The Easterlin Illusion: Economic growth does go with greater happiness

__Abstract__ The 'Easterlin Paradox' holds that economic growth in nations does not buy greater happiness for the average citizen. This thesis was advanced in the 1970s on the basis of the then available data on happiness in nations. Later data have disproved most of the empirical claims behind the thesis, but Easterlin still maintains that there is no long-term correlation between economic growth and happiness. rn This last claim was tested using the time trend data available in the World Database of Happiness, which involve 1531 data points in 67 nations that yield 199 time-series ranging from 10 to more than 40 years. The analysis reveals a positive correlation between GDP growth and rise of in happiness in nations. Both GDP and happiness have gone up in most nations, and average happiness has risen more in nations where the economy has grown the most; r =+0.21 p<.05. On average a 1% growth in income per capita per year was followed by a rise in average happiness on scale 0-10 of 0.00335; thus a gain in happiness of a full point would take 60 years with an annual economic growth of 5%. Keywords: happiness, economic growth, trend analysis, cross-national, progress, quality of lif

The afc antifungal activity cluster, which is under tight regulatory control of ShvR, is essential for transition from intracellular persistence of Burkholderia cenocepacia to acute pro-inflammatory infection.

The opportunistic pathogen Burkholderia cenocepacia is particularly life-threatening for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Chronic lung infections with these bacteria can rapidly develop into fatal pulmonary necrosis and septicaemia. We have recently shown that macrophages are a critical site for replication of B. cenocepacia K56-2 and the induction of fatal pro-inflammatory responses using a zebrafish infection model. Here, we show that ShvR, a LysR-type transcriptional regulator that is important for biofilm formation, rough colony morphotype and inflammation in a rat lung infection model, is also required for the induction of fatal pro-inflammatory responses in zebrafish larvae. ShvR was not essential, however, for bacterial survival and replication in macrophages. Temporal, rhamnose-induced restoration of shvR expression in the shvR mutant during intramacrophage stages unequivocally demonstrated a key role for ShvR in transition from intracellular persistence to acute fatal pro-inflammatory disease. ShvR has been previously shown to tightly control the expression of the adjacent afc gene cluster, which specifies the synthesis of a lipopeptide with antifungal activity. Mutation of afcE, encoding an acyl-CoA dehydrogenase, has been shown to give similar phenotypes as the shvR mutant. We found that, like shvR, afcE is also critical for the switch from intracellular persistence to fatal infection in zebrafish. The closely related B. cenocepacia H111 has been shown to be less virulent than K56-2 in several infection models, including Galleria mellonella and rats. Interestingly, constitutive expression of shvR in H111 increased virulence in zebrafish larvae to almost K56-2 levels in a manner that absolutely required afc. These data confirm a critical role for afc in acute virulence caused by B. cenocepacia that depends on strain-specific regulatory control by ShvR. We propose that ShvR and AFC are important virulence factors of the more virulent Bcc species, either through pro-inflammatory effects of the lipopeptide AFC, or through AFC-dependent membrane properties

Access to health care for persons with disabilities in rural South Africa

BACKGROUND: Global research suggests that persons with disabilities face barriers when accessing health care services. Yet, information regarding the nature of these barriers, especially in low-income and middle-income countries is sparse. Rural contexts in these countries may present greater barriers than urban contexts, but little is known about access issues in such contexts. There is a paucity of research in South Africa looking at "triple vulnerability" - poverty, disability and rurality. This study explored issues of access to health care for persons with disabilities in an impoverished rural area in South Africa. METHODS: The study includes a quantitative survey with interviews with 773 participants in 527 households. Comparisons in terms of access to health care between persons with disabilities and persons with no disabilities were explored. The approach to data analysis included quantitative data analysis using descriptive and inferential statistics. Frequency and cross tabulation, comparing and contrasting the frequency of different phenomena between persons with disabilities and persons with no disabilities, were used. Chi-square tests and Analysis of Variance tests were then incorporated into the analysis. RESULTS: Persons with disabilities have a higher rate of unmet health needs as compared to non-disabled. In rural Madwaleni in South Africa, persons with disabilities faced significantly more barriers to accessing health care compared to persons without disabilities. Barriers increased with disability severity and was reduced with increasing level of education, living in a household without disabled members and with age. CONCLUSIONS: This study has shown that access to health care in a rural area in South Africa for persons with disabilities is more of an issue than for persons without disabilities in that they face more barriers. Implications are that we need to look beyond the medical issues of disability and address social and inclusion issues as well

A translocation motif in relaxase TrwC specifically affects recruitment by its conjugative type IV secretion system

Type IV secretion system (T4SS) substrates are recruited through a translocation signal that is poorly defined for conjugative relaxases. The relaxase TrwC of plasmid R388 is translocated by its cognate conjugative T4SS, and it can also be translocated by the VirB/D4 T4SS of Bartonella henselae, causing DNA transfer to human cells. In this work, we constructed a series of TrwC variants and assayed them for DNA transfer to bacteria and human cells to compare recruitment requirements by both T4SSs. Comparison with other reported relaxase translocation signals allowed us to determine two putative translocation sequence (TS) motifs, TS1 and TS2. Mutations affecting TS1 drastically affected conjugation frequencies, while mutations affecting either motif had only a mild effect on DNA transfer rates through the VirB/D4 T4SS of B. henselae. These results indicate that a single substrate can be recruited by two different T4SSs through different signals. The C terminus affected DNA transfer rates through both T4SSs tested, but no specific sequence requirement was detected. The addition of a Bartonella intracellular delivery (BID) domain, the translocation signal for the Bartonella VirB/D4 T4SS, increased DNA transfer up to 4% of infected human cells, providing an excellent tool for DNA delivery to specific cell types. We show that the R388 coupling protein TrwB is also required for this high-efficiency TrwC-BID translocation. Other elements apart from the coupling protein may also be involved in substrate recognition by T4SSs

Establishing an agenda for social studies research in marine renewable energy

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Rhythms of walking : history and presence in a city street

Peer reviewedPostprin

Link to publication Citation for published version (APA)

UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (http://dare.uva.nl) UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) CCR5 blockade in rheumatoid arthritis: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial van Kuijk, A.W.R.; Vergunst, C.E.; Gerlag, D.; Bresnihan, B.; Gomez-Reino, J.J.; Regine, R.; Verschueren, P.C.; van der Leij, C.; Maas, M.; Kraan, M.C.; Tak, P.P. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website

Virulence Potential and Genomic Mapping of the Worldwide Clone Escherichia coli ST131

Recently, the worldwide propagation of clonal CTX-M-15-producing Escherichia coli isolates, namely ST131 and O25b:H4, has been reported. Like the majority of extra-intestinal pathogenic E. coli isolates, the pandemic clone ST131 belongs to phylogenetic group B2, and has recently been shown to be highly virulent in a mouse model, even though it lacks several genes encoding key virulence factors (Pap, Cnf1 and HlyA). Using two animal models, Caenorhabditis elegans and zebrafish embryos, we assessed the virulence of three E. coli ST131 strains (2 CTX-M-15- producing urine and 1 non-ESBL-producing faecal isolate), comparing them with five non-ST131 B2 and a group A uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC). In C. elegans, the three ST131 strains showed intermediate virulence between the non virulent group A isolate and the virulent non-ST131 B2 strains. In zebrafish, the CTX-M-15-producing ST131 UPEC isolates were also less virulent than the non-ST131 B2 strains, suggesting that the production of CTX-M-15 is not correlated with enhanced virulence. Amongst the non-ST131 B2 group isolates, variation in pathogenic potential in zebrafish embryos was observed ranging from intermediate to highly virulent. Interestingly, the ST131 strains were equally persistent in surviving embryos as the non-ST131-group B2 strains, suggesting similar mechanisms may account for development of persistent infection. Optical maps of the genome of the ST131 strains were compared with those of 24 reference E. coli strains. Although small differences were seen within the ST131 strains, the tree built on the optical maps showed that these strains belonged to a specific cluster (86% similarity) with only 45% similarity with the other group B2 strains and 25% with strains of group A and D. Thus, the ST131 clone has a genetic composition that differs from other group B2 strains, and appears to be less virulent than previously suspected