Effects of Changes in the Unemployment Insurance Eligibility Requirements on Job Duration - Swedish Evidence

This paper investigates the impact of the unemployment insurance (UI) entrance re-quirement on employment duration among earlier unemployed in Sweden. I exploit changes in the rules taking place in 1994 and 1997 to study behavioural adjustments in the timing of job separation in 1992, 1996, and 1998 respectively. Performing across-year analyses with years involving different working requirements, I find evi-dence of clustering of job exits at the time of UI qualification. By using predicted hazard rates for each week, I calculate an approximate 2.9-week extension in average employment duration between 1996 and 1998, due to the 5-week prolonging of the entrance requirement.-

Experimental evidence from intensified placement efforts among unemployed in Sweden

This paper uses experimental data to study the effects of participation in intensified placement efforts on subsequent job chances and earnings. Five small-scale experiments were performed in four different regions of Sweden in 2004 and the control groups were offered the PES regular services. Due to small samples, many of the impact estimates were imprecise and insignificant. However, the services generally reduced unemployment among the treated. I find significantly enhanced exits to either jobs or other activities (or both) in four of the experiments. Three of the experiments also report positive effects on employment probability and earnings in the years following the programme. Finally, combining job-search assistance and monitoring of job search generated significantly better results than monitoring alone in one of the experiment locations.Active labour market policy evaluation; randomised social experiment; placement efforts

Are there pre-programme effects of Swedish active labour market policies? Evidence from three randomised experiments

In this paper experimental data from three Swedish demonstration programmes in 2004 are used to study pre-programme effects of active placement efforts. In one of the experiments, targeted towards a broad group of UI receivers, arranged job-search activities in groups combined with increased monitoring of job-search efforts generated a 46 per cent increase in the escape rate between referral to and start of the programme services. This translates into a two-week reduction of the ongoing UI spell. Referrals to increased monitoring alone did not have the same effect on exit behaviour. In the other two experiments, targeted towards youth and highly educated respectively, referrals to active placement efforts had no effect on the pre-programme outflow.Pre-programme effect; policy evaluation; social experiment

Artros - en sjukdom som drabbar både djur och människa, en komparativ studie med kaninen som modelldjur.

SAMMANFATTNING Artros och skador i ledbrosk är vanliga problem hos både människor och djur, som orsakar stora fysiska besvär i form av smärta och nedsatt rörelseförmåga. Idag finns ett flertal olika behandlingsmetoder mot artros, men ännu finns ingen bra behandlingsmetod för att åstadkomma läkning av ett skadat ledbrosk. I den här studien användes kanin som modelldjur för att utvärdera en ny behandling mot artros på människa. Målet var att stimulera nybildning av ledbrosk via rekrytering av mesenkymala stamceller. Studien utfördes på 20 kaniner av rasen New Zeeland White, 6-7 månader gamla honor med en kroppsvikt på ca 4 kg. En ledskada skapades med borr på den mediala femurkondylen i kaninernas vänstra knäled under anestesi. Därefter injicerades en hyaluronsyragel enbart eller tillsammans med tillväxtfaktorn bone morphogenic protein-2 (BMP-2) i leden. En likadan skada skapades i den högra knäleden, men i denna injicierades istället koksaltlösning som kontrollbehandling. De två första veckorna postoperativt undersöktes kaninerna dagligen avseende allmäntillstånd och vikt. Knälederna undersöktes särskilt efter tecken på infektion och graden av hälta uppskattades på en 4-gradig skala. Efter tre månader (n=5) och sex månader (n=10) avlivades kaninerna och knälederna undersöktes histologiskt samt med magnetkamera (MRI) för att utvärdera nybildning av ledbrosk. Studien utgör den kliniska delen av forskningsprojektet och i detta arbete presenteras resultaten från operationen och den postoperativa perioden.SUMMARY Osteoarthritis and articular cartilage lesions are common problems affecting both people and animals, causing large amounts of pain and functional disability. Many different strategies have been used to treat osteoarthritis, but no good treatment to accomplish regeneration of damaged articular cartilage is available today. In this study rabbits were used as a model for finding a new treatment against osteoarthritis in humans. The goal was to stimulate regeneration of damaged articular cartilage by recruitment of mesenchymal stem cells from subchondral bone. The study was performed on 20 New Zealand White rabbits. A cartilage defect was induced on the medial femoral condyle in the left knee joint. The defects were treated with hyaluronan hydrogel containing the growth factor bone morphogenic protein-2 (BMP-2) or hyaluronan hydrogel itself. The same defect was induced in the rabbits’ right knee joint which was injected with isotonic saline to serve as a control. The first weeks postoperatively the rabbits were examined every day. The knees were examined for signs of infection and the grade of lameness was estimated on a scale from 0 to 3. After surgery the animals were kept for three months (n=5) or six months (n=10) until they were euthanized. A pathological examination and a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the knee joints were performed to evaluate the regeneration of articular cartilage. The study is a part of a larger research project and in this assignment the results from the clinical part are presented

Prove you suffer, prove you aren't Daesh - An empirical study on internal displacement in the Ninewa region in Iraq

Throughout its history Iraq has been plagued by colonialism, the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and sectarian violence more broadly. Since June 2014 when the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) captured nearly a third of Iraq, the threat of acts of terror and the ‘influx’ of forcibly displaced people have been in the limelight of international attention. During this period there have been reports on the plight of minorities and and the brutality of the IS, particularly in the Ninewa region in Iraq. In the summer of 2017, Mosul was the site of a large military battle involving the international coalition, the Iraqi government, Kurdish troops and militia groups working together in a coordinated effort to defeat IS. These events have resulted in a large number of internally displaced persons, amounting to more than 3 million at the height of the humanitarian emergency, highlighting a need for reviewing the consequences of displacement in Ninewa. With the help of open-ended interviews and ethnographic observation conducted in Iraq in July 2018, this thesis seeks to understand the context of internal displacement in Ninewa and contribute to the very limited academic literature on internal displacement in the region. It examines the label ‘internally displaced person’ and highlights the term’s interconnectedness with violence and the role of the trauma story. By using intersectionality as an analytical tool, this research analyses how the violence experienced by internally displaced persons is impacted by factors such as gender, ethno-religious background and socio-economic situation. It also looks at the role of the ‘local’ and the ‘international’ in this state of emergency. The findings of this thesis are that the dynamics of internal displacement in Ninewa paint a much more complex picture than the one painted by in international reports. This research also concludes that the violence that led to displacement was the major cause of marginalisation, which, through intersections with gender, socio-economic situation and ethno-religious belonging shapes individual displacement experiences and vice versa. The management of the crisis has largely been shaped by the historical consequences of the various conflicts in Iraq and by the specific threat that the Islamic State posed not only to Iraq, but also on the international community more broadly. This has made the situation in Ninewa an ‘exceptional state of exception’, which the securitisation of the management of the crisis has been legitimised in ways that have concrete impacts on locals through checkpoints and requiring individuals to verify their identity and experiences. The involvement of and diffusion between multiple actors on the local and international levels have further complicated the experiences of IDPs and the power dynamics in Ninewa

Optogenetic control of spinal microcircuits : insights into locomotor rhythm and pattern generation

Mammalian locomotion is a complex task in which hundreds of muscles work together in a coordinated fashion. Neural networks in the spinal cord, known as central pattern generators (CPGs), carry all the components necessary to produce the cyclical pattern of muscle activity needed for locomotion. The fact that the locomotor CPG is innate and highly localized makes it outstanding as a subject to study how a complex, but concrete behavior, is produced by a neuronal network. Two fundamental aspects of the CPG are rhythm generation, and flexor-extensor coordination. These two properties have sometimes been linked together, such as in the half-center model, in which the alternating activity between flexors and extensors are the cause of the rhythm. Other models for rhythm generation have also been postulated, consequently no consensus exists regarding the overall structure of the CPG for locomotion. Pharmacological investigations have indicated that glutamatergic neurons as essential for locomotion. To further elucidate the function of these neurons, the work presented in this thesis has made use of a set of new tools to target glutamatergic neurons, and elucidate their specific contribution to locomotion. A mouse was produced that expressed the optically gated ion channel Channelrhodopsin-2, making it possible for the first time to selectively activate a genetically specific sub-population of neurons in the spinal cord. The experiments using this mouse show that glutamatergic neuron activation is sufficient to produce locomotor-like activity, both in the spinal cord, and in the hindbrain. With the use of another set of recently produced transgenic mice, it was possible to probe deeper into the structure of the CPG, and illuminate several key aspects of the organization of the network. Several proposed network models could be refuted and one in particular was promoted. The results show that the CPG network is build up from intrinsically rhythmic modules. Furthermore, a mouse without glutamatergic neurotransmission was examined. What was found was that the locomotion deficient mouse could produce locomotor-like activity under special conditions, and this activity depended solely on inhibitory interneurons, specifically, reciprocally connected Ia interneurons. Overall, glutamatergic neurons are shown to form intrinsically rhythmic modules that are indispensable for rhythm generation, and network function. The use of genetics and electrophysiology is a powerful combination that will continue to provide conclusions about how neural networks produce and control complex motor behavior