The Gender Employment Gap among Refugees and the Role of Employer Discrimination: Experimental Evidence from the German, Swedish and Austrian Labor Markets

Compared to their male counterparts, refugee women exhibit low employment rates in many countries. Discrimination by recruiters could possibly explain this phenomenon, but thus far, there is little direct evidence on this. This study addresses this gap. We develop a set of hypotheses about the effects of gender and family status on refugees’ labor market integration, and then test these hypotheses using data from an original survey experiment administered in 2019 to online panels of recruiters in three major refugee-receiving countries (Germany, Austria, and Sweden). We find that recruiters indeed prefer female over male refugees across different job types, all else equal. However, we also find evidence of a disadvantage connected with motherhood among refugees. Overall, our findings raise doubts about the relevance of discrimination as an explanation for the observed employment gap between male and female refugees.

Sometimes needs change minds: Interests and values as determinants of attitudes towards state support for the self-employed during the COVID-19 crisis

This contribution investigates public attitudes toward providing financial help to the self-employed, a less well-researched area in the otherwise vibrant literature on welfare state attitudes. We analyse to what extent the self-employed themselves soften their general anti-statist stance in times of need, and how the public thinks about supporting those who usually tend to oppose government interventions. To answer these questions, we study public attitudes towards providing financial aid to the self-employed during the lockdowns adopted in response to the COVID pandemic in Switzerland, using survey data collected in the spring and in the autumn of 2020. The results show that most respondents favour the provision of financial support. In addition, the self-employed are the staunchest supporters of the more generous forms of help, like non-refundable payments. We conclude that, when exposed to significant economic risk, need and interests override ideological preferences for less state intervention.

A Recast Framework for Welfare Deservingness Perceptions

Many important societal debates revolve around questions of deservingness, especially when it comes to debates related to inequality and social protection. It is therefore unsurprising that a growing body of research spanning the social and political sciences is concerned with the determinants of deservingness perceptions. In this contribution, we engage with the currently central theoretical framework used in deservingness research and point out an important weakness: Partly ambiguous definitions of the framework's central concepts, the criteria for perceived deservingness. We also highlight the negative consequences this has for empirical research, including notably varying and overlapping operationalizations and thereby a lacking comparability of results across studies. Our main contribution is a redefinition of the criteria for perceived deservingness and a demonstration of the empirical implications of using this new set of criteria via original vignette survey experiments conducted in Germany and the United States in 2019. Our results provide a clearer image of which criteria drive deservingness perceptions.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11205-021-02774-9.

Public attitudes toward pandemic triage: Evidence from conjoint survey experiments in Switzerland

The question of how to implement medical triages has become highly salient during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to be actively discussed. It is important to know how members of the general public think about this issue. For one, knowledge about the public's standpoint can help resolve important questions where ethical considerations are by themselves not sufficient, for instance whether the patient's age should matter. It can also help identify if more communication with the public about medical ethics is needed. We study how members of the Swiss public would allocate intensive medical care among COVID-19 patients using data from two original conjoint survey experiments conducted in Switzerland in the context of the first and second pandemic waves in 2020 (N = 1457 & N = 1450). We find that our participants would not base triage decisions on the patient's age. However, they do give much importance to the patient's behavior prior and during illness, discriminate against non-nationals, and assign only a relatively small and inconsistent role to medical considerations. Our findings suggest that there is a need for more communication with the public about the ethics of medical triage.

Popular Attitudes Toward the Distribution of Vaccines Against COVID-19: The Swiss Case

With the arrival of vaccines against the novel coronavirus in late 2020, the issue of how vaccines should be distributed and which groups should be prioritized has become salient. We study popular attitudes toward the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and how these have changed over the course of the pandemic in Switzerland, drawing on data from two rounds of an original public opinion survey conducted in the spring and winter of 2020. We find that the public supports prioritizing vulnerable groups such as health care workers or the elderly. We also find a notable degree of cross-generational solidarity: younger age cohorts prioritize the elderly, while older groups prioritize (typically younger) health care workers. We then examine whether this finding is not in fact driven by vaccine hesitancy. This is not the case for older age groups, whose solidarity thus seems to be genuine. Vaccine hesitancy is an issue among younger groups, however.

The Matching Hierarchies Model: Evidence from a Survey Experiment on Employers’ Hiring Intent Regarding Immigrant Applicants

We seek to understand why immigrants encounter labor market integration difficulties and thus propose a model that combines ethnic and occupational rankings to predict which candidates employers will favor for particular occupations (a matching hierarchies model). In a Swiss survey experiment, we found that employers’ evaluations of non-natives follow sociocultural distance perceptions and that a non-native background is a disadvantage mainly in high-skilled occupations. In low-skilled occupations, having an immigrant background is less detrimental. In elucidating disadvantage patterns, we conclude that it is important to consider contextual factors (occupational hierarchies) that may change the nature of nationality-based discrimination.

Serum and Cerebrospinal Fluid Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in Intracranial Germ Cell Tumors

We report a retrospective study on serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and β-human chorionic gonadotropin (βhCG) determination in a series of 30 patients bearing intracranial germ cell tumors. At diagnosis five patients had high serum and CSF AFP levels. No patient had positive serum AFP and negative CSF AFP or vice versa. Twelve of 30 patients had serum βhCG levels above 5 mIU/mL, eight had high βhCG only in CSF, and ten were completely negative. During treatment and follow-up both markers were accurate indicators of the response to therapy, decreasing rapidly and often becoming normal already after the first phase of treatment. We conclude that these two markers, and mostly βhCG, may be useful in the diagnosis and monitoring of the response to therapy of patients with intracranial germ cell tumors.

How to Study Boron Biodistribution in Liver Metastases from Colorectal Cancer

The purpose of this study was to evaluate boron distribution for a safe and effective BNCT (Boron Neutron Capture Therapy) of liver metastases. Samples both from healthy and tumour liver parenchyma were analysed, after i.v. boron administration, by: alpha particles counting under neutron irradiation; morphological analysis by standard haematoxylin-eosin staining; neutron autoradiography. Our method was unaffected by the cytological heterogeneity inside tumour nodules; it demonstrated selective boron distribution in tumour tissue and predicted estimated mean therapeutic doses in tumour and safety doses in healthy tissue. The time interval for efficient BNCT was 2 to 4 hours after i.v. boron administration.

[Proper use of apixaban: an outline for clinical practice]

Apixaban is a direct inhibitor of coagulation factor Xa. Superior efficacy over aspirin and antivitamin K has been shown in the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism during non-valvular atrial fibrillation with a more favorable safety profile, even though the risk of hemorrhage cannot be ignored, considering its mechanism of action. The recommended dose is 5mg twice daily which can be reduced to 2.5mg depending on the individual risk. Apixaban is also indicated for the treatment of venous thromboembolism but reimbursement has not yet been accepted in France for this indication. As with all direct oral anticoagulants, no routine biological monitoring is required, nevertheless their use may have an impact on all coagulation tests, eventually hampering interpretation. In particular clinical circumstances where a measure of anticoagulant efficacy is deemed necessary, specific assay of anti-Xa activity is appropriate, the result being expressed as concentration of the anticoagulant used. It is therefore necessary to state the name of the medicine for which the assay is requested. With these new anticoagulants, management of hemorrhagic events can be more difficult due to the lack of a specific antidote. Pro-hemostatic substances have exhibited efficacy in animal models but results are still insufficiently documented in clinical practice. Local or locoregional hemostasis measurements, when possible, are an essential factor in the treatment of hemorrhagic events.

Neutron autoradiography imaging of selective boron uptake in human metastatic tumours

The ability to selectively hit the tumour cells is an essential characteristic of an anti-tumour therapy. In boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) this characteristic is based on the selective uptake of (10)B in the tumour cells with respect to normal tissues. An important step in the BNCT planning is the measurement of the boron concentration in the tissue samples, both tumour and healthy. When the tumour is spread through the healthy tissue, as in the case of metastases, the knowledge of the different kinds of tissues in the sample being analysed is crucial. If the percentage of tumour and normal tissues cannot be evaluated, the obtained concentration is a mean value depending on the composition of the different samples being measured. In this case an imaging method that could give information both on the morphology and on the spatial distribution of boron concentration in the sample would be a fundamental support. In this paper, the results of the boron uptake analysis in the tumour and in the healthy samples taken from human livers after boron phenylalanine (BPA) infusion are shown; boron imaging was performed using neutron autoradiography.

[Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis: report of two cases and review of the literature]

Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis is a rare disease characterized by extensive radiological and tomographic pulmonary lesions and a variable clinical picture ranging from pulmonary insufficiency to spontaneous remission. Among its three described forms, the so called Idiopathic or Adult form is responsible for more than 80% of published cases. It's physiopathology depends on an autoimmune process directed against the GM-CSF (Granulocite Macrophage- Colony Stimulating Factor) that induces a functional defect of the macrophage with consequent intraalveolar accumulation of surfactant. Pulmonary and extrapulmonary infections, are common, often with unusual pathogens. Diagnosis can be made from the combination of clinical, radiological and bronchoalveolar lavage data, although sometimes histopathologic material is needed for confirmation. Total pulmonary lavage is currently the treatment of choice. Mortality is usually low and related mostly to infectious complications. We hereby describe our experience with two patients.

[Ablation of the slow pathway in reciprocating nodal rhythms by radiofrequency]

Radiofrequency ablation is a therapeutic alternative to drug therapy in recurrent reciprocating nodal rhythms. Selective ablation of the slow pathway guided by endocavitary recordings has the advantage of being effective at the price of a very low incidence of atrioventricular block. The authors report their experience with this technique. Fifty consecutive patients with recurrent attacks which were syncopal or uncontrolled by medical therapy, underwent selective ablation of the slow pathway. Firstly, they all underwent electrophysiological investigation to confirm the nodal origin of the reciprocating rhythm before proceeding to ablation itself, guided by the search for the slow pathway potentials. After ablation, it was impossible to trigger reciprocating tachycardia. Interruption of the anterograde slow pathway was achieved in 24 patients and of the retrograde pathway in 1 patient : the other 25 patients went on having dual conduction but with a prolongation of the effective refractory period of the slow pathway (268 +/- 46 ms vs 251 +/- 41 ms : p < 0.01). There were no cases of permanent complete atrioventricular block. Interruption of the slow pathway was associated with shortening of the effective refractory period of the rapid pathway (323 +/- 71 ms vs 348 +/- 80 ms : p < 0.01), which was not observed in cases of persistent dual conduction. No recurrence of tachycardia was observed during follow-up (mean period = 19.2 months) : however, control endocavitary studies in 25 asymptomatic patients after 1 to 3 months showed recurrence in 4 cases, which led to immediate further radiofrequency ablation which was successful. The authors conclude that guided selective radiofrequency of the slow intranodal pathway is a remarkably effective and reliable method of treating poorly tolerated or resistant reciprocating nodal tachycardias. Widening of the clinical indications to patients not wishing to undergo long-term antiarrhythmic therapy is now possible.

A soap technique for cell separation to study the seed coat of Sesbania punicea

A technique is described for separating plant cells used for morphological studies. The plant material is placed in a concentrated solution of olive oil castile soap for 1-2 days or more. The material is then thoroughly washed and placed between two glass slides. The upper glass slide is lifted from the lower one, then gently pressed down several times. Through this procedure Malpighian cells of the seed coat of Sesbania punicea, mesophyll cells of Euphorbia peplus and of Trifolium pratense and cortical cells of the aerial roots of Monstera deliciosa have been separated. Various shapes of the Malpighian cells of the Sesbania punicea seed coat can be observed along with intermediates.

[Contribution of transesophageal echocardiography in the diagnosis of intra- and para-cardiac masses]

The authors detected 59 thrombi and 7 intra- or paracardiac tumors in 58 patients in a series of 1,100 transesophageal echocardiography. Twenty-six of the 51 patients with a thrombus were in sinus rhythm; 25 had atrial fibrillation. In 44 cases, the thrombus was single and in 7 cases there were multiple thrombi. A phenomenon of spontaneous contrast in the left atrium was observed in 24 patients (47%). In 31 cases (53%) the thrombi were located in the left auricle, in 21 cases (36%) in the left atrium, in 4 cases in the left ventricle and in 3 cases in the right atrium. Transthoracic echocardiography only detected 25% of these thrombi. The superiority of transesophageal echocardiography was particularly evident for the detection of thrombi in the left auricle (31 by transesophageal echocardiography versus 2 by transthoracic echocardiography) and in the left atrium (13 by transesophageal echocardiography versus 7 by transthoracic echocardiography). Five myxomas were diagnosed by transesophageal echocardiography and 4 of them were identified by transthoracic echocardiography. The site of implantation of the tumor was located in all 5 cases by transesophageal echocardiography. Two right paracardiac tumours were only visible by transesophageal echocardiography. Transesophageal echocardiography is therefore very useful in the diagnosis of thrombi in the left atrium and auricle, of rare hypodense myxomas and paracardiac tumors. In addition, it enables precise localisation of the site of implantation of nearly all intracardiac tumors.

Determination of vinyl chloride monomer residue in poly(vinyl chloride) at the parts-per-billion level with an automatic purge-and-trap technique

A method for the determination of vinyl chloride residue in poly(vinyl chloride) using a commercial purge-and-trap ancillary unit has been developed. Concentrations lower than 10 ppb (10(9] with relative standard deviations in the region of 10% in up to 24 samples are detectable with fully automatic operation without operator attendance. With multiple extraction of the same sample an external standard is used; the matrix does not have any influence on the recovery of vinyl chloride.