Comparing the treatment provided by migrant and nonmigrant health professionals: dentists in Scotland

Many OECD countries are increasingly relying on migrants to address shortages of trained health professionals. One key concern is whether migrant health professionals provide equivalent health care. We compare the treatment provided by migrant and non-migrant health professionals using administrative data from the Scottish dental system. A difference-in-differences model is estimated to examine whether migrant dentists respond differently to case mix and individual circumstances as compared with their non-migrant counterparts, and assess the extent to which any differences diminish over time. After controlling for both observed and unobserved differences between individual dentists and the cohort of patients that they treat, we find that migrant dentists have marginally different practice styles, and the variation diminishes over time within two years of practice.

Regional productivity variation and the impact of public capital stock: an analysis with spatial interaction, with reference to Spain

In this paper we examine whether variations in the level of public capital across Spain‟s Provinces affected productivity levels over the period 1996-2005. The analysis is motivated by contemporary urban economics theory, involving a production function for the competitive sector of the economy („industry‟) which includes the level of composite services derived from „service‟ firms under monopolistic competition. The outcome is potentially increasing returns to scale resulting from pecuniary externalities deriving from internal increasing returns in the monopolistic competition sector. We extend the production function by also making (log) labour efficiency a function of (log) total public capital stock and (log) human capital stock, leading to a simple and empirically tractable reduced form linking productivity level to density of employment, human capital and public capital stock. The model is further extended to include technological externalities or spillovers across provinces. Using panel data methodology, we find significant elasticities for total capital stock and for human capital stock, and a significant impact for employment density. The finding that the effect of public capital is significantly different from zero, indicating that it has a direct effect even after controlling for employment density, is contrary to some of the earlier research findings which leave the question of the impact of public capital unresolved.

Is there a role for genetics in economic development?

Spolaore and Wacziarg (2009) have presented evidence supporting a role of genetic distance to the United States as a barrier to economic development. We extend their empirical work by controlling for the share of Europeans and European descendants in the population. We fi nd that the role of genetic distance disappears and o¤er two alternative interpretations of the patterns in the data.

The endodermis--development and differentiation of the plant's inner skin.

Controlling external compound entrance is essential for plant survival. To set up an efficient and selective sorting of nutrients, free diffusion via the apoplast in vascular plants is blocked at the level of the endodermis. Although we have learned a lot about endodermal specification in the last years, information regarding its differentiation is still very limited. A differentiated endodermal cell can be defined by the presence of the "Casparian strip" (CS), a cell wall modification described first by Robert Caspary in 1865. While the anatomical description of CS in many vascular plants has been very detailed, we still lack molecular information about the establishment of the Casparian strips and their actual function in roots. The recent isolation of a novel protein family, the CASPs, that localizes precisely to a domain of the plasma membrane underneath the CS represents an excellent point of entry to explore CS function and formation. In addition, it has been shown that the endodermis contains transporters that are localized to either the central (stele-facing) or peripheral (soil-facing) plasma membranes. These features suggest that the endodermis functions as a polar plant epithelium.

A bayesian spatial individual effects probit model of the 2010 UK general election

The Conservative Party emerged from the 2010 United Kingdom General Election as the largest single party, but their support was not geographically uniform. In this paper, we estimate a hierarchical Bayesian spatial probit model that tests for the presence of regional voting effects. This model allows for the estimation of individual region-specic effects on the probability of Conservative Party success, incorporating information on the spatial relationships between the regions of the mainland United Kingdom. After controlling for a range of important covariates, we find that these spatial relationships are significant and that our individual region-specic effects estimates provide additional evidence of North-South variations in Conservative Party support.

Native-like, long synthetic peptides as components of sub-unit vaccines: practical and theoretical considerations for their use in humans.

Vaccines have been used as a successful tool in medicine by way of controlling many major diseases. In spite of this, vaccines today represent only a handful of all infectious diseases. Therefore, there is a pressing demand for improvements of existing vaccines with particular reference to higher efficacy and undisputed safety profiles. To this effect, as an alternative to available vaccine technologies, there has been a drive to develop vaccine candidate polypeptides by chemical synthesis. In our laboratory, we have recently developed a technology to manufacture long synthetic peptides of up to 130 residues, which are correctly folded and biologically active. This paper discusses the advantages of the molecularly defined, long synthetic peptide approach in the context of vaccine design, development and use in human vaccination.

Accurate performance of a rat model of schizophrenia in the water maze depends on visual cue availability and stability: a distortion in cognitive mapping abilities?

Rats were treated postnatally (PND 5-16) with BSO (l-buthionine-(S,R)-sulfoximine) in an animal model of schizophrenia based on transient glutathione deficit. The BSO treated rats were impaired in patrolling a maze or a homing table when adult, yet demonstrated preserved escape learning, place discrimination and reversal in a water maze task [37]. In the present work, BSO rats' performance in the water maze was assessed in conditions controlling for the available visual cues. First, in a completely curtained environment with two salient controlled cues, BSO rats showed little accuracy compared to control rats. Secondly, pre-trained BSO rats were impaired in reaching the familiar spatial position when curtains partially occluded different portions of the room environment in successive sessions. The apparently preserved place learning in a classical water maze task thus appears to require the stability and the richness of visual landmarks from the surrounding environment. In other words, the accuracy of BSO rats in place and reversal learning is impaired in a minimal cue condition or when the visual panorama changes between trials. However, if the panorama remains rich and stable between trials, BSO rats are equally efficient in reaching a familiar position or in learning a new one. This suggests that the BSO accurate performance in the water maze does not satisfy all the criteria for a cognitive map based navigation on the integration of polymodal cues. It supports the general hypothesis of a binding deficit in BSO rats.

Authority relationships between obedience and disobedience

Recent episodes of public dissent (such as the demonstrations against G8 policies) raise the issue of the psychological processes triggered in obeying and disobeying the authority. Even if obedience to authority is an important aspect of social life and it plays a key role in maintaining social order, the concept of obedience has been studied in social psychology mainly in terms of its destructive aspects. Besides, most of the studies have overlooked the role of disobedience in the authority relationship. Disobedience may be conceived of as a protest that undermines the legitimacy of the authority or it can represent an instrument for controlling the legitimacy of the authority's demands, becoming a factor protecting against authoritarianism. In this article, a new perspective on the study of the relationship between the individual and the authority is put forward, considering obedience and disobedience as parallel concepts, each having constructive and destructive aspects. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Testing the Tunnel Effect: Comparison, Age and Happiness in UK and German Panels

In contrast to previous results combining all ages we find positive effects of comparison income on happiness for the under 45s, and negative effects for those over 45. In the BHPS these coefficients are several times the magnitude of own income effects. In GSOEP they cancel to give no effect of effect of comparison income on life satisfaction in the whole sample, when controlling for fixed effects, and time-in-panel, and with flexible, age-group dummies. The residual age-happiness relationship is hump-shaped in all three countries. Results are consistent with a simple life cycle model of relative income under uncertainty.

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Developing a predictive understanding of subsurface flow and transport is complicated by the disparity of scales across which controlling hydrological properties and processes span. Conventional techniques for characterizing hydrogeological properties (such as pumping, slug, and flowmeter tests) typically rely on borehole access to the subsurface. Because their spatial extent is commonly limited to the vicinity near the wellbores, these methods often cannot provide sufficient information to describe key controls on subsurface flow and transport. The field of hydrogeophysics has evolved in recent years to explore the potential that geophysical methods hold for improving the quantification of subsurface properties and processes relevant for hydrological investigations. This chapter is intended to familiarize hydrogeologists and water-resource professionals with the state of the art as well as existing challenges associated with hydrogeophysics. We provide a review of the key components of hydrogeophysical studies, which include: geophysical methods commonly used for shallow subsurface characterization; petrophysical relationships used to link the geophysical properties to hydrological properties and state variables; and estimation or inversion methods used to integrate hydrological and geophysical measurements in a consistent manner. We demonstrate the use of these different geophysical methods, petrophysical relationships, and estimation approaches through several field-scale case studies. Among other applications, the case studies illustrate the use of hydrogeophysical approaches to quantify subsurface architecture that influence flow (such as hydrostratigraphy and preferential pathways); delineate anomalous subsurface fluid bodies (such as contaminant plumes); monitor hydrological processes (such as infiltration, freshwater-seawater interface dynamics, and flow through fractures); and estimate hydrological properties (such as hydraulic conductivity) and state variables (such as water content). The case studies have been chosen to illustrate how hydrogeophysical approaches can yield insights about complex subsurface hydrological processes, provide input that improves flow and transport predictions, and provide quantitative information over field-relevant spatial scales. The chapter concludes by describing existing hydrogeophysical challenges and associated research needs. In particular, we identify the area of quantitative watershed hydrogeophysics as a frontier area, where significant effort is required to advance the estimation of hydrological properties and processes (and their uncertainties) over spatial scales relevant to the management of water resources and contaminants.

Indirect costs of parasitism are shaped by variation in the type of immune challenge and food availability

Parasites can inflict indirect fitness costs to their hosts by eliciting costly immune responses. These costs depend on the type and amount of immunostimulants presented to the host immune system but also on the amount of resources available to fuel host immune responses. Here, we investigated how the relative costs of two different types of immune challenge are modulated by variation in food availability. We injected nestling tawny owls (Strix aluco) with either 10 mu g of phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) or 20 mu g of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and subsequently raised them under two different food regimes (food-restricted vs. ad libitum). After controlling for food consumption, we found that LPS-injected nestlings lost more body mass than PHA-injected ones only when food-restricted. We also found that body mass gain of owlets fed ad libitum decreased with the intensity of the skin swelling response against LPS, but not PHA. These experimental and correlative results suggest that nestling tawny owls suffered greater immune costs when treated with LPS than PHA, and that variation in the costs of two different types of immune challenge can be exacerbated under conditions of low food availability. Our study highlights the importance of taking into consideration the interplay between host immunity and nutrition in the study of indirect costs of parasitism.

Temper and Temperature: The Missing Link of Climate on Armed Conflicts

We investigate the causes of a conflict by adding ambient climate factors to the existing bundle of most significant variables. It turns out that – controlling for possible associations – temperature could actually induce a conflict. We emphasise that temperature could not be a dominant reason in starting a conflict; however, it could escalate the chances when other factors are present. This paper references some of the related psychological studies to support this claim. We also show that grievance factors could actually be rightfully effective in starting an internal conflict alongside greed based reasons. In the end, we believe that it could be informative to study ambient factors more often in economics.

Consumers’ sensory acceptability of pork from immunocastrated male pigs

Boar taint is the off-odour or off flavour of cooked pork. Currently, the most common method of controlling boar taint is surgical castration. However, immunocastration has been used in some parts of the world as an alternative to surgical castration. The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensory acceptability of meat from immunocastrated pigs (IM) compared with meat from females (FE), surgically castrated (CM) and entire males (EM). Twenty animals of each type were evaluated by 201 consumers in 20 sessions. Longissimus thoracis muscle of the different animals was cooked in an oven at 180 °C for 10 min. Consumers scored the odour and the flavour of the meat in a 9-point category scale without an intermediate level. There were no significant differences in consumer’s evaluation of meat from IM, CM, and FE. In contrast, EM meat presented a higher percentage of dissatisfied scores and was significantly (P & 0.05) less accepted than meat from CM, IM and FE. Consumers’ acceptability of EM meat was always lower, independently of its androstenone levels. However meat with low levels of androstenone was more accepted that meat with medium or high levels of this substance. It can be concluded that immunocastration produced pork that was accepted by the consumers, and was indistinguishable from pork from CM or FE.

The Extent and Cyclicality of Career Changes: Evidence for the UK

Using quarterly data for the U.K. from 1993 through 2012, we document that the extent of worker reallocation across occupations or industries (a career change, in the parlance of this paper) is high and procyclical. This holds true after controlling for workers' previous labour market status and for changes in the composition of who gets hired over the business cycle. Our evidence suggests that a large part of this reallocation reflect excess churning in the labour market. We also find that the majority of career changes come with wage increases. During the economic expansion wage increases were typically larger for those who change careers than for those who do not. During the recession this is not true for career changers who were hired from unemployment. Our evidence suggests that understanding career changes over the business cycle is important for explaining labour market ows and the cyclicality of wage growth.

Policy initiatives and firms’ access to external finance: Evidence from a panel of emerging Asian economies

This paper analyses the impact of policy initiatives co-ordinated by Asian national governments on firms' access to external finance, using a unique firm-level database of eight Asian countries- Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand over the period of 1996-2012. Using a difference-indifferences approach and controlling for firm-level and macroeconomic factors, the results show a significant impact of policy on firms' access to external finance. After splitting firms into constrained and unconstrained, using several criteria, the results document that unconstrained firms benefited significantly in obtaining external finance, compared to their constrained counterparts. Finally, we show that the increase in access to external finance after the policy initiative helped firms to raise their investment spending, especially for unconstrained firms.