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The present work will analyze focalized public policie: universal child allowance (AUH for its initials in Spanish) and its impact in terms of empowerment. The theoretical approaches belong to Social Psychology field, theory of social representations, power in philosophy, empowerment concept, social division from an androcentric point of view and public policies designed as Conditional Cash Transfers. The analysis continues with a gender perspective approach on this particular public policy, which focuses on the knowledge of the pre-established roles and functions of women in the design of the AUH program. Its been observed that women have been able to generate changes in their lives although there has not been a visible effect of empowerment processes that facilitate personal development, nor the rupture of womeńs stereotype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, there is a worldwide increase of patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). During the progression of healthy obese to T2D status, there is an influx of immune cells, in particular macrophages, into visceral adipose tissue, accompanied by an increase of inflammatory cytokines, such as, IL6, TNFα and Hp. To get a better insight in the underlying mechanisms, we performed a quantitative LCMS analysis on a modified in vitro assay, combining 3T3L1 adipocytes and activated RAW264.7 macrophages, thus mimicking inflamed adipose tissue. Clinically known proteins, e.g. IL6, TNFα, AdipoQ, complement factor C3, B and D were identified, thus confirming the assay. In addition, we found 54 new proteins that can potentially be used for research into the mechanism of T2D. Comparison of our results to a study on human visceral fat of obese non-diabetic and obese diabetic subjects, indicated that AUH, NAGK, pCYT2, NNMT, STK39 and CSNK2A2 might indeed be linked to insulin resistance in humans. Moreover, the expression of some of these genes was also altered in human blood samples at early or later stages of insulin desensitization. Overall, we conclude that the direct contact co-culture of 3T3L1 adipocytes with activated macrophages could be a mechanistically relevant and partially translational model of inflamed visceral adipose tissue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimate the impact on female labor force participation of a massive conditional cash transfer program-Universal Child Allowance, AUH-launched in Argentina in 2009. We identify the intention-to-treat effect by comparing eligible and non-eligible women over time through a diff-in-diff methodology. The results suggest a negative and economically significant effect of the program on female labor force participation. The disincentive to participate is present for married women, while the effect is not statistically significant for unmarried women with children. We also find evidence on the heterogeneity of the effect depending on woman's education, husband's employment status, number and age of children, and whether the woman is the main responsible of domestic chores. The relatively large value of the benefit and the fact that transfers are mostly directed to mothers may explain the sizeable effect of the program on female labor supply. The welfare implications of the results are not clear and deserve further inspection. JEL Classification: H53, I38, J16, J22 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze, through micro-simulations, the direct impact of completing the coverage of the current system of family allowances and increasing the amount of the program on social well-being. The results show that the proposal would reduce poverty up to 40 %, indigence up to 64 % and the income gap between the 10th and 1st decile up to 27 %. Moreover, the modification would reduce the relative probability of indigence of those who live in the north, belong to large families or live in single parent households headed by women with children, for whom this probability would be, after the modification simulated, lower than that of their complement. In the regional dimension, it stands out that the direct impact of the reform on poverty would be higher in Greater Buenos Aires, where the majority of the poor population is located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of the UCA (Universal Child Allowance) in labor informality in Argentina. The results obtained indicate that, controlling for other factors, the UCA does not have a statistically significant effect on labor informality, when either the productive or labor approach are considered. Instead, variables that account for macro-structural factors such as the size of the firm/institution, the level of income y, very specially, secular trends that affect every employed turned out to be the most relevant in the analysis. The methodology to analyze the effect of the program on labor informality was based on the fixed effects estimator, whose main advantage is related with the nature of panel data and is that of controlling by unobserved effects that are fixed over time. The average treatment effect was estimated based on the differences-in-differences estimator, for which the identification of the treatment and control groups resulted central. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of the UCA (Universal Child Allowance) in labor informality in Argentina. The results obtained indicate that, controlling for other factors, the UCA does not have a statistically significant effect on labor informality, when either the productive or labor approach are considered. Instead, variables that account for macro-structural factors such as the size of the firm/institution, the level of income y, very specially, secular trends that affect every employed turned out to be the most relevant in the analysis. The methodology to analyze the effect of the program on labor informality was based on the fixed effects estimator, whose main advantage is related with the nature of panel data and is that of controlling by unobserved effects that are fixed over time. The average treatment effect was estimated based on the differences-in-differences estimator, for which the identification of the treatment and control groups resulted central. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metabolic disease 3-methylglutaconic aciduria type I (MGA1) is characterized by an abnormal organic acid profile in which there is excessive urinary excretion of 3-methylglutaconic acid, 3-methylglutaric acid and 3-hydroxyisovaleric acid. Affected individuals display variable clinical manifestations ranging from mildly delayed speech development to severe psychomotor retardation with neurological handicap. MGA1 is caused by reduced or absent 3-methylglutaconyl-coenzyme A (3-MG-CoA) hydratase activity within the leucine degradation pathway. The human AUH gene has been reported to encode for a bifunctional enzyme with both RNA-binding and enoyl-CoA-hydratase activity. In addition, it was shown that mutations in the AUH gene are linked to MGA1. Here we present kinetic data of the purified gene product of AUH using different CoA-substrates. The best substrates were ( E)-3-MG-CoA ( Vmax = 3.9 U·mg−1, Km = 8.3 µm, kcat = 5.1 s−1) and ( E)-glutaconyl-CoA ( Vmax = 1.1 U·mg−1, Km = 2.4 µm, kcat = 1.4 s−1) giving strong evidence that the AUH gene encodes for the major human 3-MG-CoA hydratase in leucine degradation. Based on these results, a new assay for AUH activity in fibroblast homogenates was developed. The only missense mutation found in MGA1 phenotypes, c.719C>T, leading to the amino acid exchange A240V, produces an enzyme with only 9% of the wild-type 3-MG-CoA hydratase activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]