Glacial geology and palaeo-ice dynamics of two ice-sheet margins, Taymyr Peninsula, Siberia and Jameson Land, East Greenland

The North Taymyr ice-marginal zone (NTZ) on the Taymyr Peninsula, Arctic Siberia and the Ugleelv Valley on Jameson Land, East Greenland, have been investigated with the aim of reconstructing the glacial history, including depositional processes and environments. Geomorphological, sedimentological, stratigraphical and remote sensing methods have been combined to give a comprehensive view of developments in the two areas. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon (14C) dates provide the chronological control. The Kara Sea shelf was glaciated three times during the Weichselian, each time with a smaller ice cover than before. The ice sheets caused a reversal of the fluvial drainage towards the south on the Taymyr Peninsula and, during the Early-Middle Weichselian, also the damming of proglacial lakes. The youngest ice-advance, but probably also the older ones, was warm-based and 'surge-like'. After it had reached its maximum position, the margin froze to its base and compressional flow took place there. The North Taymyr ice-marginal zone (NTZ) was initiated during an Early Weichselian retreat stage (c. 80 ka BP) and added to during the Middle (c. 65 ka BP) and Late Weichselian (<20 ka BP) ice advances, thus revealing a complex history. It comprises ice-marginal and supraglacial landsystems dominated by 2-3 km wide thrust-block moraines. Large areas are still underlain by remnant glacier ice and a supraglacial landscape with numerous ice-walled lakes and kames is forming even today. The proglacial landsystem is characterised by subaqueous or terrestrial environments, depending on altitude and time of formation. The sedimentary succession in the Ugleelv area comprises three tills, glaciolacustrine, glaciofluvial and aeolian sediments. The depositional history started in the early Saalian with a prograding delta in a lake dammed by an outlet glacier in Scoresby Sund. Soon thereafter, and also once during the Weichselian, Jameson Land was inundated by glaciers emanating from Liverpool Land in the east. These glaciers were warm-based and deposited glaciofluvial sediments, local tills and small end moraines. Conditions were less dynamic later in the glacial cycles. During most of the Weichselian the Ugleelv area was ice free and aeolian activity took place, but in the late Saalian the Greenland ice sheet expanded eastwards over the area. This ice was mainly cold-based but in places temporarily warm-based, where a lodgement till was deposited. During deglaciation there was substantial glaciofluvial erosion. The Kara Sea ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet behave differently through a glacial cycle. The shelf-centred Kara Sea ice experiences large shifts in areal extent and disappears completely during interglacials. 'Individual' ice advances seem to be gover-ned by internal ice dynamics rather than by climatic changes. Contrary to this, the Greenland ice sheet is relatively stable and the climatically driven expansion or retreat of its outlet glaciers through the fjords represents the major changes

Trends in Associations Between Sickness Absence Before the Age of 65 and Being in Paid Work After the Age of 65: Prospective Study of Three Total Population Cohorts

The increasing workforce participation at higher ages may impact social insurance systems, however, this has hardly been studied at all. We studied associations between sociodemographic factors and prior sickness absence and disability pension, with having paid work and sickness absence after age 65, and if such associations changed over time. We used longitudinal register data regarding three cohorts of all residents in Sweden who turned 65 in 2000, 2005, or 2010 (N = 50,000, 68,000, and 99,000, respectively). Although employment rates when aged 66-71 increased between the cohorts, associations of sociodemographic factors with paid work and sickness absence, when aged 66-71 did not. Both sickness absence and disability pension when aged 60-64 were negatively associated with working past 65. Sickness absence when aged 60-64 was positively associated and disability pension was negatively associated with sickness absence after 65. Possibilities to remain in paid work with different health conditions need to be strengthened to avoid inequalities when raising the retirement age

The panorama of future sick-leave diagnoses among young adults initially long-term sickness absent due to neck, shoulder, or back diagnoses. An 11-year prospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Little is known about future sick-leave diagnoses among individuals on long-term sickness absence. The aim of this study was to describe the panorama of sick-leave diagnoses over time among young adults initially sick-listed for ≥ 28 days due to back, neck, or shoulder diagnoses</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An 11-year prospective population-based cohort study including all 213 individuals in a Swedish municipality who, in 1985, were aged 25–34 years and had a new sick-leave spell ≥ 28 days due to neck, shoulder, or back diagnoses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Over the 11-year period, the young adults in this cohort had 176,825 sick-leave days in 7,878 sick-leave periods (in 4,610 sick-leave spells) due to disorders in 17 of the 18 ICD-8 diagnostic categories (International Classification of Diseases, Revision 8). Musculoskeletal or mental diagnoses accounted for most of the sick-leave days, whereas most of the sick-leave periods were due to musculoskeletal, respiratory, or infectious disorders, or to unclassified symptoms. Most cohort members had had four to eight different sick-leave diagnoses over the 11 years, although some had had up to 11 diagnoses. Only two individuals (1%) had been sickness absent solely due to musculoskeletal diagnoses.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although the young adults initially were sick listed with back, neck, or shoulder diagnoses, their sickness absence during the follow up were due to a wide variety of other medical diagnoses. It might be that the ill-health content of sickness absence due to back pain is greater than usually assumed. More research on prognoses of sick-leave diagnoses among long-term sick listed is warranted.</p

Aeolian activity in Sweden: an unexplored environmental archive

During the course of this three-year project, we have studied aeolian deposits at 70 sites within sixteen areas in south-central Sweden. Inland dunes have been the focus, but some sites with coversand and coastal dunes have also been investigated. We have mapped dune morphology, mainly by LiDAR-based remote sensing, studied the internal sediment architecture by ground-penetrating radar profiling and in sediment exposures, documented the sedimentology of the deposits with field and laboratory methods as well as determined the age of the deposits with luminescence and radiocarbon dating. In this scientific report to the Geological Survey of Sweden, who funded the project, we present a summary of the project and its results. The largest and best developed dune fields are found at glacifluvial deposits in Värmland and Dalarna, while in areas south thereof there are mainly scattered dunes or coversand deposits. A range of dune types has been observed, but transverse dunes seem to be dominating and the majority of these are oriented roughly NE-SW. The bulk of the aeolian deposits were formed shortly after the local deglaciation and, once stabilised, do not appear to have been significantly reworked during the Holocene. Most Mid- and Late-Holocene aeolian deposits consist of coversand, apart from in coastal areas where e.g. young foredunes are found.Our results thus largely confirm the hypothesis of previous investigators but we do add a significant amount of new information. We provide, for the first time for most of our study areas, numerical ages for the aeolian deposits and thus provide the timing and duration of sand-drift events in south-central Sweden. The ages, in combination with detailed geomorphological mapping, allow us to distinguish phases of dune-field development, which are likely due to changes in wind patterns and vegetation cover, and also to correlate Swedish aeolian deposits to regional storminess periods. Based on sedimentological information we are able to reconstruct dominating depositional processes, transport paths and sediment sources. Additional outcomes of the project are e.g. methodological developments (LiDAR mapping, luminescence dating) and pilot studies of potential relevance for applied geology (coastal development)

Managers' perceptions of the manager role in relation to physicians: a qualitative interview study of the top managers in Swedish healthcare

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study focused on the manager role in the manager-physician relationship, considered from the manager perspective. The aim was to understand how top executives in Swedish healthcare regard management of physicians in their organisations, and what this implies for the manager role in relation to the medical profession. Abbott's theory of professional jurisdiction was used to inform thinking about managerial control and legitimacy in relation to physicians.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data from semi-structured individual interviews with 18 of the 20 county council chief executive officers (CEOs) in Sweden were subjected to qualitative analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results show that, when asked about their views on <it>management </it>of physicians, the CEOs talked about "how physicians are" rather than describing their own or their subordinate managers' managerial behaviour or strategies. Three types of descriptions of physicians were identified: 1) they have high status and expertise; 2) they lack knowledge of the system; 3) they do what they want in the organisation. The CEOs seldom reported that general management strategies were used to manage physicians. Instead, they described four types of physician-specific management strategies that were used in their organisations: organisational separation of physicians; "nagging and arguing"; compensations; relying on the physician role. These strategies seemed to reflect pragmatic behaviour on behalf of the managers that helped them to maintain control over physicians in daily work. However, in a longer perspective, they seemed to decrease the legitimacy of the manager role and also contribute to weakening of that role in the organisation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Many CEOs seemed to regard the manager role in their organisations as weak and described difficulties in both taking and defining that role (for themselves or others) in relation to the physician role. Further research is needed to elucidate how managers in healthcare organisations assume the manager role in relation to the medical profession. Studies indicate that lack of clarity concerning manager role authority and responsibility may have negative consequences not only for the working conditions of managers, physicians, and other healthcare professionals, but also for the quality of care.</p

Diffusion-Based Co-Speech Gesture Generation Using Joint Text and Audio Representation

This paper describes a system developed for the GENEA (Generation and Evaluation of Non-verbal Behaviour for Embodied Agents) Challenge 2023. Our solution builds on an existing diffusion-based motion synthesis model. We propose a contrastive speech and motion pretraining (CSMP) module, which learns a joint embedding for speech and gesture with the aim to learn a semantic coupling between these modalities. The output of the CSMP module is used as a conditioning signal in the diffusion-based gesture synthesis model in order to achieve semantically-aware co-speech gesture generation. Our entry achieved highest human-likeness and highest speech appropriateness rating among the submitted entries. This indicates that our system is a promising approach to achieve human-like co-speech gestures in agents that carry semantic meaning

A sedimentary model for transverse inland dunes in central Scandinavia

The largest dune fields in Sweden and Norway are small in international comparison but still form distinct parts of this previously glaciated landscape. The dunes formed c.10.5-9 ka ago, shortly after the last deglaciation, when winds close to the ice sheet were strong and vegetation was largely absent [1-4]. Since then they have been more or less stable and today they are covered by forest. Most of the dunes are curvi-linear in shape and formed transverse to the wind [5]. Here we present a sedimentary model for these transverse inland dunes, based on geophysical and sedimentological investigations of dunes at Skattungheden, Bonäsheden and Starmoen in central Sweden and south-eastern Norway. Ground-penetrating radar profiles reveal the main architectural elements of the dunes, while logging of sediment exposures in the dunes provide information on sedimentary structures. Grain-size analysis and scanning electron microscope studies of individual grains give us more detail on sediment characteristics.The main dune body, consisting of cross beds generally dipping 25-30°, makes up the largest part of the dunes; minor elements include windward side cover, dune-crest superimposed features and dune-toe apron (Fig. 1). The dominating sediment structures are planar parallel lamination, massive to vaguely stratified beds and a few types of secondary structures, such as bioturbation or physical disturbances. Few large erosional discordances are seen, and the dominating depositional processes are wind-ripple migration and some grain fall on the sloping lee sides. The sediments are well-sorted fine-to-medium sand, dominated by quartz, but with significant amounts of feldspar as well as some lithic fragments, micas and heavy minerals. Most grains are angular to subrounded and their surfaces display few traces of aeolian transport. Overall, the dune sands show large similarities to their source material (glacifluvial deposits), which suggests only short transport and brief reworking by aeolian processes.References[1] Alexanderson, H. and M. Bernhardson, OSL dating and luminescence characteristics of aeolian deposits and their source material in Dalarna, central Sweden Boreas, 2016. 45: p. 876-893.[2] Alexanderson, H. and M. Henriksen, A short-lived aeolian event during the Early Holocene in southeastern Norway. Quaternary Geochronology, 2015. 30: p. 175-180.[3] Bernhardson, M. and H. Alexanderson, Early Holocene NW-W winds reconstructed from small dune fields, central Sweden. Boreas, 2018.[4] Alexanderson, H. and D. Fabel, Holocene chronology of the Brattforsheden delta and inland dune field, SW Sweden. Geochronometria, 2015. 42: p. 1-16.[5] Bernhardson, M. and H. Alexanderson, Early Holocene dune field development in Dalarna, central Sweden: A geomorphological and geophysical case study. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 2017. 42: p. 1847-1859

Design of a simple transition from microstrip to ridge gap waveguide suited for MMIC and antenna integration

This letter describes a simple and low-loss microstrip-to-ridge gap waveguide transition with a very compact geometry. The transition transforms the electromagnetic (EM) fields from the microstrip mode to the air-filled ridge gap waveguide mode. This is achievable if the height of the air gap in the ridge gap waveguide is kept almost equal to the thickness of the substrate of the microstrip line. The transition has a pressure contact between the ridge and the microstrip line, so it works without soldering. This is advantageous in systems that require mechanically separable split-blocks or modules and need a lot of transitions. Experimental results of the manufactured back-to-back transition show an insertion loss of 0.32 dB and a return loss of 14.15 dB over 55% relative bandwidth in Ka-band

Trajectory analyses in insurance medicine studies : Examples and key methodological aspects and pitfalls

Background Trajectory analyses are being increasingly used in efforts to increase understanding about the heterogeneity in the development of different longitudinal outcomes such as sickness absence, use of medication, income, or other time varying outcomes. However, several methodological and interpretational challenges are related to using trajectory analyses. This methodological study aimed to compare results using two different types of software to identify trajectories and to discuss methodological aspects related to them and the interpretation of the results. Methods Group-based trajectory models (GBTM) and latent class growth models (LCGM) were fitted, using SAS and Mplus, respectively. The data for the examples were derived from a representative sample of Spanish workers in Catalonia, covered by the social security system (n = 166,192). Repeatedly measured sickness absence spells per trimester (n = 96,453) were from the Catalan Institute of Medical Evaluations. The analyses were stratified by sex and two birth cohorts (1949-1969 and 1970-1990). Results Neither of the software were superior to the other. Four groups were the optimal number of groups in both software, however, we detected differences in the starting values and shapes of the trajectories between the two software used, which allow for different conclusions when they are applied. We cover questions related to model fit, selecting the optimal number of trajectory groups, investigating covariates, how to interpret the results, and what are the key pitfalls and strengths of using these person-oriented methods. Conclusions Future studies could address further methodological aspects around these statistical techniques, to facilitate epidemiological and other research dealing with longitudinal study designs.Peer reviewe