Unemployment and Public Budget Impacts of the Auto Bailout

We estimate the impact of the 2009 financial rescue of two large American automobile companies (General Motors and Chrysler) on unemployment in Michigan. We conservatively estimate that the auto bailout saved about 7,700 workers from unemployment each month over a period of four-and-a-half years. This translates to a public savings of between $1.3 and$1.6 billion via lower transfer payments and higher tax revenues

Survey Results of the New Health Care Worker Study: Implications of Changing Employment Patterns

This report examines the effects of contemporary employment arrangements on the quality of nursing work life, and the implications of these employment arrangements for individual nurses, the hospitals, and also for the organization. First we look at nurse work status (full-time, part-time or casual job), contract status (permanent or temporary), and employment preference as factors affecting commitment to the hospital and profession, job satisfaction, retention in the organization, and absenteeism from work. Second, we examine stress, burnout, and physical occupational health problems (in particular, musculoskeletal disorders), as affecting nurse and hospital outcomes. This project investigated how the quality of nursing worklife and career choices differ for nurses in full-time, part-time and casual employment, and whether nurses who have the employment arrangements they prefer enjoy a standard of worklife that encourages retention. We collected data for the study from 1,396 nurses employed at three large teaching hospitals in Southern Ontario (Hamilton Health Sciences, Kingston General Hospital, and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto) using the New Health Care Worker Questionnaire. Results indicate that although a substantial majority of the nurses were employed in the type of job that they preferred, problems of stress, burnout and physical health problems were reported. Further, these problems affected the nurses' job satisfaction, commitment, and propensity to leave the hospitals.health care workers, employment status, nurses, job satisfaction, commitment, stress, burnout, physical health problems, MSD, propensity to leave

Survey Results of the New Health Care Worker Study: Implications of Changing Employment Patterns

This report examines the effects of contemporary employment arrangements on the quality of nursing work life, and the implications of these employment arrangements for individual nurses, the hospitals, and also for the organization. First we look at nurse work status (full-time, part-time or casual job), contract status (permanent or temporary), and employment preference as factors affecting commitment to the hospital and profession, job satisfaction, retention in the organization, and absenteeism from work. Second, we examine stress, burnout, and physical occupational health problems (in particular, musculoskeletal disorders), as affecting nurse and hospital outcomes. This project investigated how the quality of nursing worklife and career choices differ for nurses in full-time, part-time and casual employment, and whether nurses who have the employment arrangements they prefer enjoy a standard of worklife that encourages retention. We collected data for the study from 1,396 nurses employed at three large teaching hospitals in Southern Ontario (Hamilton Health Sciences, Kingston General Hospital, and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto) using the New Health Care Worker Questionnaire. Results indicate that although a substantial majority of the nurses were employed in the type of job that they preferred, problems of stress, burnout and physical health problems were reported. Further, these problems affected the nurses' job satisfaction, commitment, and propensity to leave the hospitals.health care workers, employment status, nurses, job satisfaction, commitment, stress, burnout, physical health problems, MSD, propensity to leave

Towards Robust Velocity and Position Estimation of Opponents for Autonomous Racing Using Low-Power Radar

This paper presents the design and development of an intelligent subsystem that includes a novel low-power radar sensor integrated into an autonomous racing perception pipeline to robustly estimate the position and velocity of dynamic obstacles. The proposed system, based on the Infineon BGT60TR13D radar, is evaluated in a real-world scenario with scaled race cars. The paper explores the benefits and limitations of using such a sensor subsystem and draws conclusions based on field-collected data. The results demonstrate a tracking error up to 0.21 +- 0.29 m in distance estimation and 0.39 +- 0.19 m/s in velocity estimation, despite the power consumption in the range of 10s of milliwatts. The presented system provides complementary information to other sensors such as LiDAR and camera, and can be used in a wide range of applications beyond autonomous racing

Spatial and temporal dynamics of coccolithophore communities during low production phases in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea

The present investigation was initiated to report on species compositions and dynamics in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea during low production phases in spring and early summer. Thus, the distribution patterns of living coccolithophores during June to July, 1990, February and May, 1991, and March to April, 1995 were investigated. In general, the seasonal development of the phytoplankton started after the yearly dark period and coccolithophores increased in abundance when the water column was more stratified and both temperatures and insolation increased. Cell densities reached a maximum of 207x10~c occospheres/l in the southeastern part of the studied area. However, these high cell densities probably resulted from ,,old" populations, drifted to the Norwegian-Greenland Sea from the North Atlantic. Some of the collected samples did not contain any coccolithophores. In total, 15 coccolithophore species were identified. The diversity was generally higher in the eastern part of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea and to the west the coccolithophore communities often were monospecific. Emiliania huxleyi is the dominant species, but Calciopappus caudatus and Algirosphaera robusta also considerably contribute to the communities. High cell densities of C. caudatus were interpreted as the result of a bloom or more probably close to bloom conditions during the general low productive period. In addition, many of the E. huxleyi coccolith from the surface waters of the southeastern Norwegian-Greenland Sea were heavily corroded. These specimens may have drifted within the Atlantic water for a longer time

Assessing the Robustness of LiDAR, Radar and Depth Cameras Against Ill-Reflecting Surfaces in Autonomous Vehicles: An Experimental Study

Range-measuring sensors play a critical role in autonomous driving systems. While LiDAR technology has been dominant, its vulnerability to adverse weather conditions is well-documented. This paper focuses on secondary adverse conditions and the implications of ill-reflective surfaces on range measurement sensors. We assess the influence of this condition on the three primary ranging modalities used in autonomous mobile robotics: LiDAR, RADAR, and Depth-Camera. Based on accurate experimental evaluation the papers findings reveal that under ill-reflectivity, LiDAR ranging performance drops significantly to 33% of its nominal operating conditions, whereas RADAR and Depth-Cameras maintain up to 100% of their nominal distance ranging capabilities. Additionally, we demonstrate on a 1:10 scaled autonomous racecar how ill-reflectivity adversely impacts downstream robotics tasks, highlighting the necessity for robust range sensing in autonomous driving.Comment: Accepted at IEEE 9th World Forum on Internet of Thing

Interprofessional Collaboration in Fall Prevention: Insights from a Qualitative Study

(1) Background and objective: to explore the experiences of Swiss health care providers involved in a community fall prevention pilot project on barriers and facilitations in interprofessional cooperation between 2016 and 2017 in three regions of Switzerland. (2) Methods: semi-structured interviews with health care providers assessed their perspective on the evaluation of jointly developed tools for reporting fall risk, continuous training of the health care providers, sensitizing media campaigns, and others. (3) Results: One of the project’s strengths is the interprofessional continuous trainings. These trainings allowed the health care providers to extend their network of health care providers, which contributed to an improvement of fall prevention. Challenges of the project were that the standardization of the interprofessional collaboration required additional efforts. These efforts are time consuming and, for some categories of health care providers, not remunerated by the Swiss health care system. (4) Conclusions: On a micro and meso level, the results of the present study indicate that the involved health care providers strongly support interprofessional collaboration in fall prevention. However, time and financial constraints challenge the implementation. On a macro level, potential ways to strengthen interprofessional collaboration are a core element in fall prevention

Associations between Work Intensification, Stress and Job Satisfaction : The Case of Nurses in Ontario

Health sector reform of the 1990s affected most health care workers in Ontario and in other provinces. As a result of organizational changes, many workers experienced work intensification. This paper examines the associations between work intensification, stress and job satisfaction focusing on nurses in three teaching hospitals in Ontario. Data come from our 2002 survey of 949 nurses who worked in their employing hospital since the early 1990s when the health sector reform era began. Results show that nurses feel their work has intensified since the health sector reform of the 1990s, and work intensification contributed to increased stress and decreased job satisfaction. Results provide empirical support to the literature which suggests that work intensification has an adverse effect on workers’ health and well-being, and work attitudes.Les changements organisationnels apportés dans les années 80 et 90 ont contribué à l’intensification du travail dans les pays industrialisés (Green, 2004; Lapido et Wilkinson, 2002). Des recherches effectuées dans des pays européens et sept pays membres de l’OCDE démontrent que la satisfaction au travail est stable ou en déclin (Clark, 2005) et que l’intensification du travail est l’un des facteurs contribuant au déclin de la satisfaction au travail (Green et Tsitsianis, 2005). Au Canada, aucune étude ne s’est intéressée au lien entre la satisfaction au travail et l’intensification du travail. Toutefois, deux récents sondages indiquent qu’un travailleur canadien sur dix n’est pas satisfait au travail (Catlin, 2001; WES Compendium, 2001).Les changements organisationnels constituent communément une source d’intensification du travail (Green, 2004). Les organisations du secteur de la santé ont subit de nombreux changements organisationnels depuis le début des années 90 (CHSRF, 2000). Le personnel infirmier a été très affecté par les réformes du secteur de la santé. Plusieurs infirmières et infirmiers ont été mis à pied et le personnel restant a dû mettre les bouchées doubles pour prendre en charge le surplus de travail occasionné par ces départs involontaires (O’Brien-Pallas et al., 2004). Les réformes du secteur de la santé reposant sur de petits budgets peuvent avoir de lourdes conséquences pour le personnel : leur travail peut s’intensifier, devenir plus exigeant et stressant (Wetzel, 2005a), amenant une baisse de la satisfaction au travail.L’objectif de cette étude est d’examiner le lien entre l’intensification du travail, le stress et la satisfaction au travail. Notre étude contribue à l’avancement des connaissances en gestion des ressources humaines en examinant l’une des conséquences de la réforme du secteur de la santé, c’est-à-dire l’intensification du travail, sur la santé et le bien-être du personnel infirmier et sur son attitude envers son emploi. Dans un contexte de pénurie de main-d’oeuvre dans le secteur de la santé et d’un besoin grandissant de services infirmiers, notre étude porte précisément sur la satisfaction au travail des infirmières et infirmiers et est ainsi importante et d’actualité. Les données de cette étude ont été recueillies auprès de 949 infirmières et infirmiers déjà en emploi avant l’implantation de la réforme du secteur de la santé travaillant dans trois hôpitaux universitaires de l’Ontario. Toutes les infirmières et infirmiers de ces établissements ont été sélectionnés pour l’étude. Au total, 1 396 d’entre eux ont participé à l’étude, représentant un taux de réponse de 52 %. Le New Health Care Worker Questionnaire (des auteurs) est l’outil ayant servi à amasser les données. La variable dépendante, la satisfaction au travail, a été mesurée à partir du Spector’s 1985 Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) (1997). Les deux sous-échelles sont la satisfaction liée aux avantages pécuniaires et la satisfaction liée à l’emploi et à l’environnement de travail. L’intensification du travail est la variable indépendante de notre étude. Il n’y pas d’outil mesurant l’intensification du travail faisant consensus (Burchell, 2002; Green, 2004). Nous avons utilisé dans cette étude un outil mesurant la perception d’une intensification du travail que nous avons nous-mêmes développé. Cet outil stipule l’énoncé suivant : « Il y a eu plusieurs changements dans le système de santé depuis le début des années 90. En comparant le temps présent et le début des années 90, veuillez indiquer votre accord ou désaccord avec chacun des énoncés ». Les énoncés sont : « mon travail s’est intensifié; ma charge de travail a augmenté; les infirmières et infirmiers doivent traiter plus de patients par quart de travail; je fais de plus en plus de travail pour lequel je ne reçois pas de rémunération; il y a moins de leaders parmi le personnel infirmier; et la complexité des cas à traiter a augmenté ». Les réponses ont été recueillies à partir d’une échelle de type Likert à cinq niveaux allant de 1 : « je suis tout à fait en désaccord », à 5 : « je suis tout à fait en accord » et les résultats ont été additionnés pour créer l’échelle mesurant l’intensification du travail. Nous avons effectué une analyse factorielle utilisant la méthode d’extraction de l’analyse de la composante principale (Principal Component Analysis). Une composante principale fut extraite. L’échelle de mesure de l’intensification du travail démontre une forte fiabilité de l’outil grâce à un alpha de Cronbach de 0,80 (voir le tableau 1 de l’article). Pour ce qui est de la cohérence externe de l’outil de mesure, notre échantillon est comparable à celui d’autres études qui ont trouvé une intensification plus grande du travail dans le secteur de la santé et des services sociaux (Boisard et al., 2003b), pour les femmes (Burchell et Fagan, 2002) et pour les travailleurs du secteur public (Green, 2004). Le Symptoms of Stress Scale (Denton et al., 2002b) est la variable modératrice dans cette étude.Les résultats démontrent que le personnel infirmier est dans une certaine mesure satisfait des avantages pécuniaires (M = 33,7; S.D. = 6,5) et modérément satisfait de son emploi et de son environnement de travail (M = 76,6; S.D. = 11,1). Il existe une perception généralisée que le travail s’est intensifié durant la dernière décennie (M = 24,2; S.D. = 3,9) et le personnel infirmier se sent stressé (M = 32,5; S.D. = 7,9). En contrôlant la satisfaction à l’égard des avantages pécuniaires, l’intensification du travail et le stress sont significativement et négativement corrélés (–0,343; p ≥ .01 et –0,502; p ≥ .01, respectivement). Le modèle global (voir le tableau 3, colonne 4 de l’article) démontre que le stress est significativement et négativement associé à la satisfaction liée aux avantages pécuniaires et que le stress a un effet modérateur partiel sur l’intensification du travail. Le modèle de la satisfaction liée aux avantages pécuniaires est sain, expliquant 29 % de la variance. Tel que présenté, dans le modèle global (tableau 4, colonne 4 de l’article), le stress a un effet modérateur sur l’intensification du travail en relation avec la satisfaction liée à l’emploi et à l’environnement de travail. Il est intéressant de noter que notre modèle de la satisfaction liée à l’emploi et à l’environnement de travail explique à lui seul près de 68 % de la variance totale.Notre étude confirme les prédictions de Wetzel (2005a) quant au personnel infirmier et démontre que la perception de l’intensification du travail est un facteur significatif contribuant à augmenter le niveau de stress chez les infirmières et infirmiers. Ce stress, en retour, affecte négativement leur satisfaction au travail. Considérant que l’attraction et la rétention du personnel travaillant dans le secteur de la santé est le défi le plus important posé aux gestionnaires du système de santé canadien, nos résultats sont importants. Ils expliquent pourquoi le personnel infirmier se sent stressé et comment ce stress contribue à diminuer leur satisfaction au travail. Nous recommandons fortement aux décideurs de tous les niveaux, et en particulier à ceux qui élaborent les politiques, de porter une attention particulière aux effets à long terme occasionnés par les décisions stratégiques qu’ils prennent concernant leurs personnels.La reforma del sector de salud de los años 1990 afectó la mayoría de los trabajadores de la salud en Ontario y otras provincias. Como resultado de los cambios organizacionales, muchos trabajadores experimentaron intensificación del trabajo. Este documento examina las asociaciones entre intensificación del trabajo, estrés y satisfacción del trabajo focalizando la situación de las enfermeras en tres hospitales de enseñanza en Ontario. Los datos provienen de nuestra encuesta administrada en 2002 a 949 enfermeras que trabajaban en esos hospitales desde los comienzos de los años 90 cuando la reforma del sector salud comenzaba. Los resultados muestran que las enfermeras sienten que su trabajo se ha intensificado con la reforma del sector de los años 1990 y que la intensificación del trabajo contribuye a incrementar el estrés y disminuir la satisfacción del trabajo. Los resultados proveen soporte empírico a la literatura que sugiere que la intensificación del trabajo tiene un efecto adverso en la salud y el bienestar de los trabajadores y en las actitudes en el trabajo

Hybrid Energy Storage and Hydrogen Supply Based on Aluminum—a Multiservice Case for Electric Mobility and Energy Storage Services

The realization of a fully decarbonized mobility and energy system requires the availability of carbon-free electricity and fuels which can be ensured only by cost-efficient and sustainable energy storage technologies. In line with this demand, a techno-economic evaluation of aluminum as a cross-sectoral renewable energy carrier is conducted. The assessment, based on a newly developed process, involves the wet combustion of Aluminum at 700 degrees C resulting in heat and hydrogen (H-2) generation. The designed conversion plant enables the contemporaneous generation of electricity and on demand H-2 (up to 4 MW and 46.8 kg h(-1)) with round-trip efficiencies as high as 40.7% and full recycling of the Al2O3 waste. This study, assuming the carbon-free production of Al and three different energy cost scenarios, proves the feasibility of the e-fueling station business case. The overall energy conversion including fuel production (power-to-Al), utilization (Al-to-power and Al-to-H-2), and recycling requires a capital investment of 5200 euro per kW installed power without additional primary material demand. Hence, the estimated power-to-X cost for the Al-based H-2 is estimated in the range of 4.2-9.6 euro kg(-1) H-2, while wind and solar power based green H-2 production cost varies from 6.5 to 12.1 euro kg(-1) H-2

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Access to Education and Social Participation in Children and Adolescents with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in Switzerland.

BACKGROUND  Two-thirds of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) have cognitive and neuropsychiatric problems. Concerning their quality of life, negative factors are the lack of qualifying education and social participation in sporting and leisure activities. Adapted assistance in education and participation in social life are thus important. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the pediatric population was less severely impacted by the disease, but by the restrictions associated. AIM  The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic regarding access to education and social participation for young patients with DMD in Switzerland. METHODS  We conducted a survey study from May to August 2021 assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to education and social participation in 8 to 18 years old patients with DMD in Switzerland. RESULTS  Of 60 sent surveys, 40 were returned and included. Mean age of participants was 13.5 years (±3.1 standard deviation); 23/40 of the participants were wheelchair bound, 21/40 attended a special school, and 19/40 a regular school. Of the 22/40 participants receiving assistance at school, 7/40 reported a change caused by the pandemic: for 5/7, the assistance was paused. Of the 12 boys and adolescents attending sporting activities, 10 had to suspend these. Nine attended other leisure activities; for 3/9, these activities were paused. CONCLUSION  The COVID-19 pandemic had direct effects on school assistance, sporting, and leisure activities in young patients with DMD in Switzerland. It is important to ensure that school assistance and leisure activities are rapidly resumed