Specific measures for older employees and late career employment

We analyse the effects of specific measures for older employees (SMOE) on employment duration of workers aged 40 and above. Using longitudinal employer-employee data for German establishments, we account for worker and establishment heterogeneity and correct for stock-sampling. We find a positive effect of mixed-aged team work on employment duration and a negative effect of a part-time scheme addressed at older workers. Employment duration does not appear to be related to other SMOE, such as training and specific equipment of workplaces

Do employment subsidies reduce early apprenticeship dropout?

We evaluate the effect of the Apprenticeship Bonus, an employment subsidy programme, on early dropout of apprenticeship. Eligibility to the programme is restricted to school leavers who have actively searched for apprenticeship training to start immediately after leaving school, but were unsuccessful in finding a position. Our analysis is based on rich survey data that has been collected specifically for this study. Using this data, we describe the characteristics of school leavers who have searched for apprenticeship positions unsuccessfully directly leaving school and analyse the effect of the subsidy on the risk of apprenticeship dropout. Even though the subsidy provides strong incentives to prevent dropout, we do not find significant effects of the programme. Our finding suggests that financial incentives are not effective in increasing the probability to finish vocational in-firm training successfully

Click chemistry within LDPE

Specialty LDPE copolymers provide some of the highest added value polyolefin applications and, in the quest to differentiate in an increasingly commoditized polyolefin environment, are of considerable interest to LDPE producers and other polyolefin players.1 In 2015, global specialty LDPE copolymers production was estimated around 6900 kT, from those EVA (Ethylene Vinyl Acetate) accounts for nearly 90 % of it.1 Other examples are EBA (Ethylene Butyl Acrylate), EVOH (Ethylene Vinyl Alcohol), COC (Cyclic Olefin Copolymer), MAH (Maleic AnHydride) grafted PE, … which all have their specific properties and are used in different kind of applications. All above mentioned commercial grades are made either by in reactor functionalization, copolymerization of ethylene and a monomer, or by post-modification, grafting of a monomer onto a PE backbone. A combination of both routes would give the advantage of producing one base grade; therefore, no changes in reactor settings are required and the properties of the polymer can be tuned by post-modification reactions. Please download the file below for full content

High Strain‐Rate Compression Experiments on Ni/Polyurethane Hybrid Metal Foams Using the Split‐Hopkinson Pressure Bar Technique

Open-cell metal foams are a versatile class of porous lightweight materials, which are predominantly used as kinetic energy absorbers in a wide scope of appli cations. Based on their bio-inspired inhomogeneous 3D porous structure, they are capable to significantly reduce the mass of structural designs. Starting with a polyurethane (PU) template foam, the specimens in the present contribution are manufactured by an electrochemical nickel (Ni) deposition. This manufacturing process is beneficial regarding both the specimen design and the adjustment of mechanical properties correlated with the Ni-coating thickness. Herein, the strain-rate sensitivity of open-cell Ni/PU hybrid metal foams is investigated by quasistatic compression tests and high-velocity impact tests conducted with a conventional split-Hopkinson pressure bar device

Microstructural enrichment functions based on stochastic Wang tilings

This paper presents an approach to constructing microstructural enrichment functions to local fields in non-periodic heterogeneous materials with applications in Partition of Unity and Hybrid Finite Element schemes. It is based on a concept of aperiodic tilings by the Wang tiles, designed to produce microstructures morphologically similar to original media and enrichment functions that satisfy the underlying governing equations. An appealing feature of this approach is that the enrichment functions are defined only on a small set of square tiles and extended to larger domains by an inexpensive stochastic tiling algorithm in a non-periodic manner. Feasibility of the proposed methodology is demonstrated on constructions of stress enrichment functions for two-dimensional mono-disperse particulate media.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures; v2: completely re-written after the first revie

Positive Computing as Paradigm to Overcome Barriers to Global Co-authoring of Open Educational Resources

The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) can support collaboration and knowledge sharing. One of the main areas of the usage OER is the internationalization, i.e., the use in a global context. However, the globally distributed co-creation of digital materials is still low. Therefore, we identify essential barriers, in particular for co-authoring of OER in global environments. We use a design science research method to introduce a barrier framework for co-authoring OER in global settings and propose a wellbeing-based system design constructed from the barrier framework for OER co-authoring tool. We describe how positive computing concepts can be used to overcome barriers, emphasizing design that promotes the author’s sense of competence, relatedness, and autonomy

Development of a real-time quantitative assay for detection of Epstein-Barr virus

With the use of real-time PCR, we developed and evaluated a rapid, sensitive, specific, and reproducible method for the detection of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA in plasma samples. This method allowed us to screen plasma and serum samples over a range between 100 and 10(7) copies of DNA per ml using two sample preparation methods based on absorption. A precision study yielded an average coefficient of variation for both methods of less than 12%, with a coefficient of regression for the standard curve of a minimum of 0. 98. We detected EBV DNA in 19.2% of plasma samples from immunosuppressed solid-organ transplant patients without symptoms of EBV infections with a mean load of 440 copies per ml. EBV DNA could be detected in all transplant patients diagnosed with posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorder, with a mean load of 544,570 copies per ml. No EBV DNA could be detected in healthy individuals in nonimmunosuppressed control groups and a mean of 6,400 copies per ml could be detected in patients with infectious mononucleosis. Further studies revealed that the inhibitory effect of heparinized plasma could be efficiently removed by use of an extraction method with Celite as the absorbent