The changing effects of social protection on poverty

This paper fits within a broader research programme concerned with the processes that link labour market precarity and social exclusion. Labour market insecurity manifests itself most directly in the form of unemployment, and other elements in the programme seek to measure the impact of precarity, and unemployment in particular, on poverty and social exclusion in the eight countries covered. One of the principal concerns of the programme is however the extent to which institutional differences across countries with respect to the labour market and social protection are a significant factor mediating the relationship between labour market precarity and social exclusion. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of cash transfers, the central element of social protection systems, in alleviating the effects of unemployment on income poverty. The structures of social protection systems vary greatly across European Union member states, and in many cases have altered significantly in recent years in response to high unemployment (see Hauser et al, 1998). Using data from the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s for six member countries, the paper compares the effectiveness of different systems in lifting or keeping the unemployed out of poverty, and how this has been affected by the way systems have responded to the challenges produced by developments in the labour market in the past decade. The specific role of social insurance-based unemployment-linked transfers versus other cash transfers is also considered, to assess the extent to which social insurance has been able to cope with changes in the labour market over the period. The data come from a variety of national large-scale household surveys. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 discusses the data and methods to be employed in measuring the impact of cash transfers on poverty risks for the unemployed. Section 3 looks at the overall risks of poverty for the unemployed before and after cash transfers, and how these changed between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Section 4 looks at the role of social insurance-based unemployment payments versus other cash transfers. Section 5 examines the extent to which the impact of transfers varies by gender and by duration of unemployment. Section 6 highlights the key patterns identified and what these tell us about the relationship between the type of welfare regime a country operates and effectiveness in alleviating poverty among the unemployed

Asymptomatic liver segment herniation through a postoperative defect in the right hemidiaphragm following aortic bypass graft surgery

We present a 16-year-old girl with asymptomatic liver segment herniation following aortic graft surgery for atypical coarctation of the aorta. The defect in the right hemidiaphragm was caused by the implantation of an ascending thoracic aorta to upper abdominal aortic bypass graft. The differential diagnosis of diaphragmatic defects as well as the role of various imaging modalities in establishing the diagnosis are discusse

Low-Density Granulocytes Are a Novel Immunopathological Feature in Both Multiple Sclerosis and Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder

Objective: To investigate whether low-density granulocytes (LDGs) are an immunophenotypic feature of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) or neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD). Methods: Blood samples were collected from 20 patients with NMOSD and 17 patients with MS, as well as from 15 patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and 23 Healthy Donors (HD). We isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with density gradient separation and stained the cells with antibodies against CD14, CD15, CD16, and CD45, and analyzed the cells by flow cytometry or imaging flow cytometry. We defined LDGs as CD14-CD15(high) and calculated their share in total PBMC leukocytes (CD45+) as well as the share of CD16(hi) LDGs. Clinical data on disease course, medication, and antibody status were obtained. Results: LDGs were significantly more common in MS and NMOSD than in HDs, comparable to SLE samples (median values HD 0.2%, MS 0.9%, NMOSD 2.1%, SLE 4.3%). 0/23 of the HDs, but 17/20 NMOSD and 11/17 MS samples as well as 13/15 SLE samples had at least 0.7 % LDGs. NMOSD patients without continuous immunosuppressive treatment had significantly more LDGs compared to their treated counterparts. LDG nuclear morphology ranged from segmented to rounded, suggesting a heterogeneity within the group. Conclusion: LDGs are a feature of the immunophenotype in some patients with MS and NMOSD

A general duality relation with applications in quantitative risk management

A fundamental problem in risk management is the robust aggregation of different sources of risk in a situation where little or no data are available to infer information about their dependencies. A popular approach to solving this problem is to formulate an optimization problem under which one maximizes a risk measure over all multivariate distributions that are consistent with the available data. In several special cases of such models, there exist dual problems that are easier to solve or approximate, yielding robust bounds on the aggregated risk. In this chapter we formulate a general optimization problem, which can be seen as a doubly infinite linear programming problem, and we show that the associated dual generalizes several well known special cases and extends to new risk management models we propose

Market Integration Shape Organic Farmers’ Organisation

Increasing consumption of organic products in globalised food chains will require the involvement of thousands more smallholder farmers in many regions of the world. A study of Egypt, China and Uganda identified the three key factors of property rights regimes, cultural differences and social organisation as determents of the supply chain organization and farmers’ degree of direct integration in the export markets. Patterns are emerging where smallholder farmers are being socially and economically linked to larger farmers who may do some processing before the raw materials are handed over to the contracting company. Where transactions costs are high, local communities may develop and contract out the land directly to exporting companies who farm using employees. Four organisational patterns are identified which each leads to different types of livelihood benefits for the producers; preliminary results indicate that income and a reliable market access is the dominant benefits

Imperfect Homoclinic Bifurcations

Experimental observations of an almost symmetric electronic circuit show complicated sequences of bifurcations. These results are discussed in the light of a theory of imperfect global bifurcations. It is shown that much of the dynamics observed in the circuit can be understood by reference to imperfect homoclinic bifurcations without constructing an explicit mathematical model of the system.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, submitted to PR

Identification of MS-specific serum miRNAs in an international multicenter study.

ObjectiveTo identify circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) linked to disease, disease stage, and disability in MS across cohorts.MethodsSamples were obtained from the Comprehensive Longitudinal Investigation of Multiple Sclerosis (CLIMB, Boston, MA), EPIC (San Francisco, CA), AMIR (Beirut, Lebanon) as part of the SUMMIT consortium, and Stockholm Prospective Assessment of Multiple Sclerosis (Stockholm, Sweden) cohorts. Serum miRNA expression was measured using locked nucleic acid-based quantitative PCR. Four groups were compared: (1) MS vs healthy control (HC), (2) relapsing-remitting (RR) vs HC, (3) secondary progressive (SP) vs HC, and (4) RR vs SP. A Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used for the comparisons. The association between each miRNA and the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score was assessed using the Spearman correlation coefficient. For each comparison, the p values were corrected for multiple comparisons using the approach of Benjamini and Hochberg to control the false discovery rate.ResultsIn the CLIMB cohort, 5 miRNAs (hsa-miR-484, hsa-miR-140-5p, hsa-miR-320a, hsa-miR-486-5p, and hsa-miR-320c) showed a significant difference between patients with MS and healthy individuals; among these, miR-484 remained significant after accounting for multiple comparisons (p = 0.01). When comparing RRMS with HCs, hsa-miR-484 showed a significant difference (p = 0.004) between the groups after accounting for multiple group comparisons. When SP and HC were compared, 6 miRNAs (hsa-miR-484, hsa-miR-140-5p, hsa-miR-142-5p, hsa-miR-320a, hsa-miR-320b, and hsa-miR-320c) remained significantly different after accounting for multiple comparisons. Disability correlation analysis with miRNA provided 4 miRNAs (hsa-miR-320a, hsa-miR-337-3p, hsa-miR-199a-5p, and hsa-miR-142-5p) that correlated with the EDSS during the internal reproducibility phase. Among these, hsa-miR-337-3p was the most statistically significant miRNA that negatively correlated with the EDSS in three of the MS cohorts tested.ConclusionsThese findings further confirm the use of circulating serum miRNAs as biomarkers to diagnose and monitor disease status in MS.Classification of evidenceThis study provides Class III evidence that levels of circulating miRNAs identify patients with MS

Interactive visuo-motor therapy system for stroke rehabilitation

We present a virtual reality (VR)-based motor neurorehabilitation system for stroke patients with upper limb paresis. It is based on two hypotheses: (1) observed actions correlated with self-generated or intended actions engage cortical motor observation, planning and execution areas ("mirror neurons”); (2) activation in damaged parts of motor cortex can be enhanced by viewing mirrored movements of non-paretic limbs. We postulate that our approach, applied during the acute post-stroke phase, facilitates motor re-learning and improves functional recovery. The patient controls a first-person view of virtual arms in tasks varying from simple (hitting objects) to complex (grasping and moving objects). The therapist adjusts weighting factors in the non-paretic limb to move the paretic virtual limb, thereby stimulating the mirror neuron system and optimizing patient motivation through graded task success. We present the system's neuroscientific background, technical details and preliminary result