Evaluating vacancy referrals and the roles of sanctions and sickness absence

Job vacancy referrals are a common active labour market policy measure. Unemployment insurance agencies may combat moral hazard by punishing refusals to apply to assigned vacancies. During sickness spells, minimum requirements on search behaviour do not apply. This may reduce the threat effect of sanctions. We study effects of vacancy referrals and sanctions on unemployment duration and job match quality. We find that a vacancy referral increases the transition rate into work. We also find a positive effect of a vacancy referral on the probability of reporting sick

Prion type 2 selection in sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease affecting peripheral ganglia

In sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (sCJD), the pathological changes appear to be restricted to the central nervous system. Only involvement of the trigeminal ganglion is widely accepted. The present study systematically examined the involvement of peripheral ganglia in sCJD utilizing the currently most sensitive technique for detecting prions in tissue morphologically. The trigeminal, nodose, stellate, and celiac ganglia, as well as ganglia of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar sympathetic trunk of 40 patients were analyzed with the paraffin-embedded tissue (PET)-blot method. Apart from the trigeminal ganglion, which contained protein aggregates in five of 19 prion type 1 patients, evidence of prion protein aggregation was only found in patients associated with type 2 prions. With the PET-blot, aggregates of prion protein type 2 were found in all trigeminal (17/17), in some nodose (5 of 7) and thoracic (3 of 6) ganglia, as well as in a few celiac (4 of 19) and lumbar (1 of 5) ganglia of sCJD patients. Whereas aggregates of both prion types may spread to dorsal root ganglia, more CNS-distant ganglia seem to be only involved in patients accumulating prion type 2. Whether the prion type association is due to selection by prion type-dependent replication, or due to a prion type-dependent property of axonal spread remains to be resolved in further studies

Job Displacement and First Birth Over the Business Cycle

In this article, we investigate the impact of job displacement on women’s first-birth rates as well as the variation in this effect over the business cycle. We use mass layoffs to estimate the causal effects of involuntary job loss on fertility in the short and medium term, up to five years after displacement. Our analysis is based on rich administrative data from Germany, with an observation period spanning more than 20 years. We apply inverse probability weighting (IPW) to flexibly control for the observed differences between women who were and were not displaced. To account for the differences in the composition of the women who were displaced in a downturn and the women who were displaced in an upswing, we use a double weighting estimator. Results show that the extent to which job displacement has adverse effects on fertility depends on the business cycle. The first-birth rates were much lower for women who were displaced in an economic downturn than for those who lost a job in an economic upturn. This result cannot be explained by changes in the observed characteristics of the displaced women over the business cycle

Prädiktive Betriebsstrategie eines hybriden Energiespeichersystems in autonomen Elektrofahrzeugen

In diesem Beitrag wird eine Betriebsstrategie für einen hybriden Energiespeicher vorgestellt, die sich der Vorhersage zukünftiger Fahrzustände durch ein autonomes Fahrzeug bedient. Dies ermöglicht ein zusätzliches Verringern der Verluste im Vergleich zu herkömmlichen Strategien, die keine Vorhersagen verwenden. Um diese Funktionen umzusetzen, wurden drei Hierarchieebenen definiert. Die oberste enthält die Energiestrategie und bestimmt den langfristigen Ladestandverlauf des Kondensators mit Hilfe der Vorhersagen. Sie gibt der Leistungsstrategie in der mittleren Ebene einen Sollladestand und eine Zielzeit vor, zu der dieser Ladestand erreicht werden soll. Die Leistungsstrategie ist als modellprädiktive Regelung ausgeführt, die den Zielladegrad in einem Toleranzband führt und die Verluste des Energiespeichersystems minimiert. Die unterste Hierarchieebene enthält die Leistungsregelung des verwendeten DC/DC-Wandlers. Diese stellt die Kondensatorleistung nach der Vorgabe durch die Leistungsstrategie ein. Mit Hilfe dieses Ansatzes und einer Vorausschau von maximal 12 s konnten die Verluste im Vergleich zu einer regelbasierten Strategie ohne Vorausschau um 12 % verringert werden. Im Vergleich zu einer global optimierten Lösung, die mittels einer Dynamischen Programmierung erreicht wurde, erzeugt sie 8 % mehr Verluste.This paper presents an operating strategy for a hybrid energy storage system using the prediction of future driving conditions by an autonomous vehicle. This allows to reduce the losses compared to conventional strategies that do not use predictions. To implement these functions, three hierarchy levels have been defined. The top level is the energy strategy and determines the long-term state of charge of the capacitor using the predictions. It gives the power strategy, the middle level, a target charge level and a target time at which this state of charge should be reached. The power strategy determines the current power distribution using a model predictive approach and stationary loss optimization. The lowest hierarchical level is the power control of the DC/DC converter used. This adjusts the capacitor power according to the specification of the power strategy. With the help of this approach and a forecast of maximum 12 s, the losses could be reduced by12 % compared to a rule-based strategy without a forecast. In comparison to a globally optimized solution achieved by dynamic programming, the new strategy generates 8 % more losses

Cosmology from Galaxy Redshift Surveys with PointNet

In recent years, deep learning approaches have achieved state-of-the-art results in the analysis of point cloud data. In cosmology, galaxy redshift surveys resemble such a permutation invariant collection of positions in space. These surveys have so far mostly been analysed with two-point statistics, such as power spectra and correlation functions. The usage of these summary statistics is best justified on large scales, where the density field is linear and Gaussian. However, in light of the increased precision expected from upcoming surveys, the analysis of -- intrinsically non-Gaussian -- small angular separations represents an appealing avenue to better constrain cosmological parameters. In this work, we aim to improve upon two-point statistics by employing a \textit{PointNet}-like neural network to regress the values of the cosmological parameters directly from point cloud data. Our implementation of PointNets can analyse inputs of $\mathcal{O}(10^4) - \mathcal{O}(10^5)$ galaxies at a time, which improves upon earlier work for this application by roughly two orders of magnitude. Additionally, we demonstrate the ability to analyse galaxy redshift survey data on the lightcone, as opposed to previously static simulation boxes at a given fixed redshift

Inhibition of Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Prevents IL-1β-Induced Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Human Chondrocytes

Interleukin (IL)-1β is an important pro-inflammatory cytokine in the progression of osteoarthritis (OA), which impairs mitochondrial function and induces the production of nitric oxide (NO) in chondrocytes. The aim was to investigate if blockade of NO production prevents IL-1βinduced mitochondrial dysfunction in chondrocytes and whether cAMP and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) affects NO production and mitochondrial function. Isolated human OA chondrocytes were stimulated with IL-1β in combination with/without forskolin, L-NIL, AMPK activator or inhibitor. The release of NO, IL-6, PGE2 , MMP3, and the expression of iNOS were measured by ELISA or Western blot. Parameters of mitochondrial respiration were measured using a seahorse analyzer. IL-1β significantly induced NO release and mitochondrial dysfunction. Inhibition of iNOS by L-NIL prevented IL-1β-induced NO release and mitochondrial dysfunction but not IL-1β-induced release of IL-6, PGE2 , and MMP3. Enhancement of cAMP by forskolin reduced IL-1β-induced NO release and prevented IL-1β-induced mitochondrial impairment. Activation of AMPK increased IL-1β-induced NO production and the negative impact of IL-1β on mitochondrial respiration, whereas inhibition of AMPK had the opposite effects. NO is critically involved in the IL-1β-induced impairment of mitochondrial respiration in human OA chondrocytes. Increased intracellular cAMP or inhibition of AMPK prevented both IL-1β-induced NO release and mitochondrial dysfunction

Toward Dynamic Interoperability of Mobile Agent Systems

Mobile agents are an increasingly popular paradigm and in recent years there has been a proliferation of mobile-agent systems. These systems are, however, largely incompatible with each other. In particular, agents cannot migrate to a host that runs a different mobile-agent system. Prior approaches to interoperability have tried to force agents to use a common API and so far none have succeeded. This goal led to our efforts to develop mechanisms that support dynamic runtime interoperability of mobile-agent systems. This paper describes the \em Grid Mobile-Agent System, which allows agents to migrate to different mobile-agent systems