This book is about how much people earn and why the distribution of earnings has been changing over time. The gap between the top and bottom in the United States has widened significantly since 1980. ...Why has this happened? Is it due to new technologies? What is the role of globalisation? Are there historical precedents? The book begins with the "race" between technology and education, and shows that continuing technical progress does not necessarily imply a continuing rise in dispersion. It then examines the experience of 20 OECD countries over the twentieth century, material presented in the form of 20 country case studies. The book breaks new ground in assembling data on the distribution of individual earnings covering much of the twentieth century and drawing on a variety of under-exploited sources. The findings overturn a number of widely-held beliefs. It is not the earnings of the low paid that have been most affected by the recent changes; widening is largely due to what is happening at the top. The recent rise in earnings dispersion is not unprecedented, but should be seen as part of a longer-run history of successive compression and expansion of earnings differences. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780199532438/toc.html
Inequality Atkinson, Anthony B
2015, 2015-05-11, 2015-03-20
eBook
Inequality and poverty have returned with a vengeance in recent decades. To reduce them, we need fresh ideas that move beyond taxes on the wealthy. Anthony B. Atkinson offers ambitious new policies ...in technology, employment, social security, sharing of capital, and taxation, and he defends them against the common arguments and excuses for inaction.
The purpose of this article is to provide an overview that summarizes much in the way of our current state of knowledge regarding the pathogenesis and natural history of type 1 diabetes in humans. ...This information is presented to the reader as a series of seminal historical discoveries that, when advanced through research, transformed our understanding of the roles for the immune system, genes, and environment in the formation of this disease. In addition, where longitudinal investigations of these three facets occurred, their roles within the development of type 1 diabetes, from birth to symptomatic onset and beyond, are discussed, including their most controversial elements. Having an understanding of this disorder's pathogenesis and natural history is key for attempts seeking to understand the issues of what causes type 1 diabetes, as well as to develop a means to prevent and cure the disorder.
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•A ‘second green revolution’ using crops with improved below-ground traits is needed.•Phenotyping plant roots poses practical and data challenges.•Technologies for 2D root phenotyping ...include rhizotrons, paper pouches, and plates.•MRI, PET and X-ray CT allow 3D and 4D root phenotyping in soil.•Non-invasive techniques for field phenotyping have recently advanced.•Deep machine learning techniques are transforming the root phenotyping landscape.
Major increases in crop yield are required to keep pace with population growth and climate change. Improvements to the architecture of crop roots promise to deliver increases in water and nutrient use efficiency but profiling the root phenome (i.e. its structure and function) represents a major bottleneck. We describe how advances in imaging and sensor technologies are making root phenomic studies possible. However, methodological advances in acquisition, handling and processing of the resulting ‘big-data’ is becoming increasingly important. Advances in automated image analysis approaches such as Deep Learning promise to transform the root phenotyping landscape. Collectively, these innovations are helping drive the selection of the next-generation of crops to deliver real world impact for ongoing global food security efforts.
Type 1 diabetes Atkinson, Mark A, Prof; Eisenbarth, George S, Prof; Michels, Aaron W, MD
The Lancet,
01/2014, Letnik:
383, Številka:
9911
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Summary Over the past decade, knowledge of the pathogenesis and natural history of type 1 diabetes has grown substantially, particularly with regard to disease prediction and heterogeneity, ...pancreatic pathology, and epidemiology. Technological improvements in insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors help patients with type 1 diabetes manage the challenge of lifelong insulin administration. Agents that show promise for averting debilitating disease-associated complications have also been identified. However, despite broad organisational, intellectual, and fiscal investments, no means for preventing or curing type 1 diabetes exists, and, globally, the quality of diabetes management remains uneven. This Seminar discusses current progress in epidemiology, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment of type 1 diabetes, and prospects for an improved future for individuals with this disease.
Recent studies have suggested a bacterial role in the development of autoimmune disorders including type 1 diabetes (T1D). Over 30 billion nucleotide bases of Illumina shotgun metagenomic data were ...analyzed from stool samples collected from four pairs of matched T1D case-control subjects collected at the time of the development of T1D associated autoimmunity (i.e., autoantibodies). From these, approximately one million open reading frames were predicted and compared to the SEED protein database. Of the 3,849 functions identified in these samples, 144 and 797 were statistically more prevalent in cases and controls, respectively. Genes involved in carbohydrate metabolism, adhesions, motility, phages, prophages, sulfur metabolism, and stress responses were more abundant in cases while genes with roles in DNA and protein metabolism, aerobic respiration, and amino acid synthesis were more common in controls. These data suggest that increased adhesion and flagella synthesis in autoimmune subjects may be involved in triggering a T1D associated autoimmune response. Extensive differences in metabolic potential indicate that autoimmune subjects have a functionally aberrant microbiome. Mining 16S rRNA data from these datasets showed a higher proportion of butyrate-producing and mucin-degrading bacteria in controls compared to cases, while those bacteria that produce short chain fatty acids other than butyrate were higher in cases. Thus, a key rate-limiting step in butyrate synthesis is more abundant in controls. These data suggest that a consortium of lactate- and butyrate-producing bacteria in a healthy gut induce a sufficient amount of mucin synthesis to maintain gut integrity. In contrast, non-butyrate-producing lactate-utilizing bacteria prevent optimal mucin synthesis, as identified in autoimmune subjects.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Premise of the Study
The basal asterid order, Cornales, experienced a rapid radiation during the Cretaceous, which has made it difficult to elucidate the early evolution of the order using extant ...taxa only. Recent paleobotanical studies, however, have begun to shed light on the early diversification of Cornales. Herein, fossils are directly incorporated in phylogenetic and quantitative morphological analyses to reconstruct early cornalean evolution.
Methods
A morphological matrix of 77 fruit characters and 58 taxa (24 extinct) was assembled. Parsimony analyses including and excluding fossils were conducted. A fossil inclusive tree was time‐scaled to visualize the timing of the initial cornalean radiation. Disparity analyses were utilized to infer the morphological evolution of cornaleans with drupaceous fruits.
Key Results
Fossil inclusive and exclusive parsimony analyses resulted in well‐resolved deep‐node relationships within Cornales. Resolution in the fossil inclusive analysis is substantially higher, revealing a basal grade including Loasaceae, Hydrangeaceae, Hydrostachyaceae, Grubbiaceae, a Hironoia+Amersinia clade, and Curtisiaceae, respectively, that leads to a “core” group containing a clade comprising a Cretaceous grade leading to clade of Nyssaceae, Mastixiaceae, and Davidiaceae that is sister to a Cornaceae+Alangiaceae clade. The time‐scaled tree indicates that the initial cornalean diversification occurred before 89.8 Ma. Disparity analyses suggest the morphological diversity of Cornales peaked during the Paleogene.
Conclusions
Phylogenetic analyses clearly demonstrate that novel character mosaics of Cretaceous cornaleans play a critical role in resolving deep‐node relationships within Cornales. The post‐Cretaceous increase of cornalean disparity is associated with a shift in morphospace occupation, which can be explained from ecological and developmental perspectives.
The Pareto distribution has long been a source of fascination to economists, and the Pareto coefficient is widely used, in theoretical and empirical studies, as a summary of the degree of ...concentration of top incomes. This paper examines the empirical evidence from income tax data concerning top incomes in the UK, contrasting the dramatic changes that took place in the twentieth century, after 1918, with the much more modest changes in the preceding nineteenth century. Probing beneath the surface, the paper identifies a number of features of the evolution of the UK income inequality that warrant closer attention. These include the changing shape of the upper tail, where there is a link with Pareto's theory of elites, the need for a richer functional form to describe top incomes, and the limited evidence at the top of the distribution for a Kuznets curve in nineteenth century Britain.
Susceptibility to many human autoimmune diseases is under strong genetic control by class II human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele combinations. These genes remain by far the greatest risk factors in ...the development of type 1 diabetes and celiac disease. Despite this, little is known about HLA influences on the composition of the human gut microbiome, a potential source of environmental influence on disease. Here, using a general population cohort from the All Babies in Southeast Sweden study, we report that genetic risk for developing type 1 diabetes autoimmunity is associated with distinct changes in the gut microbiome. Both the core microbiome and beta diversity differ with HLA risk group and genotype. In addition, protective HLA haplotypes are associated with bacterial genera Intestinibacter and Romboutsia. Thus, general population cohorts are valuable in identifying potential environmental triggers or protective factors for autoimmune diseases that may otherwise be masked by strong genetic control.
Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) are swarming, oceanic crustaceans, up to two inches long, and best known as prey for whales and penguins - but they have another important role. With their large ...size, high biomass and daily vertical migrations they transport and transform essential nutrients, stimulate primary productivity and influence the carbon sink. Antarctic krill are also fished by the Southern Ocean's largest fishery. Yet how krill fishing impacts nutrient fertilisation and the carbon sink in the Southern Ocean is poorly understood. Our synthesis shows fishery management should consider the influential biogeochemical role of both adult and larval Antarctic krill.
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