CALCULATING AUSTRALIA'S GROSS HOUSEHOLD PRODUCT: MEASURING THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY 1970-2000

This paper presents estimates for a thirty year period of Australia’s Gross Household Product (GHP), the economic value added by unpaid labour and the households own capital. In 2000 GHP was estimated to be worth $471 billion. Gross Market Product (GDP minus the imputed value of owner-occupied housing) was worth$604 billion in 2000. The household economy was nearly 80 per cent of the size of the market economy in 2000. More importantly, the GHP is nearly half (44%) of total economic activity (Gross Economic Product). The household economy absorbs more labour time than the market economy. In 2000 Australians spent about 15 per cent more time on non-market activities than market ones. The failure of statistical organisations to provide official estimates of the household economy (GHP) means that almost half of the total valuable economic activities undertaken by Australians are ignored by economists and policy makers.

Estimating household production outputs with time use episode data

It is not widely recognised that diary-based surveys of time use contain data not only on ‘input’ time but also on ‘output’ time. The diaries record episodes of time use throughout the day showing activities that can be categorised not only as household production input time, such as preparing a meal, but also household output (or consumption) time such as eating a meal. Harvey and Mukhopadhyay (1996) seem to have been the first to use the methodology of counting output episodes from time use surveys to estimate and value household production outputs. Using episode data from the 1992 Canadian time use survey, they counted the number of meals, the hours of child care and the nights of accommodation. Our paper explores the application of this methodology to the episode data from Australian time use surveys. We extend the outputs to include episodes of transport provided by households. This is in accord with the Eurostat recommendation to include transport as a final output in the preparation of satellite accounts of household production.Household production outputs, time use surveys, episode data, gross household product, satellite accounts of household production, accommodation, meals, child care, clean clothes, transport

New Products of the 80s & 90s: the Diffusion of Household Technology in the Decade 1985-1995.

As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, it has exerted substantial influence on everyone's lives. Over the years various inventions have made their way into homes and have substantially changed the way people work, rest and play. This paper reviews some of these developments and attempts to estimate the extent of these changes with regard to the introduction of five types of household appliances.TECHNOLOGY ; HOUSEHOLD

Phenotype-specific recombinant haptoglobin polymers co-expressed with C1r-like protein as optimized hemoglobin-binding therapeutics

BACKGROUND: Preclinical studies have evaluated haptoglobin (Hp) polymers from pooled human plasma as a therapeutic protein to attenuate toxic effects of cell-free hemoglobin (Hb). Proof of concept studies have demonstrated efficacy of Hp in hemolysis associated with transfusion and sickle cell anemia. However, phenotype-specific Hp products might be desirable to exploit phenotype specific activities of Hp 1-1 versus Hp 2-2, offering opportunities for recombinant therapeutics. Prohaptoglobin (proHp) is the primary translation product of the Hp mRNA. ProHp is proteolytically cleaved by complement C1r subcomponent-like protein (C1r-LP) in the endoplasmic reticulum. Two main allelic Hp variants, HP1 and HP2 exist. The larger HP2 is considered to be the ancestor variant of all human Hp alleles and is characterized by an α2-chain, which contains an extra cysteine residue that pairs with additional α-chains generating multimers with molecular weights of 200-900 kDa. The two human HP1 alleles (HP1F and HP1S) differ by a two-amino-acid substitution polymorphism within the α-chain and are derived from HP2 by recurring exon deletions. RESULTS: In the present study, we describe a process for the production of recombinant phenotype specific Hp polymers in mammalian FS293F cells. This approach demonstrates that efficient expression of mature and fully functional protein products requires co-expression of active C1r-LP. The functional characterization of our proteins, which included monomer/polymer distribution, binding affinities as well as NO-sparing and antioxidant functions, demonstrated that C1r-LP-processed recombinant Hp demonstrates equal protective functions as plasma derived Hp in vitro as well as in animal studies. CONCLUSIONS: We present a recombinant production process for fully functional phenotype-specific Hp therapeutics. The proposed process could accelerate the development of Hb scavengers to treat patients with cell-free Hb associated disease states, such as sickle cell disease and other hemolytic conditions

Additional file 1: of Phenotype-specific recombinant haptoglobin polymers co-expressed with C1r-like protein as optimized hemoglobin-binding therapeutics

Figure S1. Chromatogram overlay of 2AB labelled N-Glycans released from recombinant (blue) and plamsa-derived (red) Hp variants with PNGase F. Separation was on a Dionex GlycanPac AXH-1, 1.9 Îźm, 2.1 x 150 mm column using an acetonitrile / 50mM ammonium formate gradient with fluorescence detection. Table S1. Peak area by charge-group retention window of 2-AB N-glycans for recombinant human haptoglobin variants and plasma-derived haptoglobin expressed as a percentage of total glycan peak area. (PDF 155 kb