Public pensions in Italy and Germany : a comparison based on panel data

This paper analyzes the reasons underlying low labor force participation rates (LFPRs) of women and the elderly population in Italy and Germany. The international comparison highlights the effects of different institutional arrangements on labor market outcomes. The study is based on panel microdata, allowing to trace the dynamics of the retirement process at the individual level. The empirical evidence shows that in both Italy and Germany workers tend to retire before reaching the normal retirement age and that female LFPRs are lower in Italy than in Germany, due mainly to lower education level. The data also show that, given the same social and economic characteristics of individuals, the male/female wage differentials are higher in Germany. So lower female LFPRs in Italy apparently do not depend on wage discrimination. Although the education level of the elderly is relatively low in Italy, this is not sufficient to explain the trend towards early retirement that characterizes Italian labor force. The Italian early retirement scheme (pensioni di anzianit`a) seems to provide a stronger incentive to retire than the German pathways to early retirement

Rationalizable Suicides: Evidence from Changes in Inmates' Expected Length of Sentence

Is there a rational component in the decision to commit suicide? Economists have been trying to shed light on this question by studying whether suicide rates are related to contemporaneous conditions. This paper goes one step further: we test whether suicides are linked to forward-looking behavior. In Italy, collective sentence reductions (pardons) often lead to massive releases of prisoners. More importantly, they are usually preceded by prolonged parliamentary activity (legislative proposals, discussion, voting, etc.) that inmates seem to follow closely. We use the legislative proposals for collective pardons to measure changes in the inmates' expectations about the length of their sentences, and find that suicide rates tend to be significantly lower when par- dons are proposed in congress. This suggests that, amongst inmates in Italian prisons, the average decision to commit suicide responds to changes in current expectations about future conditions. At least partially, therefore, the decision seems rationalizable

Returns to Education and Experience in Criminal Organizations: Evidence from the Italian-American Mafia

Is there any return to education in criminal activities? This is the first paper that investigates whether education has not only a positive impact on legitimate, but also on illegitimate activities. We use as a case study one of the longest running criminal corporations in history: the Italian-American mafia. Its most successful members have been capable businessmen, orchestrating crimes that require abilities that might be learned at school: extracting the optimal rent when setting up a racket, weighting interests against default risk when starting a loan sharking business or organising supply chains, logistics and distribution when setting up a drug dealing system. We address this question by comparing mobsters with their closest (non-mobster) neighbors using United States Census data in 1940. We document that mobsters have one year less education than their neighbors on average. None of the specifications presented identified any significant difference in the returns to education between these two groups. Private returns to education exist also in the illegal activities characterised by a certain degree of complexity as in the case of organized crime in mid-twentieth century United States

Proteomics quality control : a quality control software for MaxQuant results

Mass spectrometry-based proteomics coupled to liquid chromatography has matured into an automatized, high-throughput technology, producing data on the scale of multiple gigabytes per instrument per day. Consequently, an automated quality control (QC) and quality analysis (QA), capable of detecting measurement bias, verifying consistency and avoiding propagation of error is paramount for instrument operators and scientists in charge of downstream analysis. We have developed an R-based quality control pipeline called Proteomics Quality Control (PTXQC) for bottom-up LC-MS data generated by the MaxQuant software pipeline. PTXQC creates a quality control report containing a comprehensive and powerful set of quality control metrics, augmented with automated scoring functions. The automated scores are collated to create an overview heatmap at the beginning of the report, giving valuable guidance also to non-specialists. Our software supports a wide range of experimental designs, including stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC), Tandem Mass Tags (TMT) and label-free data. Furthermore, we introduce new metrics to score MaxQuant's Match-between-runs (MBR) functionality by which peptide identifications can be transferred across Raw files based on accurate RT and m/z. Last but not least, PTXQC is easy to install and use and represents the first QC software capable of processing MaxQuant result tables. PTXQC is freely available at https://github.com/cbielow/PTXQC

Proteome dynamics and early salt stress response of the photosynthetic organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

BACKGROUND: The cellular proteome and metabolome are underlying dynamic regulation allowing rapid adaptation to changes in the environment. System-wide analysis of these dynamics will provide novel insights into mechanisms of stress adaptation for higher photosynthetic organisms. We applied pulsed-SILAC labeling to a photosynthetic organism for the first time and we established a method to study proteome dynamics in the green alga chlamydomonas reinhardtii, an emerging model system for plant biology. In addition, we combined the analysis of protein synthesis with metabolic profiling to study the dynamic changes of metabolism and proteome turnover under salt stress conditions. RESULTS: To study de novo protein synthesis an arginine auxotroph Chlamydomonas strain was cultivated in presence of stable isotope-labeled arginine for 24 hours. From the time course experiment in 3 salt concentrations we could identify more than 2500 proteins and their H/L ratio in at least one experimental condition; for 998 proteins at least 3 ratio counts were detected in the 24 h time point (0 mM NaCl). After fractionation we could identify 3115 proteins and for 1765 of them we determined their de novo synthesis rate. Consistently with previous findings we showed that RuBisCO is among the most prominent proteins in the cell; and similar abundance and turnover for the small and large RuBisCO subunit could be calculated. The D1 protein was identified among proteins with a high synthesis rates. A global median half-life of 45 h was calculated for Chlamydomonas proteins under the chosen conditions. CONCLUSION: To investigate the temporal co-regulation of the proteome and metabolome, we applied salt stress to chlamydomonas and studied the time dependent regulation of protein expression and changes in the metabolome. The main metabolic response to salt stress was observed within the amino acid metabolism. In particular, proline was up-regulated manifold and according to that an increased carbon flow within the proline biosynthetic pathway could be measured. In parallel the analysis of abundance and de novo synthesis of the corresponding enzymes revealed that metabolic rearrangements precede adjustments of protein abundance

Valoración global del corazón en el paciente con transplante cardiaco mediante tomografía computarizada de doble fuente

In routine clinical practice surveillance of heart transplant recipients is usually performed using echocardiography and conventional coronary angiography. The latter permits diagnosis and follow-up of coronary allograft vasculopathy. However, this procedure is invasive and is not free of complications. Conventional multislice computed tomography (MSCT) has been shown to be a useful non-invasive tool for ruling out coronary artery disease and evaluating cardiac function. However, due to its limited temporal resolution betablocker administration is required, and its usefulness in certain patient populations with restricted response to this medication, such as heart transplant recipients, may therefore be limited. Dual-source CT (DSCT) allows evaluation of the coronary arteries in all individuals independent of their heart rate. In the case presented here, we demonstrate that DSCT may be useful for evaluating cardiac function and ruling out coronary allograft vasculopathy in heart transplant recipients

Splicing factor Rbm10 facilitates heterochromatin assembly in fission yeast

Splicing factors have recently been shown to be involved in heterochromatin formation, but their role in controlling heterochromatin structure and function remains poorly understood. In this study, we identified a fission yeast homologue of human splicing factor RBM10, which has been linked to TARP syndrome. Overexpression of Rbm10 in fission yeast leads to strong global intron retention. Rbm10 also interacts with splicing factors in a pattern resembling that of human RBM10, suggesting that the function of Rbm10 as a splicing regulator is conserved. Surprisingly, our deep-sequencing data showed that deletion of Rbm10 caused only minor effect on genome-wide gene expression and splicing. However, the mutant displays severe heterochromatin defects. Further analyses confirmed that the heterochromatin defects in the mutant did not result from mis-splicing of heterochromatin factors. Our proteomic data revealed that Rbm10 associates with the histone deacetylase Clr6 complex and chromatin remodeling complexes known to be essential for heterochromatin silencing. Our work together with previous findings further suggests that different splicing subunits may play distinct roles in heterochromatin regulation

Localized inhibition of protein phosphatase 1 by NUAK1 promotes spliceosome activity and reveals a MYC-sensitive feedback control of transcription.

Deregulated expression of MYC induces a dependence on the NUAK1 kinase, but the molecular mechanisms underlying this dependence have not been fully clarified. Here, we show that NUAK1 is a predominantly nuclear protein that associates with a network of nuclear protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) interactors and that PNUTS, a nuclear regulatory subunit of PP1, is phosphorylated by NUAK1. Both NUAK1 and PNUTS associate with the splicing machinery. Inhibition of NUAK1 abolishes chromatin association of PNUTS, reduces spliceosome activity, and suppresses nascent RNA synthesis. Activation of MYC does not bypass the requirement for NUAK1 for spliceosome activity but significantly attenuates transcription inhibition. Consequently, NUAK1 inhibition in MYC-transformed cells induces global accumulation of RNAPII both at the pause site and at the first exon-intron boundary but does not increase mRNA synthesis. We suggest that NUAK1 inhibition in the presence of deregulated MYC traps non-productive RNAPII because of the absence of correctly assembled spliceosomes

Dual-source CT for visualization of the coronary arteries in heart transplant patients with high heart rates

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of dual-source CT images of the coronary arteries in heart transplant recipients with high heart rates. SUBJECTS AND METHODS. Contrast-enhanced dual-source CT coronary angiography was performed on 23 heart transplant recipients (20 men, three women; mean age, 61.1 ± 12.8 years). Data sets were reconstructed in 5% steps from 30% to 80% of the R-R interval. Two blinded independent readers using a 5-point scale (0, not evaluative; 4, excellent quality) assessed the quality of images of coronary segments. RESULTS. The mean heart rate during scanning was 89.2 ± 10.4 beats/min. Interobserver agreement on the quality of images of the whole coronary tree was a kappa value of 0.78 and for selection of the optimal reconstruction interval was a kappa value of 0.82. The optimal reconstruction interval was systole in 17 (74%) of the 23 of heart transplant recipients. At the best reconstruction interval, diagnostic image quality (score ≥ 2) was obtained in 92.1% (303 of 329) of the coronary artery segments. The mean image quality score for the whole coronary tree was 3.1 ± 1.01. No significant correlation between mean heart rate (ρ = 0.31) or heart rate variability (ρ = 0.23) and overall image quality score was observed (p = not significant). CONCLUSION. Dual-source CT acquisition yields coronary angiograms of diagnostic quality in heart transplant recipients. Mean heart rate and heart rate variability during scanning do not have a negative effect on the overall quality of images of the coronary arteries