How a Mandatory Activation Program Reduces Unemployment Durations: The Effects of Distance

In an experimental setting some Danish unemployed workers were assigned to an activation program while others were not. Unemployed who were assigned to the activation program found a job more quickly. We show that the activation effect increases with the distance between the place of residence of the unemployed worker and the place where the activation took place. We also find that the quality of the post-unemployment jobs was not affected by the activation program. Both findings confirm that activation programs mainly work because they are compulsory and unemployed don't like them.unemployment insurance, unemployment duration, experiment, activation programs

Trends in cause-specific mortality among people with type 2 and type 1 diabetes from 2002 to 2019:A Danish population-based study

BackgroundDespite advances in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease,excess mortality persists within the diabetes population. This study explores thecomponents of this excess mortality and their interaction with sex.MethodsUsing Danish registries (2002-2019), we identified residents aged 18-99 years, theirdiabetes status, and recorded causes of death. Applying Lexis-based methods, wecomputed age-standardized mortality rates (asMRs), mortality relative risks (asMRRs),and log-linear trends for cause-specific mortality.FindingsFrom 2002-2019, 958,278 individuals died in Denmark (T2D: 148,620; T1D: 7,830)during 84.4M person-years. During the study period, overall asMRs declined, driven byreducing cardiovascular mortality, notably in men with T2D. Conversely, cancermortality remained high, making cancer the leading cause of death in individuals withT2D. Individuals with T2D faced an elevated mortality risk from nearly all cancer types,ranging from 9% to 257% compared to their non-diabetic counterparts. Notably,obesity-related cancers exhibited the highest relative risks: liver cancer (Men: asMRR3·58(3·28;3·91); Women: asMRR 2·49(2·14;2·89)), pancreatic cancer (Men: asMRR3·50(3·25;3·77); Women: asMRR 3·57(3·31;3·85)), and kidney cancer (Men: asMRR2·10(1·84;2·40); Women: asMRR 2·31(1·92;2·79)). In men with type 2 diabetes, excessmortality remained stable, except for dementia. In women, diabetes-related excessmortality increased by 6-17% per decade across all causes of death, exceptcardiovascular disease.InterpretationIn the last decade, cancer has emerged as the leading cause of death amongindividuals with T2D in Denmark, emphasizing the need for diabetes managementstrategies incorporating cancer prevention. A sex-specific approach is crucial toaddress persistently higher relative mortality in women with diabetes.FundingSupported by Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus, which is partially funded by anunrestricted donation from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and by The Danish DiabetesAcademy.<br/

Poleward energy transport: is the standard definition physically relevant at all time scales?

Poleward energy transport in the atmosphere and oceans constitutes an important branch of the global energy budget, and its role in the climate system has been the subject of many studies. In the atmosphere, the transport is affected by “eddies” and large scale meridional cells, both with zero net mass transport across latitude circles, but also partly by processes associated with a net transport of mass across latitude circles. The latter must cease to operate in steady state, but they may be significant when time variability of the heat budget is considered. Indeed, examination of reanalysis data on short (daily to monthly) timescales shows that mass variations on these timescales result in surprisingly large fluctuations (in excess of 10^15 W = 1 PW) in the poleward heat transport. These fluctuations are referred to as “extensive”, for they primarily alter the mass integrated energy of the region considered, but not its averaged value. It is suggested that extensive fluctuations mask more meaningful climate signals present in the heat transport variability on monthly and interannual timescales, and a new formulation is proposed to isolate the latter. This new formulation is applied successfully to reanalysis data and climate model simulations

Role of immunohistochemistry for interobserver agreement of Peritoneal Regression Grading Score in peritoneal metastasis.

Pressurized intraperitoneal aerosol chemotherapy (PIPAC)-directed therapy is a new treatment option for peritoneal metastasis (PM). The 4-tiered Peritoneal Regression Grading Score (PRGS) has been proposed for assessment of histological treatment response. We aimed to evaluate the effect of immunohistochemistry (IHC) on interobserver agreement of the PRGS. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&amp;E)-stained and IHC-stained slides (n = 662) from 331 peritoneal quadrant biopsies (QBs) taken prior to 99 PIPAC procedures performed on 33 patients were digitalized and uploaded to a web library. Eight raters (five consultants and three residents) assessed the PRGS, and Krippendorff's alpha coefficients (α) were calculated. Results (IHC-PRGS) were compared with data published in 2019, using H&amp;E-stained slides only (H&amp;E-PRGS). Overall, agreement for IHC-PRGS was substantial to almost perfect. Agreement (all raters) regarding single QBs after treatment was substantial for IHC-PRGS (α = 0.69, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.66-0.72) and moderate for H&amp;E-PRGS (α = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.56-0.64). Agreement (all raters) regarding the mean PRGS per QB set after treatment was higher for IHC-PRGS (α = 0.78, 95% CI = 0.73-0.83) than for H&amp;E-PRGS (α = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.64-0.78). Among residents, agreement was almost perfect for IHC-PRGS and substantial for H&amp;E-PRGS. Agreement (all raters) regarding maximum PRGS per QB set after treatment was substantial for IHC-PRGS (α = 0.61, 95% CI = 0.54-0.68) and moderate for H&amp;E-PRGS (α = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.53-0.66). Among residents, agreement was substantial for IHC-PRGS (α = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.57-0.75) and moderate for H&amp;E-PRGS (α = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.45-0.64). Additional IHC seems to improve the interobserver agreement of PRGS, particularly between less experienced raters

Local and remote controls on observed Arctic warming

Copyright © 2012 American Geophysical UnionThe Arctic is warming two to four times faster than the global average. Debate continues on the relative roles of local factors, such as sea ice reductions, versus remote factors in driving, or amplifying, Arctic warming. This study examines the vertical profile and seasonality of observed tropospheric warming, and addresses its causes using atmospheric general circulation model simulations. The simulations enable the isolation and quantification of the role of three controlling factors of Arctic warming: 1) observed Arctic sea ice concentration (SIC) and sea surface temperature (SST) changes; 2) observed remote SST changes; and 3) direct radiative forcing (DRF) due to observed changes in greenhouse gases, ozone, aerosols, and solar output. Local SIC and SST changes explain a large portion of the observed Arctic near-surface warming, whereas remote SST changes explain the majority of observed warming aloft. DRF has primarily contributed to Arctic tropospheric warming in summer

Body mass index trajectories from 2 to 18 years - exploring differences between European cohorts.

BACKGROUND: In recent decades, there has been an increase in the prevalence of childhood overweight in most high-income countries. Within northern Europe, prevalence tends to be higher in the UK compared with the Scandinavian countries. We aimed to study differences in body mass index (BMI) trajectories between large cohorts of children from UK and Scandinavian populations. METHODS: We compared BMI trajectories in participants from the English Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children born in 1991-1993 (ALSPAC) (N = 6517), the Northern Finland Birth Cohorts born in 1966 (NFBC1966) (N = 3321) and 1986 (NFBC1986) (N = 4764), and the Danish Aarhus Birth Cohort born in 1990-1992 (ABC) (N = 1920). We used multilevel models to estimate BMI trajectories from 2 to 18 years. We explored whether cohort differences were explained by maternal BMI, height, education or smoking during pregnancy and whether differences were attributable to changes in the degree of skew in the BMI distribution. RESULTS: Differences in mean BMI between the cohorts were small but emerged early and persisted in most cases across childhood. Girls in ALSPAC had a higher BMI than all other cohorts throughout childhood, e.g. compared with the NFBC1986 BMI was 2.2-3.5% higher. For boys, the difference emerging over time (comparing the two NFBC's) exceeded the differences across populations (comparing NFBC1986, ABC and ALSPAC). BMI distribution demonstrated increasing right skew with age. CONCLUSION: Population-level differences between cohorts were small, tended to emerge very early, persisted across childhood, and demonstrated an increase in the right-hand tail of the BMI distribution

Contribution of sea-ice loss to Arctic amplification is regulated by Pacific Ocean decadal variability

The pace of Arctic warming is about double that at lower latitudes – a robust phenomenon known as Arctic amplification (AA)1. Many diverse climate processes and feedbacks cause AA2-7, including positive feedbacks associated with diminished sea ice6,7. However, the precise contribution of sea-ice loss to AA remains uncertain7,8. Through analyses of both observations and model simulations, we show that the contribution of sea-ice loss to wintertime AA appears dependent on the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Our results suggest that for the same pattern and amount of sea-ice loss, consequent Arctic warming is larger during the negative PDO phase, relative to the positive phase, leading to larger reductions in the poleward gradient of tropospheric thickness and to more pronounced reductions in the upper-level westerlies. Given the oscillatory nature of the PDO, this relationship has the potential to increase skill in decadal-scale predictability of Arctic and sub-Arctic climate. Our results indicate that Arctic warming in response to the ongoing long-term sea-ice decline9,10 is greater (reduced) during periods of negative (positive) PDO phase. We speculate that the observed recent shift to the positive PDO phase, if maintained and all other factors being equal, could act to temporarily reduce the pace of wintertime Arctic warming in the near future.J.A.S. was funded by a UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grants NE/J019585/1 and NE/M006123/1. J.A.F. was supported by an NSF/ARCSS grant (1304097) and NASA grant (NNX14AH896). The model simulations were performed on the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service. We thank the NOAA ESRL and Met Office Hadley Centre for provision of observational and reanalysis data sets. We also thank D. Ackerley for helping to diagnose the cause of model crashes, C. Deser for commenting on the manuscript prior to submission, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive criticism

Event structures for the reversible early internal pi-calculus

The pi-calculus is a widely used process calculus, which models com-munications between processes and allows the passing of communication links.Various operational semantics of the pi-calculus have been proposed, which canbe classified according to whether transitions are unlabelled (so-called reductions)or labelled. With labelled transitions, we can distinguish early and late semantics.The early version allows a process to receive names it already knows from the en-vironment, while the late semantics and reduction semantics do not. All existingreversible versions of the pi-calculus use reduction or late semantics, despite theearly semantics of the (forward-only) pi-calculus being more widely used than thelate. We define piIH, the first reversible early pi-calculus, and give it a denotationalsemantics in terms of reversible bundle event structures. The new calculus is a re-versible form of the internal pi-calculus, which is a subset of the pi-calculus whereevery link sent by an output is private, yielding greater symmetry between inputsand outputs