Sticky prices in the euro area: a summary of new micro evidence

This paper presents original evidence on price setting in the euro area at the individual level. We use micro data on consumer (CPI) and producer (PPI) prices, as well as survey information. Our main findings are: (i) prices in the euro area are sticky and more so than in the US; (ii) there is evidence of heterogeneity and of asymmetries in price setting behaviour; (iii) downward price rigidity is only slightly more marked than upward price rigidity and (iv) implicit or explicit contracts and coordination failure theories are important, whereas menu or information costs are judged much less relevant by firms. JEL Classification: C25, D40, E31consumer prices, price setting, Price stickiness, producer prices, survey data

(On)begrensde Technologie

Er zijn voorspellingen gedaan, bijvoorbeeld door het World Economic Forum, dat we aan de vooravond van een ‘vierde industriële revolutie’ staan, die draait om het meer verbonden raken van informatie- en productieprocessen. Als dat zo is, zal dat maatschappelijke gevolgen voor Zuid-Holland en daarmee implicaties voor het beleid van de provincie hebben. De onderzoeksvraag van deze studie is dan ook: “Wat is de maatschappelijke [sociale, economische en ruimtelijke] invloed van nieuwe productie- en informatietechnologieën? En, hoe verandert dat de wijze waarop we als provincie aan de opgaven van de toekomst werken?”. Hiertoe hebben we een literatuurstudie over de potentiële maatschappelijke gevolgen van nieuwe technologie verricht en daarna in interactie met stakeholders en de provincie vier scenario’s ontwikkeld

One year effectiveness of an app-based treatment for urinary incontinence in comparison to care as usual in Dutch general practice:A pragmatic randomised controlled trial over 12 months

OBJECTIVE: To assess the long-term effectiveness of app-based treatment for female stress, urgency, or mixed urinary incontinence (UI) compared to care-as-usual in primary care. DESIGN: A pragmatic, randomised controlled, superiority trial. SETTING: Primary care in the Netherlands from 2015 to 2018, follow-up at 12 months. POPULATION: Women with ≥2 UI-episodes per week, access to mobile apps, wanting treatment. 262 women randomised equally to app or care-as-usual; 89 (68%) and 83 (63%) attended one year follow-up. INTERVENTIONS: The standalone app included conservative management for UI with motivation aids (e.g., reminders). Care-as-usual delivered according to the Dutch GP guideline for UI. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Effectiveness assessed by the change in symptom severity score (ICIQ-UI-SF) and the change in quality of life (ICIQ-LUTS-QoL) with linear regression on an intention-to-treat basis. RESULTS: Clinically relevant improvement of UI severity for both app (-2.17 ± 2.81) and care-as-usual (-3.43 ± 3.6), with a non-significant mean difference of 0.903 (-0.66 to 1.871). CONCLUSION: App-based treatment is a viable alternative to care-as-usual for UI in primary care in terms of effectiveness after one year

Cost-effectiveness of an app-based treatment for urinary incontinence in comparison with care-as-usual in Dutch general practice:a pragmatic randomised controlled trial over 12 months

OBJECTIVE: To assess the cost-effectiveness of app-based treatment for female stress, urgency, or mixed urinary incontinence (UI) compared to care-as-usual in Dutch primary care. DESIGN: A pragmatic, randomised controlled, superiority trial. SETTING: Primary care in the Netherlands from 2015 to 2018, follow-up at 12 months. POPULATION: Women with ≥2 UI-episodes per week, access to mobile apps, wanting treatment. INTERVENTIONS: The standalone app included conservative management for UI with motivation aids (e.g., reminders). Care-as-usual delivered according to the Dutch GP guideline for UI. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Costs and cost-effectiveness and -utility were assessed from a societal perspective, based on Incontinence Impact Adjusted Life Years (IIALYs), Quality Adjusted Life years (QALYs) and medical, non-medical and productivity costs. Information on costs was obtained with the iMCQ and iPCQ questionnaires (Medical Consumption and Productivity Cost Questionnaires). RESULTS: 262 women randomised equally to app or care-as-usual; 89 (68%) and 83 (63%) attended follow-up. Costs were lower for app-based treatment with €-161 (95%CI: -180 to -151) per year. Cost-effectiveness showed small mean differences in effect for IIALY (0.04) and QALY (-0.03) and thus larger ICER (-€3,696) and ICUR (€6,379) (Incremental Cost-Effectiveness and Cost-utility Ratios). CONCLUSION: App-based treatment is a cost-effective alternative to care-as-usual for women with UI in Dutch primary care

Effectiveness and costs of a new framework for selecting absorbent urinary incontinence products compared with current practice:a cohort study

Objectives To improve continence care in the Netherlands, a new framework has been developed in which a shift has been made from incontinence severity as the sole criterion for selecting incontinence products to a focus on patient need for daily life activities. The impact of the framework on daily care has not been assessed. We aimed to compare treatment effectiveness and costs between participants who did and did not undergo re-evaluation according to the new framework. Design Cohort study Setting Twelve pharmacies in the Netherlands Participants Existing users of absorbent incontinence materials for urinary incontinence. Interventions Participants were offered the option to have their incontinence products re-evaluated within the new framework at their pharmacy. Primary and secondary outcome measures Effectiveness and cost outcomes were assessed at 3 and 6 months through questionnaires. These questionnaires included the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire (ICIQ) Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Quality of Life Module, ICIQ Urinary Incontinence Short Form, ICIQ Absorbent Pads, questions about satisfaction and the iPCQ and iMCQ. Results 303 users consented and 279 completed the baseline questionnaire. Of these participants, 72 agreed to a re-evaluation of their incontinence materials. There was a small improvement at 3 months in the re-evaluation group compared with the other group on most outcomes. However, these improvements were not clinically relevant. Moreover, these differences did not change much from 3 to 6 months. Small differences were also observed in the changes in costs, but with very wide CIs on both sides of zero (euro99.38; 95% CI -633.48 to 832.23). Conclusions The current study showed no clinically relevant effect of a newly implemented framework for selecting incontinence materials in pharmacies when compared with an existing method. Given that the study also showed no differences in effectiveness and costs, introducing the new framework in pharmacies may not lead to better incontinence care.</p

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

The brightness and spatial distributions of terrestrial radio sources

Faint undetected sources of radio-frequency interference (RFI) might become visible in long radio observations when they are consistently present over time. Thereby, they might obstruct the detection of the weak astronomical signals of interest. This iss

Probing atmospheric electric fields in thunderstorms through radio emission from cosmic-ray-induced air showers

We present measurements of radio emission from cosmic ray air showers that took place during thunderstorms. The intensity and polarization patterns of these air showers are radically different from those measured during fair-weather conditions. With the use of a simple two-layer model for the atmospheric electric field, these patterns can be well reproduced by state-of-the-art simulation codes. This in turn provides a novel way to study atmospheric electric fields

A LOFAR observation of ionospheric scintillation from two simultaneous travelling ionospheric disturbances

This paper presents the results from one of the first observations of ionospheric scintillation taken using the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR). The observation was of the strong natural radio source Cassiopeia A, taken overnight on 18–19 August 2013, and exhibited moderately strong scattering effects in dynamic spectra of intensity received across an observing bandwidth of 10–80 MHz. Delay-Doppler spectra (the 2-D FFT of the dynamic spectrum) from the first hour of observation showed two discrete parabolic arcs, one with a steep curvature and the other shallow, which can be used to provide estimates of the distance to, and velocity of, the scattering plasma. A cross-correlation analysis of data received by the dense array of stations in the LOFAR “core” reveals two different velocities in the scintillation pattern: a primary velocity of ~20–40 ms−1 with a north-west to south-east direction, associated with the steep parabolic arc and a scattering altitude in the F-region or higher, and a secondary velocity of ~110 ms−1 with a north-east to south-west direction, associated with the shallow arc and a scattering altitude in the D-region. Geomagnetic activity was low in the mid-latitudes at the time, but a weak sub-storm at high latitudes reached its peak at the start of the observation. An analysis of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and ionosonde data from the time reveals a larger-scale travelling ionospheric disturbance (TID), possibly the result of the high-latitude activity, travelling in the north-west to south-east direction, and, simultaneously, a smaller-scale TID travelling in a north-east to south-west direction, which could be associated with atmospheric gravity wave activity. The LOFAR observation shows scattering from both TIDs, at different altitudes and propagating in different directions. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time that such a phenomenon has been reported