Progressivity in the Portuguese personal income tax system

This Work Project analyzes the evolution of the Portuguese personal income tax system’s progressivity over the period of 2005 through 2013. It presents the first computation of cardinal progressivity measures using administrative tax data for Portugal. We compute several progressivity indices and find that progressivity has had very modest variations from 2005 to 2012, whilst from 2012 to 2013 there has been a relatively stronger decrease, excluding the impact of the income tax surcharge of the years 2012 and 2013. When this latter is included, progressivity of 2012 and 2013 decreases considerably. Analyzing the effective average tax rates of the top income percentiles in the income scale, we find that these rates have increased over the period 2010–2013, suggesting that an analysis of effective tax rates is insufficient to assess progressivity in the whole tax scheme.

Banco invest: Understanding how to grow in the portuguese individual clients segment

Field lab: Business project

High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging quantitatively detects individual pancreatic islets.

OBJECTIVE-We studied whether manganese-enhanced high-field magnetic resonance (MR) imaging (MEHFMRI) could quantitatively detect individual islets in situ and in vivo and evaluate changes in a model of experimental diabetes.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS-Whole pancreata from untreated (n = 3), MnCl(2) and glucose-injected mice (n = 6), and mice injected with either streptozotocin (STZ; n = 4) or citrate buffer (n = 4) were imaged ex vivo for unambiguous evaluation of islets. Exteriorized pancreata of MnCl(2) and glucose-injected mice (n = 6) were imaged in vivo to directly visualize the gland and minimize movements. In all cases, MR images were acquired in a 14.1 Testa scanner and correlated with the corresponding (immuno)histological sections.RESULTS-In ex vivo experiments, MEHFMRI distinguished different pancreatic tissues and evaluated the relative abundance of islets in the pancreata of normoglycemic mice. MEHFMRI also detected a significant decrease in the numerical and volume density of islets in STZ-injected mice. However, in the latter measurements the loss of beta-cells was undervalued under the conditions tested. The experiments on the externalized pancreata confirmed that MEHFMRI could visualize native individual islets in living, anesthetized mice.CONCLUSIONS-Data show that MEHFMRI quantitatively visualizes individual islets in the intact mouse pancreas, both ex vivo and in vivo. Diabetes 60:2853-2860, 2011

Quality assurance in the 22991 EORTC ROG trial in localized prostate cancer: dummy run and individual case review.

INTRODUCTION: EORTC trial 22991 was designed to evaluate the addition of concomitant and adjuvant short-term hormonal treatments to curative radiotherapy in terms of disease-free survival for patients with intermediate risk localized prostate cancer. In order to assess the compliance to the 3D conformal radiotherapy protocol guidelines, all participating centres were requested to participate in a dummy run procedure. An individual case review was performed for the largest recruiting centres as well. MATERIALS AND METHODS: CT-data of an eligible prostate cancer patient were sent to 30 centres including a description of the clinical case. The investigator was requested to delineate the volumes of interest and to perform treatment planning according to the protocol. Thereafter, the investigators of the 12 most actively recruiting centres were requested to provide data on five randomly selected patients for an individual case review. RESULTS: Volume delineation varied significantly between investigators. Dose constraints for organs at risk (rectum, bladder, hips) were difficult to meet. In the individual case review, no major protocol deviations were observed, but a number of dose reporting problems were documented for centres using IMRT. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, results of this quality assurance program were satisfactory. The efficacy of the combination of a dummy run procedure with an individual case review is confirmed in this study, as none of the evaluated patient files harboured a major protocol deviation. Quality assurance remains a very important tool in radiotherapy to increase the reliability of the trial results. Special attention should be given when designing quality assurance programs for more complex irradiation techniques.

Combined clonotyping and gene signatures of individual tumor-reactive CD8 T-cells define their functional relevance following peptide vaccination in melanoma patients

Novel cancer vaccines are capableto efficiently induce and boost humantumor antigen specific T-cells. However,the properties of these CD8T-cells are only partially characterized.For in depth investigation ofT-cells following Melan-A/MART-1peptide vaccination in melanoma patients,we conducted a detailed prospectivestudy at the single cell level.We first sorted individual human naiveand effector CD8 T-cells from peripheralblood by flow cytometry, andtested a modified RT-PCR protocolincluding a global amplification ofexpressed mRNAs to obtain sufficientcDNAfromsingle cells.We successfullydetected the expression ofseveral specific genes of interest evendown to 106-fold dilution (equivalentto 10-5 cell). We then analyzed tumor-specific effector memory (EM)CD8T-cell subpopulations ex vivo, assingle cells from vaccinated melanomapatients. To elucidate the hallmarksof effective immunity the genesignatures were defined by a panel ofgenes related to effector functions(e.g. IFN-, granzyme B, perforin),and individual clonotypes were identifiedaccording to the expression ofdistinct T-cell receptors (TCR). Usingthis novel single cell analysis approach,we observed that T-cell differentiationis clonotype dependent,with a progressive restriction in TCRBV clonotype diversity from EMCD28pos to EMCD28neg subsets. However,the effector function gene imprintingis clonotype-independent,but dependent on differentiation,since it correlates with the subset oforigin (EMCD28pos or EMCD28neg). We also conducted a detailedcomparative analysis after vaccinationwith natural vs. analog Melan-Apeptide. We found that the peptideused for vaccination determines thefunctional outcome of individualT-cell clonotypes, with native peptideinducing more potent effector functions.Yet, selective clonotypic expansionwith differentiation was preservedregardless of the peptide usedfor vaccination. In summary, the exvivo single cell RT-PCR approach ishighly sensitive and efficient, andrepresents a reliable and powerfultool to refine our current view of molecularprocesses taking place duringT-cell differentiation.