticos no tratamento das
abelhas conduz a uma acumulação que depende da frequência, lipofilicidade e
quantidade de princípio activo utilizada. Este efeito é mais acentuado na cera
de abelha que no mel, no entanto, e porque a persistência destes resíduos é
elevada, provoca o aparecimento de resistências e a perda do seu efeito
acaricida.[1] Esta razão levou à pesquisa de outros compostos alternativos não
tóxicos e não persistentes, com efeito sobre o ácaro das abelhas, Varroa
Jacobsoni. Entre estes compostos encontra-se o timol, um composto fenólico,
volátil, presente no tomilho. Dos diversos componentes dos óleos essenciais
este é sem dúvida o que demonstrou maior efeito acaricida, utilizando-se no
tratamento das abelhas directamente ou como componente de diversas
formulações.[2] Em Portugal, foi introduzido muito recentemente sob a forma
comercial de APIGUARD: um gel, à base de timol, que controla termicamente a
libertação do princípio activo.
O controlo dos resíduos de timol na cera de abelha e no mel é assim um
desafio actual quer do ponto de vista sanitário quer de qualidade alimentar.
A micro-extracção em fase sólida (SPME) é uma técnica de preparação de
amostras que se baseia na sorção de analítos no revestimento de uma fibra de
sílica fundida e posterior desorção térmica no injector de um cromatógrafo em
fase gasosa (GC). Para além de combinar num único processo etapas de
extracção, purificação e concentração dos analitos, a técnica de SPME
apresenta uma série de vantagens relativamente às técnicas de extracção
convencionais, como a extracção líquido-líquido e extracção em fase sólida,
nomeadamente a sua relativa simplicidade e rapidez, reduzido custo e não
utilização de solventes para a extracção de analitos, para além de permitir a
extracção por imersão directa na amostra gasosa ou líquida e extracção por
amostragem do espaço-de-cabeça da amostra líquida ou sólida.[3] Ao contrário
das técnicas tradicionais, que permitem uma extracção quantitativa dos
analitos, a técnica de SPME baseia-se num equilíbrio de partição do analito.
Esta particularidade torna a técnica de SPME bastante sensível a parâmetros
experimentais que possam afectar os coeficientes de partição dos analitos e,
consequentemente, a sensibilidade e reprodutibilidade dos resultados.[4]
O objectivo deste trabalho é o desenvolvimento de uma metodologia para a
análise de timol em ceras contaminadas, utilizando como padrão interno a
benzofenona. Em primeiro lugar, procedeu-se à optimização da técnica através
da determinação da quantidade de cera, temperatura de análise e período de
contacto da fibra com o espaço-de-cabeça da amostra mais adequados para o
caso em estudo. Numa segunda fase, procedeu-se à análise de diversas
lâminas de cera contaminadas propositadamente com timol e sujeitas a
diferentes condições de armazenamento: em frio, ao ar e em estufa.
Finalmente, procedeu-se à construção da curva de calibração e quantificação
do timol presente nas diversas amostras de cera analisadas.
Considerando-se os resultados, para os níveis de contaminação avaliados, as
condições analíticas mais adequadas ocorrem com a utilização de 1 g de cera,
mantendo-se a fibra em contacto com o espaço-de-cabeça durante 40 minutos
a uma temperatura de 60 ºC. Nestas condições experimentais foi possível obter
uma boa correlação linear (r2=0,990) no intervalo de concentrações [3,5-14
mg/g]. A quantidade de timol encontrada nas amostras é significativamente
inferior à colocada durante o processo de fabrico das lâminas, pelo que o
processo de conservação não é o mais adequado, sendo evidente uma menor
quantidade de timol quando a lâmina de cera é colocada na estufa
Ambulance location for maximum survival
This article proposes new location models for emergency medical service stations. The models are generated by incorporating a survival function into existing covering models. A survival function is a monotonically decreasing function of the response time of an emergency medical service (EMS) vehicle to a patient that returns the probability of survival for the patient. The survival function allows for the calculation of tangible outcome measures—the expected number of survivors in case of cardiac arrests. The survival-maximizing location models are better suited for EMS location than the covering models which do not adequately differentiate between consequences of different response times. We demonstrate empirically the superiority of the survival-maximizing models using data from the Edmonton EMS system.NSERCpre-prin
Impact of Sex on Cardiovascular Outcome in Patients at High Cardiovascular Risk Analysis of the Telmisartan Randomized Assessment Study in ACE-Intolerant Subjects With Cardiovascular Disease (TRANSCEND) and the Ongoing Telmisartan Alone and in Combination With Ramipril Global End Point Trial (ONTARGET)
Background-Epidemiological data suggest that sex independently contributes to cardiovascular risk. Clinical trials are often hampered by the enrollment of few female patients. Methods and Results-The Ongoing Telmisartan Alone and in Combination With Ramipril Global End Point Trial (ONTARGET) and the parallel Telmisartan Randomized Assessment Study in ACE Intolerant Subjects With Cardiovascular Disease (TRANSCEND) included a large proportion of female patients (9378 female versus 22 168 male patients). Differences in male and female patients enrolled in ONTARGET/TRANSCEND were analyzed for the primary 4-fold end point (composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, stroke, or admission to hospital for heart failure), a secondary 3-fold end point (cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, stroke), and individual components of the primary composite. Baseline characteristics included age, ethnicity, body mass index, physical activity, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, formal education, clinical diagnosis for study entry, patient history, and concomitant medication. Patients were followed up until death or the end of the study (median, 56 months). Compared with male patients, female patients had a 19% significantly lower risk for the 4-fold end point and 21% for the 3-fold end point (after adjustment for study, treatment, and the above baseline values). Similarly, the adjusted risk for cardiovascular death (17%) and myocardial infarction (22%), but not for stroke and hospitalization for heart failure, was also significantly lower in women. Diabetic female patients were characterized by a higher risk for acute myocardial infarction compared with diabetic male patients, whereas alcohol consumption resulted in significantly lower risk in women. Conclusions-In our analysis made up of 70.3% male and 29.7% female patients, an approximate to 20% lower risk for the combined cardiovascular end points in female patients was observed despite treatment with cardioprotective agents. This difference was driven primarily by a significantly lower incidence of myocardial infarction. Thus, we demonstrate in a large interventional trial that sex greatly affects the occurrence of cardiovascular events in patients with vascular disease or high-risk diabetes mellitus