Intergenerational persistence of poverty in the UK: empirical analysis of economic outcomes for people born from the 1950s to the 1980s

Further income redistribution is an obvious way of alleviating child poverty. However, whether this effectively improves life chances of children growing up in poverty is debated, and there might be less expensive ways of doing so. Drawing on competing models explaining intergenerational persistence of poverty, this thesis investigates some of the links between childhood poverty and later economic outcomes in the UK. Aiming to identify policy areas where intervention would be helpful, it examines continuities and changes over time in these links and mechanisms that create them, analysing longitudinal data from people born in 1958, 1970 and the 1980s. This thesis shows that a negative effect of childhood poverty on adult earnings remains for the 1970 cohort (although not for the 1958 cohort), even after controlling for educational attainment in particular, and for other individual and family characteristics. This appears to be a reason that intergenerational persistence of poverty is stronger for the younger cohort. Teenage occupational aspirations do not seem to explain this residual effect, but unemployment in early working life contributes to it. An original contribution is the investigation of different effects of childhood poverty on later onset of and exit from unemployment, and the relative strength of the effects of parental worklessness and income poverty on these outcomes. A main finding is that income poverty more strongly affects the rapid onset of unemployment following employment, although parental worklessness appears to be associated with the slow exit from unemployment. The results suggest that policy interventions in education or (potentially cheaper) interventions affecting youth aspirations would not completely remove the disadvantage experienced by children growing up in poverty. There is therefore evidence that further income redistribution would be beneficial in improving their future life chances, while the findings suggest that the design of income redistribution also matters

Study of parameters in focus simulation functions of virtual slide

As a special function of Virtual Slide (VS) for thick specimens like cytology slides, multilayer (Z-stack) simulated focus and focus fusion were introduced. From the standpoint of surgical pathologist, the optimum parameters for multilayer focus simulation were examined. First, minimal thickness of the layer was checked by measuring thickness of small cells counting the number of the layers that come into focus. Then the optimal number of layers to scan, total thickness, was tried. Small-sized cell nuclei showed around 2μm or less thickness. As minimal thickness of one layer for focus simulation, less than 2 μm is required. Papillary cell mass of urothelial carcinoma, aspiration cytology specimen of breast or thyroid, and uterine cervical smear showed different optimal thickness. Cells piling up more than 4 to 5 layer are difficult to make close up observation. Total 15 (to 30) μm thick scan was enough for most specimens. The “focus fusion” image is single layer image synthesized from multiple layer images. Several layer thicknesses were examined, and there was negligible difference between the focus fusion image synthesized from 0.25 and 1μm thick layers. In the focus fusion image synthesized from 3μm thick layers, some cells not to come into focus. The “focus fusion” seems to contain all the cells in one plane, and easy for screening. To emphasize the existence of myoepithelial cells in fibroadenoma of breast, or to clarify the 3-dimensional tissue structure, multilayer image was better. From our results, 10 layers with 1.5μm thick each provide sufficient information in most specimens

Comparing the minimum income standard in the UK and Japan: methodology and outcome

Minimum Income Standard (MIS) research involves an innovative methodology that combines consensual decisions made through discussion by members of the public, supported by input from experts. MIS addresses questions about income adequacy, and in particular, what is the income that people need in order to reach a minimum socially acceptable standard of living. The first MIS for Britain was published in the UK in 2008, and in 2010 researchers from Japan and the UK began to collaborate on developing a comparable Minimum Income Standard for Japan. This article discusses the differences and similarities between the UK and Japanese MIS. It looks at the challenges of applying the methodology in a very different setting and compares the results of the research in the UK and in Japan. Although there are notable differences in the lists of goods and services that comprise the budgets, there are also some striking similarities. This research suggests that the MIS methodology offers an approach that can be used in different countries to inform discussions on contemporary living standards and societal norms, and to enable international comparisons to be drawn

SuperMat: Construction of a linked annotated dataset from superconductors-related publications

A growing number of papers are published in the area of superconducting materials science. However, novel text and data mining (TDM) processes are still needed to efficiently access and exploit this accumulated knowledge, paving the way towards data-driven materials design. Herein, we present SuperMat (Superconductor Materials), an annotated corpus of linked data derived from scientific publications on superconductors, which comprises 142 articles, 16052 entities, and 1398 links that are characterised into six categories: the names, classes, and properties of materials; links to their respective superconducting critical temperature (Tc); and parametric conditions such as applied pressure or measurement methods. The construction of SuperMat resulted from a fruitful collaboration between computer scientists and material scientists, and its high quality is ensured through validation by domain experts. The quality of the annotation guidelines was ensured by satisfactory Inter Annotator Agreement (IAA) between the annotators and the domain experts. SuperMat includes the dataset, annotation guidelines, and annotation support tools that use automatic suggestions to help minimise human errors

Low-grade Myofibroblastic Sarcoma at the Base of the Tongue

Low-grade myofibroblastic sarcoma (LGMS) represents a distinct atypical myofibroblastic tumor that occurs at several sites, primarily within the head and neck regions. A painless, enlarged mass is the most common clinical presentation, but a definitive diagnosis requires both histopathological and immunohistochemical analyses. Histologically, LGMS commonly presents as a cellular lesion composed of spindle-shaped tumor cells arranged primarily in fascicles with a diffusely infiltrative pattern. Immunohistochemically, LGMS shows positive staining for at least one myogenic marker, such as desmin or muscle actin. Here we report a case of LGMS in the base of the tongue. Our case showed positive immunostaining for desmin and vimentin, and was thus diagnosed as LGMS. The patient received surgery, but no chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and was completely without evidence of the disease 38 months after the surgery

Chondroprotection by urocortin involves blockade of the mechanosensitive ion channel Piezo1

Osteoarthritis (OA) is characterised by progressive destruction of articular cartilage and chondrocyte cell death. Here, we show the expression of the endogenous peptide urocortin1 (Ucn1) and two receptor subtypes, CRF-R1 and CRF-R2, in primary human articular chondrocytes (AC) and demonstrate its role as an autocrine/paracrine pro-survival factor. This effect could only be removed using the CRF-R1 selective antagonist CP-154526, suggesting Ucn1 acts through CRF-R1 when promoting chondrocyte survival. This cell death was characterised by an increase in p53 expression, and cleavage of caspase 9 and 3. Antagonism of CRF-R1 with CP-154526 caused an accumulation of intracellular calcium (Ca2+) over time and cell death. These effects could be prevented with the non-selective cation channel blocker Gadolinium (Gd3+). Therefore, opening of a non-selective cation channel causes cell death and Ucn1 maintains this channel in a closed conformation. This channel was identified to be the mechanosensitive channel Piezo1. We go on to determine that this channel inhibition by Ucn1 is mediated initially by an increase in cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and a subsequent inactivation of phospholipase A2 (PLA2), whose metabolites are known to modulate ion channels. Knowledge of these novel pathways may present opportunities for interventions that could abrogate the progression of OA