Työkyvyttömyydestä ja työttömyydestä aiheutuva työelämästä poissaolo sekä aktiivitoimenpiteille osallistuminen Pohjoismaissa 2005 ja 2010

Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan työkyvyttömyysetuuksien, rekisteröidyn työttömyyden sekä aktiiveille työvoimapoliittisille toimenpiteille osallistumisen yleisyyttä Pohjoismaiden työikäisissä väestöissä vuosina 2005 ja 2010. Lisäksi kuvataan kunkin maan etuus- ja työvoimapoliittisten järjestelmien pääpiirteet ja tärkeimmät uudistukset 2000-luvun aikana. Tarkastelu perustuu pääasiassa Pohjoismaisten sosiaaliturvaviranomaisten, pohjoismaisen sosiaalitilastokomitean NOSOSKO:n sekä Eurostatin tilastollisiin tietokantoihin, joista kerättiin sekä järjestelmäkuvauksia että tilastotietoja. Työkyvyttömien ja työttömien yhteismäärä eli työikäiseen väestöön suhteutettu ”kokonaispoissaoloaste” oli kumpanakin vuonna Pohjoismaiden korkein Suomessa, vaikka se pienenikin jonkin verran 2005–2010 (19,1 % ->17,8 % työikäisistä). Poissaolo oli vähentynyt eniten Ruotsissa (17,0 % -> 12,2 % työikäisistä). Tanskassa sekä Norjassa poissaoloaste oli tarkasteluvuosina noin 13–14 % tuntumassa. Aktiiveille työvoimapoliittisille toimenpiteille osallistuneiden määrä oli koko tutkimusjakson ajan suurin Tanskassa (4,1 % - 5,4 % työikäisistä). Suomi poikkesi muista maista siinä, että meillä aktivointi painottui suhteellisesti enemmän työvoimapoliittiseen koulutukseen ja vähemmän tuettuun työllistämiseen. Merkittävää oli myös se, että Suomesta edelleenkin puuttuivat suoraan vajaakuntoisille suunnatut työllistämistoimet, vaikka tämän kohderyhmän osuus muissa maissa oli yli puolet kaikesta tuetusta työllistämisestä. Yleiskuvana oli, että Suomi on sekä järjestelmien rakenteellisen kehittämisen että niiden tilastollisten käyttöasteiden suhteen pysynyt tutkimusajanjaksolla jokseenkin paikoillaan, kun kaikissa muissa Pohjoismaissa muutokset ovat olleet suuria yleensä usealla osa-alueella. Yhteisenä piirteenä muille Pohjoismaille on ollut työkyvyttömyysetuuksien ja työvoimapoliittisten toimenpiteiden hallinnollinen lähentäminen ja jopa osittainen yhteen sulauttaminen. Vielä ei ole käytettävissä riittävästi tietoa siitä, missä määrin järjestelmien työnjaon muutokset ovat auttaneet tehostamaan työmarkkinoilla heikossa asemassa olevien palvelua ja palauttamaan heitä takaisin työelämään. Selvää kuitenkin on, että muiden Pohjoismaiden uudenlaista lähestymistapaa tulisi Suomessakin tarkoin seurata

Inconsequential harmonization of Danish competition law

By replicating Articles 85 and 86 of the EC Treaty the Danish Competition Act (put in force January 1998) constituted a shift from the control principle to the prohibition principle. This is an important improvement from the point of view that regulatory legislation should be designed to give business economics incentives to act in a socially beneficial way, placing the burden of efficiency losses at the party who can avoid such losses at the least expected cost. The act now correctly makes businessses ex ante liable, but two equally important elements of an optimally designed antitrust legislation are missing: (1) The authority of the enforcing agency to impose administrative fines of a magnitude that makes the expected cost of infringements negative; (2) An appropriate organizational structure. With these two deficiencies the practical signifiance of the shift of principle is likely to be insignificant

Radiobiological modeling of hyperthermia combined with Gamma-Knife radiosurgery in pediatric brain cancer

Assessment of the synergistic effect of radiotherapy (RT) and hyperthermia (HT) in clinical settings is crucial for further expansion of hyperthermia. The radiobiological modeling using an extended version of the LQ model with temperature-dependent radiosensitivity parameters has been suggested in combination with external beam radiotherapy in previous studies. This study investigates the radiobiological effect of intracranial hyperthermia combined with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) in pediatric brain cancers.\ua0The hyperthermia treatment plan was achieved with an elliptical applicator consisting of 16 ORWG antennas working at 400 MHz and a hybrid Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) optimization procedure based on Time-Reversal and PSO. The radiotherapy plan was created by the treatment planning software of Leksell Gamma Knife\uae Icon™

Radiobiological evaluation of combined gamma knife radiosurgery and hyperthermia for pediatric neuro-oncology

Combining radiotherapy (RT) with hyperthermia (HT) has been proven effective in the treatment of a wide range of tumours, but the combination of externally delivered, focused heat and stereotactic radiosurgery has never been investigated. We explore the potential of such treatment enhancement via radiobiological modelling, specifically via the linear-quadratic (LQ) model adapted to thermoradiotherapy through modulating the radiosensitivity of temperature-dependent parame-ters. We extend this well-established model by incorporating oxygenation effects. To illustrate the methodology, we present a clinically relevant application in pediatric oncology, which is novel in two ways. First, it deals with medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumour in children, a type of brain tumour not previously reported in the literature of thermoradiotherapy studies. Second, it makes use of the Gamma Knife for the radiotherapy part, thereby being the first of its kind in this context. Quantitative metrics like the biologically effective dose (BED) and the tumour control probability (TCP) are used to assess the efficacy of the combined plan

Nucleon-induced fission cross-sections of tantalum and separated tungsten isotopes and "compound nucleus" effect in intermediate energy region

Neutron- and proton-induced fission cross-sections of separated isotopes of tungsten (182W, 183W, 184W, and 186W) and 181Ta relative to 209Bi have been measured in the incident nucleon energy region 50 - 200 MeV using fission chambers based on thin-film breakdown counters (TFBC) using quasi-monoenergetic neutrons from the 7Li(p,n) reaction and at the proton beams of The Svedberg Laboratory (TSL), Uppsala University (Uppsala, Sweden). The results are compared with predictions by the CEM03.01 event generator, as well as with the recent data for nuclei in the lead-bismuth region. The effect of "compound nucleus" in the intermediate energy region is discussed, displaying in exponential dependence of nucleon-induced fission cross-sections on the parameter Z^2/A of the composite system (projectile+target nucleus), and in other characteristics of the fission process for which parameter Z^2/A plays a role similar to the one of the usual liquid-drop parameter Z^2/A of compound nuclei.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, only pdf file, to be published in Proc. Int. Conf. on Nucl. Data for Sci. and Technology (ND2007), Nice, France, April 22-27, 200

Synergistic and antagonistic effects of land use and non‐native species on community responses to climate change

Climate change, land‐use change and introductions of non‐native species are key determinants of biodiversity change worldwide. However, the extent to which anthropogenic drivers of environmental change interact to affect biological communities is largely unknown, especially over longer time periods. Here, we show that plant community composition in 996 Swedish landscapes has consistently shifted to reflect the warmer and wetter climate that the region has experienced during the second half of the 20th century. Using community climatic indices, which reflect the average climatic associations of the species within each landscape at each time period, we found that species compositions in 74% of landscapes now have a higher representation of warm‐associated species than they did previously, while 84% of landscapes now host more species associated with higher levels of precipitation. In addition to a warmer and wetter climate, there have also been large shifts in land use across the region, while the fraction of non‐native species has increased in the majority of landscapes. Climatic warming at the landscape level appeared to favour the colonization of warm‐associated species, while also potentially driving losses in cool‐associated species. However, the resulting increases in community thermal means were apparently buffered by landscape simplification (reduction in habitat heterogeneity within landscapes) in the form of increased forest cover. Increases in non‐native species, which generally originate from warmer climates than Sweden, were a strong driver of community‐level warming. In terms of precipitation, both landscape simplification and increases in non‐natives appeared to favour species associated with drier climatic conditions, to some extent counteracting the climate‐driven shift towards wetter communities. Anthropogenic drivers can act both synergistically and antagonistically to determine trajectories of change in biological communities over time. Therefore, it is important to consider multiple drivers of global change when trying to understand, manage and predict biodiversity in the future