Income distribution patterns from a complete social security database

We analyze the income distribution of employees for 9 consecutive years (2001-2009) using a complete social security database for an economically important district of Romania. The database contains detailed information on more than half million taxpayers, including their monthly salaries from all employers where they worked. Besides studying the characteristic distribution functions in the high and low/medium income limits, the database allows us a detailed dynamical study by following the time-evolution of the taxpayers income. To our knowledge, this is the first extensive study of this kind (a previous japanese taxpayers survey was limited to two years). In the high income limit we prove once again the validity of Pareto's law, obtaining a perfect scaling on four orders of magnitude in the rank for all the studied years. The obtained Pareto exponents are quite stable with values around $\alpha \approx 2.5$, in spite of the fact that during this period the economy developed rapidly and also a financial-economic crisis hit Romania in 2007-2008. For the low and medium income category we confirmed the exponential-type income distribution. Following the income of employees in time, we have found that the top limit of the income distribution is a highly dynamical region with strong fluctuations in the rank. In this region, the observed dynamics is consistent with a multiplicative random growth hypothesis. Contrarily with previous results obtained for the japanese employees, we find that the logarithmic growth-rate is not independent of the income.Comment: 10 pages, 7 Figure

The elevation in circulating anti-angiogenic factors is independent of markers of neutrophil activation in preeclampsia

Background - Severe preeclampsia is associated with increased neutrophil activation and elevated serum soluble endoglin (sEng) and soluble Flt-1 (sFlt-1) in the maternal circulation. To dissect the contribution of systemic inflammation and anti-angiogenic factors in preeclampsia, we investigated the relationships between the circulating markers of neutrophil activation and anti-angiogenic factors in severe preeclampsia or systemic inflammatory state during pregnancy. Methods and results - Serum sEng, sFlt-1, placenta growth factor, interleukin-6 (IL-6), calprotectin, and plasma a-defensins concentrations were measured by ELISA in 88 women of similar gestational age stratified as: severe preeclampsia (sPE, n = 45), maternal systemic inflammatory response (SIR, n = 16) secondary to chorioamnionitis, pyelonephritis or appendicitis; and normotensive controls (CRL, n = 27). Neutrophil activation occurred in sPE and SIR, as a-defensins and calprotectin concentrations were two-fold higher in both groups compared to CRL (P < 0.05 for each). IL-6 concentrations were highest in SIR (P < 0.001), but were higher in sPE than in CRL (P < 0.01). sFlt-1 (P < 0.001) and sEng (P < 0.001) were ˜20-fold higher in sPE compared to CRL, but were not elevated in SIR. In women with sPE, anti-angiogenic factors were not correlated with markers of neutrophil activation (a-defensins, calprotectin) or inflammation (IL-6). Conclusions - Increased systemic inflammation in sPE and SIR does not correlate with increased anti-angiogenic factors, which were specifically elevated in sPE indicating that excessive systemic inflammation is unlikely to be the main contributor to severe preeclampsia

High levels of acute phase proteins and soluble 70 kDa heat shock proteins are independent and additive risk factors for mortality in colorectal cancer

Recently, we reported that high soluble Hsp70 (sHsp70) level was a significant predictor of mortality during an almost 3-year-long follow-up period in patients with colorectal cancer. This association was the strongest in the group of <70-year-old female patients as well as in those who were in a less advanced stage of the disease at baseline. According to these observations, measurement of the serum level of sHsp70 is a useful, stage-independent prognostic marker in colorectal cancer, especially in patients without distant metastasis. Since many literature data indicated that measurement of C-reactive protein (CRP) and other acute phase proteins (APPs) may also be suitable for predicting the mortality of patients with colorectal cancer, it seemed reasonable to study whether the effect of sHsp70 and other APPs are related or independent. In order to answer this question, we measured the concentrations of CRP as well as of other complement-related APPs (C1 inhibitor, C3, and C9) along with that of the MASP-2 complement component in the sera of 175 patients with colorectal cancer and known levels of sHsp70, which have been used in our previous study. High (above median) levels of CRP, C1 esterase inhibitor (C1-INH), and sHsp70 were found to be independently associated with poor patient survival, whereas no such association was observed with the other proteins tested. According to the adjusted Cox proportional hazards analysis, the additive effect of high sHsp70, CRP, and C1-INH levels on the survival of patients exceeded that of high sHsp70 alone, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 2.83 (1.13–70.9). In some subgroups of patients, such as in females [HR 4.80 (1.07–21.60)] or in ≤70-year-old patients [HR 11.53 (2.78–47.70)], even greater differences were obtained. These findings indicate that the clinical mortality–prediction value of combined measurements of sHsp70, CRP, and C1-INH with inexpensive methods can be very high, especially in specific subgroups of patients with colorectal cancer

Feasibility of placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells as a tool for studying pregnancy-related disorders

The cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible for pregnancy-related disorders remain unclear. We investigated the feasibility of using placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as a tool to study such pregnancy-related disorders. We isolated and expanded adequate numbers of cells with characteristic features of MSCs from the chorionic plate (CP-MSCs), chorionic villi (CV-MSCs), and decidua basalis (DB-MSCs) of human term placental tissues. All placenta-derived MSCs expressed pregnancy-associated C14MC microRNA (miRNA) (miR-323-3p). Interestingly, the placenta-specific C19MC miRNAs (miR-518b and miR517a) were clearly expressed in CP-MSCs and CV-MSCs of foetal origin, but were barely expressed in DB-MSCs of maternal origin. Furthermore, expression levels of placenta-specific C19MC miRNAs in CV-MSCs remained stable during the ex vivo expansion process and across different pregnancy phases (first trimester versus third trimester). High-efficiency siRNA transfection was confirmed in twice-passaged CV-MSCs with little toxicity, and microarray analysis was used to screen for miR-518b target genes. Placenta-derived MSCs, especially CV-MSCs, are a potential tool for investigating the role of placental miRNAs in pregnancy-related disorders