The Reflection of Exercise on the New Generation

Introduction: Our health, tonus and overall well-being are in a constant relationship with a number of factors. One of the most important ones being, as evolution set it - physical activity. Unfortunately, in recent years the nature of our day-to-day life has changed for the worse as sedentary life has taken the place of the active one, even for the youngest. This tendency has led to an unheard of amount of overweight youngsters and such with an impaired metabolism.Materials and Methods: To get to the bottom of this worldwide problem, we prepared and conducted a survey. The answers we received showed us the parents` views of the effect ofan increased amount of activity on their children`s physical and mental health. The survey was aimed towards the parents of children betweenthe ages of7 and 12. In it, we asked a number of questions which cover the parent`s view on exercise, the connection with their child and their willingness to discipline them towards a healthy lifestyle.Results: The results showed that there is a substantial number of children that have little to no physical activity, but fortunately the tendency is for parents to be willing to make the first step towards a healthier, more active lifestyle.Conclusion: Sedentary life leads to an increasingly overweight and unhealthy society. Children should be guided towards an active way of living by their parents not only with words but with an example. New and upcoming sports are a good way to stimulate the children`s attention towards exercise and with that to lead to a healthier society.

Do taxes and transfers reduce gender income inequality? Evidence from eight European welfare states

We examine how taxes and transfers affect the incomes of men and women. Using microsimulation and intra-household income splitting rules, we measure the differences in the level and composition of individual disposable income by gender in eight European countries covering various welfare regime types. We quantify the extent to which taxes and transfers can counterbalance the gender gap in earnings, as well as which policy instruments contribute most to reducing the gender income gap. We find that with the exception of old-age public pensions, all taxes and transfers significantly reduce gender income inequality but cannot compensate for high gender earnings gaps. Our findings suggest that gender income equality is more likely to be achieved by promoting the universal/dual breadwinner model, whereby women's labour force participation and wages are on a par with men. To achieve this, men will likely need to work less and care more

Gender and Parenthood Differences in Job Mobility and Pay Progression in the UK

Understanding disparities in the rates at which men and women’s wages grow over the life course is critical to explaining the gender pay gap. Using panel data from 2009 to 2019 for the United Kingdom, we examine how differences in the rates and types of job mobility of men and women—with and without children—influence the evolution of wages. We contrast the rates and wage returns associated with different types of job moves, including moving employer for family reason, moving for wage or career-related reasons, and changing jobs but remaining with the same employer. We find important gender and parenthood differences in the types of mobility experience, with mothers most likely to switch employers for family-related reasons and least likely to move for wage or career reasons, or to change jobs with the same employer. While job changes with the same employer and career related employer changes had large positive wage returns, changing employers for family-related reasons was associated with significant wage losses. We show that differences in job mobility between mothers and other workers are largest for young employees (under 30), the period over which wages also grow most rapidly in response to career related external, or internal, job moves. These mobility differences play an important role in explaining the rapid growth in the motherhood wage gap in the years after birth

Assessment of heavy metal levels in roll-your-own cigarette and water pipe tobacco blends

The increased consumption of roll-your-own (RYO) cigarettes and water pipe (hookah), both globally and in Bulgaria, necessitated the current investigation aimed at the assessment of heavy metal levels in the tobacco blends used in those products. The concentrations of Mn, Zn, Cu, Cd, Pb, and Ni were determined by AAS in five brands of RYO tobacco (R1-R5) and seven brands of water pipe tobacco (W1- W7), all distributed on Bulgarian market. The average heavy metal contents (mg/kg) in the two types of tobacco blends, RYO and water pipe, respectively, were as follows: Mn - 214.20 and 37.89; Zn - 31.90 and 134.87; Cu - 12.06 and 10.07; Cd - 0.80 and 1.33; Pb - 1.60 and 3.57; Ni - 1.36 and 0.80. RYO cigarette tobaccos contained higher concentration of Mn, Cu and Ni, while water pipe tobaccos - Zn, Cd and Pb. Strong correlations were found between Cu and Zn (r=0.81), Cu and Cd (r=0.90) in RYO tobacco blends, and between Cu and Zn (r=0.86) - in water pipe blends, respectively. The results from the study give reason to recommend that this information be provided to the consumers, who consider the regarded tobacco products as a safer alternative to conventional cigarettes

A Design of New Brands of Martenzite Steels by Artificial Neural Networks

The paper proposes a model-based approach for the design of martenzite structure steels with improved mechanical and plastic characteristics using proper composition and thermal treatment. For that purpose, artificial neural models approximating the dependence of steels strength characteristics on the percentage content of alloying components were trained. These non-linear models are further used within an optimization gradient procedure based on backpropagation of utility function through neural network structure. In order to optimizing the steel characteristics via its chemical composition, several steel brands with high values of tensile strenght, yield strenght and relative elongation were designed. A steel composition having economical alloying and proper for practical application was determined comparing several obtained decisions. The usage of that steel will lead to lightening of the hardware for automobile industry

Moonlighting in mitosis:Analysis of the mitotic functions of transcription and splicing factors

Moonlighting proteins can perform one or more additional functions besides their primary role. It has been posited that a protein can acquire a moonlighting function through a gradual evolutionary process, which is favored when the primary and secondary functions are exerted in different cellular compartments. Transcription factors (TFs) and splicing factors (SFs) control processes that occur in interphase nuclei and are strongly reduced during cell division, and are therefore in a favorable situation to evolve moonlighting mitotic functions. However, recently published moonlighting protein databases, which comprise almost 400 proteins, do not include TFs and SFs with secondary mitotic functions. We searched the literature and found several TFs and SFs with bona fide moonlighting mitotic functions, namely they localize to specific mitotic structure(s), interact with proteins enriched in the same structure(s), and are required for proper morphology and functioning of the structure(s). In addition, we describe TFs and SFs that localize to mitotic structures but cannot be classified as moonlighting proteins due to insufficient data on their biochemical interactions and mitotic roles. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that most TFs and SFs with specific mitotic localizations have either minor or redundant moonlighting functions, or are evolving towards the acquisition of these functions

Assessing the performance of analytical methods for propolis – A collaborative trial by the international honey commission

Propolis is a resinous beehive product with extraordinary bioactivity and chemical richness, linked with the botanical sources of the resin. The potential of this product keeps captivating the scientific community, conducting to continuous and growing research on plant sources, composition, or applications in agriculture, cosmetics, pharmacy, odontology, etc. In all cases, the quality assessment is a requirement and relies on methods to extract the bioactive substances from the raw propolis and quantify different components. Unfortunately, besides the absence of international quality requirements, there is also a lack of standardized analytical procedures, despite the presence of several methodologies with unknown reliability, often not comparable. To overcome the current status, the International Honey Commission established an inter-laboratory study, with propolis samples from around the globe, to harmonize analytical methods and evaluate their accuracy. A common set of protocols was matched between twelve laboratories from nine countries, for quantification of ash, wax, and balsamic content in raw propolis, and spectrophotometric evaluation of total phenolics, flavone/flavonol, and flavanone/ dihydroflavonol in the extract. A total of 3428 results (97% valid data), were used to assess the methods’ accuracy following ISO-5725 guidelines. The within-laboratory precision, revealed good agreement levels for the majority of the methods, with relative variance below 5%. As expected, the between-laboratory variance increased, but, with exception of the flavanone method that revealed a clear lack of consistency, all the others maintained acceptable variability levels, below 30%. Because the performance of ultrasounds procedures was low, they cannot be recommended until further improvements are made.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support by national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020). Thanks to the Programa Apíıcola Nacional 2020-2022 (National Beekeeping Program) for funding the project "Standardization of production procedures and quality parameters of bee products" and to Project PDR2020-1.0.1- FEADER-031734: “DivInA-Diversification and Innovation on Beekeeping Production”. National funding by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, through the institutional scientific employment program-contract with Soraia I. Falcão. A special thanks is given to Hartmut Scheiter and Allwex Food Trading GmbH, Bremen, Germany, for providing, handling and delivering the propolis blind samples.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio