bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Poverty Inequality and Poverty Mobility in Germany in the 1990’s>
Authors: Eberharter Veronika V.
Published: October 2021

Using panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), this contribution compares poverty patterns Germany in the 1990s to that in the 1980s. Defining poverty line at half the median equivalent disposable income the paper analyzes income inequality and mobility below the poverty line as well as poverty duration for men and women aged 20 through 50 years. The socio-economic determinants of poverty duration are investigated with a logistic regression model. The empirical results point to an increasing feminization of poverty inequality and immobility in the 1960’s. The influence of gender and educational status on poverty duration is more pronounced in this decade.
Eliminating Extreme Poverty in Greece
Authors: Matsaganis Manos , Papadopoulos Fotis , Tskloglou Panos
Published: October 2021

The poverty-reducing impact of social transfers is weaker in Greece than in other EU countries, primarily due to the absence of a minimum social safety net. The paper examines the extent and structure of extreme poverty in Greece and attempts to assess the likely effects of the introduction of a minimum income scheme, under alternative scenarios about the extent of non-take up by eligible households as well as leakages to ineligible ones. Our results indicate that such a scheme could lead to an almost complete eradication of extreme poverty and a considerable decline in aggregate inequality at a moderate cost.
On Pareto’s law and the determinants of Pareto exponents
Authors: Reed William J.
Published: October 2021

A stochastic model for the generation of observed income distributions is used to provide an explanation for the Pareto law of incomes. The basic assumptions of the model are that the evolution of individual incomes follows Gibrat's law and that the population or workforce is growing at a fixed (probabilistic) rate. Analysis of the model suggests that Paretian behaviour can occur in either or both tails of an income distribution. It is shown that the magnitude of the upper-tail Pareto exponent depends on the interaction between the distribution of the growth in incomes and the growth in the size of the earning population. In particular a small Pareto exponent can be expected to occur for a population exhibiting fast or highly variable growth in incomes coupled with relatively slow population growth.
The Price of Female Headship: Gender, Inheritance and Wealth Accumulation in the United States
Authors: Conley Dalton , Ryvicker Miriam
Published: October 2021

Female-headed households in the United States suffer from lower levels of asset ownership than their male-headed counterparts. This gap remains after controlling for the lower incomes of female heads. What, then, produces the gender discrepancy in net worth? Using longitudinal, intergenerational data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we ask whether differential patterns of inheritance, savings rates or investment yield this female-male asset gap. Results demonstrate that differential savings rates between female- and male-headed households account for the gender gap in net worth. We speculate on the financial constraints within female-headed households that account for the savings rate differential.
Capital Outflow Controls and Income Distribution in Malaysia
Authors: Duasa Jarita
Published: October 2021

The study seeks to analyze the impact of capital outflow controls,
imposed by Malaysian government on September 1998, on income
distribution. Regression analysis using OLS (Ordinary Least Square),
2SLS (Two Stages Least Square) and GMM (Generalised Method of
Moment) methods of estimation reveals that the capital outflow controls
reduce inequality of income distribution in the country. The controls
are believed to result in improvement of export-led industries,
through devaluation from controls policy. It is also found at the same
time that Manufacturing suffers more income inequality between male
and female workers than do other sectors of the economy.
Agricultural Policy Reform and Its Impact on Farm Households Income Inequality
Authors: Mishra Ashok K , El-Osta Hisham , Shaik Saleem
Published: October 2021

In the United States the 1996 agricultural policy reform ushered in market-oriented farm policies and also gave farmers a seven-year lump-sum payment that was not tied to production. Some scholars argue that farm program payments have changed the distribution of income among farm households. Our study uses a national farmlevel survey for 1996-2001 to investigate a) the distribution of income among farm households, b) the sources that contribute to income inequality, and c) the role of farm program payments in equalizing income. Results show a high but declining income inequality between 1996 and 2001. Among the income components that contributed the most to income inequality was an income component labeled Income from farming and all other sources. Findings further show that marginal increases in both off-farm labor income and farm program payments reduce income inequality. The impact of various income components on overall reduction in income inequality therefore depends on a household’s participation in off-farm work and government farm programs.
The Widening Income Dispersion in Hong Kong: 1986-2006
Authors: Lui Hon-Kwong
Published: October 2021

This article analyzes the changes in income dispersion in Hong Kong during the period 1986-2006. The decile ratios indicate that while the income dispersion of the upper income class has widened substantially, the income dispersion of the lower income class has narrowed. Although changing industrial composition has been named as the prime suspect that caused rising income inequality, it actually helped in reducing the earnings variance slightly. Moreover, 40 per cent of the overall increase in earnings variance is due to an employment shift from low-inequality to high-inequality occupations. The increase in the supply of post-secondary and associate-degree graduates was more than offset by an increase in the demand for better educated workers. As a result, the earnings premium for more better educated workers experienced a decline.
The Assignment of Workers to Tasks, Wage Distribution, and
Technical Change: A Critical Review
Authors: Dupuy Arnaud
Published: October 2021

This article reviews the literature on two-sided atomless assignment
models of workers to tasks. Using simple parametric examples,
the fundamental differences between the comparative-advantage and
the scale-of-operations models are illustrated. Holding the distributions
of abilities and tasks and the production function of worker-task
pairs constant, the two principles are shown to produce different wage
distributions and wage inequality. These models are useful to evaluate
the general equilibrium effect of technical change on the wage structure.
In all models, Skill Biased Technical Change that impacts the
production function of worker-task pairs leads to rising wage inequality.
Information and Communications Technologies, Coordination and
Control, and the Distribution of Income
Authors: Guy Frederick , Skott Peter
Published: October 2021

We consider the links between Information and Communications
Technologies (ICTs) and the distribution of income, as mediated by
problems of coordination and control within organizations. In the large
corporations of the mid-twentieth century, a highly developed division
of labor was coordinated and controlled with the aid of relatively underdeveloped
ICTs. This created a situation in which the options of
top management were constrained while the individual and collective
power of lower-paid workers was enhanced. Only in the late twentieth
century, when the microprocessor and related technologies transformed
the information systems of organizations, did improvements
in the tools of coordination and control race ahead of the growing demands
of coordination and control. These technological changes have
reduced the power of lower-paid employees, increased that for higherpaid
employees, and led to an increase in income inequality. Thus, the
more important aspects of new technology relate to the ‘power-bias’,
rather than to the ‘skill-bias’, of technological change.
Computers and the Gender Wage Differential
Authors: Wong Linda Yuet-Yee
Published: October 2021

In this article, I report results of an exploratory data analysis that
challenge the conventional wisdom on the relation between computer
use and gender wage. Using the micro-economic data of 1984, 1993,
and 2001, I find 1) the wage premium for females using computers at
work is about 19-26 per cent higher than males within the high bluecollar
sector, and 2) college-educated females who use computers at
work earn a substantially higher wage than college-educated males.
These results indicate that computers have re-structured work by deemphasizing
physical skill that benefits women, and that college- educated
women in the white-collar sector have unobserved female labor
quality that could positively correlate with computer skill.
A Comparison of Modern Wage Decomposition Approaches
Authors: Behr Andreas
Published: October 2021

During the last three decades the decomposition method originally suggested to explain differences in mean wages has been considerably extended. In more recent approaches the focus has turned towards analyzing complete income distributions and differences between groups' incomes at all percentiles. We discuss in detail and apply four approaches: firstly, the approach of Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1991, 1993), the approach suggested by Machado and Mata (2001, 2005), the approach suggested by Donald, Green and Paarsch (2000) and finally, the approach suggested by DiNardo et al. (1996) and Fortin and Lemieux (1998). In this paper, we compare these approaches and decompose differences in men's wage distributions between the USA and Germany in 2007.
Fiscal Decentralization, Commitment and Regional Inequality: Evidence from State-level Cross-sectional Data for the
United States
Authors: Akai Nobuo , Hosio Masayo
Published: October 2021

Conventional approaches to fiscal decentralization suggest that decentralization
lowers the power of redistribution, but recent theories
argue that fiscal decentralization can work as a commitment device.
The former effect is argued to cause an increase in inter-county inequality,
while the latter suggests a decrease.
This article first clarifies the relationship between fiscal decentralization
and inter-county inequality by using cross-sectional data for the
United States. Our result indicates that the achievement of autonomy
by fiscal decentralization in poor (low-income) counties contributes to
decreased inter-county inequality, but that this effect is not as large as
the dominating adverse effect fiscal decentralization has on rich (highincome)
counties.
How Representative are Representative Workers? An Assessment of the Hypothetical Workers Commonly Used in Social Security Studies
Authors: Pfau Wade D.
Published: October 2021

An understanding of the financial and distributional consequences of Social Security reform requires knowledge about the actual life circumstances of participants, including the level and pattern of their lifetime earnings and their age at retirement. Some analyses of Social Security reform make simplifying assumptions about these characteristics by using ‘hypothetical workers’ with set career paths. We seek to develop greater understanding about actual lifetime earnings patterns to compare with hypothetical workers and find discrepancies which lead typical hypothetical workers to produce a more favorable impression for defined-contribution pension reforms. We suggest modifications to make a more suitable hypothetical worker.
The Estimation of Poverty and Inequality through Parametric Estimation of Lorenz Curves: An Evaluation
Authors: Minoiu Camelia , Reddy Sanjay G.
Published: October 2021

Poverty and inequality are often estimated from grouped data as complete household surveys are neither always available to researchers nor easy to analyze. In this study we assess the performance of functional forms proposed by Kakwani (1980a) and Villasenor and Arnold(1989) to estimate the Lorenz curve from grouped data. The methods are implemented using the computational tools POVCAL and Sim-SIP, developed and distributed by the World Bank. To identify biases associated with these methods, we use unit data from several household surveys and theoretical distributions. We find that poverty and inequality are better estimated when the true distribution is unimodal than multimodal. For unimodal distributions, biases associated with poverty measures are rarely larger than one percentage point. For data from multi-peaked or heavily skewed distributions, the biases are likely to be higher and of unknown sign.
Maximum Entropy and the Entropy of Mixing for Income Distributions
Authors: Borzadaran G.R. Mohtashami , Behdani Zahra
Published: October 2021

Over the last 100 years, a large number of distributions has been proposed for the modeling of size phenomena, notably the size distribution of personal incomes. The most widely known of these models are the Pareto, log-normal, generalized log-normal, generalized Gamma, generalized Beta of the first and of the second kind, the Dagum, and the Singh-Madala distributions. They are discussed as a group in this note, as general forms of income distributions. Several well-known models are derived from them as sub-families with interesting applications in economics. The behaviour of their entropy is what is here under study. Maximum entropy formalism chooses certain forms of entropy and derives an exponential family of distributions under certain constraints. Finding constraints that income distributions have maximum entropy is another direction of this note. In economics and social statistics, the size distribution of income is the basis of concentration on the Lorenz curve. The difference between the tail of the Lorenz function and the Lorenz function itself determines the entropy of mixing. In the final section of this note, theoretical properties of well-known income distributions are also derived in view of the entropy of mixing.
Male Income, Female Income, and Household Income Inequality in
Israel: A Decomposition Analysis
Authors: Kimhi Ayal
Published: October 2021

Differentiating between the sensitivity of income inequality to male
income and female income and decomposing inequality by income determinants,
we find that total income inequality is less sensitive to female
income variability or the level of female income, than to male
income variability or the level of male income. Uniform increases
in education reduce income inequality, with increases in female education
having a larger effect than increases in male education. An
increase in the population fraction of ethnic minorities has a positive
effect on inequality, but this operates mostly through female income.
All this suggests that female income is the most adequate target for
inequality-reducing policy, and that within-household gender equality
is good for reducing income inequality among households.
Dynamic Health Care Decisions and Child Health in South Africa
Authors: Alaba Olufunke A. , Koch Steven F.
Published: October 2021

A large number of child deaths in developing countries could be
averted if ill children received care sooner rather than later or not at
all. This article analyses the health care treatment pathway that is followed
for children under the age of six. The majority of these children
receive treatment within 24 hours. We find, however, that income affects
the probability of any treatment, despite freely available public
health care, and that delayed treatment of severely ill children is more
likely to occur in more expensive private facilities. Our results suggest
that free public health care is not enough to mitigate health inequality
amongst young children and that delayed health care could lead to
adverse household expenditure shocks.
The Contest for Olympic Success as a Public Good
Authors: Groot Loek
Published: October 2021

In this study it is demonstrated that standard income inequality measures, such as the Lorenz curve and the Gini index, can successfully be applied to the distribution of Olympic success. Olympic success is distributed very unevenly, with the rich countries capturing a disproportionately higher share compared to their world population share, which suggests that the Olympic Games do not provide a level playing field. The actual distribution of Olympic success is compared with alternative hypothetical distributions, among which are chosen the distribution according to population shares, the welfare optimal distribution under the assumption of zero government expenditures, and the non-cooperating Nash-Cournot distribution. By way of conclusion, a device is proposed to make the distribution of Olympic success more equitable.
Evidence for Multiple Labor Market Segments: An Entropic Analysis of US Earned Income, 1996-2007
Authors: Schneider Markus P. A.
Published: October 2021

This paper revisits the fitting of parametric distributions to earned income data. In line with Camilo Dagum's dictum that candidate distribution should not only be chosen for fit, but that economic content should also play a role, a new candidate is proposed. The fit of a simple finite mixture performs as well or better than the recently widely used generalized beta of the second kind (GB2) and is argued to be easier to interpret economically. Specifically, the good fit is taken as evidence for a finite level of segmentation in the labor market, with a distinctly different generating mechanism underlying each segment. It is speculated that this could be reconciled with either modern labor market models in which agent or firm heterogeneity can lead to different equilibrium configurations, or an older theory of labor market segmentation. In fact, the use of the mixture model addresses one of the central weaknesses of testing that older theory empirically. The approach taken in this paper is also motivated by the work of E. T. Jaynes, the father of maximum entropy approaches to statistical inference and related to the recent work by physicists on the distribution of income.
Social Inequalities and International Trade: A Cross-Country Perspective
Authors: Cieślik Andrzej , Michałek Jan Jakub , Mycielski Jerzy
Published: October 2021

In this article we study the role of social inequalities in international trade using the theory consistent gravity model. In addition to the standard set of gravity variables we use aggregate social development indicators such as Human Development Indices (HDI), Human Poverty Index (HPI), Gender Development Index (GDI), as well as detailed measures reflecting various forms of social inequalities. Our results show that measures of social inequalities significantly affect the volume of international trade flows.
Changes in Wage Inequality in Mexico: A Decomposition Analysis
Authors: Tello Claudia
Published: October 2021

We analyse the changes in earnings inequality in Mexico and the Mexican regions from 1987 to 2008. Using the Jenkins-van Kern decomposition method, we distinguish two major components: progressivity, which reflects the pro-poor (or pro-rich) orientation of wage growth, and re-ranking, which measures the movements of individuals in the wage hierarchy. At the national level, progressivity has been systematically pro-poor, but re-ranking has to a large extent offset this pro-equality dynamic. Similar variations are found for the Mexican regions. The South, the Border and the Centre have, however, witnessed a decrease in inequality, whereas inequality has increased in the North and the Capital regions.
Decomposition of Income Gaps across Socioeconomic Groups: The Case of Six Asian Countries
Authors: Hlasny Vladimir
Published: October 2021

This study applies unconditional quantile regressions estimated using recentered influence functions to analyze income gaps based on households’ residence, education and employment status in six Asian countries. China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and Taiwan are found to represent different demographic corners of Asia and different stages of development. Rural/urban gaps exist across all six countries, particularly China, India and Russia, but have been falling in Russia. Rural households face mobility barriers and lack decent employment opportunities, thus lacking incentives for skill investment. Gaps between less/more educated households are also prevalent. Less educated households tend to be rural and face low returns on their other marketable characteristics. In China and India, gaps by employment status surprisingly favor households with non-employed heads. In India, a non-working class of rural rich live off saved wealth or remittances from urban professionals. In China, a class of rural poor appear to live off remittances from migrant laborers. We conclude that Asian emerging economies should strengthen their rural assistance programs, and lower the mobility and resettlement barriers, to improve rural households’ access to education and employment.
Source of Inequality in Consumption Expenditure in India: A Regression Based Inequality Decomposition Analysis
Authors: Tripathi Sabyasachi
Published: October 2021

The present paper estimates the Regression based inequality decomposition for the years 2004-05 and 2011-12.The decomposition based regression analysis finds that household size, level of education, share of workers engaged in less productive jobs (such as, casual labour and agricultural worker), regular salary earning member of a household, higher level of land possessed by the households, and households having hired dwelling unit are responsible for the maximum share of inequality in the total inequality of the average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) and predicted MPCE in the both urban and rural areas.
Does Clientelism Affect Income Inequality? Evidence from Panel Data
Authors: Rana Ebney Ayaj , Kamal Mustafa
Published: October 2021

This paper studies the determinants of income inequality in a panel of countries to provide empirical evidence to the relationship between income inequality and clientelism. Using different panel data techniques, especially group mean fully modified OLS estimator, and also allowing for control variables, cross-sectional heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence, we find that in the long run, clientelism exerts a significant negative effect on income equality. The overall results of the study have implications for fiscal management strategies and political regime choice.
Inequality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Authors: Klasen Stephan
Published: October 2021

Global inequality has been falling in the last 20 or 30 years, mainly because of rising incomes in China, India, and, more recently, also in Africa. That has been good for global justice and poverty reduction, but not for greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, the majority of growth in emissions since 1990 has taken place in emerging countries. As a result, if global inequality continues to fall, we have to confront the fact that greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise. There is no easy solution to this problem, since it is very difficult for emerging countries to drastically change their emission pathways. But there are some policies that might help, including, for example, the removal of energy subsidies and a greater focus on air pollution and energy security, both of which are co-benefits of moving away from fossil energy. The question also remains whether more unequal countries emit more or less greenhouse gases. Theoretical arguments in this regard are ambiguous. We find that in poorer countries, higher inequality actually reduces per capita emissions, mainly because it pushes poor people out of the carbon economy and forces them to lead carbon-neutral lives, relying entirely on biomass. However, in richer countries, inequality is associated with rising emissions. Therefore, if we reduce inequality in rich countries, we will also help reduce emissions. But how to think about climate policy? Economists have very much focused on the idea that there is a first best climate policy with a global carbon price, achieved either through an emission trading scheme or a carbon tax. But one should realize that climate policy in practice involves many different initiatives at many different levels. The driving forces of such policies are often the co-benefits such as cleaner air or greater energy security than emission reduction. If we recognize this, then our analysis should focus not on trying to design first best, but unrealistic policies, but rather on studying the interactions between existing policies and on trying to improve their functioning. This will be a much more promising way to tackle climate change than focusing on an unrealistic first best option.
Models for Income based on Bivariate Pareto Distributions
Authors: Nadarajah Saralees , Kotz Samuel
Published: October 2021

It is shown that the total amount of income earned during a reference period can be expressed as the products of components of bivariate Pareto distributions. The exact distribution of the total amount of income P = XY and the corresponding moment properties are derived when (X, Y ) follows three of the most commonly known bivariate Pareto distributions. The expressions turn out to involve special functions.
Trends in Income Distribution in Italy: A Non-Parametric 90
and a Semi-Parametric Analysis
Authors: Pittau Maria Grazia , Zelli Roberto
Published: October 2021

Using kernel density estimation and mixture models, household size-adjusted income distributions in Italy are cross-sectionally examined over the period 1987-2002. A non-parametric test is used to assess the number of modes in the distributions. Evidence shows that income tends to cluster around more than one point. This gives good reason to model the shapes by a finite mixture density with an appropriate choice of components which represent homogeneous sub-populations. Effects of social and demographic factors on the probability of households to belong to one of the components of the mixture are identified by a compositional data analysis.
Crying Wolf: Rectifying Poverty Rates in Kosova
Authors: Beilock Richard , Freeman James
Published: October 2021

Kosova is one of the most impoverished areas in Europe. The approach, however, for calculating poverty rates adopted, in all good faith, by the international community, has resulted in unrealistically high overall poverty rates and questionable relative rates between ethnic groups, urban and rural areas, and among Kosova’s regions. Two reasons are proposed for this: questionnaire designs which encourage refusals or response bias and inappropriate measures of adult equivalencies. Employing data from a 1,000 observation household survey, the implications of alternative approaches for estimating poverty rates are explored. The results suggest that current poverty rate estimates are two to three times the actual rates. Moreover, these estimates overstate differences between segments of Kosova’s society. Of particular concern, current estimates exaggerate differences in poverty rates between ethnic Serbians and ethnic Albanians, thereby exacerbating tensions.
Measuring the Impact of Growth and Income Distribution on Poverty
in India
Authors: Dhongde Shatakshee
Published: October 2021

Since the economic reforms of the early 1990s, the Indian economy witnessed a
rapid rise in the mean income level, and, simultaneously, changes in the distribution of
income. This study tries to capture how these changes affected poverty levels across
major states in India. Total change in poverty is decomposed into the changes due to
a rise in the mean income level and due to changes in the distribution of income. It
is observed that, in India, rapid growth led to a significant decline in poverty though
changes in the distribution of income which adversely affected the poor.
Environmental Damage and its Impacts on Inequality and Poverty:
Applications to Brazil and Costa Rica
Authors: Torras Mariano
Published: October 2021

Accounting for environmental damage is relevant to how one measures
the extent and severity of inequality and poverty, and the question
of ecological distribution - how the costs associated with environmental
damage are distributed across the population - is critical. Following
Khan’s (1997) study on Bangladesh, I use environmental damage
estimates to adjust inequality and poverty measures for Brazil and
Costa Rica. Unlike Khan, I test for different assumptions regarding
the ecological distribution. Provisional results indicate that inequality
and poverty are understated, and that, under certain assumptions, both
worsened in Costa Rica during the 1980s, contrary to what conventional
statistics suggest. Want of reliable ecological distribution data,
however, suggests that sensitivity analysis around competing assumptions
may be preferable to conventional indicators.
Estimation of Household Equivalence Scales in a Model with Joint Determination of Commodity Demand and Labour Supply
Authors: Folkertsma Carsten
Published: October 2021

In this paper we present a method to estimate Barten-type equivalence scales in a single cross-section. Since the failure to identify the Barten-scales is due to the lack of commodity price variation in cross-sections, we use a model of joint determination of commodity demand and labour supply to solve the problem. The variation of wage rates is sufficient to identify the scales of commodities and leisure. We use this method to estimate Barten-type scales in an extended linear expenditure system on a Dutch expenditure survey.
Evaluating Changes in the Distribution of Income in the United States
Authors: Bishop J. A. , Formby J. P. , Sakano R.
Published: October 2021

Insights gained from previous macroeconomic studies of the size distribution of U.S. incomes are incorporated into a richer model that considers the possibility of random walks and cointegration. The effects of macroeconomic, demographic, structural, and policy variables on quintile conditional mean incomes and Lorenz ordinates are estimated using more that four decades of data. The results are interpreted in terms of the powerful dominance method of evaluating entire income distributions. The model yields strong evidence of random walks and cointegration. Several findings from earlier studies are confirmed, and heretofore unrecognized influences on the size distribution of income are identified. Some surprising results emerge, especially as they relate to the effects of a more open economy on income inequality.
Institutions and Distribution: Ownership and the Identification of Rent
Authors: Samuels W. J.
Published: October 2021

Using the marginalist theory of David Ricardo and the institutionalist ideas of Richard Jones and Alfred Marshall, the article shows that rent theory is incomplete and fundamentally incoherent without an institutional specification of ownership. The sum of the supramarginal returns (Ricardian rent) is not necessarily to be equated with the rental incomes of landowners of record; the returns can accrue to others as well, depending on institutions (custom, power, law).
From Invisible to Marshalled Hands
Authors: Spithoven A. H.G.M.
Published: October 2021

Society is constantly changing and so is economic thought. Recent social developments have yet to be incorporated into economic theory. In this article suggestions are offered to amend the existing paradigm in line with recent changes in society. The paper proposes that some basic concepts be reconsidered and that greater emphasis be placed on the distribution of income between the private and the collective sector.
The Impasse of Post Keynesian Distribution Theory
Authors: Thomasberger C.
Published: October 2021

Why did the topic of income distribution loose its attraction for the economic profession? The article analyzes the structure of the Ricardian theory and of the post-Keynesian approach and discusses the question why after Pasinetti’s contribution distribution theory lost its economic significance and interpretative value. An alternative and less deterministic approach to functional distribution is proposed, taking into consideration the importance of money and expectations, the relation between the principle of effective demand and aggregate income and the difference between the behavior of the single entrepreneur and the macroeconomic system.
Analysis of the transcriptional activity of genes of neuropeptides and their receptors in the blood of patients with thyroid pathology
Authors: Kamyshna Iryna Ivanivna ,   Department of Medical Rehabilitation, I. Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University, Ternopil, Ukraine,   * Corresponding Author: Iryna Ivanivna Kamyshna, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Medical Rehabilitation Department, I. Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University, Majdan Voli 1, Ternopil, Ukraine, 46001. Phone: +380954313068 E-mail: Iryna.bilous2017@gmail.com, Pavlovych Larysa Borysivna ,   Department of Clinical Immunology, Allergology and Endocrinology, HSEEU Bukovinian State Medical University, Chernivtsi, Ukraine, Maslyanko Vitaliy Antonovych ,   Department of Clinical Immunology, Allergology and Endocrinology, HSEEU Bukovinian State Medical University, Chernivtsi, Ukraine, Kamyshnyi Aleksandr Mychailovich ,   Department of Microbiology, Virology, and Immunology, I. Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University, Ternopil, Ukraine
Published: October 2021

The thyroid hormone plays a vital role in the development and maturation of the nervous system not only during prenatal and perinatal age but also in adults. “Peripheral marker hypothesis” revealed that gene expression changes in some regions of the brain are reflected into the peripheral blood lymphocytes. The objective of the study was to investigate changes in the gene expression profile of neuropeptides and their receptors in patients with different forms of thyroid pathology. One hundred fifty-three patients with thyroid pathology were enrolled in the study. They were divided into three groups: group 1 included 16 patients with postoperative hypothyroidism, group 2 included 65 patients with hypothyroidism resulting from autoimmune thyroiditis (AIT), and group 3 included 72 patients with AIT and elevated levels of anti-thyroglobulin (anti-Tg) and anti-thyroid peroxidase (anti-TPO) antibodies in the serum. We used a pathway-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) array (RT2 Profiler™ PCR Array Human Neurotrophins & Receptors, QIAGEN, Germany) to identify and verify neuropeptides and receptors pathway-focused gene expression in 12 individuals that were randomly selected from each group using real-time PCR. Our research identified that patients with postoperative hypothyroidism had a considerably increased expression of NPY1R, NTSR1, and NPY4R. The patients with hypothyroidism caused by autoimmune thyroiditis had considerably lower expression of NTSR1, while the expression of NPY1R increased. The mRNA levels of NPY2R and PNOC increased in the patients with elevated levels of autoantibodies anti-Tg and anti-TPO in the serum, and mRNA levels of NPY1R and NTSR1 decreased in this group of patients.
Romanian National premiere with the new Thulium SuperPulsed Laser in the endourological treatment of urolithiasis
Authors: Geavlete Bogdan ,   Sanador Hospital, Bucharest, Romania,   Department of Urology, Sf. Ioan Emergency Clinical Hospital, Bucharest, Romania,   Petrisor Geavlete, MD, Department of Urology, Sf. Ioan Emergency Clinical Hospital, 13 Vitan-Barzesti Street, 042122, Bucharest, Romania. Email: geavlete@gmail.com, Multescu Razvan ,   Sanador Hospital, Bucharest, Romania,   Department of Urology, Sf. Ioan Emergency Clinical Hospital, Bucharest, Romania, Iordache Valentin ,   Sanador Hospital, Bucharest, Romania,   Department of Urology, Sf. Ioan Emergency Clinical Hospital, Bucharest, Romania, Geavlete Petrisor ,   Sanador Hospital, Bucharest, Romania,   Department of Urology, Sf. Ioan Emergency Clinical Hospital, Bucharest, Romania
Published: October 2021

In this paper, we aimed to verify the efficiency and functionality of the new Soltive Thulium Fiber Laser (TFL) in the treatment of urinary stones. The Soltive Laser System was used in 17 urolithiasis cases: 10 renal, 5 ureteral, and 2 bladder stone patients. The average stone size was 13.1 mm (ranging between 11–29 mm) for the kidney, 8 mm (ranging between 6–12 mm) for the ureter, and 31 mm (ranging between 27–34 mm) for the bladder. Only single calculi patients were included in the study. We used 100 and 150 μm core-diameters fibers (CDF). Three settings were applied: 0.15 J/100 Hz for “fine dusting”, 0.5 J/30 Hz for “dusting” and 1 J/15 Hz for the fragmentation mode. The mean operative time was 34 minutes for renal, 21 minutes for ureteral, and 39 minutes for bladder stones. The visibility was optimal in all cases. The stone-free rate at 1 month after treatment was 95% for renal calculi and 100% for ureteral and bladder stones. Very fine dust made of stone fragments smaller than 1 mm in size that passed spontaneously through the access sheath was observed, especially subsequent to the “fine dusting” mode. The complication rate was very low: 1 patient was classified as Clavien grade 1 and 1 patient as Clavien grade 2, and this was the case for renal stones only. No urinary tract infections were observed. The new Soltive TFL appears to be a remarkably promising tool in the therapeutic approach of urolithiasis. Lithotripsy was achieved up to the level of extremely small stone fragments with improved efficiency while also optimizing the operative time.
Immune-like procedure for functionality of the system of information security in automated data processing systems in the context of countering internal threats
Authors: Simavoryan Simon Zhorzhevich , Simonyan Arsen Rafikovich , Popov Georgii Aleksandrovich , Ulitina Elena Ivanovna
Published: October 2021

The subject of this research is the system of creating mechanisms of information from internal threats in automated data processing systems similar to the mechanism of human immunity. The object of this research is the mechanism of human immunity and systems of ensuring information security in automated data processing systems. The goal of this work lies in the development of the universal scheme of functionality of the mechanism of human immunity against internal threats in form of the procedure, and develop on its basis the immune-like scheme for countering internal threats applicable to the systems of ensuring information security. Methodological research on the development of procedure for detecting internal threats in the mechanism of human immunity is carried out via the methods of systemic analysis in area of ensuring information security. Special attention is given to such aspects as consistency and adaptability of the mechanisms of human immunity applicable to the systems of ensuring information security. This article introduces the new solution to the task of adapting the universal scheme of functionality of the immune system in countering internal threats in the systems of ensuring information security based on the principle of demarcation of the elements to “known/alien” and implementation of the procedure to “destroy” threat, the so-called “Trogotcytosis” (“gnaw”). The developed procedures may serve as the basic schemes in further practical studies of the immune-like systems of ensuring informations security.
Terapia Ocupacional en el manejo integral del paciente con enfermedad reumática
Authors: Morales Barrera Astrith , Preciado Jiménez Obeida Esmeralda , Velasquez Navarro Adriana
Published: October 2021

Este trabajo de grado fue elaborado y sustentado como requisito para optar al título de Terapéutas Ocupacionales, siendo a su vez distinguido con Mención Meritoria, bajo la Resolución 038 de la Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
A importância da Vacina Pneumocócica Polissacarídica 23-Valente (PPSV23) na prevenção de doenças pneumocócicas no Brasil
Authors: Ferreira Luan Daniel Silva , Costa Laura Cristina Correa , Russo Erlane Paiva , Sousa Priscila Cerdeira Coelho de , Gadelha Bruno Pantoja , Fernandes Analice Ramos , Santos Fabiolla da Silva , Russo Rosiane Paiva , Gomes Sérgio Carlos dos Santos
Published: October 2021

Objetivo: Avaliar a importância da Vacina Pneumocócica Polissacarídica 23-Valente (PPSV23) na prevenção das doenças pneumocócicas no Brasil. Revisão bibliográfica: Streptococcus pnemoniae causa infecção e afeta principalmente as crianças, pessoas acima de 65 anos de idade, imunodeprimidos e doentes crônicos. Sob essa perspectiva, as doenças relacionadas ao S. pnemoniae compõem uma problemática significativa para a saúde pública geral, além disso, o aumento exacerbado do número de cepas resistentes a antibióticos acentua o impasse. No Brasil, a pneumonia se destaca como a segunda causa de morte. A mortalidade por pneumonia é maior nos extremos de idade, chegando a 8,4% em menores de 5 anos e 61% em indivíduos com 70 anos ou mais. É importante notar que a PPSV23 é considerada uma vacina custo-efetiva. Considerações finais: O uso da vacina PPSV23, no estudo, demonstrou a capacidade de conter o impacto crescente da doença, e também reduzir a resistência aos antibióticos, evitando o surgimento de cepas resistentes, pelo uso diminuto desses antibióticos. Por fim, faz-se necessário mais estudos desse cunho, para que se possa reunir informações e associá-la, de maneira a melhor compreender os impactos que a vacinação contra as doenças pneumocócicas possa trazer para a sociedade.
Invitro Membrane Stabilizing Potentials Of Fractionates Of Ethanolic Extract of Carica Papaya Leaf
Authors: Ojongbede Onose  , Naiho Alexender Obidike  , Nwogueze Bartholomew Chukwuebuka  , Ofulue Ofioritse Ogheneyoma  , Daubry Tarela Melish Elias  , Olowe Gideon Temitope  , Ebuwa Emmanuel Ikemefune
Published: October 2021

Invitro membrane-stabilizing potentials of fractionates of ethanolic extract of Carica Papaya leaf was investigated in this study. The soxhlet extraction method was used to extract the plant, fractionated with 6 different solvents to give 6 different fractions (hexane, ethyl acetate, chloroform, butanol, methanol benzene). Hbss red blood cells samples were obtained from non-crises state sickle cell patients from Eku Baptist hospital Abraka Delta State, Nigeria. These tests involved the use of positive (p-hydroxy benzoic acid 5ug/ml) and negative controls (normal saline) for membrane stability experiments. Hbss blood was treated with 2mg/ml to 10mg/ml in seven groups with leaf fractionates. Data was analyzed using ANOVA test. The results shows that osmotic fragility was reduced by the introduction of the leaf fractionate, with the highest rate of reduction noticed in the hexane 1 fractionate. PHBA reversal rate and osmotic fragility effect was normal at low doses, but as concentration increases, reversal rate and percentage reduction of sickling decreases. It was concluded that Carica papaya leaf extract fractions, just as its crude extracts, have as much osmotic fragility activities, and this is dose-dependent and has no negative effect on tested blood samples as compared with the treatments with PHBA.
Exploring quality control standards and potential antibacterial property of different extracts of the root of Physalis minima L.
Authors: Dibyendu Shil  , Tanmay Sarma  , Saumendu Deb Roy  , Jashabir Chakraborty  , Smriti Rekha Chanda Das  , Trishna Das  , Taslima Akhter Rohman
Published: October 2021

Physalis minima (Fam. Solanaceae) is well known (local name: Pokmou) ethno-medicinal plant in north-east part of India. Traditional knowledge claimed that aerial parts of this plant has medicinal values like antiulcer, anti inflammatory, antimalarial, antidiabetic, antimicrobial etc but there are lack of scientific evidence to support these properties. The aim of study is to established standard monograph of the root of Physalis minima  and  also evaluate antibacterial property from root extracts against selected Gram (+ve) (S. aureus) and Gram (–ve) (E. coli) bacteria strains by agar disc diffusion method. Morphological study revealed that root is tap root, greyish white in colour, slightly sweet taste. Microscopic evaluation showed the presence of phelloderm, cambium, medullary rays across the xylem and phloem, starch grains. Physicochemical parameters were found to be within limit. Different extracts have shown the existence of metabolites viz. Alkaloids, steroids, tannin, flavonoids. Phytoconstituents like flavonoid, phenolic and tannin were quantified. Pet ether and ethanol extracts at 5mg/ml concentration showed remarkable zone of inhibition against Gram (+ve) and Gram (–ve) microorganism. Recent study suggests standardized Physalis minima root contains bioactive compounds mainly flavonoids, tannins possess significant antibacterial potential against both Gram (+ve) and Gram (–ve) microorganism.
NLP ‘RECIPES’ FOR TEXT CORPORA: APPROACHES TO COMPUTING THE PROBABILITY OF A SEQUENCE OF TOKENS
Authors: Porwoł Monika
Published: October 2021

Investigation in the hybrid architectures for Natural Language Processing (NLP) requires overcoming complexity in various intellectual traditions pertaining to computer science, formal linguistics, logic, digital humanities, ethical issues and so on. NLP as a subfield of computer science and artificial intelligence is concerned with interactions between computers and human (natural) languages. It is used to apply machine learning algorithms to text (and speech) in order to create systems, such as: machine translation (converting from text in a source language to text in a target language), document summarization (converting from long texts into short texts), named entity recognition, predictive typing, et cetera. Undoubtedly, NLP phenomena have been implanted in our daily lives, for instance automatic Machine Translation (MT) is omnipresent in social media (or on the world wide web), virtual assistants (Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and so on) can recognize a natural voice or e-mail services use detection systems to filter out some spam messages. The purpose of this paper, however, is to outline the linguistic and NLP methods to textual processing. Therefore, the bag-of-n-grams concept will be discussed here as an approach to extract more details about the textual data in a string of a grouped words. The n-gram language model presented in this paper (that assigns probabilities to sequences of words in text corpora) is based on findings compiled in Sketch Engine, as well as samples of language data processed by means of NLTK library for Python. Why would one want to compute the probability of a word sequence? The answer is quite obvious – in various systems for performing tasks, the goal is to generate texts that are more fluent. Therefore, a particular component is required, which computes the probability of the output text. The idea is to collect information how frequently the n-grams occur in a large text corpus and use it to predict the next word. Counting the number of occurrences can also envisage certain drawbacks, for instance there are sometimes problems with sparsity or storage. Nonetheless, the language models and specific computing ‘recipes’ described in this paper can be used in many applications, such as machine translation, summarization, even dialogue systems, etc. Lastly, it has to be pointed out that this piece of writing is a part of an ongoing work tentatively termed as LADDER (Linguistic Analysis of Data in the Digital Era of Research) that touches upon the process of datacization[1] that might help to create an intelligent system of interdisciplinary information.