The life cycle of MetaCutereba apicalis (Diptera: Cuterebidae)

The development of Metacuterebra apicalis in laboratory conditions is described. The natural host, Oryzomys subflavus, and laboratory white rats were used as experimental hosts. The life cycle, from oviposition to the deaths of adults, was completed in about 73 days. The incubation period of eggs was about 10 days; the parasitic larval phase lasted 23 days in the natural host and 26 days in white rats; pupa lived for 32 days and adults survived for six days.

Firms in Scottish High Technology Clusters: software, life sciences, microelectronics, optoelectronics and digital media – preliminary evidence and analysis on firm size, growth and optimality

This paper reports on: (a) new primary source evidence on; and (b) statistical and econometric analysis of high technology clusters in Scotland. It focuses on the following sectors: software, life sciences, microelectronics, optoelectronics, and digital media. Evidence on a postal and e-mailed questionnaire is presented and discussed under the headings of: performance, resources, collaboration & cooperation, embeddedness, and innovation. The sampled firms are characterised as being small (viz. micro-firms and SMEs), knowledge intensive (largely graduate staff), research intensive (mean spend on R&D GBP 842k), and internationalised (mainly selling to markets beyond Europe). Preliminary statistical evidence is presented on Gibrat’s Law (independence of growth and size) and the Schumpeterian Hypothesis (scale economies in R&D). Estimates suggest a short-run equilibrium size of just 100 employees, but a long-run equilibrium size of 1000 employees. Further, to achieve the Schumpeterian effect (of marked scale economies in R&D), estimates suggest that firms have to grow to very much larger sizes of beyond 3,000 employees. We argue that the principal way of achieving the latter scale may need to be by takeovers and mergers, rather than by internally driven growth.

An Archival Case Study: Revisiting The Life and Political Economy of Lauchlin Currie

This paper forms part of a wider project to show the significance of archival material on distinguished economists, in this case Lauchlin Currie (1902-93), who studied and taught at Harvard before entering government service at the US Treasury and Federal Reserve Board as the intellectual leader of Roosevelt’s New Deal, 1934-39, as FDR’s White House economic adviser in peace and war, 1939-45, and as a post-war development economist. It discusses the uses made of the written and oral material available when the author was writing his intellectual biography of Currie (Duke University Press 1990) while Currie was still alive, and the significance of the material that has come to light after Currie’s death.

Measuring Avoidable Health Inequality with Realization of Conditional Potential Life Years (RCPLY)

In a series of papers (Tang, Chin and Rao, 2008; and Tang, Petrie and Rao 2006 & 2007), we have tried to improve on a mortality-based health status indicator, namely age-at-death (AAD), and its associated health inequality indicators that measure the distribution of AAD. The main contribution of these papers is to propose a frontier method to separate avoidable and unavoidable mortality risks. This has facilitated the development of a new indicator of health status, namely the Realization of Potential Life Years (RePLY). The RePLY measure is based on the concept of a “frontier country” that, by construction, has the lowest mortality risks for each age-sex group amongst all countries. The mortality rates of the frontier country are used as a proxy for the unavoidable mortality rates, and the residual between the observed mortality rates and the unavoidable mortality rates are considered as avoidable morality rates. In this approach, however, countries at different levels of development are benchmarked against the same frontier country without considering their heterogeneity. The main objective of the current paper is to control for national resources in estimating (conditional) unavoidable and avoidable mortality risks for individual countries. This allows us to construct a new indicator of health status – Realization of Conditional Potential Life Years (RCPLY). The paper presents empirical results from a dataset of life tables for 167 countries from the year 2000, compiled and updated by the World Health Organization. Measures of national average health status and health inequality based on RePLY and RCPLY are presented and compared.

The ghost of past species occurrence: improving species distribution models for presence-only data

1. Model-based approaches have been used increasingly in conservation biology over recent years. Species presence data used for predictive species distribution modelling are abundant in natural history collections, whereas reliable absence data are sparse, most notably for vagrant species such as butterflies and snakes. As predictive methods such as generalized linear models (GLM) require absence data, various strategies have been proposed to select pseudo-absence data. However, only a few studies exist that compare different approaches to generating these pseudo-absence data. 2. Natural history collection data are usually available for long periods of time (decades or even centuries), thus allowing historical considerations. However, this historical dimension has rarely been assessed in studies of species distribution, although there is great potential for understanding current patterns, i.e. the past is the key to the present. 3. We used GLM to model the distributions of three 'target' butterfly species, Melitaea didyma, Coenonympha tullia and Maculinea teleius, in Switzerland. We developed and compared four strategies for defining pools of pseudo-absence data and applied them to natural history collection data from the last 10, 30 and 100 years. Pools included: (i) sites without target species records; (ii) sites where butterfly species other than the target species were present; (iii) sites without butterfly species but with habitat characteristics similar to those required by the target species; and (iv) a combination of the second and third strategies. Models were evaluated and compared by the total deviance explained, the maximized Kappa and the area under the curve (AUC). 4. Among the four strategies, model performance was best for strategy 3. Contrary to expectations, strategy 2 resulted in even lower model performance compared with models with pseudo-absence data simulated totally at random (strategy 1). 5. Independent of the strategy model, performance was enhanced when sites with historical species presence data were not considered as pseudo-absence data. Therefore, the combination of strategy 3 with species records from the last 100 years achieved the highest model performance. 6. Synthesis and applications. The protection of suitable habitat for species survival or reintroduction in rapidly changing landscapes is a high priority among conservationists. Model-based approaches offer planning authorities the possibility of delimiting priority areas for species detection or habitat protection. The performance of these models can be enhanced by fitting them with pseudo-absence data relying on large archives of natural history collection species presence data rather than using randomly sampled pseudo-absence data.

The Greying Church: The Impact of Life Expectancy on Religiosity

Many churches are concerned about older and dwindling congregations. We develop a theoretical framework to explain not only the downward trend in church attendance, but also the increase in the proportion of older people in the congregations. Religiosity depends positively on the expected social and spiritual benefits attached to religious adherence, as well as the probability of entering heaven in the afterlife. While otherworldly compensation in terms of salvation and spiritual benefits motivates religiosity, the costs of formal religion in terms of time allocated to communal activities and foregone income work in the opposite direction. We show that higher life expectancy discounts expected benefits in the afterlife and is hence likely to lead to postponement of religiosity. For this reason, religious organizations should be prepared to attract older members to their congregations, while emphasizing contemporaneous religious benefits to increase overall church attendance.

Adaptation and anticipation effects to life events in the United Kingdom

We analyze how individual happiness is affected over time by nine major life events using a panel of British individuals. Our aim is to test for the existence of adaptation and anticipation effects. Adaptation effects are found for all the life events considered with the possible exception of unemployment. Anticipation effects precede events that are easily predicted such as marriage, separation and the birth of a child.

Disentangling the effects of key innovations on the diversification of Bromelioideae (bromeliaceae).

The evolution of key innovations, novel traits that promote diversification, is often seen as major driver for the unequal distribution of species richness within the tree of life. In this study, we aim to determine the factors underlying the extraordinary radiation of the subfamily Bromelioideae, one of the most diverse clades among the neotropical plant family Bromeliaceae. Based on an extended molecular phylogenetic data set, we examine the effect of two putative key innovations, that is, the Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) and the water-impounding tank, on speciation and extinction rates. To this aim, we develop a novel Bayesian implementation of the phylogenetic comparative method, binary state speciation and extinction, which enables hypotheses testing by Bayes factors and accommodates the uncertainty on model selection by Bayesian model averaging. Both CAM and tank habit were found to correlate with increased net diversification, thus fulfilling the criteria for key innovations. Our analyses further revealed that CAM photosynthesis is correlated with a twofold increase in speciation rate, whereas the evolution of the tank had primarily an effect on extinction rates that were found five times lower in tank-forming lineages compared to tank-less clades. These differences are discussed in the light of biogeography, ecology, and past climate change.

Life partnerships in childhood cancer survivors, their siblings, and the general population.

BACKGROUND: Life partnerships other than marriage are rarely studied in childhood cancer survivors (CCS). We aimed (1) to describe life partnership and marriage in CCS and compare them to life partnerships in siblings and the general population; and (2) to identify socio-demographic and cancer-related factors associated with life partnership and marriage. METHODS: As part of the Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (SCCSS), a questionnaire was sent to all CCS (aged 20-40 years) registered in the Swiss Childhood Cancer Registry (SCCR), aged <16 years at diagnosis, who had survived ≥ 5 years. The proportion with life partner or married was compared between CSS and siblings and participants in the Swiss Health Survey (SHS). Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with life partnership or marriage. RESULTS: We included 1,096 CCS of the SCCSS, 500 siblings and 5,593 participants of the SHS. Fewer CCS (47%) than siblings (61%, P < 0.001) had life partners, and fewer CCS were married (16%) than among the SHS population (26%, P > 0.001). Older (OR = 1.14, P < 0.001) and female CCS (OR = 1.85, <0.001) were more likely to have life partners. CCS who had undergone radiotherapy, bone marrow transplants (global P Treatment = 0.018) or who had a CNS diagnosis (global P Diagnosis < 0.001) were less likely to have life partners. CONCLUSION: CCS are less likely to have life partners than their peers. Most CCS with a life partner were not married. Future research should focus on the effect of these disparities on the quality of life of CCS.

Life-Cycle, Effort and Academic Inactivity

It has been observed that university professors sometimes become less research active in their later years. This paper models the decision to become inactive as a utility maximising problem under conditions of uncertainty and derives an age-dependent activity condition for the level of research productivity. The model implies that professors who are close to retirement age are more likely to become inactive when faced with setbacks in their research while those who continue research do not lower their activity levels. Using data from the University of Iceland, we find support for the model’s predictions. The model suggests that universities should induce their older faculty to remain research active by striving to make their research more productive and enjoyable, maintaining peer pressure, reducing job security and offering higher performance related pay.

The past, present and future of central banking

The financial crisis, on the one hand, and the recourse to ‘unconventional’ monetary policy, on the other, have given a sharp jolt to perceptions of the role and status of central banks. In this paper we start with a brief ‘contrarian’ history of central banks since the second world war, which presents the Great Moderation and the restricted focus on inflation targeting as a temporary aberration from the norm. We then discuss how recent developments in fiscal and monetary policy have affected the role and status of central banks, notably their relationships with governments, before considering the environment central banks will face in the near and middle future and how they will have to change to address it.

Agenesis of human pancreas due to decreased half-life of insulin promoter factor 1.

Neonatal diabetes mellitus can be transient or permanent. The severe form of permanent neonatal diabetes mellitus can be associated with pancreas agenesis. Normal pancreas development is controlled by a cascade of transcription factors, where insulin promoter factor 1 (IPF1) plays a crucial role. Here, we describe two novel mutations in the IPF1 gene leading to pancreas agenesis. Direct sequence analysis of exons 1 and 2 of the IPF1 gene revealed two point mutations within the homeobox in exon 2. Genetic analysis of the parents showed that each mutation was inherited from one parent. Mutations localized in helices 1 and 2, respectively, of the homeodomain, decreased the protein half-life significantly, leading to intracellular IPF1 levels of 36% and 27% of wild-type levels. Both mutant forms of IPF1 were normally translocated to the nucleus, and their DNA binding activity on different known target promoters was similar to that of the wild-type protein. However, transcriptional activity of both mutant IPF1 proteins, alone or in combination with HNF3 beta/Foxa2, Pbx1, or the heterodimer E47-beta 2 was reduced, findings accounted for by decreased IPF1 steady state levels and not by impaired protein-protein interactions. We conclude that the IPF1 level is critical for human pancreas formation.

Age, Life-satisfaction, and Relative Income – Insights from the UK and Germany

We first confirm previous results with the German Socio-Economic Panel by Layard et al. (2010), and obtain strong negative effects of comparison income. However, when we split the sample by age, we find quite different results for reference income. The effects on lifesatisfaction are positive and significant for those under 45, consistent with Hirschman’s (1973) ‘tunnel effect’, and only negative (and larger than in the full sample) for those over 45, when relative deprivation dominates. Thus for young respondents, reference income’s signalling role, indicating potential future prospects, can outweigh relative deprivation effects. Own-income effects are also larger for the older sample, and of greater magnitude than the comparison income effect. In East Germany the reference income effects are insignificant for all. With data from the British Household Panel Survey, we confirm standard results when encompassing all ages, but reference income loses significance in both age groups, and most surprisingly, even own income becomes insignificant for those over 45, while education has significant negative effects.

Directed Search over the Life Cycle

We develop a life-cycle model of the labor market in which different worker-firm matches have different quality and the assignment of the right workers to the right firms is time consuming because of search and learning frictions. The rate at which workers move between unemployment, employment and across different firms is endogenous because search is directed and, hence, workers can choose whether to seek low-wage jobs that are easy to find or high-wage jobs that are hard to find. We calibrate our theory using data on labor market transitions aggregated across workers of different ages. We validate our theory by showing that it predicts quite well the pattern of labor market transitions for workers of different ages. Finally, we use our theory to decompose the age profiles of transition rates, wages and productivity into the effects of age variation in work-life expectancy, human capital and match quality.

Relationship between Health-Related Quality of Life, Pain, and Functional Disability in Neuropathic Pain Patients with Failed Back Surgery Syndrome.

ABSTRACT Objectives: Patients with failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) and chronic neuropathic pain experience levels of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) that are considerably lower than those reported in other areas of chronic pain. The aim of this article was to quantify the extent to which reductions in (leg and back) pain and disability over time translate into improvements in generic HRQoL as measured by the EuroQoL-5D and SF-36 instruments. Methods: Using data from the multinational Prospective, Randomized, Controlled, Multicenter Study of Patients with Failed Back Surgery Syndrome trial, we explore the relationship between generic HRQoL-assessed using two instruments often used in clinical trials (i.e., the SF-36 and EuroQol-5D)-and disease-specific outcome measures (i.e., Oswestry disability index [ODI], leg and back pain visual analog scale [VAS]) in neuropathic patients with FBSS. Results: In our sample of 100 FBSS patients, generic HRQoL was moderately associated with ODI (correlation coefficient: -0.462 to -0.638) and mildly associated with leg pain VAS (correlation coefficient: -0.165 to -0.436). The multilevel regression analysis results indicate that functional ability (as measured by the ODI) is significantly associated with HRQoL, regardless of the generic HRQoL instrument used. On the other hand, changes over time in leg pain were significantly associated with changes in the EuroQoL-5D and physical component summary scores, but not with the mental component summary score. Conclusions: Reduction in leg pain and functional disability is statistically significantly associated with improvements in generic HRQoL. This is the first study to investigate the longitudinal relationship between generic and disease-specific HRQoL of neuropathic pain patients with FBSS, using multinational data.