Dissemination of a carbapenem-resistant acinetobacter baumannii strain belonging to international clone II/sequence type 2 and harboring a novel abar4-like resistance Island in Latvia

An outbreak of hospital-acquired Acinetobacter baumannii infections, caused by a blaOXA-23-positive carbapenem-resistant strain belonging to international clone II/ST2, was detected in Latvia. The strain was partially equipped with the armA gene and the intI1-aacA4-catB8-aadA1-qacE=1 class 1 integron. In addition, the strain carried AbaR25, a novel AbaR4-like resistance island of̃46,500 bp containing structures similar to the previously described AbaR22 and Tn6167 islands. AbaR25 was characterized by the occurrence of a second copy of Tn6022a interrupted by Tn2006 carrying the blaOXA-23 gene.publishersversionPeer reviewe

Genomic microbial epidemiology is needed to comprehend the global problem of antibiotic resistance and to improve pathogen diagnosis

Contamination of waste effluent from hospitals and intensive food animal production with antimicrobial residues is an immense global problem. Antimicrobial residues exert selection pressures that influence the acquisition of antimicrobial resistance and virulence genes in diverse microbial populations. Despite these concerns there is only a limited understanding of how antimicrobial residues contribute to the global problem of antimicrobial resistance. Furthermore, rapid detection of emerging bacterial pathogens and strains with resistance to more than one antibiotic class remains a challenge. A comprehensive, sequence-based genomic epidemiological surveillance model that captures essential microbial metadata is needed, both to improve surveillance for antimicrobial resistance and to monitor pathogen evolution. Escherichia coli is an important pathogen causing both intestinal [intestinal pathogenic E. coli (IPEC)] and extraintestinal [extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC)] disease in humans and food animals. ExPEC are the most frequently isolated Gram negative pathogen affecting human health, linked to food production practices and are often resistant to multiple antibiotics. Cattle are a known reservoir of IPEC but they are not recognized as a source of ExPEC that impact human or animal health. In contrast, poultry are a recognized source of multiple antibiotic resistant ExPEC, while swine have received comparatively less attention in this regard. Here, we review what is known about ExPEC in swine and how pig production contributes to the problem of antibiotic resistance

THE ESTIMATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WAGES ANDUNEMPLOYMENT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The negative relation between wages and unemployment is not doubtable. Thebargaining model and effective wages model explainthis relationship from thetheoretical point of view. While analyzing the relation between unemploymentand the rate of change of wages, authors refer to Phillips curve. Without doubt inanalyzed relationship authors try to specify it taking additional conditions inconcern, for example regional unemployment or qualification of employees. Theproblem of this research is related with the question: is the strength of the wagegrowth rate and unemployment relation the same across the European Unioncountries? The aim of the research is to analyze negative relationship betweenunemployment and wages from the theoretical point of view and to estimate andcompare this relation in the European Union countries

Growth Effect of Public Debt: The Role of Government Effectiveness and Trade Balance

A growing number of recent works support the idea of debt threshold level (turning point), above which debt starts reducing economic growth. However, estimated threshold varies sharply across studies and gives a little insight into what the optimal level of debt is. The point is that there is no single turning point that could be applied to all countries and a proper investigation is needed on factors, which shape the debt impact on growth. This study aims to investigate whether debt threshold level depends on government effectiveness (one of the aspects of countries’ institutional quality) and trade balance. Our SYS-GMM estimates (and alternatively OLS and LSDV for robustness check) are based on the unbalanced panel of 152 countries over the period of 1996–2016 and on two strategies: (i) splitting of sample into subsamples according to trade balance and government effectiveness and (ii) including debt and government effectiveness, debt and trade deficit interactions. The obtained results are in line with those which confirm inverted U-shaped debt-growth relationship with clear debt turning point dependence on government effectiveness. However, effective governance is not enough to avoid the negative debt effect. Trade balance seems to be more crucial factor than institutional quality, on which threshold level depends

The Output Gap and Youth Unemployment: An Analysis Based on Okun’s Law

The impact of economic fluctuations on the total unemployment rate is widely studied, however, with respect to age- and gender-specific unemployment, this relationship is not so well examined. We apply the gap version of Okun’s law, aiming to estimate youth unemployment rate sensitivity to output deviations from its potential level. Additionally, we aim to compare whether men or women have a higher equilibrium unemployment rate when output is at the potential level. Contrary to most studies on age- and gender-specific Okun’s coefficients, which assume that the effect of output on unemployment is homogenous, we allow a different effect to occur, depending on the output gap’s sign (positive/negative). The focus of the analysis is on 28 EU countries over the period of 2000–2018. The model is estimated by least squares dummy variable estimator (LSDV), using Prais–Winsten standard errors. We did not find evidence that higher equilibrium unemployment rates are more typical for men or for women. The estimates clearly show the equilibrium level of youth unemployment to be well above that of total unemployment, and this conclusion holds for both genders. We assess greater youth unemployment sensitivity to negative output shock, rather than to positive output shock, but when we take confidence intervals into consideration, this conclusion becomes less obvious

Empirical Evidence on Factors Conditioning the Turning Point of the Public Debt–Growth Relationship

This paper contributes to the limited literature on the factors conditioning the turning point of the public debt–growth relationship. A decade after the global financial crisis, when the debt ratio in many countries was still above pre-crisis levels, the COVID-19 pandemic again increased the pressure on public finances. It revived the debate on the ability to promote economic recovery through debt-financed government expenditure. However, more intense government borrowing increases its costs and uncertainty about future taxation policy, thus potentially disturbing private consumption, investment, and economic growth. In this paper, we estimate the thresholds of indicators on which the expenditure multiplier depends, which may already imply a risk that public debt will dampen economic growth. We use a methodology of structural threshold regression to examine the varying effects that debt might have on growth using consumption, investment, taxes, and imports as threshold variables, as well as several other factors suggested by previous contributions. The applied methodology allows for the addressing of parameter heterogeneity and endogeneity to be accounted for at the same time. The main results suggest that a positive debt effect is more likely if the conditions for a high expenditure multiplier are met, that an increase in the public-debt-to-GDP ratio is not necessarily deleterious to growth if shares of private consumption and investment in GDP are high, while the tax-revenue-to-GDP ratio is low

Does Unemployment Responsiveness to Output Change Depend on Age, Gender, Education, and the Phase of the Business Cycle?

The impact of economic growth on unemployment is commonly agreed and extensively studied. However, how age and gender shape this relationship is not as well explored, while there is an absence of research on whether education plays a role. We apply Okun’s law, aiming to estimate age-, gender- and educational attainment level-specific unemployment rate sensitivity to cyclical output fluctuations. Since the empirical literature provides evidence in favour of the non-linear impact of output change on the unemployment rate, supporting higher effects of recessions than that of expansions, we aim to enrich this analysis by estimating how the impact of positive/negative output change on the specific unemployment rate varies with the level of the total unemployment. The analysis is based on 28 European Union (EU) countries and covers the period of 1995–2019. The equations are estimated by least-squares dummy variables (LSDV), using Prais–Winsten standard errors. For the robustness check, we alternatively used Newey–West standard errors to address serial-correlations and heteroscedasticity, and the Arellano–Bond estimator for some specifications that assume dynamics in the panel. The results support previous findings of male- and youth-specific Okun’s coefficients and reveal that they significantly stand out just over the periods of negative output change. Additionally, we find that educational attainment level is an important factor explaining the heterogeneity of unemployment reaction to output change

Antibiotic resistance genes and virulence factors in Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis from diseased farm animals: pigs, cattle and poultry

Eighty enterococcal isolates (E. faecium, n=38, E. faecalis, n=42) from diseased farm animals (swine, cattle, poultry) in Lithuania have been studied for the prevalence of antibiotic resistance and for resistance and virulence genetic determinants. 86% of E. faecium and 71% of E. faecalis isolates were multidrug resistant (resistant to three or more unrelated antibiotics). Resistance to aminoglycosides, tetracycline and erythromycin was found most frequently in both species (61%, 69%) and was linked to aph(3’)-IIIa, aac(6’)-Ie-aph(2”)-Ia, ant(6)-Ia (aminoglycoside resistance), tetM, tetL (tetracycline resistance), ermA, ermB (erythromycin resistance) gene combinations, which were supplemented with chloramphenicol resistance genes catA7, catA8 (E. faecalis) and catA9 (E. faecium). All E. faecalis isolates harboured genes coding for virulence factors agg, esp, fsr gelE alone or in combinations with the high prevalence of esp gene in isolates from cattle (63%) and pigs (79%). The origin- dependent incidence of agg gene variants prgB and asp1 was observed. The results indicate the existence of a large pool of potentially virulent and multidrug resistant E. faecalis in diseased farm animals posing risk to humans