Changing Income Inequality and Immigration in Canada 1980-1995

While there is a general consensus that income inequality has increased in most developed countries over the last two decades, the analytical focus has been at the national scale. However, these increases in inequality have not been uniform across different segments of society, either in terms of social group or geographic region. In particular, the high levels of immigration to metropolitan Canada have contributed to growing inequality. Using micro-level data on household income from the 1981,1986,1991 and 1996 censuses, this paper identifies the role of immigration and its differential impact on metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. The impacts accelerated during the first half of the 1990s when immigration remained high yet the economy slowed. The evidence suggests that the overall impact of immigration is a relatively short-run phenomenon as recent immigrants take time to adjust to the labour market. If recent immigrants are excluded, inequality is still increasing, but at a slower rate, especially in the largest metropolitan areas.income inequality; immigration

Geographic Dimensions of Aging in Canada 1991-2001

Although population aging at the national level has received much attention, its geographical dimensions have not. Here we explore the demographic processes which underlie population aging at the provincial and metropolitan scale for the periods 1991-1996 and 1996-2001. A demographic accounting framework is proposed which differentiates between the effects of aging-in-place and net migration on population aging. We also examine the relationships between the various measures of aging and social and economic characteristics of metropolitan areas over the two periods. We demonstrate that the path of population aging is susceptible to social and economic context; in particular, the struggles of the British Columbian economy in the second half of the decade and the deteriorating economies of older resources based communities are associated with increases in population aging over and above the general aging taking place in Canadian society.population aging; geographic differences

Quantitative functional interrelations within the cis-regulatory system of the S. purpuratus Endo16 gene

Embryonic expression of the Endo16 gene of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus is controlled by interactions with at least 13 different DNA-binding factors. These interactions occur within a cis-regulatory domain that extends about 2300 bp upstream from the transcription start site. A recent functional characterization of this domain reveals six different subregions, or cis-regulatory modules, each of which displays a specific regulatory subfunction when linked with the basal promoter and in some cases various other modules (C.-H. Yuh and E. Davidson (1996) Development 122, 1069-1082). In the present work, we analyzed quantitative time-course measurements of the CAT enzyme output of embryos bearing expression constructs controlled by various Endo16 regulatory modules, either singly or in combination. Three of these modules function positively in that, in isolation, each is capable of promoting expression in vegetal plate and adjacent cell lineages, though with different temporal profiles of activity. Models for the mode of interaction of the three positive modules with one another were tested by assuming mathematical relations that would generate, from the measured single module time courses, the experimentally observed profiles of activity obtained when the relevant modules are physically linked in the same construct. The generated and observed time functions were compared, and the differences were minimized by least squares adjustment of a scale parameter. When the modules were tested in context of the endogenous promoter region, one of the positive modules (A) was found to increase the output of the others (B and G), by a constant factor. In contrast, a solution in which the time-course data of modules A and B are multiplied by one another was required for the interrelations of the positive modules when a minimal SV40 promoter was used. One interpretation is that, in this construct, each module independently stimulates the basal transcription complex. We used a similar approach to analyze the repressive activity of the three Endo16 cis-regulatory modules that act negatively in controlling spatial expression. The evidence obtained confirms that the repressive modules act only by affecting the output of module A (C.-H. Yuh and E. Davidson (1996) Development 122, 1069-1082). A new hierarchical model of the cis-regulatory system was formulated in which module A plays a central integrating role, and which also implies specific functions for certain DNA-binding sites within the basal promoter fragment of the gene. Additional kinetic experiments were then carried out, and key aspects of the model were confirmed

Changing Income Inequality and the Elderly in Canada 1991-1996: Provincial Metropolitan and Local Dimensions

Recently, much attention has been given to income inequality in industrialized societies, in part because of the empirical evidence linking high levels of income inequality with high mortality, morbidity and other social ills (Wilkinson, 1996). Analyses of these relations originally focused on national figures, but more recent work has explored these linkages at subnational scales -- for state, provincial and metropolitan entities. At the same time, other studies have documented the recent increases in income inequality during the 1990s in Canada, which raises further questions about the dynamics of the relation between income inequality and its social consequences. In this paper we explore additional dimensions of the structure and change of income inequality in Canada between 1991 and 1996. We examine changing income inequality for the population over 65 as well as for the population as a whole, demonstrating that increases in income inequality are concentrated among those in the labour force years and that there has been little change (even some decline) in income inequality among the elderly. From a geographical perspective, increasing income inequality is significantly a large metropolitan issue and, as such, has a lesser impact on seniors as seniors are relatively more concentrated in smaller urban and rural areas. The fact that income inequality can change quite rapidly at the small area level raises some questions about the links to population health. Population health tends to be cumulative and reflects longer term rather than short-term circumstances. The empirical linkages need significantly more exploration to assess the mechanisms which underlie the observed relationships.income inequality; elderly

Competitive judgments in a business simulation: A comparison between American and Chinese business students

A complex total business enterprise computer simulation was used as the setting for a study of judgments by Chinese and American business school students. The subjects were asked to make a series of decisions and give judgments about expected levels of competition for a new market opportunity in the simulation world. Decisions were compared across the groups based on the decision structure and content. The results confirm previous research as the American participants generated significantly more responses overall, and especially judgment-consistent responses than the Chinese participants. Analysis of the content of the decision representations found that the relative proportion of singular to distributional information in the responses was similar for both American and Chinese individuals when making decisions about their own teams, but the Chinese participants focused more heavily on distributional information when making judgments about the behavior of others. This implies that American and Chinese individuals focus on different aspects of similar information and this may influence subsequent judgments. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34944/1/4_ftp.pd

Competitive titration in living sea urchin embryos of regulatory factors required for expression of the CyIIIa actin gene

Previous studies have located some twenty distinct sites within the 2.3 kb 5' regulatory domain of the sea urchin CyIIIa cytoskeletal actin gene, where there occur in vitro high-specificity interactions with nuclear DNA-binding proteins of the embryo. This gene is activated in late cleavage, exclusively in cells of the aboral ectoderm cell lineages. In this study, we investigate the functional importance in vivo of these sites of DNA-protein interaction. Sea urchin eggs were coinjected with a fusion gene construct in which the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter gene is under the control of the entire CyIIIa regulatory domain, together with molar excesses of one of ten nonoverlapping competitor subfragments of this domain, each of which contains one or a few specific site(s) of interaction. The exogenous excess binding sites competitively titrate the available regulatory factors away from the respective sites associated with the CyIIIa.CAT reporter gene. This provides a method for detecting in vivo sites within the regulatory domain that are required for normal levels of expression, without disturbing the structure of the regulatory domain. We thus identify five nonoverlapping regions of the regulatory DNA that apparently function as binding sites for positively acting transcriptional regulatory factors. Competition with a subfragment bearing an octamer site results in embryonic lethality. We find that three other sites display no quantitative competitive interference with CyIIIa.CAT expression, though as shown in the accompanying paper, two of these sites are required for control of spatial expression. We conclude that the complex CyIIIa regulatory domain must assess the state of many distinct and individually necessary interactions in order to properly regulate CyIIIa transcriptional activity in development

Effect of enhanced pCO2 levels on the production of dissolved organic carbon and transparent exopolymer particles in short-term bioassay experiments

It has been proposed that increasing levels of pCO(2) in the surface ocean will lead to more partitioning of the organic carbon fixed by marine primary production into the dissolved rather than the particulate fraction. This process may result in enhanced accumulation of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the surface ocean and/or concurrent accumulation of transparent exopolymer particles (TEPs), with important implications for the functioning of the marine carbon cycle. We investigated this in shipboard bioassay experiments that considered the effect of four different pCO(2) scenarios (ambient, 550, 750 and 1000 mu atm) on unamended natural phytoplankton communities from a range of locations in the northwest European shelf seas. The environmental settings, in terms of nutrient availability, phytoplankton community structure and growth conditions, varied considerably between locations. We did not observe any strong or consistent effect of pCO(2) on DOC production. There was a significant but highly variable effect of pCO(2) on the production of TEPs. In three of the five experiments, variation of TEP production between pCO(2) treatments was caused by the effect of pCO(2) on phytoplankton growth rather than a direct effect on TEP production. In one of the five experiments, there was evidence of enhanced TEP production at high pCO(2) (twice as much production over the 96 h incubation period in the 750 mu atm treatment compared with the ambient treatment) independent of indirect effects, as hypothesised by previous studies. Our results suggest that the environmental setting of experiments (community structure, nutrient availability and occurrence of phytoplankton growth) is a key factor determining the TEP response to pCO(2) perturbations

Saltation transport on Mars

We present the first calculation of saltation transport and dune formation on Mars and compare it to real dunes. We find that the rate at which grains are entrained into saltation on Mars is one order of magnitude higher than on Earth. With this fundamental novel ingredient, we reproduce the size and different shapes of Mars dunes, and give an estimate for the wind velocity on Mars.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure