Decomposition of Changes in Earnings Inequality in China: A Distributional Approach

Using the nationwide household data, this study examines the changes in the Chinese urban income distributions from 1987 to 1996 and from 1996 to 2004, and investigates the causes of these changes. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method is applied to decomposing the mean earnings increases, and the Firpo-Fortin-Lemieux method based upon a recentered influence function is used to decompose the changes in the income distribution and the inequality measures such as the variance and the 10-90 ratio. The decomposition results show that the wage structure effects such as the widened gender pay gap, the increasing return to college education, and the widened gap in the return to different industries, ownership, and regions, have contributed to most of the overall increases in income inequality. During the different time periods, 1987-1996 and 1996-2004, the impacts of these factors vary at the different points (e.g. the lower half or upper half) of distribution.Earnings inequality; Unconditional Quantile Regressions; Earnings distribution; Decomposition

Decomposition of Changes in Earnings Inequality in China: A Distributional Approach

Using the nationwide household data, this study examines the changes in the Chinese urban income distributions from 1987 to 1996 and from 1996 to 2004, and investigates the causes of these changes. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method is applied to decomposing the mean earnings increases, and the Firpo-Fortin-Lemieux method based upon a recentered influence function is used to decompose the changes in the income distribution and the inequality measures such as the variance and the 10-90 ratio. The decomposition results show that the wage structure effects such as the widened gender pay gap, the increasing return to college education, and the widened gap in the return to different industries, ownership, and regions, have contributed to most of the overall increases in income inequality. During the different time periods, 1987-1996 and 1996-2004, the impacts of these factors vary at the different points (e.g. the lower half or upper half) of distribution

Decomposition of Changes in Earnings Inequality in China: A Distributional Approach

Using the nationwide household data, this study examines the changes in the Chinese urban income distributions from 1987 to 1996 and from 1996 to 2004, and investigates the causes of these changes. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method is applied to decomposing the mean earnings increases, and the Firpo-Fortin-Lemieux method based upon a recentered influence function is used to decompose the changes in the income distribution and the inequality measures such as the variance and the 10-90 ratio. The decomposition results show that the wage structure effects such as the widened gender pay gap, the increasing return to college education, and the widened gap in the return to different industries, ownership, and regions, have contributed to most of the overall increases in income inequality. During the different time periods, 1987-1996 and 1996-2004, the impacts of these factors vary at the different points (e.g. the lower half or upper half) of distribution

Experimental and Numerical Research on Seismic Performance of Earthquake-Damaged RC Frame Strengthened with CFRP Sheets

In order to assess the seismic performance of damaged reinforced concrete (RC) frame strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) sheets, two experimental specimens with identical reinforcement ratio and geometric dimensions were designed following Chinese code for seismic design of buildings. Experimental specimens consist of a reference (undamaged) RC frame, namely, KJ-1, and an earthquake-damaged RC frame strengthened with CFRP sheets, namely, KJ-2. A pseudostatic test was conducted on the two specimens to simulate moderate earthquake damage. The strengthening effects of CFRP sheets on damaged RC frame were discussed in terms of hysteretic curve, skeleton curve, stiffness degradation, and ductility. In addition, numerical method based on fiber model method was utilized to analyze the seismic performance of KJ-1 and KJ-2 and it is compared with the experimental result. Both the results confirm that the method of exterior bonding CFRP sheets on the damaged RC frame has restored the seismic performance such as bearing capacity, stiffness, and ductility to its original undamaged level, and some of the seismic performance of the damaged RC frame strengthened with CFRP sheets is even better than the undamaged one, which proves that the method has significant effect in strengthening postearthquake-damaged RC frames

Quenching‐circumvented ergodicity in relaxor Na₁/₂Bi₁/₂TiO₃‐BaTiO₃‐K₀.₅Na₀.₅NbO₃

Quenching alkaline bismuth titanates from sintering temperatures results in increased lattice distortion and consequently higher depolarization temperature. This work investigates the influence of quenching on the ergodicity of relaxor Na₁/₂Bi₁/₂TiO₃‐BaTiO₃‐K₀.₅Na₀.₅NbO₃. A distinct departure from ergodicity is evidenced from the increase in remanent polarization and the absence of frequency dispersion in the permittivity response of poled samples. Further, the samples exhibit enhanced negative strain upon application of electric field, indicating proclivity towards correlated polar nanoregions, corroborated by the enhanced tetragonal distortion. As a result, ergodic relaxor Na₁/₂Bi₁/₂TiO₃‐6BaTiO₃‐3K₀.₅Na₀.₅NbO₃ exhibits a depolarization temperature of 85°C with a 60% increase in remanent polarization and approximately a threefold increase in remanent strain upon quenching. Quenching‐induced changes in the local environment of Na⁺ and Bi³⁺ cations hinder the development of ergodicity promoted by the A‐site disorder. These results provide new insight into tailoring ergodicity of relaxor ferroelectrics

Regulation of TLR7/9 responses in plasmacytoid dendritic cells by BST2 and ILT7 receptor interaction

Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) produce copious type I interferon (IFN) upon sensing nucleic acids through Toll-like receptor (TLR) 7 and TLR9. Uncontrolled pDC activation and IFN production are implicated in lymphopenia and autoimmune diseases; therefore, a mechanism controlling pDC IFN production is essential. Human pDCs specifically express an orphan receptor, immunoglobulin-like transcript 7 (ILT7). Here, we discovered an ILT7 ligand expressed by human cell lines and identified it as bone marrow stromal cell antigen 2 (BST2; CD317). BST2 directly binds to purified ILT7 protein, initiates signaling via the ILT7–FcϵRIγ complex, and strongly inhibits production of IFN and proinflammatory cytokines by pDCs. Readily induced by IFN and other proinflammatory cytokines, BST2 may modulate the human pDC’s IFN responses through ILT7 in a negative feedback fashion

The oyster genome reveals stress adaptation and complexity of shell formation

The Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas belongs to one of the most species-rich but genomically poorly explored phyla, the Mollusca. Here we report the sequencing and assembly of the oyster genome using short reads and a fosmid-pooling strategy, along with transcriptomes of development and stress response and the proteome of the shell. The oyster genome is highly polymorphic and rich in repetitive sequences, with some transposable elements still actively shaping variation. Transcriptome studies reveal an extensive set of genes responding to environmental stress. The expansion of genes coding for heat shock protein 70 and inhibitors of apoptosis is probably central to the oyster's adaptation to sessile life in the highly stressful intertidal zone. Our analyses also show that shell formation in molluscs is more complex than currently understood and involves extensive participation of cells and their exosomes. The oyster genome sequence fills a void in our understanding of the Lophotrochozoa. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

Comparative genomics reveals insights into avian genome evolution and adaptation

Birds are the most species-rich class of tetrapod vertebrates and have wide relevance across many research fields. We explored bird macroevolution using full genomes from 48 avian species representing all major extant clades. The avian genome is principally characterized by its constrained size, which predominantly arose because of lineage-specific erosion of repetitive elements, large segmental deletions, and gene loss. Avian genomes furthermore show a remarkably high degree of evolutionary stasis at the levels of nucleotide sequence, gene synteny, and chromosomal structure. Despite this pattern of conservation, we detected many non-neutral evolutionary changes in protein-coding genes and noncoding regions. These analyses reveal that pan-avian genomic diversity covaries with adaptations to different lifestyles and convergent evolution of traits

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve