Unemployment and Subsequent Wages: Does Gender Matter?

Are there any differences in how men and women fare from unemployment in terms of the wages they receive on a new job? This paper addresses that question using the 1991 wave of the Level of Living Survey. The results suggest that men who experience unemployment will suffer a reduction of subsequent wages while no such effect could be found for women. These findings support the interpretation that women invest more in general rather than specific human capital which make them less exposed to career interruptions, at least those of a short duration. Due to the favourable labour market at the time, average unemployment duration was rather short, which may have prevented general capital from depreciating. However, the presence of large negative occurrence effects for men suggests that unemployment, even of a short duration, is associated with considerable loss of human capital.Unemployment; Gender; Human Capital; Wages

Prostate cancer genomics: can we distinguish between indolent and fatal disease using genetic markers?

Prostate cancer is one of the most heritable cancers in men, and recent genome-wide association studies have revealed numerous genetic variants associated with disease. The risk variants identified using case-control designs that compared unaffected individuals with all types of patients with prostate cancer show little or no ability to discriminate between indolent and fatal forms of this disease. This suggests different genetic components are involved in the initiation as compared with the prognosis of prostate cancer. Future studies contrasting patients with more and less aggressive disease, and exploring association with disease progression and prognosis, should be more effective in detecting genetic risk factors for prostate cancer outcome

Effects of in-company quality awards on organizational performance

The relationship between total quality management (TQM) practices and improved performance has been frequently discussed in the literature. In this paper, the costs and the effects of in-company quality awards on performance are discussed and analysed. The paper covers a survey of Swedish companies that use or have used in-company quality awards to stimulate TQM efforts and thereby to improve performance. The study cannot show any strong evidence of improved performance for units that applied for the in-company quality award. However, in contrast to units that have not applied, some units that have applied for the in-company quality award considered that the results related to performance have improved greatly. One large positive effect perceived by the participating units was increased customer orientation while the largest costs were put on the description of activities and the improvement work itself

Разработка гидропривода транспортёра и мотовила жатки самоходной косилки КС-100

We propose a novel method for iterative learning of point correspondences between image sequences. Points moving on surfaces in 3D space are projected into two images. Given a point in either view, the considered problem is to determine the corresponding location in the other view. The geometry and distortions of the projections are unknown as is the shape of the surface. Given several pairs of point-sets but no access to the 3D scene, correspondence mappings can be found by excessive global optimization or by the fundamental matrix if a perspective projective model is assumed. However, an iterative solution on sequences of point-set pairs with general imaging geometry is preferable. We derive such a method that optimizes the mapping based on Neyman's chi-square divergence between the densities representing the uncertainties of the estimated and the actual locations. The densities are represented as channel vectors computed with a basis function approach. The mapping between these vectors is updated with each new pair of images such that fast convergence and high accuracy are achieved. The resulting algorithm runs in real-time and is superior to state-of-the-art methods in terms of convergence and accuracy in a number of experiments.funding agencies|EC|215078247947|ELLIIT||Strategic Area for ICT research||CADICS||Swedish Government||Swedish Research Council||CUAS||FOCUS||Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research||DIPLECSGARNICSELLIITETTCUASFOCUSCADIC

Inherited DNA repair gene mutations in men with lethal prostate cancer

Germline variants in DNA repair genes are associated with aggressive prostate cancer (PrCa). The aim of this study was to characterize germline variants in DNA repair genes associated with lethal PrCa in Finnish and Swedish populations. Whole-exome sequencing was performed for 122 lethal and 60 unselected PrCa cases. Among the lethal cases, a total of 16 potentially damaging protein-truncating variants in DNA repair genes were identified in 15 men (12.3%). Mutations were found in six genes with CHEK2 (4.1%) and ATM (3.3%) being most frequently mutated. Overall, the carrier rate of truncating variants in DNA repair genes among men with lethal PrCa significantly exceeded the carrier rate of 0% in 60 unselected PrCa cases (p = 0.030), and the prevalence of 1.6% (p < 0.001) and 5.4% (p = 0.040) in Swedish and Finnish population controls from the Exome Aggregation Consortium. No significant difference in carrier rate of potentially damaging nonsynonymous single nucleotide variants between lethal and unselected PrCa cases was observed (p = 0.123). We confirm that DNA repair genes are strongly associated with lethal PrCa in Sweden and Finland and highlight the importance of population-specific assessment of variants contributing to PrCa aggressiveness.</p

Neuroinflammatory markers associate with cognitive decline after major surgery:Findings of an explorative study

OBJECTIVE Long‐term cognitive decline is an adverse outcome after major surgery associated with increased risk for mortality and morbidity. We studied the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum biochemical inflammatory response to a standardized orthopedic surgical procedure and the possible association with long‐term changes in cognitive function. We hypothesized that the CSF inflammatory response pattern after surgery would differ in patients having long‐term cognitive decline defined as a composite cognitive z score of ≥1.0 compared to patients without long‐term cognitive decline at 3 months postsurgery. METHODS Serum and CSF biomarkers of inflammation and blood–brain barrier (BBB) integrity were measured preoperatively and up to 48 hours postoperatively, and cognitive function was assessed preoperatively and at 2 to 5 days and 3 months postoperatively. RESULTS Surgery was associated with a pronounced increase in inflammatory biomarkers in both CSF and blood throughout the 48‐hour study period. A principal component (PC) analysis was performed on 52 inflammatory biomarkers. The 2 first PC (PC1 and PC2) construct outcome variables on CSF biomarkers were significantly associated with long‐term cognitive decline at 3 months, but none of the PC construct serum variables showed a significant association with long‐term cognitive decline at 3 months. Patients both with and patients without long‐term cognitive decline showed early transient increases of the astroglial biomarkers S‐100B and glial fibrillary acidic protein in CSF, and in BBB permeability (CSF/serum albumin ratio). INTERPRETATION Surgery rapidly triggers a temporal neuroinflammatory response closely associated with long‐term cognitive outcome postsurgery. The findings of this explorative study require validation in a larger surgical patient cohort. ANN NEUROL 202

Identification and Validation of Leucine-rich α-2-glycoprotein 1 as a Noninvasive Biomarker for Improved Precision in Prostate Cancer Risk Stratification.

BACKGROUND: More accurate risk assessments are needed to improve prostate cancer management. OBJECTIVE: To identify blood-based protein biomarkers that provided prognostic information for risk stratification. DESIGN SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Mass spectrometry was used to identify biomarker candidates from blood, and validation studies were performed in four independent cohorts retrospectively collected between 1988 and 2015. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: The primary outcome objectives were progression-free survival, prostate cancer-specific survival (PCSS), and overall survival. Statistical analyses to assess survival and model performance were performed. RESULTS AND LIMITATION: Serum leucine-rich α-2-glycoprotein 1 (LRG1) was found to be elevated in fatal prostate cancer. LRG1 provided prognostic information independent of metastasis and increased the accuracy in predicting PCSS, particularly in the first 3 yr. A high LRG1 level is associated with an average of two-fold higher risk of disease-progression and mortality in both high-risk and metastatic patients. However, our study design, with a retrospective analysis of samples spanning several decades back, limits the assessment of the clinical utility of LRG1 in today's clinical practice. Thus, independent prospective studies are needed to establish LRG1 as a clinically useful biomarker for patient management. CONCLUSIONS: High blood levels of LRG1 are unfavourable in newly diagnosed high-risk and metastatic prostate cancer, and LRG1 increased the accuracy of risk stratification of prostate cancer patients. PATIENT SUMMARY: High blood levels of leucine-rich α-2-glycoprotein 1 are unfavourable in newly diagnosed high-risk and metastatic prostate cancer