Tax Effects, Search Unemployment, and the Choice of Educational Type

This paper examines the effect of taxes on the individuals’ choices of educational direction, and thus on the economy’s skill composition. A proportional labour income tax induces too many workers with high innate ability to choose an educational type with high consumption value and low effort costs. This increases the skill mismatch and aggregate unemployment in the economy. The government can correct for this distortion by use of differentiated tuition fees or tax rates.unemployment, matching, education, optimal taxation, tuition fees

Undisturbed theatre dressing during the first postoperative week. A benefit in the treatment by external fixation: a cohort study

In the literature, there are several different suggestions as to when the first postoperative pin-site care should be carried out to best prevent pin-site infections during the treatment by external fixation. In a cohort study, we compared the use of antibiotics and complications in patients where the theatre dressing was changed during the first postoperative week with patients where the theatre dressings were left undisturbed for the first postoperative week. Sterile compresses moistened with chlorhexidine 5 mg/ml in alcohol (70%), draped around each pin site and fixed by a bandage, were used as theatre dressing. In all patients, cultures were taken 1 week postoperatively from each pin site; use of antibiotics and complications during the treatment was documented. In 101 consecutive patients (118 knees) (73% men, mean age 50, mean BMI 27.5 kg/m2) operated on by high tibial osteotomy for knee deformity using the hemicallotasis technique, during 2005–2006, the theatre dressings were left undisturbed during the first postoperative week in 90 patients (104 knees) of group 1, and in 11 patients (14 knees) of group 2, the theatre dressings were changed during the first postoperative week. Eight of 11 patients in group 2 were treated with antibiotics compared to 32 of 90 patients in group 1 (RR 2.0, 95% CI 1.6–2.7, p = 0.02) during the treatment period by external fixation. Patients with a disturbed theatre dressing during the first postoperative week had an increased use of antibiotics by 18.6 days (95% CI 10.6–26.5, p < 0.0001, adjusted analysis). Four of 11 patients in group 2 had complications and 11 of 90 in group 1, adjusted analysis (RR 2.7, 95% CI 0.4–16.2, p = 0.3). Bilateral surgery simultaneously showed increased use of antibiotics by 10.4 days (4.4, 16.4, p = 0.0009) and increased risk of complications (RR 5.8, 95% CI 1.2–27.5, p = 0.03). In conclusion, the increased use of antibiotics indicates that leaving the theatre dressing undisturbed during the first postoperative week is beneficial to the treatment by external fixation and is probably of importance in the prophylactic pin-site care

Upregulation of the SERCA-type Ca(2+) pump activity in response to endoplasmic reticulum stress in PC12 cells

BACKGROUND: Ca(2+)-ATPases of endoplasmic reticulum (SERCAs) are responsible for maintenance of the micro- to millimolar Ca(2+) ion concentrations within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of eukaryotic cells. This intralumenal Ca(2+) storage is important for the generation of Ca(2+) signals as well as for the correct folding and posttranslational processing of proteins entering ER after synthesis. ER perturbations such as depletion of Ca(2+) or abolishing the oxidative potential, inhibition of glycosylation, or block of secretory pathway, activate the Unfolded Protein Response, consisting of an upregulation of a number of ER-resident chaperones/stress proteins in an effort to boost the impaired folding capacity. RESULTS: We show here that in PC12 cells, depletion of ER Ca(2+) by EGTA, as well as inhibition of disulphide bridge formation within the ER by dithiotreitol or inhibition of N-glycosylation by tunicamycin, led to a 2- to 3-fold increase of the SERCA-mediated (45)Ca(2+) transport to microsomes isolated from cells exposed to these stress agents. The time course of this response corresponded to that for transcriptional upregulation of ER stress proteins, as well as to the increase in the SERCA2b mRNA, as we recently observed in an independent study. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide the first functional evidence for the increase of SERCA pumping capacity in cells subjected to the ER stress. Since at least three different and unrelated mechanisms of eliciting the ER stress response were found to cause this functional upregulation of Ca(2+) transport into the ER, these results support the existence of a coupling between the induction of the UPR pathway in general, and the regulation of expression of at least one of the SERCA pump isoforms

Erfaringer med trafikpolitiske virkemidler

Internationale og danske erfaringer med mulighederne for at påvirke persontrafikken i by-er er gennem en årrække blevet indsamlet og systematiseret i en database. Denne database er nu med økonomisk støtte fra Transportrådet blevet udvidet og yderligere systematiseret, og den danner baggrund for udarbejdelsen af et virkemiddelkatalog med status over den pr. 1.7.1996 indsamlede viden. I dette paper gennemgås baggrund og metode for udarbejdelse af databasen, der gives en systematisk oversigt over virkemidlerne og opbygningen af virkemiddelkataloget beskrives. &nbsp

Joint mapping of cardiovascular diseases:comparing the geographic patterns in incident acute myocardial infarction, stroke and atrial fibrillation, a Danish register-based cohort study 2014–15

BACKGROUND: Disease mapping aims at identifying geographic patterns in disease. This may provide a better understanding of disease aetiology and risk factors as well as enable targeted prevention and allocation of resources. Joint mapping of multiple diseases may lead to improved insights since e.g. similarities and differences between geographic patterns may reflect shared and disease-specific determinants of disease. The objective of this study was to compare the geographic patterns in incident acute myocardial infarction (AMI), stroke and atrial fibrillation (AF) using the unique, population-based Danish register data. METHODS: Incident AMI, stroke and AF was modelled by a multivariate Poisson model including a disease-specific random effect of municipality modelled by a multivariate conditionally autoregressive (MCAR) structure. Analyses were adjusted for age, sex and income. RESULTS: The study included 3.5 million adults contributing 6.8 million person-years. In total, 18,349 incident cases of AMI, 28,006 incident cases of stroke, and 39,040 incident cases of AF occurred. Estimated municipality-specific standardized incidence rates ranged from 0.76 to 1.35 for AMI, from 0.79 to 1.38 for stroke, and from 0.85 to 1.24 for AF. In all diseases, geographic variation with clusters of high or low risk of disease after adjustment was seen. The geographic patterns displayed overall similarities between the diseases, with stroke and AF having the strongest resemblances. The most notable difference was observed in Copenhagen (high risk of stroke and AF, low risk of AMI). AF showed the least geographic variation. CONCLUSION: Using multiple-disease mapping, this study adds to the results of previous studies by enabling joint evaluation and comparison of the geographic patterns in AMI, stroke and AF. The simultaneous mapping of diseases displayed similarities and differences in occurrence that are non-assessable in traditional single-disease mapping studies. In addition to reflecting the fact that AF is a strong risk factor for stroke, the results suggested that AMI, stroke and AF share some, but not all environmental risk factors after accounting for age, sex and income (indicator of lifestyle and health behaviour). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12942-021-00294-w

Seasonal movements and habitat use of African buffalo in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania.

BACKGROUND:Assessing wildlife movements and habitat use is important for species conservation and management and can be informative for understanding population dynamics. The African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) population of Ruaha National Park, Tanzania has been declining, and little was known about the movement, habitat selection, and space use of the population, which is important for understanding possible reasons behind the decline. A total of 12 African buffalo cows from four different herds were collared with satellite transmitters. Movements were assessed over 2 years from 11 animals. RESULTS:The space use of the individual collared buffaloes as an approximation of the 95% home range size estimated using Brownian bridge models, ranged from 73 to 601 km2. The estimated home ranges were larger in the wet season than in the dry season. With the exception of one buffalo all collared animals completed a wet season migration of varying distances. A consistent pattern of seasonal movement was observed with one herd, whereas the other herds did not behave the same way in the two wet seasons that they were tracked. Herd splitting and herd switching occurred on multiple occasions. Buffaloes strongly associated with habitats near the Great Ruaha River in the dry season and had little association to permanent water sources in the wet season. Daily movements averaged 4.6 km (standard deviation, SD = 2.6 km), with the longest distances traveled during November (mean 6.9 km, SD = 3.6 km) at the end of the dry season and beginning of the wet season. The shortest daily distances traveled occurred in the wet season in April-June (mean 3.6 km, SD = 1.6-1.8 km). CONCLUSION:The Great Ruaha River has experienced significant drying in the last decades due to water diversions upstream, which likely has reduced the suitable range for buffaloes. The loss of dry season habitat due to water scarcity has likely contributed to the population decline of the Ruaha buffaloes