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We propose that female-founded ventures receive a lower amount of employee labor for equal pay because employees are more likely to decline requests for additional labor by female founders. First, using longitudinal matched employer-employee data covering all founders of new ventures with personnel in Portugal between 2002 and 2012, we confirm that full-time employees contribute fewer regular hours and less overtime work to female-founded firms. Second, using a series of online experiments, we show that this variation in employee labor across female and male-founded firms is partly motivated by a difference in the employee’s expectations of work demands. Specifically, employees perceive female founders’ requests for additional labor to be unfair and more difficult than expected, and both these perceptions explain the lower amount of employee labor supplied in female-founded ventures. Overall, our findings uncover a novel mechanism that helps explain the existence of a gender gap in entrepreneurship beyond the entry stage. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.1611 .

We study how domestic firms adapt to increased import competition from China. Using a Danish employer-employee matched dataset covering firms over the 1995–2007 period, we find that import competition significantly increases manufacturing firms' expansion of their business activities in the service industry (partial servitization); their probability of offshoring production activities abroad and of exiting the market. Import competition, however, does not induce firms to cease all of their involvement in manufacturing production by completely switching into service sector (complete servitization). These findings are confirmed using various robustness tests as well as an analogous analysis of a Portuguese employer-employee matched dataset.

Mass higher education has promoted the development of larger, costlier, and more heterogeneous systems. Like many public services, HE faced tight competition for funding, alongside pressures to become more efficient in their use of public funds. One major development in public funding has been the introduction of performance-based funding. In this paper, we analyse the dissemination of PBF in European HE and discuss its main institutional effects. We will start by discussing the rationales for the introduction of these financial incentives regarding the behaviour of HEIs and their organizational response to externally led stimuli. We then present the dissemination of PBF across European higher education and reflect about the main institutional effects of the dissemination of PBF. We present some concluding remarks about the management challenges created by the emphasis on competitive rationales in public HE.

Research summary: Women continue to be disproportionately underrepresented in new venture creation. We investigate whether and how founders can differently influence future entrepreneurial career choices of their male and female joiners. Using a large sample of startup firms with personnel where founders interact closely with joiners, we demonstrate that founders have a strong influence on a joiner's entrepreneurial career choice if both are female. We find empirical support for role modeling as a key underlying mechanism, accounting for alternative explanations such as selective matching based on gender and push-driven factors. These findings increase our understanding of the roles of socialization and organizational context in shaping the career outcomes of employees, and provide evidence of a multiplier effect of female entrepreneurs. Managerial summary: Women are less likely to be entrepreneurs than men. We investigate whether working in a startup founded by a woman instead of a man influences individuals' decision to become an entrepreneur later. We find this to be the case for women. This result is best explained by female founders acting as role models for their female employees in male-dominated domains. Female founders able to break gender stereotypes seem to have an influence on the career choices of their female employees, especially among those who have lacked contact with entrepreneurs. Moreover, this influence is stronger if the female founder and employee have similar backgrounds. These findings confirm the importance of social interactions at work and suggest new ways to inspire more women to launch startups.

Objective: Voluntary and automatic orienting of attention enable proper processing of environmental information. Few studies have assessed how this process varies during development in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Methods: This study analyzed voluntary and automatic orienting in 30 children with ADHD and 30 age and sex matched controls (Control group-CG). Two experiments assessed voluntary and automatic orienting by recording reaction times (RT) to conditions in relation to temporal interval, spatial position, cue validity and age. The RT medians calculated for each condition and participant were analyzed using ANOVA to compare ADHD and CG. Results: Children with ADHD exhibited globally higher RT than the CG group. They also showed prejudices during the reorienting process and demonstrated adequate voluntary orienting for shorter intervals. In automatic task, there was no group interaction, expressing early facilitation, but not inhibition of return. Conclusion: These results identify correlations of ADHD and the children's age in relation to voluntary and automatic orienting of attention.

We study how wage gaps across skills and the skill distribution in an economy respond to trade integration. Using administrative data of Denmark (1995–2011), we find that trade has a negative effect on the wage gap between secondary and primary education and a positive effect on the wage gap between tertiary and secondary education. We also show that trade affects skill distribution and induces skill polarization: trade has a positive effect on both the mean and standard deviation of skills. Wage‐gap changes induced by trade shocks explain about 21%–30% of the effect of trade on skills.

Managers engage in a variety of strategies, not randomly, but having in mind their performance implications. Therefore, strategic choices are endogenous in performance equations. Despite increasing efforts by various scholars in solving endogeneity bias, prior attempts have almost exclusively focused on single, one-sided, and discrete (binary) organizational decisions. Yet, in reality, managers often face multiple, simultaneous, and interdependent decisions, possibly including a continuous choice set. These choices may further entail a two-sided process between managers and others, such as employees, strategic partners, customers, or investors, whose choices and preferences also affect the final decision. We discuss how endogeneity can plague the measurement of the performance effects of these two-sided strategic decisions—which are more complex, but more realistic, than prior representations of organizational decision making. We provide an empirical demonstration of possible methods to deal with three different sources of bias, by analyzing the performance effects of two human capital choices made by founders at startup: the size and average quality of the initial workforce.

The labor market value of former entrepreneurs remains unclear, with both theory and empirical evidence offering mixed conclusions. We suggest that the timing of entrepreneurial experience matters and helps unravel this puzzle. Using Danish employer-employee data on a large sample of university graduates, we show that the option value of testing an entrepreneurial opportunity and then returning to paid employment decreases over an individual's career. We follow individuals for fifteen years and compare the labor market outcomes of never, early, and late entrepreneurs based on the timing and type of entrepreneurial experience in their careers. Compared to those who have never been entrepreneurs, early entrepreneurs earn higher wages, while late entrepreneurs experience a significant wage penalty in the long run. Both the timing and the type of entrepreneurial experience shape individuals’ subsequent career trajectories and employers’ uncertainty about their value, which partly explain long-term wage differentials.

Previous research has focused on the economic effects of entrepreneurship, but little is known about how promoting entrepreneurship affects societies. Focusing on community crime as a key societal outcome, we posit that initiatives fostering new venture creation through lower barriers to entrepreneurship will reduce crime. The proposed mechanism responsible for this effect is the enhanced socio-economic integration of disadvantaged groups within the community. This mechanism is enabled through multiple channels: lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship improves labor market opportunities for disadvantaged groups as founders of their own firms and joiners of new startups, or, more indirectly, as new hires at incumbent firms. Leveraging employer-employee matched data from Portugal between 2002 and 2010 and an exogenous deregulation reform that significantly increased entrepreneurial activity, we find strong support for our theory. Reducing barriers to entrepreneurship reduces within-community crime, and this result is further amplified in communities with higher socio-economic exclusion figures. We find significant reductions in different types of crime, although the magnitude, timing, and persistence of the effects varies, which gives important insights into the different integration mechanisms at play.

Ample research has documented that female founders are disadvantaged in entrepreneurship, but few theories explain how their disadvantage carries over into later stages of the entrepreneurial process. We combine evidence from longitudinal matched employer-employee data covering all founders of new ventures with personnel in Portugal between 2002 and 2012 with two online experiments to document a novel source of disadvantage for female founders: employee labor imbalance. We propose that female-founded ventures receive a lower amount of employee labor for equal pay because employees are more likely to decline requests for additional labor by female founders. First, using observational data, we confirm that full-time employees contribute fewer regular hours and less overtime work to female-founded firms. Second, using a series of online experiments, we show that this variation in employee labor across female and male-founded firms is partly motivated by a difference in the employee’s expectations of work demands. Specifically, employees perceive female founders’ requests for additional labor to be unfair and more difficult than expected, and both of these perceptions explain the lower amount of employee labor supplied in female-founded ventures. Overall, our findings uncover a novel mechanism that helps explain the existence of a gender gap in entrepreneurship beyond the entry stage.

Sustained attention corresponds to the ability to maintain attentional focus on an activity for a longer period with the same consistency pattern. Knowledge about the development of mental abilities is essential for the understanding of how cognitive processes establishes throughout development and their relation to brain organization. This study aims to analyze the ability to sustain attentional focus in time in children of different age groups. The study included 78 children aged 6 to 11 years old (44 girls and 34 boys), enrolled from the 1st year to the 5th year of private school in São Paulo, Brazil. Each participant was instructed to fixate the gaze at the fixation point (FP), prepare to respond after it changed color to blue and respond as quickly as possible to the occurrence of the target (0.3-degree square superimposed to the central point) pressing the space bar, measuring the reaction time (RT). The target would come after one of 12 equal possible time intervals (100; 400; 700; 1000; 1300; 1600; 1900; 2200; 2500; 2800; 3100 and 3400 ms) in milliseconds. Multifactor ANOVA with repeated measures results demonstrated a significant effect (F (4, 73) = 13.001, p

Differentiation of naive CD4(+) T-cells into functionally distinct T helper (Th) subsets is critical to immunity against pathogen infection. Little is known about the role of signals emanating from the nuclear envelope for T-cell differentiation. The nuclear envelope protein lamin A/C is induced in naive CD4(+) T-cells upon antigen recognition and acts as a link between the nucleus and the plasma membrane during T-cell activation. Here we demonstrate that the absence of lamin A/C in naive T-cell reduces Th1 differentiation without affecting Th2 differentiation in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, Rag1(-/-) mice reconstituted with Lmna(-/-)CD4(+)CD25(-) T-cells and infected with vaccinia virus show weaker Th1 responses and viral removal than mice reconstituted with wild-type T-cells. Th1 responses and pathogen clearance upon Leishmania major infection were similarly diminished in mice lacking lamin A/C in the complete immune system or selectively in T-cells. Lamin A/C mediates Th1 polarization by a mechanism involving T-bet and IFN gamma production. Our results reveal a novel role for lamin A/C as key regulator of Th1 differentiation in response to viral and intracellular parasite infections. The authors thank J. Mateos, I. Fernandez-Lopez, and M.J. Andres-Manzano for technical assistance and S. Bartlett for English editing. This study was supported by grants to J.-M.G.-G. from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) (PI14/00526, PI17/01395, CP11/00145, CPII16/00022), the Miguel Servet Program, and Fundacion Ramon Areces; to V.A. (RD12/0042/0028 SAF2013-46663-R, SAF2016-79490-R); to F.S.-M. (SAF2014-55579-R, INDISNET-S2011/BMD-2332, ERC-2011-AdG 294340-GENTRIS, and PIE13/00041); and to D.S. (SAF-2013-42920R, SAF2016-79040-R, and Fondation ACTERIA) with co-funding from the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER). The CNIC is supported by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MEIC) and the Pro CNIC Foundation and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015-0505). S.I. is funded by grant SAF2015-74561-JIN, R.T.-F. by the Fundacion Ramon Areces, V.Z. by ISCIII, and J.-M.G.-G. by the ISCIII Miguel Servet Program and the Instituto de Investigacion Sanitaria Hospital 12 de Octubre (imas12). Sí

The availability of employment is a central determinant for addressing the refugee crisis in many host countries. Extant management research largely assumes that hiring refugees is part of firms’ s...

Human capital resources are a foundation of organizational performance, yet highly difficult to mobilize in new ventures. Given the central role of founders’ past experiences in new venture strateg...

By combining insights from the widespread research on entrepreneurial spin†offs and from the emerging literature on hiring choices in start†ups, we investigate the role of co†worker mobility in pushed and pulled spin†off survival. Using rich register data and a multi†stage model addressing self†selection and endogeneity issues, we cover 28,353 spin†offs launched between 1992 and 2007. We find that spin†offs hiring co†workers from the parent firm survive longer. This survival bonus is greater in pushed†driven start†ups. We investigate two different mechanisms through which co†worker mobility may improve spin†off survival – knowledge transfer and reduced searching costs. While both mechanisms play a role in explaining the survival bonus in pulled spin†offs, co†worker mobility seems to help pushed spin†offs to survive mostly by reducing initial recruitment costs. This work provides novel insights on the role of context surrounding new venture creation and inter†firm labour mobility.

In this study, we report that the tetraspanin CD81 enhances human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 reverse transcription in HIV-1-infected cells. This is enabled by the direct interaction of CD81 with the deoxynucleoside triphosphate phosphohydrolase SAMHD1. This interaction prevents endosomal accumulation and favours the proteasome-dependent degradation of SAMHD1. Consequently, CD81 depletion results in SAMHD1 increased expression, decreasing the availability of deoxynucleoside triphosphates (dNTP) and thus HIV-1 reverse transcription. Conversely, CD81 overexpression, but not the expression of a CD81 carboxy (C)-terminal deletion mutant, increases cellular dNTP content and HIV-1 reverse transcription. Our results demonstrate that the interaction of CD81 with SAMHD1 controls the metabolic rate of HIV-1 replication by tuning the availability of building blocks for reverse transcription, namely dNTPs. Together with its role in HIV-1 entry and budding into host cells, the data herein indicate that HIV-1 uses CD81 as a rheostat that controls different stages of the infection. CD81 is shown to interact with SAMHD1 and lead to its proteasomal degradation, thereby impacting dNTP availability and enhancing HIV-1 reverse transcription in primary human T cells.

Recent decades have seen a massive expansion in higher education (HE), fuelled by high expectations about its private benefits. This has raised concerns about the impact on the employability of recent graduates and the potential mismatches between their skills and the competences required by the job structure. Equally, it could set the ground for a possible transformation of demand for graduate skills and the emergence of new employment profiles. In this article, data for Portugal for the period 2000–2010 were used to look at compositional changes in graduate employment and the incidence of three potential problems in graduates’ transition to the labour market: overeducation, overskilling and education–job mismatches. The implications of growing demand heterogeneity on increasing inequality in graduate labour markets and on the expectations supporting mass HE in a country that rapidly expanded access to tertiary education as a strategy to converge with the productivity levels of other more developed economies are discussed.

Early employment growth can be a stepping-stone for start-up scaling. Yet, we have little insights into the factors that can enable early stage hiring. Building on competence-based theory, we posit...

Attention is a multidimensional construct with variations throughout devel-opment. In Brazil, there is a lack of instruments with adequate psychometric chara...

It remains a question whether serial entrepreneurs typically perform better than their novice counterparts owing to learning by doing effects or mostly because they are a selected sample of higher-than-average ability entrepreneurs. This paper tries to unravel these two effects by exploring a novel empirical strategy based on continuous time duration models with selection. We use a large longitudinal matched employer–employee dataset that allows us to identify about 220,000 individuals who have left their first entrepreneurial experience, out of which over 35,000 became serial entrepreneurs. We evaluate whether entrepreneurial experience acquired in the previous business improves serial entrepreneurs' survival, after taking into account self-selection issues. Our results show that serial entrepreneurs are not a random sample of ex-business owners. Robustness tests based on the estimation of the person-specific effect, using information on individuals' past histories in paid employment, confirm that serial entrepreneurs exhibit, on average, a larger person-specific effect than non-serial business owners. Moreover, ignoring serial entrepreneurs' self-selection overestimates learning by doing effects.

In this paper we investigate whether education-job mismatches and growing occupational diversity are important explanatory factors of gender pay gaps among university graduates in Southern Europe (namely in Portugal, Spain, and Italy). In our analysis we use standard decomposition techniques and test the implications of controlling for selection bias. Our results indicate that overeducation and greater occupational segregation associated with the emergence of new graduate job profiles, are important determinants of earnings inequality. While our focus is on graduates’ early careers, demonstrating that occupational assignment and selection into employment shape gender pay gaps among the highly skilled provides a more pessimistic view on the ability of educational expansion or equal pay legislation to significantly reduce gender pay inequality. Southern European economies are also particularly interesting to look at since there may be a greater degree of mismatch between the pace of higher education expansion and the changes in the job structure, making women particularly vulnerable to overeducation.

This paper reports a comprehensive study on the dynamics of nascent business owners using a unique longitudinal matched employer–employee dataset. We follow over 157,000 individuals who leave paid employment and become business owners during the period 1992–2007. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we analyze both entry and exit, identifying and characterizing different profiles of individuals leaving paid employment to become business owners, and distinguishing exits by dissolution from exits by ownership transfer. Second, we provide new evidence on how particular experiences in the labor market and entry modes shape the post-entry dynamics of nascent business owners. By differentiating between different entry and exit routes, this paper provides new evidence on different human capital patterns among nascent business owners and on key determinants of entrepreneurial survival. Our results suggest that different exit modes can be predicted by business owners’ entry route. Furthermore, different exit modes exhibit different duration dependence patterns according to the entry mode. Additionally, the paper shows that businesses started after a displacement episode are not necessarily less successful. Those individuals entering entrepreneurship after being displaced due to previous employer closure are found to persist longer.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie Neuropsychological assessment studies processes interrelated issues, such as attention, memory, and inhibitory control. Attention can be understood as a set of neural processes that allow adequate selection of information from the environment, and therefore guide adaptive responses. Memory, however, is considered a complex and multiple system combined with coding arrangements or subsystems that allow the storage and retrieval of brain information. The executive process component, inhibitory control refers to the ability to withstand a first impulse and to control behavior or thinking. The objective of this study was to develop and test a battery of computerized evaluation of attention, memory and inhibitory control in children of Elementary School and to evaluate how these functions develop over the school years. 85 children aged 6 to 11 years, from a private school in a city in the state of SP, were participating in this study. Traditional instruments (pencil-paper tests) and computerized instruments were used for evaluation. They were used as instruments: Wechsler Scale of Intelligence (WISC- IV) Subtest: Digit Span and Letter – Number Sequencing; Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WAIS), subtest: Vocabulary and Matrix Reasoning; Attention by Cancelling Test (TAC); Test of Tracks. For behavioral evaluation there were: Behavioral Scale (CBCL/6-18) and Functional Instrument (IFERI) applied to parents. The following tests were used for the school teachers: Behavioral Scale (TRF/6-18); Functional Instrument (IFERI). Multivariate anovas were used to compare the results according to school series and person correlation analyzes between the indices of the instruments to evaluate their possible associations. Results showed the children presented satisfactory index in all traditional tests (pencil and paper). On the other hand, the computerized automatic and voluntary attention tests show a decrease in reaction time (RT) as a result of the school year. Older children showed better targeting of voluntary and automatic attention. That fact can be attributed to maturity of the attentional system. Another observed factor was that the TR for the condition where the track and target come in the same position (Ipsolateral) tends to be smaller than the condition in which the track come on opposite sides (Contralateral). It is possible to observe that the RT in the 800 ms range are smaller than the RT for 100, 300 ms intervals because the children have more time to direct the attention. In the correlation of computerized tests, reduced RTs and hits grow as children grow older and study more advanced school series. In the Go X No-Go Tests RTs increase because older children are more capable to wait the correct answers then younger. That shows older children have a better inhibitory control then younger. Additionally, older children were faster than the youngers to begin and solve the memory tests. In the correlations between the computerized tests and the IFERI we can see that parents come with more problems than teachers. Although the teachers report fewer problems, it is verified that the difficulties perceived through the instruments are more consistent with the performance of the children in the tests. For those reasons, it is possible to say the proposed computerized tests help to evaluate cognitive abilities in the human developed process. A avaliação neuropsicológica estuda processos cognitivos como atenção, memória e controle inibitório e sua relação com a organização e funcionamento cerebral. A atenção reflete a seleção de informações do ambiente que orientam respostas adaptativas. Já a memória operacional é um sistema de curto prazo que permite o armazenamento temporário e a manipulação de uma quantidade limitada de informações durante a execução de atividades cognitivas. Componente de processos executivos, o controle inibitório refere-se à habilidade de resistir a um primeiro impulso e de controlar o comportamento ou pensamento. O objetivo deste estudo foi desenvolver e testar uma bateria de avaliação informatizada de atenção, memória e controle inibitório em crianças do Ensino Fundamental I e verificar as diferenças no seu desempenho com o passar dos anos escolares além de comparar relato de pais e professores sobre dificuldades nas funções executivas associadas ao desempenho em testes informatizados. Participaram deste estudo 85 crianças com idade entre 6 e 11 anos (44 meninas e 41 meninos), de uma escola particular e rural de cidade do interior do Estado de São Paulo. Para avaliação foram utilizados instrumentos tradicionais (testes de lápis-papel) e informatizado, sendo eles: Subtestes Dígito e Sequência de Números e Letras do WISC- IV; subtestes Vocabulário e Raciocínio Matricial da WASI; Teste de Atenção por Cancelamento (TAC) e Teste Trilhas. Na avaliação informatizada utilizou-se o Teste para Orientação Voluntária e Automática da Atenção, Teste de Controle Inibitório e Memória (Go No-Go Memória e Go No-Go Simples) e Teste de Memória Operacional (Memória Pontos e Memória Números). Para avaliação comportamental foram respondidos pelos pais o Inventário de Problemas de Comportamento (CBCL/6- 18) e o Inventário de Funções Executivas e Regulação Infantil (IFERI). Para os professores foram utilizados os inventários de Problemas de Comportamento (TRF/6-18) e o IFERI. Foram feitas anovas multivariadas para comparar os resultados em função das séries escolares e analises de correlação de Pearson entre os índices dos instrumentos para avaliar suas possíveis associações. Os resultados mostraram que as crianças apresentaram índice satisfatório em todos os testes de tradicionais (lápis e papel). Já os testes informatizados de Atenção Automática e Voluntária apontam diminuição dos tempos de reação (TR) em função do ano escolar. As crianças maiores apresentaram um melhor direcionamento da atenção voluntária e automática. Tal fato, pode ser atribuído a maturação do sistema nervoso. Outro fator observado foi que os TR para a condição em que a pista e alvo vêm na mesma posição (Ipsolateral) tende a ser menor que a condição em que a pista vêm em lados opostos (Contralateral), especialmente em intervalos curtos. Os TR para a condição válida (o alvo apareceu no mesmo local indicado na pista) são menores que na condição inválida (o alvo apareceu no local oposto ao indicado pela pista). É possível observar que os TR no intervalo de 800 ms são menores que aqueles para intervalos de 100 ms ou 300 ms. Isso pode estar associado ao fato do intervalo mais longo possibilitar mais tempo para o direcionamento da atenção. Já nas correlações entre os testes informatizados, os resultados sugerem que com o aumento do ano escolar e da idade aumenta o número de acertos, sequências corretas e redução dos TR. Aumentos nos TR nos testes Go No-Go ocorrem em função das crianças maiores conseguirem aguardar as respostas certas, mostrando que há um melhor controle inibitório por parte delas. Outro fator relevante é que crianças maiores foram mais rápidas para começar e executar os testes de memória. Nas correlações entre os testes informatizados e o IFERI podemos perceber que os pais relatam mais problemas que os professores. Apesar dos professores relatarem menos problemas, verifica-se que as dificuldades percebidas por meio dos instrumentos são mais condizentes com o desempenho das crianças nos testes. Assim, verifica-se que os instrumentos propostos auxiliam na avaliação das habilidades cognitivas ao longo do desenvolvimento humano.

Antigen presentation by dendritic cells (DCs) stimulates naive CD4+ T cells, triggering T cell activation and the adaptive arm of the immune response. Newly synthesized major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC-II) molecules accumulate at MHC-II-enriched endosomal compartments and are transported to the plasma membrane of DCs after binding to antigenic peptides to enable antigen presentation. In DCs, MHC-II molecules are included in tetraspanin-enriched microdomains (TEMs). However, the role of tetraspanin CD9 in these processes remains largely undefined. Here, we show that CD9 regulates the T cell-stimulatory capacity of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-dependent bone marrow-derived DCs (BMDCs), without affecting antigen presentation by fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Flt3L)-dependent BMDCs. CD9 knockout (KO) GM-CSF-dependent BMDCs, which resemble monocyte-derived DCs (MoDCs), induce lower levels of T cell activation than wild-type DCs, and this effect is related to a reduction in MHC-II surface expression in CD9-deficient MoDCs. Importantly, MHC-II targeting to the plasma membrane is largely impaired in immature CD9 KO MoDCs, in which MHC-II remains arrested in acidic intracellular compartments enriched in LAMP-1 (lysosome-associated membrane protein 1), and MHC-II internalization is also blocked. Moreover, CD9 participates in MHC-II trafficking in mature MoDCs, regulating its endocytosis and recycling. Our results demonstrate that the tetraspanin CD9 specifically regulates antigenic presentation in MoDCs through the regulation of MHC-II intracellular trafficking.

Nuclear lamins A/C control several critical cellular functions, e.g., chromatin organization, gene transcription, DNA replication, DNA damage responses, cell cycle progression, cell differentiation, and cell polarization during migration. However, few studies have addressed the role of lamins A/C in the control of the functions of immune cells. Recently, we have demonstrated that lamins A/C are induced in T cells upon antigen recognition. Lamins A/C enhance T cell responses by coupling the plasma membrane to the nucleus via the linker of nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton (LINC) complex and the actin cytoskeleton. Here, we discuss the possible physiological relevance and functional context of lamin A/C in T cell activation and propose a model in which lamins A/C are key modulators of immune cell functions.

This paper evaluates the link between foreign ownership and firm exit during crises, using a longitudinal micro dataset over an 18-year period. We address two main questions: first, if foreign affiliates have different failure rates than domestic firms during economic downturns, and second if the foreignness effect differs between two different economic downturns. The results partially confirm the liability of foreignness argument, suggesting that when the crisis was more pronounced at home than abroad, the differences in hazard rates between foreign and domestic firms reduce. The footloose argument is also only partially confirmed. For policy makers, our results on survival dynamics during crises are not against policies stimulating inward investment. There is no need to fear that foreign firms destabilize more than usual the host economy during economic slowdowns by immediately closing down operations.

Understanding how the immune response is activated and amplified requires detailed knowledge of the stages in the formation of the immunological synapse (IS) between T lymphocytes and antigen-presenting cells (APCs). We show that tetraspanins CD9 and CD151 congregate at the T-cell side of the IS. Silencing of CD9 or CD151 blunts the IL-2 secretion and expression of the activation marker CD69 by APC-conjugated T lymphocytes, but does not affect the accumulation of CD3 or actin to the IS, or the translocation of the microtubule-organizing center toward the T-B contact area. CD9 or CD151 silencing diminishes the relocalization of α4β1 integrin to the IS and reduces the accumulation of high-affinity β1 integrins at the cell-cell contact. These changes are accompanied by diminished phosphorylation of the integrin downstream targets FAK and ERK1/2. Our results suggest that CD9 and CD151 support integrin-mediated signaling at the IS.

As extensively reiterated in the existing literature, entrepreneurs’ human capital is crucial for new venture survival and growth. However, little is known about what makes startups more attractive...

Previous research has focused on the antecedents of entrepreneurship within communities, but little is known about the consequences of entrepreneurship for the community. Focusing on within-communi...

In recent years, mergers have been widely used in higher education (HE) to achieve a variety of purposes, ranging from problems of institutional fragmentation to the lack of financial and academic viability, and low institutional efficiency and quality. However, despite a large stream of HE literature addressing those issues, there has been little attention to the link between funding-related problems and merger processes. Moreover, there is very little comparative research among different higher education systems experiencing those processes. In this paper, we map and characterize the recent experience of 25 European countries with these processes, aiming at identifying main patterns regarding key drivers and motivations. We also analyze the main difficulties identified, the role of funding and financial incentives and, whenever possible, the main impacts and economic gains associated with those merger processes.

In this study, we investigated the dynamics of the molecular interactions of tetraspanin CD81 in T lymphocytes, and we show that CD81 controls the organization of the immune synapse (IS) and T cell activation. Using quantitative microscopy, including fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), phasor fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy-Föster resonance energy transfer (phasorFLIM-FRET), and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM), we demonstrate that CD81 interacts with ICAM-1 and CD3 during conjugation between T cells and antigen-presenting cells (APCs). CD81 and ICAM-1 exhibit distinct mobilities in central and peripheral areas of early and late T cell-APC contacts. Moreover, CD81-ICAM-1 and CD81- CD3 dynamic interactions increase over the time course of IS formation, as these molecules redistribute throughout the contact area. Therefore, CD81 associations unexpectedly define novel sequential steps of IS maturation. Our results indicate that CD81 controls the temporal progression of the IS and the permanence of CD3 in the membrane contact area, contributing to sustained T cell receptor (TCR)-CD3-mediated signaling. Accordingly, we find that CD81 is required for proper T cell activation, regulating CD3ζ, ZAP-70, LAT, and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation; CD69 surface expression; and interleukin- 2 (IL-2) secretion. Our data demonstrate the important role of CD81 in the molecular organization and dynamics of the IS architecture that sets the signaling threshold in T cell activation, This work was supported by SAF2011-25834 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, INDISNET-S2011/BMD-2332 from the Comunidad de Madrid, Cardiovascular Network RD12-0042-0056 from the Instituto Salud Carlos III, and ERC-2011-AdG 294340-GENTRIS