"The Evolution of Wealth Inequality in Canada: 1984-1999"

Using data from the Assets and Debts Survey of 1984 and the Survey of Financial Security of 1999, we document the evolution of wealth inequality in Canada between 1984 and 1999. Our main findings are as follows: 1) Wealth inequality has increased between 1984 and 1999; 2) the growth in wealth inequality has been associated with substantial declines in real average and median wealth for recent immigrants and young couples with children; 3) real median wealth and real average wealth rose much more among families whose major income recipient is a university graduate than among other families; 4) real median and average wealth fell among families whose major income recipient is aged 25–34 and increased among those whose major income recipient is aged 55 and over; 5) the aging of the Canadian population over the 1984–1999 period has tended to reduce wealth inequality; 6) changes in permanent income do not explain a substantial portion of the growing gap between low-wealth and high-wealth families. Factors that may have contributed to rising wealth inequality—which cannot be quantified with existing data sets—include differences in the growth of inheritances, inter vivos transfers, rates of return on savings and number of years worked full-time. In particular, rates of return on savings may have increased more for wealthy family units than for their poorer counterparts as a result of the booming stock market during the 1990s.

Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers: Canadian Evidence from a Large Administrative Database on Firm Closures and Mass Layoffs

Using Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Worker File, we document short-term and long-term earnings losses for a large (10%) sample of Canadian workers who lost their job through firm closures or mass layoffs during the late 1980s and the 1990s. Our use of a nationally representative sample allows us to examine how earnings losses vary across age groups, gender, industries and firms of different sizes. Furthermore, we conduct separate analyses for workers displaced only through firm closures and for a broader sample displaced either through firm closures or mass layoffs. Our main finding is that while the long-term earnings losses experienced on average by workers who are displaced through firm closures or mass layoffs are important, those experienced by displaced workers with considerable seniority appear to be even more substantial. Consistent with findings from the United States by Jacobson, Lalonde and Sullivan (1993), high-seniority displaced men experience long-term earnings losses that represent between 18% and 35% of their pre-displacement earnings. For their female counterparts, the corresponding estimates vary between 24% and 35%.Layoffs; Job Losses; Employment; Worker Displacement; Earnings Losses

The Evolution of Wealth Inequality in Canada, 1984-1999

Using data from the Assets and Debts Survey of 1984 and the Survey of Financial Security of 1999, we document the evolution of wealth inequality in Canada between 1984 and 1999. Our main findings are as follows: 1) Wealth inequality has increased between 1984 and 1999; 2) the growth in wealth inequality has been associated with substantial declines in real average and median wealth for recent immigrants and young couples with children; 3) real median wealth and real average wealth rose much more among families whose major income recipient is a university graduate than among other families; 4) real median and average wealth fell among families whose major income recipient is aged 25–34 and increased among those whose major income recipient is aged 55 and over; 5) the aging of the Canadian population over the 1984–1999 period has tended to reduce wealth inequality; 6) changes in permanent income do not explain a substantial portion of the growing gap between low-wealth and high-wealth families. Factors that may have contributed to rising wealth inequality—which cannot be quantified with existing data sets—include differences in the growth of inheritances, inter vivos transfers, rates of return on savings and number of years worked full- time. In particular, rates of return on savings may have increased more for wealthy family units than for their poorer counterparts as a result of the booming stock market during the 1990s.inequality, wealth, assets, debts, net worth

Experimental Research on the Teaching Mode of Cooperation and Competition in Physical Education

There are great differences in skill levels among students in the class. It should be the focus of our work to improve students to the greatest extent through teaching, gradually narrow the gap between individuals, and improve the overall teaching quality. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the teaching mode of cooperation and competition. The research group conducted two rounds of teaching experiments in Harbin Engineering University. The first round of experiments adopted an equal group pre-test and post-test experimental design. Solomon’s four group design was used in the second round of experiment. The whole experimental process was standardized and rigorous to avoid Hawthorne effect. Teachers organized teaching according to the experimental scheme and steps of cooperative and competitive teaching mode. Two rounds of teaching experiments were followed with a previously validated internal motivation survey. After the first round of experiment, a questionnaire was conducted on the students of two classes. In the second round of experiment, an experimental class and a control class were investigated in the middle of the experiment. After the experiment, a questionnaire was conducted in the other two classes. The independent sample t-test results shows that the scores of the experimental class were significantly higher than those of the control class (P values were less than 0.05). The level of internal motivation in the experimental class was significantly higher than that in the control class (P values were less than 0.05). The effect of cooperative and competitive teaching mode is better than that of conventional teaching mode, and it is conducive to mobilize students’ internal motivation, promote students’ autonomous learning, and cultivate students’ interest and hobby in sports. By using the methods of group mutual aid learning and group competition, students would improve their skill level through the joint efforts with peers and promote the development of their awareness of cooperation and competition

A Comparative Study on the Construction of Special Psychological Ability Indexes of Curling Male Athletes

Curling is a sport combining skill and intelligence. Athletes should not only have proficient physical fitness, technical and tactical level, but they also need strong psychological ability. This study attempts to build a special psychological ability system for curling athletes, to provide guidance for the athlete selection and training. In this study, 13 male athletes of Heilongjiang curling team were recruited. HengChan Yin \u27s attention scale, Dr. Ping Ye\u27s competitive motivation scale, XiaoChuan Yin \u27s excellent athlete\u27s will quality evaluation scale, Vealey\u27s athlete\u27s trait self-confidence scale, Martens\u27s sports competition state anxiety scale, LiWei Zhang\u27s pre competition emotion scale-t scale, electronic stopwatch and other equipment were used for the test. In order to determine the constituent factors of curling athletes\u27 specialized psychological ability, 11 psychological indexes, such as time and space judgment, speed perception, attention distribution, attention transfer, competitive motivation, will quality, sports competition anxiety, cognitive trait anxiety, self-confidence, attention stability, emotional stability, were analyzed by factor analysis method. The characteristic value, contribution rate and fatigue of the factors were calculated. The results suggested that the first four factors whose characteristic value are greater than 1 and cumulative contribution rate is greater than 80% are selected as the main factors. According to the characteristic value of the first four main factors, the initial factor load matrix is obtained, and the orthogonal factor matrix after rotation is obtained by using variance maximization. The system of special mental ability of curling male athletes consists of four aspects: mental preparation ability, mental state ability, attention ability and space-time judgment ability. There are significant differences in mental preparation ability and mental state ability between the main players and the substitutes. The main players are better than the substitutes

Indole contributes to tetracycline resistance via the outer membrane protein OmpN in Vibrio splendidus

As an interspecies and interkingdom signaling molecule, indole has recently received attention for its diverse effects on the physiology of both bacteria and hosts. In this study, indole increased the tetracycline resistance of Vibrio splendidus. The minimal inhibitory concentration of tetracycline was 10 mu g/mL, and the OD600 of V. splendidus decreased by 94.5% in the presence of 20 mu g/mL tetracycline; however, the OD600 of V. splendidus with a mixture of 20 mu g/mL tetracycline and 125 mu M indole was 10- or 4.5-fold higher than that with only 20 mu g/mL tetracycline at different time points. The percentage of cells resistant to 10 mu g/mL tetracycline was 600-fold higher in the culture with an OD600 of approximately 2.0 (higher level of indole) than that in the culture with an OD600 of 0.5, which also meant that the level of indole was correlated to the tetracycline resistance of V. splendidus. Furthermore, one differentially expressed protein, which was identified as the outer membrane porin OmpN using SDS-PAGE combined with MALDI-TOF/TOF MS, was upregulated. Consequently, the expression of the ompN gene in the presence of either tetracycline or indole and simultaneously in the presence of indole and tetracycline was upregulated by 1.8-, 2.54-, and 6.01-fold, respectively, compared to the control samples. The combined results demonstrated that indole enhanced the tetracycline resistance of V. splendidus, and this resistance was probably due to upregulation of the outer membrane porin OmpN

An endogenous search model and its applications

The existing literature on empirical job search models concentrates on studying the effects of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, and the primary interest has been in male displaced workers. It is usually assumed that displaced workers start to search for new jobs immediately after the separation, treating the labor force participation decision of the displaced workers as an exogenous issue. This thesis proposes a job search model where the participation decision of the displaced workers is made endogenous. The introduction of participation data enables us to identify more parameters and to avoid potential selection bias in the empirical work. The model is applied to study how the presence of young children affects the reservation wage and the escape rate from unemployment of female workers, and the gender wage gap between male and female workers. By its empirical work, the thesis tries to broaden the range of application of the job search theory. The empirical results of the thesis are based on a panel of young Canadians two suffered a permanent job displacement. It is found that the offer arrival rate is the primary channel through which child status may affect the reservation wage of female workers, while child care cost differentials between the states of employment and unemployment may play only a minor role. It is also found that the effects of child status on male workers are much smaller than that on female workers with respect to the reservation wage, the offer arrival rate and the escape rate from unemployment. This suggests that the presence of young children in a worker's family contributes an important part to the gender wage gap

Antecedents of Coordination Effectiveness of Software Developer Dyads from Interacting Teams: An Empirical Investigation

Among numerous reasons for software project failure, coordination failure is considered as especially salient. Prior studies on coordination in software development are confined to team internal coordination and do not explicitly differentiate team internal and external coordination processes. This study proposes a research model to explain the antecedents of coordination effectiveness of software developer dyads from interacting teams. We explore the antecedents by integrating inter-personal coordination and technology-based coordination. Data were collected from 59 software developer dyads from different interacting teams as well as software developers’ managers. The results reveal that implicit knowledge sharing has a significant positive impact on coordination effectiveness. Social capital (mutual trust and project commitment) has a significant impact on knowledge sharing with mutual trust directly affecting both implicit and explicit knowledge sharing. Project commitment also has a direct impact on explicit knowledge sharing and mutual trust, but it does not directly affect implicit knowledge sharing

Reactive Oxygen Species and p38 Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase Mediate Exercise-induced Skeletal Muscle-derived Interleukin-6 Expression

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine secreted by many different cell types, and skeletal muscle is an important source of IL-6 during exercise. Here, we studied the effects of glucose deprivation in vitro on skeletal muscle-derived IL-6 expression and release in C2C12 myocytes, as well as its regulation by p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38MAPK) and reactive oxygen species (ROS). C2C12 myotubes were cultured in DMEM medium containing 4.5 g · L−1 glucose (glucose control, GC) or DMEM medium containing no glucose (glucose deprivation, GD) for 0, 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours, and then incubated with 10mM NAC (a ROS scavenger) or 10 μM SB203580 (a p38MAPK inhibitor) under either GC or GD conditions for 24 hours. IL-6 expression levels were subsequently analyzed using RT–PCR, and IL-6 protein levels in the medium were measured using ELISA. Glucose deprivation significantly enhanced IL-6 expression at 18 and 24 hours compared to the glucose control, and caused IL-6 protein levels to increase significantly over the entire 24-hour measurement period. The ROS scavenger NAC inhibited the glucose deprivation-induced release of IL-6 protein almost completely, while the p38MAPK inhibitor SB203580 inhibited glucose deprivation-induced IL-6 protein release to a lesser extent. Our study suggests that glucose deprivation in C2C12 myocytes induces IL-6 expression and release, and that this IL-6 release is mainly mediated via ROS signaling. Skeletal muscle-derived IL-6 may thus play an important role in energy metabolism during exercise

Single group study to evaluate the feasibility and complications of radiofrequency ablation and usefulness of post treatment position emission tomography in lung tumours

BACKGROUND: There is genuine need to develop interventional treatment options for management of lung tumors. Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is one such alternative being promoted to treat lung tumors recently. Larger studies should help define RFA's further development. Furthermore fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET) has been reported to be an accurate indicator of treatment response in variety of tumors. This study focuses on the evaluating the feasibility of RFA and usefulness of PET scan in lung tumors after RFA procedure. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between November 1999 and May 2002, 50 patients with primary or metastasis pulmonary tumors underwent RFA procedure. The electrode was guided to the target areas using computerized tomography (CT). Tumors smaller than 3.5 cm were given single RFA, while tumors larger than 3.5 cm received RFA to multiple sites. Maximum 4 lesions or 6 target areas were treated during one operating procedure. Whole body and/or lung PET images were acquired; identical site CT images and chest X-ray were taken 1 week before and after RFA. RESULTS: Of the 50 patients, 17 had single lesions while rest had multiple lesions. Tumors smaller than 3.5 cm were completely dissipated after RFA. In tumors larger than 3.5 cm, the part within 3.5 cm diameter dissipated. While CT showed that tumor image became larger 1 to 2 weeks after RFA procedure. PET demonstrated tumor destruction in 70% cases, compared to 38% in CT. CONCLUSION: The present study shows RFA to be safe and effective treatment option for lung tumors. PET is superior to CT in evaluation the effectiveness of RFA treatment shortly after the procedure