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In this paper, personal income distributions for men and women in the European Union countries were compared. The counterfactual decomposition method allowed us to study differences of income distributions at various quantile levels. To decompose these differences the Recentered Influence Function -- Regression approach was used. Positivity of the gendered income gap in each country was found, but there exists an important diversity in the size and composition of the income gap across members of the European Union. The results obtained for 28 countries allowed us to group them into six clusters. For the analysis, data from the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: There is the lack of a sector based analysis of wages for different genders. We present such an analysis regarding the education sector in Poland.

Microservice architecture is a relatively new cloud application design pattern. Each microservice has a single responsibility in terms of functional requirement, and that can be managed independently from other microservices. This is done using automated cloud orchestration systems. In this paper we analyze the time complexity of an simple swarm-like decentralized load balancing algorithm for microservices running inside OpenVZ virtualization containers. We show that it can offer performance improvements with respect to the existing centralized container orchestration systems.

Background: Respiratory tract infections are a common health problem. Cytokines/chemokines play a critical role in the regulation of the immune system. Their defective production may predispose to recurrent respiratory tract infections (RRIs), and an excessive immune response may lead to chronic inflammation and cause damage to the respiratory tract. Another biomarker of respiratory infections may be immunoglobulin-IgG4. Its meaning has still been little explored. We wanted to assess the suitability of the levels of biomarkers tested: interleukin (IL)-17A, IL-18, IL-23, normal T cells expressed and secreted (RANTES), and induced protein (IP)-10, as well as immunoglobilun G4 (IgG4) to predict recurrent infections. Methods: The study group (SG) included a total of 130 children (68 girls, 62 boys) between 3 and 17 years of age with RRI. The control group (CG) included 86 healthy children with no symptoms of inflammatory or allergic diseases (44 girls and 42 boys) of the same age. Blood samples were collected in fasting state and then serum samples were frozen and stored until biomarker assay. Results: Serum RANTES, IL-18, IL-23, and IgG4 concentration were higher in all children with recurrent infections vs. those in the CG ( p   < 0001). Serum levels of IL-17A and IP-10 were also significantly higher in the SG than in the CG, but only in the youngest children. Among the six serum markers, RANTES demonstrated the highest area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (area under curve) value (0.998, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.98-1.0, p < 0.001) for the diagnosis of RRIs, followed by IL-23 (0.99, 95% CI 0.966-0,999, p < 0.001) and IL-18 (0.957, 95% CI 0.921-0.980, p < 0.001). Conclusions: RANTES, IL-23, and IL-18 could be strong predictors of respiratory infections recurrence in children., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Edyta Machura et al.)

A negative linear temperature expansion and a negative linear compressibility were observed for imidazolium benzoate salt. Its strongly anisotropic strain induced by the temperature and pressure changes has been explained by the mechanism of H-bonded helices deformed in the structure. X-ray diffraction and vibrational spectroscopy were used to analyze interactions in the crystal. The Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAiM) approach was applied to analyze the hydrogen bonds and other interactions. In the salt under study, the interactions within the helix are substantially higher in energy than between helices. With decreasing temperature and increasing pressure, the value of the helix pitch increases while the value of the semi-major axis decreases, which results in the negative linear expansion and negative linear compression, respectively., (© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.)

Despite 70 years of research on metallocenes and their applications, there are still unresolved regions in its phase diagram of the prototypic sandwich compound, ferrocene Fe 2+ [C 5 H 5 ] - 2 (FeCp 2 ), and its molecular 5-fold symmetry cannot be reconciled with the dielectric response of this crystal. We found a new phase I″ of ferrocene, which reveals the relationships between the molecular conformation, intermolecular interactions, and electric permittivity of this compound. Between 172.8 and 163.5 K, the conformational disorder of ferrocene molecules transforms into the incommensurate modulation. The structure of phase I″ is described in the (3+2)-dimensional superspace, where the molecular conformations, rotations and inclinations of the Cp rings, molecular tilts, and displacements of the Fe 2+ cations, as well as the CH···π bonds in the crystal environment, are modulated. These geometric changes combine into the FeCp 2 C·m.-30 C·m.

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the accumulation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. However, emerging evidence suggests that neuroinflammation, mediated notably by activated neuroglial cells, neutrophils, and macrophages, also plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, understanding the interplay between the nervous and immune systems might be the key to the prevention or delay of Alzheimer's disease progression. One of the most important mechanisms determining gliogenic cell fate is the Janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK/STAT) signaling pathway that is influenced by the overactivation of microglia and astrocytes. The JAK/STAT signaling pathway is one of the critical factors that promote neuroinflammation in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease by initiating innate immunity, orchestrating adaptive immune mechanisms, and finally, constraining neuroinflammatory response. Since a chronic neuroinflammatory environment in the brain is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, understanding the process would allow establishing the underlying role of neuroinflammation, then estimating the prognosis of Alzheimer's disease development and finding a new potential treatment target. In this review, we highlight the recent advances in the potential role of JAK/STAT signaling in neurological diseases with a focus on discussing future research directions regarding novel therapeutic approaches and predictive biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease.

The research mapped chemistry-oriented university freshman students' ability to solve chemical calculations. Their success was monitored based on several factors such as their faculty, field of studies, the type of calculation and the assignment type (word problem vs. formula). The results indicate a significant need to change the approach to teaching chemical calculations - the students were rather unsuccessful in the tasks. The obstacles they face include the ability to identify a problem, understand the concepts of calculation and appropriately adjust the correct use of the mathematical apparatus. These findings represent an impulse for teaching in upper-secondary school as well as to introductory university courses.

Tasks in Czech lower-secondary chemistry textbooks were analysed to describe their position in textbook chapters, required response type, overall task nature, as well as cognitive requirements. The results showed older textbooks contain task banks at the end of chapters suggest a transmissive teaching paradigm, whereas newer textbooks containing tasks within the chapters. As far as the nature of the tasks is concerned, a strong stereotypical genre was found in the chemistry textbooks. Most of the textbook tasks require open-ended answers and target: factual and conceptual knowledge remembering or procedure application. The authors therefore suggest several changes to the tasks, including their position in chapters, cognitive difficulty as well as the required response type in order to meet chemistry education goals.

Introduction: Angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1) and -2 (Ang-2) concentrations were found to be associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc)., Objectives: We explored whether single nucleotide polymorphisms of Ang-1 (ANGPT1) and Ang-2 (ANGPT2) genes can predict SSc susceptibility in Polish Caucasian patients., Patients and Methods: Genotyping by reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction and Sanger sequencing was performed in 48 patients with SSc and 38 controls., Results: Individuals with the CC genotype of ANGPT2 rs2442598 were 3.29-fold more likely to develop SSc (odds ratio [OR], 3.288; 95% CI, 1.212–8.915; P = 0.02) compared with those carrying the CT variant. Subgroup analysis revealed that the G allele, CG, and CG+GG genotypes of ANGPT2 rs3739390 were associated with a 9-fold higher risk to develop a diffuse form of the disease compared with the C allele or CC genotype (OR, 9.00; 95% CI, 2.102–38.519; P = 0.002 and OR, 9.00; 95% CI, 1.112–72.824; P = 0.03, respectively) and patients carrying the CG variant presented with higher serum Ang-2 levels than those carrying the CC variant (P = 0.001). On the contrary, the likelihood of a diffuse disease subtype was 8.77-fold lower for the TT+AT than for the AA genotype of ANGPT1 rs2507800 (OR, 0.114; 95% CI, 0.014–0.932; P= 0.04). The C allele of ANGPT2 rs3739390 was associated with a 4.83-fold lower risk of digital ulcers (OR, 4.833; 95% CI, 1.089–21.437; P= 0.03)., Conclusions: We concluded for the first time in the literature that the ANGPT2 rs2442598 polymorphism might represent a susceptibility locus for SSc, whereas the ANGPT2 rs3739390 and ANGPT1 rs2507800 variants may affect the disease profile.