The Dynamics of Child Poverty: Britain and Germany Compared

We compare patterns of movements into and out of poverty by children in Britain and Germany using data from the British Household Panel Survey and the German Socio- Economic Panel for the period 1992-7. Compared to Germany, in Britain poverty persistence is greater, and poverty exit rates in particular are lower. In both countries poverty is particularly persistent among children in lone parent households and households with a nonworking head. Events such as family formation and dissolution, and changes in household labour market attachment are associated with child poverty transitions in the direction expected, and in both countries. However a large fraction of the observed poverty transitions are not accounted for by these events.

Trends in antibacterial resistance among Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated in the USA: update from PROTEKT US Years 1–4

© 2008 Jenkins et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Lifting of Ir{100} reconstruction by CO adsorption: An ab initio study

The adsorption of CO on unreconstructed and reconstructed Ir{100} has been studied, using a combination of density functional theory and thermodynamics, to determine the relative stability of the two phases as a function of CO coverage, temperature and pressure. We obtain good agreement with experimentaldata. At zero temperature, the (1X5) reconstruction becomes less stable than the unreconstructed (1X1) surface when the CO coverage exceeds a critical value of 0.09 ML. The interaction between CO molecules is found to be repulsive on the reconstructed surface, but attractive on the unreconstructed, explaining the experimental observation of high CO coverage on growing (1X1) islands. At all temperatures and pressures, we find only two possible stable states: 0.05 ML CO c(2X2) overlayer on the (1X1) substrate, and the clean (1$\times$5) reconstructed surface.Comment: 31 page

Einfluss der Familienform auf den Schulerfolg von Kindern nicht nachweisbar

Die Bedeutung von nicht traditionellen Familienformen, d. h. von Familien, in denen nicht beide leibliche Eltern ihre Kinder gemeinsam großziehen, wird immer wieder kontrovers diskutiert. In der Öffentlichkeit wird häufi g vermutet, dass Kindern Nachteile erwachsen, wenn sie nicht in traditionellen Elternhäusern aufwachsen. Gegenwärtig ist sogar in der Diskussion, dass Kinder Alleinerziehender und in Patchworkfamilien nicht genügend soziales Verhalten lernen würden und deshalb der gesellschaftliche Zusammenhalt insgesamt gefährdet sei. Zur Objektivierung der Debatte werden in diesem Bericht Befunde zum Zusammenhang zwischen Familientyp und dem frühen Lebensweg von Kindern und Jugendlichen vorgelegt. Die Ergebnisse wurden im Rahmen eines vom DIW Berlin zusammen mit dem Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) der University of Essex durchgeführten Forschungsprojektes erarbeitet, das von der Deutsch-Britischen Stiftung für das Studium der Industriegesellschaft fi nanziert wurde. Auf Basis der Daten des vom DIW Berlin in Zusammenarbeit mit Infratest Sozialforschung erhobenen Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) kann für Kinder, die in Deutschland von 1966 bis 1986 geboren wurden, methodisch zuverlässig gezeigt werden, dass es keinen statistisch eindeutig nachweisbaren Einfl uss des Familientyps auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit gibt, das Abitur oder einen höheren Bildungsabschluss zu erlangen. Auch lässt sich statistisch kein konsistenter Einfl uss auf das Arbeitslosigkeitsrisiko in der Jugend nachweisen. Die für das lebenslange Gesundheitsrisiko bedeutsame Frage, ob Jugendliche rauchen, lässt sich allerdings empirisch beantworten: Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene, die in nicht traditionellen Elternhäusern aufgewachsen sind, haben eine - je nach Untersuchungsgruppe - etwa 10 bis 20 % höhere Wahrscheinlichkeit zu rauchen. Die genaueren Ursachen hierfür werden derzeit näher untersucht.

Increase in Pneumococcus Macrolide Resistance, United States

During year 6 of the study, the incidence rate rose from ≈30% to 35.3%

The Kepler Pixel Response Function

Kepler seeks to detect sequences of transits of Earth-size exoplanets orbiting Solar-like stars. Such transit signals are on the order of 100 ppm. The high photometric precision demanded by Kepler requires detailed knowledge of how the Kepler pixels respond to starlight during a nominal observation. This information is provided by the Kepler pixel response function (PRF), defined as the composite of Kepler's optical point spread function, integrated spacecraft pointing jitter during a nominal cadence and other systematic effects. To provide sub-pixel resolution, the PRF is represented as a piecewise-continuous polynomial on a sub-pixel mesh. This continuous representation allows the prediction of a star's flux value on any pixel given the star's pixel position. The advantages and difficulties of this polynomial representation are discussed, including characterization of spatial variation in the PRF and the smoothing of discontinuities between sub-pixel polynomial patches. On-orbit super-resolution measurements of the PRF across the Kepler field of view are described. Two uses of the PRF are presented: the selection of pixels for each star that maximizes the photometric signal to noise ratio for that star, and PRF-fitted centroids which provide robust and accurate stellar positions on the CCD, primarily used for attitude and plate scale tracking. Good knowledge of the PRF has been a critical component for the successful collection of high-precision photometry by Kepler.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJ Letters. Version accepted for publication

The test case of HD26965: difficulties disentangling weak Doppler signals from stellar activity

We report the discovery of a radial velocity signal that can be interpreted as a planetary-mass candidate orbiting the K dwarf HD26965, with an orbital period of 42.364$\pm$0.015 days, or alternatively, as the presence of residual, uncorrected rotational activity in the data. Observations include data from HIRES, PFS, CHIRON, and HARPS, where 1,111 measurements were made over 16 years. Our best solution for HD26965 $b$ is consistent with a super-Earth that has a minimum mass of 6.92$\pm$0.79 M$_{\oplus}$ orbiting at a distance of 0.215$\pm$0.008 AU from its host star. We have analyzed the correlation between spectral activity indicators and the radial velocities from each instrument, showing moderate correlations that we include in our model. From this analysis, we recover a $\sim$38 day signal, which matches some literature values of the stellar rotation period. However, from independent Mt. Wilson HK data for this star, we find evidence for a significant 42 day signal after subtraction of longer period magnetic cycles, casting doubt on the planetary hypothesis for this period. Although our statistical model strongly suggests that the 42-day signal is Doppler in origin, we conclude that the residual effects of stellar rotation are difficult to fully model and remove from this dataset, highlighting the difficulties to disentangle small planetary signals and photospheric noise, particularly when the orbital periods are close to the rotation period of the star. This study serves as an excellent test case for future works that aim to detect small planets orbiting `Sun-like' stars using radial velocity measurements.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 13 tables, accepted for publication in A