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"Jenkins, P"
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Pareto Models, Top Incomes and Recent Trends in UK Income Inequality
I determine UK income inequality levels and trends by combining inequality estimates from tax return data (for the 'rich') and household survey data (for the 'non-rich'), taking advantage of the better coverage of top incomes in tax return data (which I demonstrate) and creating income variables in the survey data with the same definitions as in the tax data to enhance comparability. For top income recipients, I estimate inequality and mean income by fitting Pareto models to the tax data, examining specification issues in depth, notably whether to use Pareto I or Pareto II (generalized Pareto) models, and the choice of income threshold above which the Pareto models apply. The preferred specification is a Pareto II model with a threshold set at the 99th or 95th percentile (depending on year). Conclusions about aggregate UK inequality trends since the mid-1990s are robust to the way in which tax data are employed. The Gini coefficient for individual gross income rose by around 7% or 8% between 1996/7 and 2007/8, with most of the increase occurring after 2003/4. The corresponding estimate based wholly on the survey data is around −5%.
Journal Article
Billions of years, amazing changes : the story of evolution
Traces the history of man's discoveries about evolution, covering both the mechanisms of evolution and examples of natural selection-- source other than Library of Congress.
Book
World income inequality databases: an assessment of WIID and SWIID
This article assesses two secondary data compilations about income inequality – the World Income Inequality Database (WIIDv2c), and the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIIDv4.0) which is based on WIID but with all observations multiply-imputed. WIID and SWIID are convenient and accessible sources for researchers seeking cross-national data with global coverage for relatively long time periods. Against these undoubted benefits must be set costs arising from lack of data comparability and quality and also, in the case of SWIID, questions about its imputation model. WIID and SWIID users need to recognize this benefit-cost trade-off and ensure their substantive conclusions are robust to potential data problems. I provide detailed description of the nature and contents of both sources plus illustrative regression analysis. From a data issues perspective, I recommend WIID over SWIID, though my support for use of WIID is conditional.
Journal Article
Mobile genes in the human microbiome are structured from global to individual scales
Mobile genes, which can be transferred between bacterial species in the microbiome to impart properties such as antibiotic resistance, are reflective of human activity and local diets.
Recent work has underscored the importance of the microbiome in human health, and has largely attributed differences in phenotype to differences in the species present among individuals
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. However, mobile genes can confer profoundly different phenotypes on different strains of the same species. Little is known about the function and distribution of mobile genes in the human microbiome, and in particular whether the gene pool is globally homogenous or constrained by human population structure. Here, we investigate this question by comparing the mobile genes found in the microbiomes of 81 metropolitan North Americans with those of 172 agrarian Fiji islanders using a combination of single-cell genomics and metagenomics. We find large differences in mobile gene content between the Fijian and North American microbiomes, with functional variation that mirrors known dietary differences such as the excess of plant-based starch degradation genes found in Fijian individuals. Notably, we also observed differences between the mobile gene pools of neighbouring Fijian villages, even though microbiome composition across villages is similar. Finally, we observe high rates of recombination leading to individual-specific mobile elements, suggesting that the abundance of some genes may reflect environmental selection rather than dispersal limitation. Together, these data support the hypothesis that human activities and behaviours provide selective pressures that shape mobile gene pools, and that acquisition of mobile genes is important for colonizing specific human populations.
Journal Article
Remote Ischemic Preconditioning and Outcomes of Cardiac Surgery
In this multicenter trial, higher-risk adults undergoing on-pump CABG (with or without valve surgery) were randomly assigned to preconditioning with transient arm ischemia and reperfusion or sham conditioning. Remote ischemic preconditioning did not improve clinical outcomes.
Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. For patients with multivessel coronary artery disease, the treatment of choice for many is revascularization by means of coronary-artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery. As a result of the aging of the population, an increased prevalence of coexisting conditions (e.g., diabetes, obesity, and hypertension), and a growing need for concomitant valve surgery, higher-risk patients are undergoing CABG surgery (with or without valve surgery); the clinical outcomes in such patients have been worse than the outcomes in patients without so many problems.
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Thus, novel cardioprotective interventions are indicated to . . .
Journal Article
Terrestrial venomous animals, the envenomings they cause, and treatment perspectives in the Middle East and North Africa
The Middle East and Northern Africa, collectively known as the MENA region, are inhabited by a plethora of venomous animals that cause up to 420,000 bites and stings each year. To understand the resultant health burden and the key variables affecting it, this review describes the epidemiology of snake, scorpion, and spider envenomings primarily based on heterogenous hospital data in the MENA region and the pathologies associated with their venoms. In addition, we discuss the venom composition and the key medically relevant toxins of these venomous animals, and, finally, the antivenoms that are currently in use to counteract them. Unlike Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, scorpion stings are significantly more common (approximately 350,000 cases/year) than snakebites (approximately 70,000 cases/year) and present the most significant contributor to the overall health burden of envenomings, with spider bites being negligible. However, this review also indicates that there is a substantial lack of high-quality envenoming data available for the MENA region, rendering many of these estimates speculative. Our understanding of the venoms and the toxins they contain is also incomplete, but already presents clear trends. For instance, the majority of snake venoms contain snake venom metalloproteinases, while sodium channel–binding toxins and potassium channel–binding toxins are the scorpion toxins that cause most health-related challenges. There also currently exist a plethora of antivenoms, yet only few are clinically validated, and their high cost and limited availability present a substantial health challenge. Yet, some of the insights presented in this review might help direct future research and policy efforts toward the appropriate prioritization of efforts and aid the development of future therapeutic solutions, such as next-generation antivenoms.
Journal Article
Pulmonary Endarterectomy. Patient Selection, Technical Challenges, and Outcomes
In chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, thromboemboli do not undergo resolution but instead become highly organized and fibrotic, resulting in obstruction of segments of the pulmonary vascular tree. Progressive pulmonary hypertension ensues, with substantial associated morbidity and mortality. Despite advances in medical therapy for some types of pulmonary hypertension, surgical pulmonary endarterectomy, also referred to as pulmonary thromboendarterectomy, remains the only potentially curative option for patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. This article reviews patient selection, surgical technique, and outcomes for pulmonary endarterectomy in this patient population.
Journal Article
Extracellular matrix anisotropy is determined by TFAP2C-dependent regulation of cell collisions
The isotropic or anisotropic organization of biological extracellular matrices has important consequences for tissue function. We study emergent anisotropy using fibroblasts that generate varying degrees of matrix alignment from uniform starting conditions. This reveals that the early migratory paths of fibroblasts are correlated with subsequent matrix organization. Combined experimentation and adaptation of Vicsek modelling demonstrates that the reorientation of cells relative to each other following collision plays a role in generating matrix anisotropy. We term this behaviour ‘cell collision guidance’. The transcription factor TFAP2C regulates cell collision guidance in part by controlling the expression of RND3. RND3 localizes to cell–cell collision zones where it downregulates actomyosin activity. Cell collision guidance fails without this mechanism in place, leading to isotropic matrix generation. The cross-referencing of alignment and TFAP2C gene expression signatures against existing datasets enables the identification and validation of several classes of pharmacological agents that disrupt matrix anisotropy.
The generation of aligned extracellular matrices by fibroblasts is shown to depend on cell reorientation following collision, leading to closer alignment of the cells’ long axes. This cell collision guidance depends on the transcription factor TFAP2C and localized regulation of actomyosin contractility.
Journal Article
Infections by human gastrointestinal helminths are associated with changes in faecal microbiota diversity and composition
Investigations of the impact that patent infections by soil-transmitted gastrointestinal nematode parasites exert on the composition of the host gut commensal flora are attracting growing interest by the scientific community. However, information collected to date varies across experiments, and further studies are needed to identify consistent relationships between parasites and commensal microbial species. Here, we explore the qualitative and quantitative differences between the microbial community profiles of cohorts of human volunteers from Sri Lanka with patent infection by one or more parasitic nematode species (H+), as well as that of uninfected subjects (H-) and of volunteers who had been subjected to regular prophylactic anthelmintic treatment (Ht). High-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene, followed by bioinformatics and biostatistical analyses of sequence data revealed no significant differences in alpha diversity (Shannon) and richness between groups (P = 0.65, P = 0.13 respectively); however, beta diversity was significantly increased in H+ and Ht when individually compared to H-volunteers (P = 0.04). Among others, bacteria of the families Verrucomicrobiaceae and Enterobacteriaceae showed a trend towards increased abundance in H+, whereas the Leuconostocaceae and Bacteroidaceae showed a relative increase in H- and Ht respectively. Our findings add valuable knowledge to the vast, and yet little explored, research field of parasite-microbiota interactions and will provide a basis for the elucidation of the role such interactions play in pathogenic and immune-modulatory properties of parasitic nematodes in both human and animal hosts.
Journal Article