Macroeconomic effects of demographic aging in Austria. Bertelsmann Stiftung Country Sheet, December 2019

According to projections, the working-age population in Austria is going to age in the next 30 years, but is expected to shrink only slightly starting in the mid-/ late- 2020s. The expected decline is by about 2% between 2018 and 2050 (see Fig. 1). This overview shows how demographic aging (the scenario “projected population”) in Austria until 2050 will affect key macroeconomic indicators, compared to a scenario in which the population remains constant at the level of 2018 (the baseline “constant population (2018)”)

Macroeconomic effects of demographic aging in Germamy. Bertelsmann Stiftung Country Sheet, December 2019

According to projections, the working-age population in Austria is going to age in the next 30 years, but is expected to shrink only slightly starting in the mid-/ late- 2020s. The expected decline is by about 2% between 2018 and 2050 (see Fig. 1). This overview shows how demographic aging (the scenario “projected population”) in Austria until 2050 will affect key macroeconomic indicators, compared to a scenario in which the population remains constant at the level of 2018 (the baseline “constant population (2018)”)

Data sense-making and communicative gaps on sundhed.dk

This paper examines personal experiences of digital health data on the Danish eHealth platform sundhed.dk. Taking a patient’s view, the paper understands data sense-making as an embodied communicative practice. The empirical analysis, consisting of 24 purposefully sampled interviews, is brought together with the conceptual framework describing and unpacking the ambivalences to be found in digital health data experiences into themes of data ambivalence, emotional ambivalence, communicative ambivalence and identity ambivalence. This in-depth empirical description of patients’ ambivalent experiences contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the profound changes digital health data is having on a patients’ everyday lives. In particular, it emphasizes the communicative challenges arising from the constant availability of digital health data anytime, anywhere, and calls for further research into the new and unfamiliar communicative situations in which patients are placed and forced to navigate in

Practices of self-tracking in infertility treatment: How bodily awareness is constituted

Background: The femtech industry has grown extensively in recent years and in infertility treatment, the practice of digitally self-tracking menstrual cycles has become a popular way for patients to manage, monitor and deal with issues of fertility. Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate how patients’ self-tracking practices affect bodily awareness. Methods: The study draws on 20 qualitative interviews with 12 patients, recruited through a private clinic in Copenhagen, Denmark. Interviewees were selected based on the criteria: age, treatment type and length, and engagement in self-tracking practices. All interview material was thematically coded. Findings: The analysis results in three main themes: 1) self-tracking as a tool for knowledge creation and planning purposes, 2) self-tracking as body-awareness maximizing process, and 3) self-tracking as a professional and emotional process. Discussion: Through self-tracking practices, the menstrual cycle becomes a multiple object, interpreted and acted upon in diverse ways – all of which, however, aim to optimize conditions for conception. Conclusions: Self-tracking in infertility treatment affects bodily awareness in three distinctive ways: 1) it creates emotional ambivalence, 2) it places patients in an ambivalent position towards health professionals, and 3) it creates ambivalence towards patients’ understanding of the menstrual cycle

Macroeconomic effects of demographic aging: Impact on productivity growth and macroeconomic variables in selected industrialized countries. Potential gains offered by labor-saving technological progress Bertelsmann Stiftung Focus Paper April 2020.

Within most developed industrialized countries, demographic change means that populations are shrinking and growing older. This expected shift in population structure, especially the aging and shrinking of the working-age population, has significant consequences for an economy’s macroeconomic development. Areas affected include the country’s aggregate productivity, savings and investment rates, price-level trends, gross domestic product (both absolute and per capita) and current account balance. This focus paper outlines the most important findings of a comprehensive study conducted by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) on behalf of the Bertelsmann Stiftung (see also Bertelsmann Stiftung 2019). The study analyzes the influence of expected demographic developments on key macroeconomic variables in seven selected industrialized countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the United States). The calculations performed for the simulation run through the year 2050. Particular attention is given to determining the relationship between demographic aging and technological progress. It emerges here that some of the negative effects of demographic aging on the average level of gross domestic product per capita (GDP per capita) can be mitigated by labor-saving technological progress that is driven by expectations of demographic aging, insofar as more investment in the future is focused on automation and digitalization. This focus paper summarizes important key findings of our study “Macroeconomic consequences of ageing and directed technological change.” In Chapter 2, we sketch key interdependencies that illustrate how a change in a society’s age structure influences its macroeconomic development. Following the description of these theoretically expected relationships, Chapter 3 presents the results of regression analyses that empirically estimate these relationships on the basis of past developments. Chapter 4 initially presents the main findings of the population projections for all seven industrialized countries under examination. It then details some of the results of the macroeconomic simulation calculations, in which the empirically estimated effects of a changed age structure from Chapter 2 are combined with current population projections through 2050. For the purposes of clarity, the comparisons will focus on Germany, Japan and the United States. These simulations show how demographic aging can be expected to change key macroeconomic variables in the three countries through 2050, and how GDP (absolute and per capita) will develop in all seven industrialized countries. Finally, we look at the potential for gain offered by labor-saving technological progress

The Degradation of Synthetic Polymeric Scaffolds With Strut-like Architecture Influences the Mechanics-dependent Repair Process of an Osteochondral Defect in Silico

Current clinical treatments of osteochondral defects in articulating joints are frequently not successful in restoring articular surfaces. Novel scaffold-based tissue engineering strategies may help to improve current treatment options and foster a true regeneration of articulating structures. A frequently desired property of scaffolds is their ability to degrade over time and allow a full restoration of tissue and function. However, it remains largely unknown how scaffold degradation influences the mechanical stability of the tissue in a defect region and, in turn, the regenerative process. Such differing goals-supporting regeneration by degrading its own structure-can hardly be analyzed for tissue engineered constructs in clinical trials and in vivo preclinical experiments. Using an in silico analysis, we investigated the degradation-induced modifications in material and architectural properties of a scaffold with strut-like architecture over the healing course and their influence on the mechanics-dependent tissue formation in osteochondral defects. The repair outcome greatly varied depending on the degradation modality, i.e. surface erosion or bulk degradation with and without autocatalysis, and of the degradation speed, i.e. faster, equal or slower than the expected repair time. Bulk degradation with autocatalysis, independently of degradation speed, caused the mechanical failure of the scaffold prior to osteochondral defect repair and was thereby deemed inappropriate for further application. On the other hand, scaffolds with strut-like architecture degrading by both surface erosion and bulk degradation with slow degradation speed resulted in comparably good repair outcomes, thereby indicating such degradation modalities as favorable for the application in osteochondral defects

Scaffold-Dependent Mechanical and Architectural Cues Guide Osteochondral Defect Healing in silico

Osteochondral defects in joints require surgical intervention to relieve pain and restore function. However, no current treatment enables a complete reconstitution of the articular surface. It is known that both mechanical and biological factors play a key role on osteochondral defect healing, however the underlying principles and how they can be used in the design of treatment strategies remain largely unknown. To unravel the underlying principles of mechanobiology in osteochondral defect healing, i.e., how mechanical stimuli can guide biological tissue formation, we employed a computational approach investigating the scaffold-associated mechanical and architectural properties that would enable a guided defect healing. A previous computer model of the knee joint was further developed to simulate healing of an empty osteochondral defect. Then, scaffolds were implanted in the defect and their architectures and material properties were systematically varied to identify their relevance in osteochondral defect healing. Scaffold mechanical and architectural properties were capable of influencing osteochondral defect healing. Specifically, scaffold material elastic modulus values in the range of cancellous bone (low GPa range) and a scaffold architecture that provided stability, i.e., resistance against displacement, in both the main loading direction and perpendicular to it supported the repair process. The here presented model, despite its simplifications, is regarded as a powerful tool to screen for promising properties of novel scaffold candidates fostering osteochondral defect regeneration prior to their implementation in vivo