The Education Premium in Canada and the United States

It is well known that in the United States the education premium--the ratio of the earnings of university graduates to the earnings of high school graduates--has risen sharply in the last twenty years. Some Canadian economists and policy makers presume the same fact holds in Canada. Since so much of modern growth theory and micro and macroecomomic policy turns on the education premium, it is important for social scientists and policy makers to know what has actually happened to the education premium. This paper argues that on the basis of available evidence over the last twenty years the premium has been constant or has fallen in Canada.education premium

FARMLAND PROTECTION PLANNING IN NEW YORK

Land Economics/Use,

WAGES in CANADA: SCF, SLID, LFS and the Skill Premium

For the years 1981 to 1997 the Survey of Consumer Finances served as the main source of information about the earnings of individuals, households and families. The Survey of Labour Income Dynamics, begun in 1993, was intended to replace and to improve upon the SCF. The Labour Force Survey which began releasing earnings information in 1997 (the last year of the SCF) is a second alternative for extending historical earnings data to the present day. This paper examines the extent to which either of these two surveys can be used to extend the SCF series to more recent times. Neither survey comes off as satisfactory in all respects as an extension of SCF earnings data though if one's purposes are more limited, such as studying the education premium, then merging results from the SCF and SLID seems a reasonable way to proceed. It is not possible here to assess the ability of SLID or LFS to extend the SCF for other applications. But this method could easily be adapted to address other similar questions.earnings; education premium; SLID; SCF

Cohort, Year and Age Effects in Canadian Wage Data

We use Canadian SCFs 1971-1993 to study the wages of full-time, full-year male and female workers. Median real wages of 24-year-old males without a university degree fell by 25% between 1978 and 1993. For 24-year-old females the decline was more modest and reversed in 1987, but real wages in 1993 were still significantly lower than they were in 1978. We investigate whether these changes are permanent “cohort” effects or more temporary “year” effects. Graphs of median wages against year and age indicate some periods where year effects are more prominent than cohort effects and other periods where the reverse is true. We then compare the results from two models, one assigning the trends to year effects, the other assigning them to cohort effects, and use these models to produce real wage projections.

The Education Premium in Canada and the United States

It is well known that in the United States the education premium--the ratio of the earnings of university graduates to the earnings of high school graduates--has risen sharply in the last twenty years. Some Canadian economists and policy makers presume the same fact holds in Canada. Since so much of modern growth theory and micro and macroecomomic policy turns on the education premium, it is important for social scientists and policy makers to know what has actually happened to the education premium. This paper argues that on the basis of available evidence over the last twenty years the premium has been constant or has fallen in Canada.education premium

Usefulness and Usability of a Personal Health Record and Survivorship Care Plan for Colorectal Cancer Survivors: Survey Study

Background: As a result of improvements in cancer screening, treatment, and supportive care, nearly two-thirds of individuals diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) live for 5 years after diagnosis. An ever-increasing population of CRC survivors creates a need for effective survivorship care to help manage and mitigate the impact of CRC and its treatment. Personal health records (PHRs) and survivorship care plans provide a means of supporting the long-term care of cancer survivors. Objective: The purpose of this study is to characterize the usefulness of a CRC PHR and survivorship care plan and to describe the usability of these technologies in a population of CRC survivors. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess a PHR and survivorship care plan specifically targeting CRC survivors. Methods: Twenty-two patients with CRC were recruited from surgery clinics of an academic medical center and Veterans Affairs hospital in Indianapolis and provided access to an online Colorectal Cancer Survivor’s Personal Health Record (CRCS-PHR). Survey data were collected to characterize the usefulness of the CRCS-PHR and describe its usability in a population of CRC survivors. CRC survivors were surveyed 6 months after being provided online access. Means and proportions were used to describe the usefulness and ease of using the CRC website. Open-ended questions were qualitatively coded using the constant comparative method. Results: CRC survivors perceived features related to their health care (ie, summary of cancer treatment history, follow-up care schedule, description of side effects, and list of community resources) to be more useful than communication features (ie, creating online relationships with family members or caregivers, communicating with doctor, and secure messages). CRC survivors typically described utilizing traditional channels (eg, via telephone or in person) to communicate with their health care provider. Participants had overall positive perceptions with respect to ease of use and overall satisfaction. Major challenges experienced by participants included barriers to system log-in, lack of computer literacy or experience, and difficulty entering their patient information. Conclusions: For CRC, survivors may find the greater value in a PHR’s medical content than the communication functions, which they have available elsewhere. These findings regarding the usefulness and usability of a PHR for the management of CRC survivorship provide valuable insights into how best to tailor these technologies to patients’ needs. These findings can inform future design and development of PHRs for purposes of both cancer and chronic disease management

Development of the CHARIOT Research Register for the Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia and Other Late Onset Neurodegenerative Diseases

Identifying cognitively healthy people at high risk of developing dementia is an ever-increasing focus. These individuals are essential for inclusion in observational studies into the natural history of the prodromal and early disease stages and for interventional studies aimed at prevention or disease modification. The success of this research is dependent on having access to a well characterised, representative and sufficiently large population of individuals. Access to such a population remains challenging as clinical research has, historically, focussed on patients with dementia referred to secondary and tertiary services. The primary care system in the United Kingdom allows access to a true prodromal population prior to symptoms emerging and specialist referral. We report the development and recruitment rates of the CHARIOT register, a primary care-based recruitment register for research into the prevention of dementia. The CHARIOT register was designed specifically to support recruitment into observational natural history studies of pre-symptomatic or prodromal dementia stages, and primary or secondary prevention pharmaceutical trials or other prevention strategies for dementia and other cognitive problems associated with ageing.Participants were recruited through searches of general practice lists across the west and central London regions. Invitations were posted to individuals aged between 60 and 85 years, without a diagnosis of dementia. Upon consent, a minimum data set of demographic and contact details was extracted from the patient's electronic health record.To date, 123 surgeries participated in the register, recruiting a total of 24,509 participants-a response rate of 22.3%. The age, gender and ethnicity profiles of participants closely match that of the overall eligible population. Higher response rates tended to be associated with larger practices (r = 0.34), practices with a larger older population (r = 0.27), less socioeconomically disadvantaged practices (r = 0.68), and practices with a higher proportion of White patients (r = 0.82).Response rates are comparable to other registers reported in the literature, and indicate good interest and support for a research register and for participation in research for the prevention of age-related neurodegenerative diseases and dementia. We consider that the simplicity of the approach means that this system is easily scalable and replicable across the UK and internationally

Mechanistic Studies of Retinal Schiff Base Formation and Hydrolysis in Relation to Visual Pigment Chemistry

The possible mechanism of chromophore hydrolysis during photolysis of visual rhodopsin has been investigated by a study of the formation and hydrolysis of the schiff base N-retinylidene n-butylamine in various aqueous anionic, cationic and neutral detergent micelle systems. The schiff base was used as a model of the visual pigment chromophore and the detergent micelles allowed some degree of control on the environment of the chromophoric group in an attempt to mimic the specific environmental effects within the binding site of rhodopsin. The classical schiff base reaction mechanism involves the formation of tetrahedral carbinolamine intermediates and transient species consistent with such intermediates have been observed during the hydrolysis reactions of N-retinylidene n-butylamine in the anionic, cationic and neutral detergents using stopped-flow spectroscopy. It was found that accumulation of the carbinolamine intermediate during hydrolysis is greatest when the pH is near the peak of the pH-rate profile and rapid transients were not observed during hydrolysis away from the pH maxima, nor under any accessible experimental conditions during the formation reactions. The non-steady-state kinetic data obtained from stopped-flow experiments have been analysed using a mainframe computer program called "Discrete", and these data can be described by a double exponential expression which is typical of biphasic reactions involving the formation and decay of an intermediate species. Analysis of the kinetic data, along with data obtained from steady-state kinetics, has allowed the determination of all the rate constants in the retinal schiff base reaction mechanism. The hydrogen ion titration behaviour of N-retinylidene n-butylamine has been studied and the results have shown that there are significant differences in the apparent pK of the schiff base in the various detergents. These differences can be explained by the fact that the micellar environment has an electrostatic effect on the protonation of the schiff base and it is likely that charged groups in the vicinity of the binding site of rhodopsin could affect protonation behaviour in a similar way. This would explain the anomalously low pK, value of the active lysine group in rhodopsin-electrostatic interaction of an adjacent positively charged group would make protonation of the lysine more difficult and so lower its pK. value. Similarly the apparent pK. of the retinal schiff base in rhodopsin is anomalously high because of the formation of a hydrogen bond with this adjacent group. The carbinolamine intermediate formed during schiff base hydrolysis has been observed at room temperature using continuous flow, pH - jump resonance Raman spectroscopy. The spectrum of the intermediate is very similar to the published resonance Raman spectrum of the metarhodopsin II intermediate formed during the bleaching of the visual pigment rhodopsin. This would suggest that the metarhodopsin transition represents the start of the hydrolysis of the schiff base linkage in rhodopsin. A possible mechanism for the hydrolysis step has been suggested and it seems likely that the change of configuration from trigonal to tetrahedral of the carbon atom of the schiff base linkage at the hydrolysis stage may provide the driving force for the activation of the enzyme cascade which results in the generation of the nerve impulse