An Extended Measure Of The User Costs Of Housing - New Evidence From The U.S.

This paper is based on a traditional neoclassical approach to housing investment and our previous work carried out for Germany. In this study we check the relevance if the definition for the user costs of housing should be extended by an additional term which mirrors the credit constraints a household would be faced with for the U.S. economy. This extension term consists of the inflation gap between consumer and house price inflation multiplied with an average loan-to-value ratio and the real house prices. The empirical relevance of our finding is confirmed by a VECM using U.S. data. A time series for the user costs of housing in the U.S. is calculated

A Central Banks Role In Cashless Payments

The smooth functioning of payment systems is relevant for both the efficiency of the financial sector as well as the implementation of monetary policy operations. Therefore, payment systems are often provided by central banks. The characteristics of individual payment systems, such as increasing economies of scale, favour the development of a monopolistic situation. Therefore, we consider the role of a central bank acting as a monopolist and discuss possible welfare effects. Against the background of huge systemic risks, a central bank acting as an operator of an individual payment system is supposed to be the optimal solution. We illustrate our findings in the light of the role of the Bundesbank which has traditionally been operating its own payment systems

Duemmler, Kerstin; Nagel, Alexander-Kenneth: Governing Religious Diversity: Top-down and bottom-up initiatives in Germany and Switzerland

In recent years religious pluralization has become a significant policy issue in Western societies as a result of a new awareness of religion and of religious minorities articulating themselves and becoming more visible. The article explores the variety of social and political reactions to religious diversity in urban areas and in doing so it brings together theoretical concepts of political and cultural sociology. The notion of diversity governance as joint endeavour of state and societal actors managing societies is linked to the notion of boundary work as interplay of state and/or societal actors maintaining or modifying boundaries between religious traditions. Based on two case studies the article illustrates two idealtypical settings of diversity governance: The first case from the German Ruhr Area stands for a bottom-up approach which is based on civic self-organization of interreligious activities whereas the second case from the Swiss canton of Lucerne exhibits a model of top-down governance based on state interventions in religious instruction at schools. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observation the authors show how different governance settings shape the construction and blurring of boundaries in the religious field. Both approaches operate differently when incorporating religious diversity and rendering former homogenous notions of we-groups more heterogeneous. Despite of the approaches initial aim of inclusion, patterns of exclusion are equally reproduced since the idea of ‘legitimate religion' rooted in Christian majority culture is presen

Gehören wir dazu? Grenzziehungsprozesse und Positionierungen der zweiten Generation im Vergleich zwischen Luzern und Neuchâtel

Cet article s’intéresse aux sentiments d’appartenance et aux positionnements des jeunes de deuxième génération vis-à-vis de certaines frontières symboliques ethno-nationales. Sur la base d’entretiens menés dans les cantons de Lucerne et Neuchâtel avec des jeunes de 16 à 19 ans d’origines différentes, nous mettons en lumière les stratégies et les discours qu’ils/elles développent par rapport à ces frontières. Nous montrons notamment comment le contexte institutionnel de chaque canton influence leurs discours et stratégies. Indépendamment de leur sentiment d’appartenance, les stratégies mises en œuvre par les jeunes sont marquées dans le canton de Lucerne par les exigences d’intégration et dans le canton de Neuchâtel par un discours républicain de tolérance.Rather than to examine the modes of integration of the second generation as is usually done, the article chooses to ask how the second generation position themselves vis-à-vis certain ethno-national boundaries and whether they feel that they belong. Based on interviews with young people of different origins, aged from 16 to 19 years and residing in the cantons of Lucerne and Neuchâtel, we uncover their positionings and strategies when faced with boundaries. We notably show how the regional contexts influence their positions and strategies. Independently of their feelings of belonging, their strategies are strongly affected by the demands of integration in Lucerne and by a republican discourse of tolerance in Neuchâtel.Statt wie üblich die Integrationsmodi der zweiten Generation zu untersuchen, nimmt der Artikel eine andere Perspektive ein und fragt, wie sich die zweite Generation gegenüber ethno-nationalen Grenzlinien positioniert und ob sie sich als zugehörig betrachtet. Anhand von Interviews mit 16 bis 19-Jährigen unterschiedlicher Herkunft aus den Kantonen Luzern und Neuenburg wird aufgedeckt, welche Positionierungen und Strategien sie angesichts von Grenzziehungen entwickeln. Der Vergleich macht insbesondere deutlich, wie die regionalen Kontexte ihre Positionierungen und Strategien kanalisieren. Unabhängig davon, ob sich die zweite Generation als zugehörig wahrnimmt, sind sie in Luzern durch Integrationsforderungen und in Neuenburg durch einen republikanischen Toleranzdiskurs geprägt

Nadia Lamamra, Morgane Kuehni, Séverine Rey (dir.) – Finalités et usages de la formation professionnelle

Recensé : Nadia Lamamra, Morgane Kuehni, Séverine Rey (dir.), Finalités et usages de la formation professionnelle. Apprendre un métier, trouver un emploi, poursuivre ses études, Lausanne, Antipodes (« Existences et Sociétés »), 2021, 295 p.Recensé : Nadia Lamamra, Morgane Kuehni, Séverine Rey (dir.), Finalités et usages de la formation professionnelle. Apprendre un métier, trouver un emploi, poursuivre ses études, Lausanne, Antipodes (« Existences et Sociétés »), 2021, 295 p

Characterization of pluripotency genes in axolotl spinal cord regeneration

Regeneration is a process that renews damaged or lost cells, tissues, or even of entire body structures, and is a phenomenon which is widespread in the animal kingdom. Urodeles such as newts and salamanders have a remarkable regeneration ability. They can regenerate organs such as gills, lower jaws, retina, appendages like fore- and hind limbs, and also the tail including the spinal cord. The regeneration process requires the use of resident stem cells or somatic cells, which have to be reprogrammed. In both cases the reprogrammed cells are less differentiated, meaning the cell would have the ability to form any kind of fetal or adult cell which rose from the three different germ layers, the ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. Artificial reprogramming of differentiated mammalian somatic cell had been reported previously. It was shown that four pluripotency factors, OCT4 (also called POU5f1), SOX2, c-MYC and KLF4 are sufficient to generate an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell. It has been shown that some of these factors are also involved in regenerating processes. In newt limb and lens tissue, Sox2, c-Myc and Klf4 mRNA levels were upregulated in the beginning of blastema formation when compared to non-amputated tissue. Oct4 mRNA however, was not detected. During xenopus tail regeneration, Sox2 and c-Myc were expressed, while the xenopus Pou homologs Pou25, Pou60, Pou79, Pou91 were not detected. In regenerating zebrafish fin tissue, Sox2, Pou2, c-Myc and Klf4 mRNA were not upregulated. The mammalian transcription factor OCT4, a class V POU protein, is responsible in maintaining pluripotency in gastrula stage embryos. It was reported that mouse OCT4 is also expressed in the caudal node of embryos having 16 somites. It is further known that progenitors exist in mouse tailbud, which give rise to neural and mesodermal cell lineage. This suggests that the OCT4 expressing cells in caudal node might be a stem cell reservoir. Oct4 was detected in axolotl during embryonic development, and prior to my work we found Oct4 when screening the axolotl blastema cDNA library. In addition, we also identified Pou2, another class V POU gene. Phylogenetic analysis showed a clear distinction of both genes in the axolotl. We determined the mRNA pattern of Pou2 during embryogenesis and compared it to Oct4 mRNA and protein. Both genes are expressed in the primordial germ cells and the pluripotent animal cap region of the embryo. Apart from this similarity, both genes have a different expression pattern in the embryo. We are interested in the involvement of OCT4, POU2, as well as the transcription factor SOX2 in regenerating axolotl spinal cord. We asked whether the cellular pluripotent character conferred by POU factors is limited to mammals or if it is an ancient characteristic of lower vertebrates. To answer the question we performed in vitro and in vivo studies. Hence this thesis is separated into two chapter. By in vitro studies we investigated the pluripotent PouV orthologs from different species. Therefore, we performed reprogramming experiments using mouse or human fibroblasts and transduced them with axolotl Oct4 or Pou2, in combination with human or axolotl Sox2, c-Myc and/or Klf4. The generated iPS cells with the different sets of factors had similar endogenous pluripotency gene expression profiles to embryonic stem cells. Further, iPS cells expressed the pluripotency markers like OCT4, NANOG, SSEA4, TRA1-60 and TRA1-81. Another evaluation of the iPS cells was the formation of embryoid bodies. Immunouorescence staining showed that tissue from all three germ layers was formed after induction. We observed a positive staining for the endoderm marker !-FEROPROTEIN, the mesoderm marker !-SMOOTH MUSCLE ACTIN and the ectoderm marker \"III TUBULIN in the generated cells. This indicated that the iPS cells generated using axolotl Oct4 and Sox2 in combination with mammalian Klf4 and with or without c-Myc, as well as iPS cell generated with axolotl Pou2 and mammalian Sox2 and Klf4 and with or without c-Myc have a pluripotent potential. In addition, the axolotl factors are able to form heterodimers with the mammalian proteins. Furthermore, we compared the reprogramming ability with POU factors from mouse, human, zebrash, medaka and xenopus. We showed that xenopus Pou91, as the only non-mammalian example, is nearly as efficient as mouse and human Oct4 cDNAs in inducing GFP expressing cells. Also axolotl Pou2, axolotl Oct4 and medaka Pou2 showed reprogramming character however at a much lower efficiency. In contrast, zebrash Pou2 is not able to establish iPS cells. This indicates that a reprogramming ability to a pluripotent cell state is an ancient trait of Pou2 and Oct4 homologs. By in vivo studies we investigated the role of Oct4, Pou2 and Sox2 gene expression in regenerating spinal cord tissue. Performed in situ hybridizations and antibody staining studies in the regenerating spinal cord showed that Oct4, Pou2 and Sox2 were expressed during spinal cord regeneration. Knockdown experiments in regenerating spinal cord using morpholino showed that Pou2-morpholino does not have an effect. In contrast, SOX2 was required for spinal cord regeneration but to a lesser extent, than OCT4, which decreased the regenerated length signicantly compared to control. Even though, with Sox2-morpholino we did not observe the phenotype as a significantly shorter regenerated spinal cord, about 45% of SOX2 knocked down cells were not cycling and proliferating anymore. This indicates that axolotl SOX2 has an effect in regeneration. Therefore we wanted to know whether spinal cord cells would also have a pluripotent character in vivo and form other tissue types. Regenerating cells of the spinal cord are only able to form the same cell type and thus they keep their cell memory. However, when we performed transplantations of OCT4/SOX2 expressing spinal cord cells into somite stage embryos, we could show the formation of muscle cells. This shows that the spinal cord cells have the potential to change their fate in an embryonic context, where the normal environment of spinal cord has changed. However, our data do not indicate whether muscle is formed directly from the spinal cord or whether spinal cord cells fuse to developmental myoblasts, a cell type of embryonic progenitors, which give rise to muscle cells. To clearly state whether regenerating OCT4/SOX2 expressing spinal cord cells are pluripotent we have to perform OCT4 knock down in spinal cord and transplant these less proliferating cells into embryos, observing their cell fate

The radial velocities of the RS CVn star UX Ari. A triple system with a binary on the same line of sight

UX Ari belongs to the class of very active RS CVn stars and has recently been the target of surface (Doppler) imaging. Although this technique needs a quite accurate determination of the orbit (in order to have the correct period for phasing and the correct Doppler shift correction of the line profiles) we found only one, quite old orbit solution, which has subsequently been used by everyone. We used published radial velocities (RVs), supplemented by a large number (124) of our own recent, high-accuracy RVs of both the primary (K0 IV) and the secondary (G5 V) to improve the orbit of UX Ari. In addition to the improved set of parameters, we found that the gamma velocity of the system is systematically changing over time. It seems that UX Ari is a triple system. Actually, a third star is weakly present in the spectrum. While its RV is also changing, it is not a member of the system, but happens to be on the same line of sight. Finally, conclusions about the physical parameters of the objects from the orbits are presented.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures; uses the new A&A style file (included); table 2 is included in the LaTeX-file, but commented out; it is not printed and will be available from CDS; accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysic