Active Labour Market Programmes and Poverty Dynamics in Ireland

Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs), which provide training and subsidised employment to the unemployed, are an important part of Ireland’s welfare state. While a good deal of existing research is concerned with the effect of these policies on employment chances and on wage rates, none addresses the connection between poverty and ALMPs. Do these policies have an effect on poverty? That is, first, to what extent do these policies serve the low-income population, as a consequence of and in addition to their focus on those in precarious labour market situations? Second, to what extent do these policies function to lift people out of poverty in the medium term? To address these issues we use longitudinal data from the Living in Ireland Survey (1994–2001) and examine how the respondents’ situation in one year predicts participation in employment and training schemes in the next year, and then how participation in these schemes affects poverty status in the following year. Participants on both sorts of schemes are much poorer than the population average, and those on employment schemes (but not training schemes) are even poorer than one would expect given their observed characteristics. Employment schemes and training schemes serve different purposes and different populations. A conventional logistic regression analysis seems to suggest that employment schemes (but not training schemes) positively increase the risk of poverty in the following year. This finding is not considered reliable, but rather it reflects the selection processes whereby those on employment schemes are in particularly vulnerable situations, in respects that are not picked up in the data set. A more rigorous analysis, using propensity score matching, reveals that employment schemes are neutral on poverty risk. Training schemes have a weak but insignificant protective effect. Considering the risk of poverty approximately one year after participation begins, employment schemes (and to a lesser extent, training schemes) do not provide a mechanism for immediately exiting poverty. We add the caveat that it may be desirable to consider outcomes two or more years into the future, were data available, and that other outcome measures of quality of life should also be taken into account. Ultimately, with regard to both labour market and poverty outcomes, we find no evidence that participants of training schemes or employment schemes have either raised their employment chances or reduced their risk of poverty in the year following their participation.active labour market programmes; ALMP; propensity score matching; employment policy

Active Labour Market Programmes and Poverty Dynamics in Ireland: 1994-2001

Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs), which provide training and subsidised employment to the unemployed, are an important part of Ireland’s welfare state. While a good deal of existing research is concerned with the effect of these policies on employment chances and on wage rates, none addresses the connection between poverty and ALMPs. Do these policies have an effect on poverty? That is, first, to what extent do these policies serve the low-income population, as a consequence of and in addition to their focus on those in precarious labour market situations? Second, to what extent do these policies function to lift people out of poverty in the medium term? To address these issues we use longitudinal data from the Living in Ireland Survey (1994–2001) and examine how the respondents’ situation in one year predicts participation in employment and training schemes in the next year, and then how participation in these schemes affects poverty status in the following year. Participants on both sorts of schemes are much poorer than the population average, and those on employment schemes (but not training schemes) are even poorer than one would expect given their observed characteristics. Employment schemes and training schemes serve different purposes and different populations. A conventional logistic regression analysis seems to suggest that employment schemes (but not training schemes) positively increase the risk of poverty in the following year. This finding is not considered reliable, but rather it reflects the selection processes whereby those on employment schemes are in particularly vulnerable situations, in respects that are not picked up in the data set. A more rigorous analysis, using propensity score matching, reveals that employment schemes are neutral on poverty risk. Training schemes have a weak but insignificant protective effect. Considering the risk of poverty approximately one year after participation begins, employment schemes (and to a lesser extent, training schemes) do not provide a mechanism for immediately exiting poverty. We add the caveat that it may be desirable to consider outcomes two or more years into the future, were data available, and that other outcome measures of quality of life should also be taken into account. Ultimately, with regard to both labour market and poverty outcomes, we find no evidence that participants of training schemes or employment schemes have either raised their employment chances or reduced their risk of poverty in the year following their participation.active labour market programmes; ALMP; propensity score matching; employment policy; Ireland

Building an All-In Nation: A View from the American Public

As shown throughout this report, Americans are much more open to diversity and more supportive of steps to reduce racial inequalities than is commonly portrayed in politics and the media. Furthermore, Americans are more likely to see opportunities from rising diversity than they are to see challenges. They understand the problems associated with inequality in society and strongly support new steps and investments to reduce these inequalities and expand economic opportunities. Although differences remain between rising communities of color and whites in terms of openness to diversity and support for new policies to close remaining social gaps, many of these distinctions are more ideological in nature and less about race and ethnicity

The Role of Active Labour Market Programmes in Employment Policy

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the Irish labour market since approximately 1980 with a particular focus on the central role of active labour market programmes in public policy. Active labour market programmes (ALMP) is an umbrella term for all measures aimed at increasing either the supply of or demand for labour. We will outline the theoretical rationale for labour market programmes and discuss their implementation and development in the Irish context. Specifically we will outline the levels of expenditure and throughput on labour market programmes and attempt to place Ireland in a comparative international perspective. Briefly we will examine some of the attempts which have been made to evaluate the effectiveness of labour market programmes in terms of the employment and income outcomes of participants. We will pay particular attention to long-term unemployment which was such a key feature of the Irish labour market throughout the 1980s and 1990s.Public Policy, Employment Policy, Active Labour Market Prorgammes, Active Labor Market Progams, ALMP, Ireland

Becoming a homeowner in Britain in the 1990s

We model the hazard of first entry to owner occupation, using a sub-sample of the British Household Panel Study consisting of young adults not yet in owner occupation. Our interest is to assess the importance of social inequality, measured as socio-economic class using the new ONS-SEC, while taking account of the direct effects of age, household formation, education and labour market situation of the individual (and his/her spouse, where appropriate). Socio-economic class has a very strong bivariate effect but this persists, with some modification, into the multivariate analysis. Higher professionals and managers have by far the highest rate of entry, with the unemployed and students having the lowest, even when controlling for income, education, employment status, age, gender and household formation, all of which have strong effects of their own. On a smaller sample we investigate some effects of class of origin, and of spouses class but with few significant effects. Some features of this modelling lead us to speculate that access to social housing, as a competing destination, may be patterning entry to owner occupation. The class gradient may reflect as much the compensatory effects of state provision as market-related advantages. Also, the effect of childen on entry to owner occupation is strongly negative. We investigate this by fitting parallel models on the rate of entry to social housing, and find that this seems to be the case: while the age and partnership effects are very similar, the class effect is reversed (except for students, whose low rate of entry to ownership is not associated with disadvantage) and the effect of children is strong and positive

The impact of detoxification costs and predation risk on foraging : implications for mimicry dynamics

This work was supported by the European Research Council (Advanced Grant 250209 to Alasdair Houston), a Natural Environment Research Council Independent Research Fellowship (NE/L011921/1) awarded to A.D.H., a BBSRC-NERC project grant (BB/G00188X/1) awarded to J.S., C.R. and G.D.R. and a faculty fellowship awarded to C.G.H. (Medical Sciences, Newcastle University) with strategic support funding from the Wellcome Trust.Prey often evolve defences to deter predators, such as noxious chemicals including toxins. Toxic species often advertise their defence to potential predators by distinctive sensory signals. Predators learn to associate toxicity with the signals of these so-called aposematic prey, and may avoid them in future. In turn, this selects for mildly toxic prey to mimic the appearance of more toxic prey. Empirical evidence shows that mimicry could be either beneficial (‘Mullerian’) or detrimental (‘quasi-Batesian’) to the highly toxic prey, but the factors determining which are unknown. Here, we use state-dependent models to explore how tri-trophic interactions could influence the evolution of prey defences. We consider how predation risk affects predators’ optimal foraging strategies on aposematic prey, and explore the resultant impact this has on mimicry dynamics between unequally defended species. In addition, we also investigate how the potential energetic cost of metabolising a toxin can alter the benefits to eating toxic prey and thus impact on predators’ foraging decisions. Our model predicts that both how predators perceive their own predation risk, and the cost of detoxification, can have significant, sometimes counterintuitive, effects on the foraging decisions of predators. For example, in some conditions predators should: (i) avoid prey they know to be undefended, (ii) eat more mildly toxic prey as detoxification costs increase, (iii) increase their intake of highly toxic prey as the abundance of undefended prey increases. These effects mean that the relationship between a mimic and its model can qualitatively depend on the density of alternative prey and the cost of metabolising toxins. In addition, these effects are mediated by the predators’ own predation risk, which demonstrates that, higher trophic levels than previously considered can have fundamental impacts on interactions among aposematic prey species.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Characterization of SiGe thin films using a laboratory X-ray instrument

The technique of reciprocal space mapping using X-rays is a recognized tool for the nondestructive characterization of epitaxial films. X-ray scattering from epitaxial Si0.4Ge0.6 films on Si(100) substrates using a laboratory X-ray source was investigated. It is shown that a laboratory source with a rotating anode makes it possible to investigate the material parameters of the super-thin 2–6 nm layers. For another set of partially relaxed layers, 50–200 nm thick, it is shown that from a high-resolution reciprocal space map, conditioned from diffuse scattering on dislocations, it is possible to determine quantitatively from the shape of a diffraction peak (possessing no thickness fringes) additional parameters such as misfit dislocation density and layer thickness as well as concentration and relaxation

High-throughput screening in larval zebrafish identifies novel potent sedative-hypnotics

BACKGROUND: Many general anesthetics were discovered empirically, but primary screens to find new sedative-hypnotics in drug libraries have not used animals, limiting the types of drugs discovered. The authors hypothesized that a sedative-hypnotic screening approach using zebrafish larvae responses to sensory stimuli would perform comparably to standard assays, and efficiently identify new active compounds. METHODS: The authors developed a binary outcome photomotor response assay for zebrafish larvae using a computerized system that tracked individual motions of up to 96 animals simultaneously. The assay was validated against tadpole loss of righting reflexes, using sedative-hypnotics of widely varying potencies that affect various molecular targets. A total of 374 representative compounds from a larger library were screened in zebrafish larvae for hypnotic activity at 10 µM. Molecular mechanisms of hits were explored in anesthetic-sensitive ion channels using electrophysiology, or in zebrafish using a specific reversal agent. RESULTS: Zebrafish larvae assays required far less drug, time, and effort than tadpoles. In validation experiments, zebrafish and tadpole screening for hypnotic activity agreed 100% (n = 11; P = 0.002), and potencies were very similar (Pearson correlation, r > 0.999). Two reversible and potent sedative-hypnotics were discovered in the library subset. CMLD003237 (EC50, ~11 µM) weakly modulated γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors and inhibited neuronal nicotinic receptors. CMLD006025 (EC50, ~13 µM) inhibited both N-methyl-D-aspartate and neuronal nicotinic receptors. CONCLUSIONS: Photomotor response assays in zebrafish larvae are a mechanism-independent platform for high-throughput screening to identify novel sedative-hypnotics. The variety of chemotypes producing hypnosis is likely much larger than currently known.This work was supported by grants from Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, and the Chinese Medical Association, Beijing, China (both to Dr. Yang). The Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, supported this work through a Research Scholars Award and an Innovation Grant (both to Dr. Forman). Contributions to this research from the Boston University Center for Molecular Discovery, Boston, Massachusetts (to Drs. Porco, Brown, Schaus, and Xu, and to Mr. Trilles), were supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland (grant No. R24 GM111625). (Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Chinese Medical Association, Beijing, China; Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; R24 GM111625 - National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland)Accepted manuscript2019-09-0

Association of Accelerometry-Measured Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Events in Mobility-Limited Older Adults: The LIFE (Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders) Study.

BACKGROUND:Data are sparse regarding the value of physical activity (PA) surveillance among older adults-particularly among those with mobility limitations. The objective of this study was to examine longitudinal associations between objectively measured daily PA and the incidence of cardiovascular events among older adults in the LIFE (Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders) study. METHODS AND RESULTS:Cardiovascular events were adjudicated based on medical records review, and cardiovascular risk factors were controlled for in the analysis. Home-based activity data were collected by hip-worn accelerometers at baseline and at 6, 12, and 24 months postrandomization to either a physical activity or health education intervention. LIFE study participants (n=1590; age 78.9±5.2 [SD] years; 67.2% women) at baseline had an 11% lower incidence of experiencing a subsequent cardiovascular event per 500 steps taken per day based on activity data (hazard ratio, 0.89; 95% confidence interval, 0.84-0.96; P=0.001). At baseline, every 30 minutes spent performing activities ≥500 counts per minute (hazard ratio, 0.75; confidence interval, 0.65-0.89 [P=0.001]) were also associated with a lower incidence of cardiovascular events. Throughout follow-up (6, 12, and 24 months), both the number of steps per day (per 500 steps; hazard ratio, 0.90, confidence interval, 0.85-0.96 [P=0.001]) and duration of activity ≥500 counts per minute (per 30 minutes; hazard ratio, 0.76; confidence interval, 0.63-0.90 [P=0.002]) were significantly associated with lower cardiovascular event rates. CONCLUSIONS:Objective measurements of physical activity via accelerometry were associated with cardiovascular events among older adults with limited mobility (summary score >10 on the Short Physical Performance Battery) both using baseline and longitudinal data. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION:URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01072500

RNAi-suppression of barley caffeic acid O-methyltransferase modifies lignin despite redundancy in the gene family

Caffeic acid O-methyltransferase (COMT), the lignin biosynthesis gene modified in many brown-midrib high-digestibility mutants of maize and sorghum, was targeted for downregulation in the small grain temperate cereal, barley (Hordeum vulgare), to improve straw properties. Phylogenetic and expression analyses identified the barley COMT orthologue(s) expressed in stems, defining a larger gene family than in brachypodium or rice with three COMT genes expressed in lignifying tissues. RNAi significantly reduced stem COMT protein and enzyme activity, and modestly reduced stem lignin content while dramatically changing lignin structure. Lignin syringyl-to-guaiacyl ratio was reduced by ~50%, the 5-hydroxyguaiacyl (5-OH-G) unit incorporated into lignin at 10--15-fold higher levels than normal, and the amount of p-coumaric acid ester-linked to cell walls was reduced by ~50%. No brown-midrib phenotype was observed in any RNAi line despite significant COMT suppression and altered lignin. The novel COMT gene family structure in barley highlights the dynamic nature of grass genomes. Redundancy in barley COMTs may explain the absence of brown-midrib mutants in barley and wheat. The barley COMT RNAi lines nevertheless have the potential to be exploited for bioenergy applications and as animal feed