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In the present school-based study, a convenience sample of 477 students in grades 6-9 and second year in high school from a city and a smaller town recorded daily occurrence and intensity of headaches in a standard paper diary during a 3-week period. Total headache activity (headache sum), number of headache days, intensity level and duration for weekly headaches were estimated. Approximately 85% of the adolescents had experienced headache of any intensity level during the 3-week recording period. On the average, they reported 2.5 headache days per week and a mean intensity level for headache episodes of 1.7. Our estimates for headache of any intensity level (1-5) occurring at least once a week was surprisingly high (73.8%). For the highest intensity level across the whole 3-week period, almost identical proportions of mild and moderate headaches were reported by students (22.3-22.5%), while about twice as many (40.7%) had experienced severe headaches. Girls consistently reported more headaches than boys, in particular of the moderate and severe intensity types. Students in the city also reported more frequent and intense headaches than those in the town. Peak headache activity was observed at noon and in the afternoon and in the days from the middle of the week until weekend. The use of prospective recordings in diaries will further advance our knowledge on the prevalence and characteristics of recurrent headaches among children and adolescents in community samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational choice models predict that, ceteris paribus, countries with higher dispersion of skill will have higher market labour income inequality. However, an extended conclusion from empirical research is that cross-country variations in dispersion of skill explain little of the variation in income inequality. This paper identifies factors related to production and organization technologies that moderate the relationship between dispersion of skill and dispersion of income in occupational choice equilibrium outcomes and that, if not properly accounted for, can bias the results of the empirical studies that explain dispersion of income as a function of dispersion of skill. In particular, comparing equilibrium outcomes from occupational choices in economies that differ in the distribution of skill and in the efficiency of supervision hierarchies, the paper can explain why the US and Sweden have similar labour productivity, but income inequality is higher in the US than in Sweden, and why productivity is lower and income inequality is higher in Spain than in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its potential economic and environmental benefits, intercropping adoption remains limited in Europe. Drawing upon the Transtheoretical Model, this paper views adoption decision as stages of behavioural change. The paper aims to investigate socioeconomic, behavioural, and policy factors associated with stage of change in intercropping adoption in Sweden. Exploratory factor analysis and generalized ordered logit regression were performed on data from a nation-wide farmer survey conducted in 2021 with 388 usable replies. Results show that farmers with better knowledge of intercropping, a higher evaluation of financial benefits and ease of intercropping, and ley growers were more likely to progress to higher stages of the adoption process. Farmers who have higher perceived seed separation costs, a lower education level, and are older tend to remain at lower stages. Perceived environmental benefits of intercropping, household income, and instrumental values of farming could turn non-adopters into either potential adopters or actual adopters. We found no significant association between policy support and stage of change in intercropping adoption. Policy implications aimed at fostering intercropping adoption were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the persistence of shocks on non-renewable and renewable energy consumption for 15 leading countries by renewable energy consumption, over the period 1980–2018. For this aim, we apply Christopoulos and Leon-Ledesma (J Int Money Finance 29(6):1076–1093, 2010) Fourier ADF unit root test which structural breaks are included by using a trigonometric function to allow for smooth temporary mean changes rather than jump functions. In application, we do not need to specify the numbers, locations and the forms of the structural breaks a priori. The results give that shocks on non-renewable energy consumption per capita are persistent for 13 countries except Sweden and the United States; shocks on renewable energy consumption per capita are persistent for 12 countries except Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Overall, we conclude that persistent policy implications on non-renewable energy consumption are more effective tool than transitory policy stances for 13 countries except Sweden and the United States whereas persistent policy implications on renewable energy consumption are more effective for 12 countries except Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In other words, since the energy consumption returns to its trend path quickly, any policy will not be effective on non-renewable energy consumption for Sweden and the United States, and also on renewable energy consumption for Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Features Swedish physicist Martin Bengtsson, the first award winner of the "Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry" Best Paper Award in 2005. Background on his paper with Thomas Laurell entitled "Ultrasonic Agitation in Microchannels"; Discussion of the problem of laminar flow in microchannels; Educational background of Bengtsson.

Ensuring the reliability of railway transportation is heavily dependent on the quality of its infrastructure. In this regard, renewal and maintenance of the railway track infrastructure, referred to as trackwork, play a vital role. However, trackwork execution requires temporary capacity restrictions for train traffic. Therefore, harmonising the train and maintenance schedules is critical but challenging to accomplish when one is frequently changing. This paper explores and models the nature of trackwork schedule instability at the tactical level of the scheduling process. We analyse data from one year of trackwork rolling horizon plans, focusing on weekly changes at eight key trackwork locations across Sweden's railway network. Our study considers various factors that may affect schedule stability, such as track type, location, time of day, train traffic intensity, and the type of prevailing traffic. We find that schedule instability increases as the rolling horizon plan approaches its end. The regression analysis reveals that the most significant predictors of changes in trackwork schedules include previous changes, track type (single vs. double), work location (at station vs. between stations), and the timing of trackwork (daytime vs. nighttime and month). These provide insights to trackwork planners in making informed and proactive decisions about trackwork timeslot allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agricultural sector has a critical role in creating social and environmental value of natural resources in addition to its traditional role of creating economic value by supplying food to the ever-increasing world population. In fulfilling this dual role, the agricultural sector often faces competing pressures: to operate financially profitable businesses and to create, maintain, and benefit from ecosystem services (ES) in their operations. This paper analyses these pressures in an examination of drivers and barriers to the initiation of the business model innovation process for sustainability (BMIpfS) as perceived by ten agricultural business managers who operate farms in southern Sweden. The paper explores the interplay between managerial cognition and business decisions as revealed in semi-structured interviews. The new ES in focus connect to radical land-use change, paludiculture, as used in the rewetting of farmland intended to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that drained peat soil causes. The paper contributes to the literature by identifying drivers and barriers that moderates the initiation of the BMIpfS. Although the managers acknowledge the importance of long-term, sustainable social, and environmental value creation, they have grave doubts about the profitability of activities associated with the preservation of peat soils and connected ES. These managers would benefit from taking a more proactive, long-term approach to business model changes for sustainability and from acquiring more knowledge about market demand for sustainability-oriented ES. Successful facilitation and implementation of knowledge transfer and government subsidies that support ES could improve the turning of profits based on sustainable value creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variable parameters (VP) schemes are the most effective adaptive schemes in increasing control charts' sensitivity to detect small to moderate shift sizes. In this paper, we develop four VP adaptive memory-type control charts to monitor multivariate multiple linear regression profiles. All the proposed control charts are single-chart (single-statistic) control charts, two use a Max operator and two use an SS (squared sum) operator to create the final statistic. Moreover, two of the charts monitor the regression parameters, and the other two monitor the residuals. After developing the VP control charts, we developed a computer algorithm with which the charts' time-to-signal and run-length-based performances can be measured. Then, we perform extensive numerical analysis and simulation studies to evaluate the charts' performance and the result shows significant improvements by using the VP schemes. Finally, we use real data from the national quality register for stroke care in Sweden, Riksstroke, to illustrate how the proposed control charts can be implemented in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future risk for droughts and water shortages calls for substantial efforts by authorities to adapt at local levels. Understanding their perception of drought hazards, risk and vulnerability can help to identify drivers of and barriers to drought risk planning and management in a changing climate at the local level. This paper presents a novel interdisciplinary drought case study in Sweden that integrates soft data from a nationwide survey among more than 100 local practitioners and hard data based on hydrological measurements to provide a holistic assessment of the links between drought severity and the perceived levels of drought severity, impacts, preparedness, and management for two consecutive drought events. The paper highlights challenges for drought risk planning and management in a changing climate at the local level and elaborates on how improved understanding of local practitioners to plan for climate change adaptation can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse spatial and temporal variation in the risk of intensive care unit (ICU) admission for COVID-19 in Sweden. The analysis is based on geocoded and time-stamped data from the Swedish Intensive Care Registry (SIR). We merge this data with a classification of Swedish neighbourhood cluster types constructed from multi-scalar measures of socio-economic and country of birth segregation (Kawalerowicz and Malmberg in Multiscalar typology of residential areas in Sweden, 2021 available from https://doi.org/10.17045/sthlmuni.14753826.v1). We examine 1) if residence in more socio-economically deprived or diverse neighbourhood cluster types was associated with a higher risk of ICU admission for COVID-19, 2) if residence in more affluent neighbourhoods was associated with a lower risk of ICU admission for COVID-19, and 3) how these patterns changed over time during the three first waves of the pandemic. While the highest overall risk was associated with residence in urban disadvantage coupled with diversity, models where neighbourhood cluster types were interacted with waves reveal that the highest risk was associated with living in a neighbourhood cluster type characterised by rural town disadvantage coupled with diversity under the 3rd wave (February 2021–June 2021). Residence in such a neighbourhood cluster type was associated with a four times higher risk of ICU admission, compared to the reference category of living in a homogeneous rural neighbourhood cluster type with average levels of deprivation under wave 1. Looking at disparities within each wave we found that residence in most affluent urban areas was at first associated with a slightly higher risk of ICU admission for COVID-19 as compared with the reference category of living in a homogeneous rural neighbourhood cluster type, but under waves 2 and 3 this risk was no longer statistically significant. The largest inequalities between different neighbourhood cluster types could be seen during the 1st wave. Over time, the risks converged between different neighbourhood cluster types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the activities of Swedish state supported ethnic associations (most of which are immigrant organizations), thus shedding empirical light on how immigrants organize with the help of state support, both nationally and transnationally, in a welfare state context. The paper is based on a study of annual reports of 52 state supported national associations, representing more than a thousand (1046) local immigrant organizations, as well as 17 interviews with representatives of the said organizations. The findings indicate that the welfare state did not crowd out civil societal integration-promoting initiatives, but the state supported immigrant organizations came to occupy a niche in which they primarily offered complementary services with the aim of helping members to navigate the public welfare system. Neither did state support directly shape the content and direction of the political activities of the said organizations. However, the state support seems to have generated welfare channeling effects, in that more immigrant organizations came into existence than would have been the case in the absence of grants. The paper comes down in favor of the thesis that state support in some circumstances can promote political incorporation through immigrant organizations (with a few caveats). Finally, the paper proposes a hypothetical mechanism, homeland-oriented integration, for political incorporation through immigrant organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Sámi reindeer pastoralism in Sweden is highly stressed during the critical snow cover periods due to large-scale human interventions, especially forestry, and that these have over time significantly worsened the ecological conditions for natural grazing-based responses to changing snow conditions caused by climate change. Informed by a literature review, the paper conceptualises two, overlapping ecological dynamics that shape the availability of lichen as key forage resources within a Sámi pastoral landscape perspective: the grazing dynamics of reindeer during snow cover periods as determined by climatic stochasticity, and the more predictable vegetation dynamics of lichen habitat formation, growth and sustenance based on structured forestry practices. This could help articulate an intervention ecology that pursues sustainable ecological conditions for natural grazing-based Sámi reindeer pastoralism, along with other goals. As such alternatives are likely to face political resistance, the article discusses the implications of its findings within a science–politics interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The European Green Deal does not consider the issue of migrant inclusion, nor are there specific data on the risk of migrants falling into energy poverty, social exclusion, and other data that could help create an effective policy that would be applied in this area. The main objective of this study is to assess the current status of the migrant population when it comes to risk from poverty (including energy poverty) and social exclusion in four (4) EU countries with the most significant influx of migrants. Results: An analysis included two main indicators aimed to describe level of risk of migrants to fall into energy poverty: (a) persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion by group of citizenship (population aged 18 and over, male and female); and (b) Migrant Integration Policy Index. The results revealed that foreign-born citizens have greater poverty or social exclusion risk. In 2020, citizens of Sweden that were not born in the EU28 had more than 360% greater chance than national citizens of being at risk of poverty (including energy poverty) or social exclusion. In France, foreign citizens were 340% more likely to be exposed to poverty than national citizens, while Germany records the highest rate: 250% in 2020. The United Kingdom rates demonstrate an increased 10% (2014–2018) difference in the risk of poverty (including energy poverty) or social exclusion for foreign citizens. In addition, results obtained by using the Migrant Integration Policy Index showed highest level of Anti-discrimination score is highest in Sweden, and lowest in Albania. On the other hand, Labor market mobility score is highest in Sweden, and lowest in Slovenia. Conclusions: Bearing in mind the results of the research, the primary recommendations elaborated in the paper are as follows: (a) up-to-date collection and innovation of data for the migrant population (including data on energy poverty); (b) creation of conditions for more efficient employment of migrants; (c) adoption of special measures to protect migrants from energy poverty, and (d) strengthening of cooperation between the EU and to non-EU countries on the migrant route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of corporations in societal outcomes continues to grow. Mining companies now face the expectation of not only providing economic benefits to communities, but act as a facilitator for social wellbeing and environmental stewardship. In the mining sector, this has placed renewed attention to defining corporate social responsibility and, in turn, how social license to operate is understood. These developments are particularly pertinent when mining operations affect Indigenous communities – where land use is central to livelihood. This study looks at the community engagement strategies of two mining companies in northern countries, Cameco (Canada) and Boliden (Sweden). By comparing their approaches, this paper explores the development of their practices over time and assess to what extent their corporate policy has translated into everyday practice and outcomes. The findings of demonstrate that high levels of trust are established when corporate approaches are built around transparency and collaboration – resulting in agreements that include long-term partnerships around socio-economic and environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural resource management (NRM) increasingly relies on communicative measures to enable reframing in intractable conflicts. Reframing occurs when disputants change their perceptions of a conflict situation, and/or their preferences for dealing with it. However, the types of reframing possible, and the conditions under which they can occur, remain unclear. Through an inductive and longitudinal analysis of a mine establishment conflict in northern Sweden this paper explores to what extent, how, and under what conditions reframing can occur in intractable NRM conflicts. The findings reveal the difficulty in achieving consensus-oriented reframing. Despite multiple dispute resolution efforts, the disputants' perceptions and preferences became increasingly polarized. Nonetheless, the results suggest that it is possible to enable reframing to the extent that all disputants can understand and accept each other's different perceptions and positions, i.e., meta-consensus. Meta-consensus hinges on neutral, inclusive, equal, and deliberative intergroup communication. However, the results show that intergroup communication and reframing are significantly informed by institutional and other contextual factors. For example, when implemented within the formal governance system in the investigated case, intergroup communication lagged in quality and did not contribute to meta-consensus. Moreover, the results show that reframing is strongly influenced by the nature of the disputed issues, actors' group commitments, and the governance system's distribution of power to the actors. Based on these findings, it is argued that more efforts should focus on how governance systems can be configurated so that high-quality intergroup communication and meta-consensus can be enabled and inform decision making in intractable NRM conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses historical data on interest rates from 1920 to 2016 to explore whether a world rate of interest exists and whether a monetary hegemon affects it. The first principal component of long-term interest rates accounts for 75% of the variation in a matrix of 17 countries and proxies for the world rate of interest. The U.S. played the role of a hegemon, influencing long-term bond rates. After the introduction of the euro in 1999, interest rates in most European countries followed German interest rates but German rates followed U.S. rates even more than before the introduction of the euro. In two countries on the northern periphery, Denmark and Sweden, interest rates shadow German rates and the low rates have contributed to rising house prices and rising mortgage debt. Independent monetary policy calls for targeted controls on capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical review of literature investigating assessment of mathematical modelling. Written tests, projects, hands-on tests, portfolio and contests are modes of modelling assessment identified in this study. The written tests found in the reviewed papers draw on an atomistic view on modelling competencies, whereas projects are described to assess a more holistic modelling competence but obstacles regarding reliability of assessing projects are identified. The outcome of this investigation also indicates that the criteria used in frameworks or modes of assessment seldom are derived from a theoretical analysis, but more often based on ad hoc constructions, experience from assessment situations or empirical studies of students' work. Finally, this study suggests that an elaborated view on the meaning of quality of mathematical models is needed in order to assess the quality of students' work with mathematical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the 1998 annual meeting the European Public Choice Society at the School of Economics, Goteborg University, Goteborg, Sweden. Aim of the European Public Choice Society; Date for submission of papers; Date of the convention.

This Special Section explores the interplay between Indigenous peoples, industry, and the state in five proposed and active mining projects in Canada and Sweden. The overall aim is to identify factors shaping the quality of Indigenous community-industry-state interactions in mining and mine development. An ambition underlying the research is to develop knowledge to help manage mining related land-use conflicts in Sweden by drawing on Canadian comparisons and experience. This paper synthesizes the comparative research that has been conducted across jurisdictions in three Canadian provinces and Sweden. It focuses on the interplay between the properties of the governance system, the quality of interaction and governance outcomes. We combine institutional and interactive governance theory and use the concept of governability to assess how and why specific outcomes, such as mutually beneficial interaction, collaboration, or opposition, occurred. The analysis suggests there are measures that can be taken by the Swedish Government to improve the governability of mining related issues, by developing alternative, and more effective, avenues to recognize, and protect, Sámi rights and culture, to broaden the scope and increase the legitimacy and transparency of the EIAs, to raise the quality of interaction and consultation, and to develop tools to actively stimulate and support collaboration and partnerships on equal terms. Generally, we argue that Indigenous community responses to mining must be understood within a larger framework of Indigenous self-determination, in particular the communities' own assessments of their opportunities to achieve their long-term objectives using alternative governing modes and types of interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When cross-border acquisitions take place, whose institutional logics should dominate the control in the daily operation of the acquired entity – the acquirer or the acquiree? To answer this question, this paper investigates how Geely, a Chinese automaker, successfully acquired Volvo from Sweden, a developed country, and managed the differences in the institutional logics of the two firms by transforming its dominant institutional logic. Through the lens of matching theory, we employ an inductive approach and conduct a longitudinal case study of Geely's acquisition. We find that matching commercial and social logic is an inevitable requirement to cope with external institutional pressures in cross-border acquisitions. We further reveal that the structured interaction between compatibility and complementarity facilitates the matching process between commercial logic and social logic, resulting in a synergistic logic via the three different mechanisms of compatibility, complementarity, and co-evolution. Our findings challenge previous research that focuses on conflicts as the foremost drivers of the transformation of different institutional logics in organizations. Based on our findings, we develop a matching process model that offers insights for firms from developing economies to navigate dominant institutional logic transformation and thrive in the marketplace through their strategic cross-border acquisitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forested riparian buffers are retained along streams during forest harvest to maintain a number of ecological functions. In this paper, we examine how recently established riparian buffers along northern Swedish streams provide deadwood, a key objective for riparian buffer management in Sweden. We used observational and experimental data to show that the investigated buffers provided large volumes of deadwood to streams and riparian zones shortly after their establishment, likely jeopardizing continued recruitment over the long term. Deadwood volume decreased with increasing buffer width, and the narrowest buffers tended to blow down completely. Wider buffers (~ 15 m) provided similar volumes of deadwood as narrow buffers due to blowdowns but were, overall, more resistant to wind-felling. It is clear from our study, that wider buffers are currently a safer strategy for riparian management that aims to sustain provision of deadwood and other ecological objectives continuously on the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how the previous experience among workers relates to the labor productivity of the creative industries in Sweden. Effective knowledge transfers are dependent on the cognitive distance among employees. Using longitudinal matched employer-employee data, I measure the portfolio of the skills within a workplace through (i) the workers' previous occupation, and (ii) the industry they have been working in previously. Estimates show that diversity of occupational experience is positive for labor productivity, but the diversity of industry experience is not. When distinguishing between related and unrelated diversity, the relatedness of occupational experience is positive for labor productivity, while unrelated occupational experience instead shows negative relationship with productivity. These results point towards the importance of occupational skills that workers bring with them to a new employment, for labor productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A standard proposition in the migration literature is that emigrants are not drawn randomly from their source population, but rather compose a self-selected group in terms of labour market characteristics. Such self-selection refers to observed characteristics, such as education, or occupation, as well as unobserved characteristics such as cognitive abilities. However, due to data limitations, most previous studies on selectivity have analysed immigrants' characteristics at destinations rather than using data from their source countries. This paper assesses emigrants' selectivity patterns by following the full-risk population of natives over a long period of time (over 20 years). It also includes an innovative measure of selectivity on unobserved characteristics—namely, school performance—as a proxy for individual motivation and cognitive abilities, and it compares it to the widely used measure of income residuals. We use Swedish register data and assess the probabilities of leaving Sweden between 1993 and 2014 among men and women born in Sweden between 1975 and 1978. We further look for differences among Swedish emigrants who chose different countries of destination. The findings suggest that emigrants are positively self-selected in terms of their observed characteristics, whereas selectivity patterns in terms of unobserved characteristics are more complex. When we assess unobservable characteristics using compulsory school grades as a proxy, emigrants are found to be positively self-selected, while when using income residuals, we find that the effect is U-shaped. Individuals leaving to non-Nordic countries are also found to be more positively self-selected than those heading to neighbouring countries. We discuss these findings and their implications in light of economic and sociological theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A small but growing body of studies have documented the alarming mortality situation of adult descendants of migrants in a number of European countries. Nearly all of them have focused on all-cause mortality to reveal these important health inequalities. This paper takes advantage of the Swedish population registers to study all-cause and cause-specific mortality among men and women aged 15–44 in Sweden from 1997 to 2016 to a level of granularity unparalleled elsewhere. It adopts a multi-generation, multi-origin and multi-cause-of-death approach. Using extended, competing-risks survival models, it aims to show (1) how the all-cause mortality of immigrants arriving as adults (the G1), immigrants arriving as children (the G1.5) and children of immigrants born in Sweden to at least one immigrant parent (the G2) differs versus ancestral Swedes and (2) what causes-of-deaths drive these differentials. For all-cause mortality, most G1 (not Finns or Sub-Saharan Africans) have a mortality advantage. This contrasts with a near systematic reversal in the mortality of the G1.5 and G2 (notably among men), which is driven by excess accident and injury, suicide, substance use and other external cause mortality. Given that external causes-of-death are preventable and avoidable, the findings raise questions about integration processes, the levels of inequality immigrant populations are exposed to in Sweden and ultimately, whether the legacy of immigration has been positive. Strengths of the study include the use of quality data and advanced methods, the granularity of the estimates, and the provision of evidence that highlights the precarious mortality situation of the seldom-studied G1.5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the unemployment rate is related to adolescent alcohol use and experience of binge drinking during a time period characterized by big societal changes. The paper uses repeated cross-sectional adolescent survey data from a Swedish region, collected in 1988, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2002 and 2005, and merges this with data on local unemployment rates for the same time periods. Individual level frequency of alcohol use as well as experience of binge drinking is connected to local level unemployment rate to estimate the relationship using multilevel modeling. The model includes municipality effects controlling for time-invariant differences between municipalities as well as year fixed effects controlling for municipality-invariant changes over time in alcohol use. The results show that the unemployment rate is negatively associated with adolescents' alcohol use and the experience of binge drinking. When the unemployment rate increases, more adolescents do not drink at all. Regular drinking (twice per month or more) is, on the other hand, unrelated to the unemployment rate. Examining gender-differences in the relationship, it is shown that the results are driven by behavior in girls, whereas drinking among boys does not show any significant relationship with changes in the unemployment rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research into international businesses centered in Central and Eastern Europe. Much of this has focused on theories such as transaction cost economics, agency theory, and institutional perspectives. Articles in this issue analyze the dynamic processes in transitional economies. Each papers analyze different aspects of transition that businesses must go through to fully internationalize themselves. Several researchers found that positive emotions were the key to increasing a Dutch firm's chances of internationalization. Another showed the rough entry of several Swedish firms into the Russian marketplace.

Introduces a series of articles about concerning entrepreneurship in Sweden from the September 2002 issue of 'Small Business Economics.'

Probability of detection (POD) as a metric for quantifying the capability of inspection procedures in nondestructive evaluation (NDE), has been applied and evolved in industries since 1970s. Progress had been noted when certain statistical functions were brought up to model POD behavior, including log-normal model (also referred as Probit model). This model had been concluded to be the best fit and therefore has been widely used in many studies, while the involved assumptions and conditions were not carefully addressed and explored. To make flexible POD datasets available for specific inspection procedures and reduce the number of expensive experiments needed, model-assisted POD (MAPOD) is an alternative. This paper addresses a pure simulation-based POD procedure of an inspection scenario involving phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT) on lack-of-fusion defects in additive manufactured (AM) components. The mathematical simulations are performed by an ultrasonic testing (UT) simulation software, simSUNDT, developed at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Resulted inspection datasets with the proposed data processing steps are evaluated in terms of the assumptions and conditions of log-normal POD model, with the purpose of discussing the POD model validity under different circumstances. Simulation-based POD curves are finally compared with several discrete POD values at some defect sizes, calculated through massive computations from physics-model based metamodel. Comparisons and observations confirm satisfactory application of log-normal POD model despite some violations in model hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is key to the success of public transport and for sustainable urban and regional development. Previous research has often focused on delivering TOD in urban areas with high population and building densities. This highlights the need to broaden the scope of TOD approaches to also include less densely populated areas located outside the immediate urban cores as a key concern for policy. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to increase the knowledge of how to deliver TOD in such low-density contexts. Methods: Three case studies of attempts at delivering TOD in sparsely populated areas in three Swedish city-regions are made. The data for the case studies consist of planning documents and 13 interviews with key stakeholders involved in the planning processes of the three cases. Results: The results show that many of the barriers and enablers are rather similar to those identified in research on TOD in much more urban contexts in other parts of the world, but the relationships between them are differently nuanced in low-density contexts. The lack of clear quantified definitions of what TOD is (or is not) allows a more flexible, site-specific understanding of TOD to emerge in this context. Results: It is important that a shared vision of TOD in each location is developed by the organizations involved—and such a shared vision appears to be crucial for the development to have a good chance of being delivered. Informal definitions, and individual perceptions (including those of the public) are important; and in locations that are quite "marginal" for TOD, all enablers must interact together positively for the development to have the maximum likelihood of going ahead as planned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent decades have seen a trend toward enfranchising emigrated citizens in home country elections. Political parties have also become increasingly interested in connecting with emigrant voters. That said, we still know little of what voters think of the parties in the home country and how party preferences may change because of migration. On the one hand, research shows that the experience of migration and the context of the host country have a significant impact on the political behavior of migrants. On the other hand, party ties are known to be resistant to change. In this paper, we study how what is generally assumed to be the strongest of party ties, namely ties to an ethnic party, is affected by migration. Utilizing two highly comparable surveys of resident and non-resident citizens, we study how identifying with an ethnic minority party among Finland-Swedes in Finland, where they constitute a linguistic minority, compares with emigrated Finland-Swedes in Sweden, where they speak the majority language. We find that party ties, even with an ethnic party, tend to be weaker for emigrated citizens. However, the difference is relatively small and only materializes after an extended stay abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acceptance by, and cooperation with relevant stakeholders in developing new sustainability initiatives when they are generally perceived as positive, is one of the keys for successful implementation of such new sustainability initiatives later on. It is remarkable, however, that ample literature exists about involving stakeholders in research projects focusing on problems with diverging views (controversy) around facts and values (wicked problems), but there is very little literature addressing whether and how to involve relevant stakeholders in case of initiatives where diverging norms and values do not play a (substantial) role, like in sustainability assessment for a future seaweed industry. This perspectives paper addresses that gap, and explores how to design such sustainability assessment, illustrated by how stakeholder interaction influenced the assessment and its results for a future seaweed industry in Sweden, followed by a discussion whether and how a similar approach may benefit sustainability assessment of other non-wicked sustainability initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reply to the comment by Arlin T. Geronimus and Sanders D. Korenman on the topic "Patterns and Determinants of Infant Mortality in Developed Nations, 1950-1975." Does teenage fertility raise infant mortality? More research, rather than the comment of Arlin T. Geronimus and Sanders D. Korenman or this response, will ultimately settle the issue. The figures they do present on the issue, besides having already been published, differ vastly from the sample and types of data used in the author's paper and, yet, are in some ways quite consistent with the author's conclusions. All in all, Geronimus and Korenman use the article as a convenient vehicle to publicize their views and previous research on age patterns of infant mortality but offer little to discredit the author's contribution to the literature. When Geronimus and Korenman accurately present the author's findings--that teenage fertility influences patterns of infant mortality across the nations and time points in the sample-the criticisms they make are vague and unsubstantiated. They claim teenage fertility measures poverty and economic status but present no evidence that cross-national variation in teenage fertility is isomorphic with variation in poverty. In fact, poverty is low and teenage fertility is relatively high in Sweden, whereas poverty is high and teenage fertility is low in Ireland.

This short paper proposes a nonparametric method for accounting for the distribution of background characteristics when testing for segregation in empirical studies. It is shown and exemplified – using data on workplace segregation between immigrants and natives in Sweden – how the method can be applied to correct any measure of segregation for differences between groups in the distribution of covariates by means of simulation and how analytical results can be used when studying segregation by means of peer group exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early studies published in Ambio showed large-scale acidification of lakes in southern Sweden and Norway from acid rain. These studies were important for delimiting various scientific issues and thus for eventually contributing to legislation, which reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides and helped to mitigate this major environmental problem. Long-term studies and monitoring in Sweden and Norway and at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire helped guide this legislation in Europe and in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the assumption that divorced and separated individuals bring with them the experience of a failed union which may shape their future choices on the marriage market. It aims to contribute to our knowledge of intermarriage, and social interaction in Sweden in general, by comparing the repartnering choices of immigrants and natives in Sweden who had made what is still considered an atypical choice of entering a native-immigrant union with the partner choices of natives and immigrants whose previous union was endogamous. The empirical analysis in this paper is based on the Swedish register data from the STAR data collection (Sweden over Time: Activities and Relations) and covers the period 1990-2007. All the analyses in the paper include individuals aged 20-55 at the time of union dissolution. The multivariate analysis is based on discrete-time multinomial logistic regression. The results show that for all four groups defined by sex and nativity (native men, native women, immigrant men, and immigrant women), there is a positive association between the previous experience of intermarriage and the likelihood of initiating another intermarriage after union dissolution. Another important finding is that the magnitude of this positive association increases with the degree of social distance between the groups involved in the union. Gender differences are modest among natives and somewhat more pronounced among immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the labour market integration support (LMIS) organised for refugees in Austria and Sweden, and the potential consequences of the changes unfolding. LMIS for refugees is a complex phenomenon involving actors at different interwoven levels—the macro-national level, the meso-organisational level and the micro-individual level. However, the complexities and consequences of such processes for the labour market integration of refugees have so far received limited attention. The current Covid-19 pandemic actualises the need to gain a better understanding of how integration support is organised across the different levels and how the pandemic itself impacts such support. Thus, the article seeks to understand how the pandemic affects the LMIS organised for refugees in Austria and Sweden, two countries with a large refugee population and diverging responses to the pandemic. Based on 29 semi-structured interviews and three focus group workshops, the results highlight in particular three developments: (a) a further entrenching of broader, macro-national level developments related to integration support already underway prior to the pandemic; (b) further mainstreaming of activities; and (c) increased volatility of work. Overall, the pandemic has brought to the fore the interrelation of different levels in the organising of LMIS for refugees and has contributed to a stabilisation of already ongoing activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to correctly detect climate signals and discard possible instrumentation errors, establishing coherent data records has become increasingly relevant. However, since real measurements can be inhomogeneous, their use for assessing homogenization techniques is not directly possible, and the study of their performance must be done on homogeneous datasets subjected to controlled, artificial inhomogeneities. In this paper, considering two European temperature networks over the 1950–2005 period, up to 7 artificial breaks and an average of 107 missing data per station were introduced, in order to determine that mean square error, absolute bias and factor of exceedance can be meaningfully used to validate the best-performing homogenization technique. Three techniques were used, ACMANT and two versions of HOMER: the standard, automated setup mode and a manual setup. Results showed that the HOMER techniques performed better regarding the factor of exceedance, while ACMANT was best with regard to absolute error and root mean square error. Regardless of the technique used, it was also established that homogenization quality anti-correlated meaningfully to the number of breaks. On the other hand, as missing data are almost always replaced in the two HOMER techniques, only ACMANT performance is significantly, negatively affected by the amount of missing data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future scenarios are often used to address long-term challenges characterised by uncertainty and complexity, as they can help explore different alternative future pathways. Scenarios can therefore be a useful tool to support policy and guide action towards sustainability. But what sustainability aspects are put forward in scenarios and how are they assessed? This paper aims to explore how to assess future scenarios, categorised according to Börjeson et al. (Futures 38:723-739, 2006) i.e. predictive, explorative and normative scenarios. By conducting a literature review and a document analysis, we map tools and methods that are currently used to assess environmental and social sustainability aspects in scenarios. We also draw on experiences from methods for impact assessments of Swedish municipal comprehensive plans, which can be considered as future scenarios. We identify whether some sustainability aspects are less recurrent than others in the reviewed assessments or even left out. We find that there is no single tool that can be used to assess scenarios. Some quantitative tools based on databases may be more suitable for assessing scenarios within a shorter time horizon, whereas qualitative assessment methods might better fit the purpose of long-term transformative scenarios. We also find that assessment frameworks may be useful to guide the assessment, as to what its intended purpose is and which sustainability aspects to include. Finally we discuss whether further assessment tools are needed in order to include a wider array of potential environmental or social consequences of the content of scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at the 29th NORCHIP Conference held in Lund, Sweden on November 14-15, 2011 is presented. Topics at the microlectronic event include the comparison of ordinary and time-varying Volterra analysis, the wide band local oscillator generation technique and the design of a continuous-time delta-sigma modulator. A study on a common-mode feedback technique for differential difference amplifiers (DDA) is also mentioned.

We measure the distributional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic using newly released population register data in Sweden. Monthly earnings inequality increased during the pandemic, and the key driver is income losses among low-paid individuals while middle- and high-income earners were almost unaffected. In terms of employment, as measured by having positive monthly earnings, the pandemic had a larger negative impact on private-sector workers and on women. In terms of earnings conditional on being employed, the effect was still more negative for women, but less negative for private-sector workers compared to publicly employed. Using data on individual take-up of government COVID-19 support, we show that policy significantly dampened the inequality increase, but did not fully offset it. Annual total market income inequality, which also includes capital income and taxable transfers, shows similar patterns of increasing inequality during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid 1990s some European countries (including Italy) implemented a Notional Defined Contribution (NDC) pension system. Such a system is based on pay-as-you-go funding, while the pension amount is a function of the individual lifelong contribution. Despite many appealing features, the NDC system presents some drawbacks: first, it is vulnerable to demographic and economic shocks compromising the financial sustainability; second, it could fail to guarantee adequate pension benefits to pensioners. In order to reduce the first limit, automatic balance mechanisms (ABMs) have been proposed in literature and also implemented in Sweden, while solutions that combine financial sustainability and social adequacy have been applied only in a pay-as-you-go point system. The aim of this paper is to insert into the Italian NDC architecture ABMs that preserve social adequacy under financial sustainability constraints. Godinez-Olivares et al. (Insur Math Econ 69:117–126, 2016) built ABMs for a Defined Benefit pension system using nonlinear optimization techniques to calculate the optimal paths of the control variables representing the main drivers of the system: contribution rate, retirement age and indexation of pensions. Following this line of research, we have developed a nonlinear optimization model for the Italian NDC system based on three control variables: pensions indexation, notional rate and contribution rate. The objective function considers both social adequacy and contribution rate sustainability, under liquidity and sustainability constraints. In the numerical application we apply the model to the Italian pension system and test the sensitivity of the results to different economic scenarios and objective function parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the research of age-related performance declines, the value of cross-sectional versus longitudinal data is an ongoing debate. This paper analyses the largest longitudinal master track and field data set ever published to compare the age-related decline in performance between 16 athletics disciplines in cross-sectional and longitudinal data. The data set contained 83,209 results (64,948 from men, 78.1%; 18,261 from women, 21.9%) from 34,132 athletes (26,186 men, 76.7%; 7946 women, 23.3%), aged 35–97 years. In 61 athletes, 20 or more, and in 312 athletes, 15 or more results were available. The data were analyzed by regression statistics/ANCOVA. Men had a higher performance than women, irrespective of discipline in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data (p < 0.001). The performance in cross-sectional data was lower compared with the longitudinal data in all events and at any age (p ≤ 0.007) except for 1000 m men. The average age was lower in the cross-sectional than the longitudinal data (p < 0.001); men 46 and 58 years, women 44 and 56 years, respectively. The annual percentage rate of decline did not differ significantly between cross-sectional and longitudinal data, or between sexes in most disciplines. Performance declines after age 70 were 1.7 times (men) and 1.4 times (women) as steep as before. In conclusion, although longitudinal master athletics data of athletes with 10 and more results has higher average performance and age compared with cross-sectional data, cross-sectional data give a good impression of the annual percentage decline in performance, which was similar in men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optical character recognition (OCR) quality of the historical part of the Finnish newspaper and journal corpus is rather low for reliable search and scientific research on the OCRed data. The estimated character error rate (CER) of the corpus, achieved with commercial software, is between 8 and 13%. There have been earlier attempts to train high-quality OCR models with open-source software, like Ocropy (https://github.com/tmbdev/ocropy) and Tesseract (https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract), but so far, none of the methods have managed to successfully train a mixed model that recognizes all of the data in the corpus, which would be essential for an efficient re-OCRing of the corpus. The difficulty lies in the fact that the corpus is printed in the two main languages of Finland (Finnish and Swedish) and in two font families (Blackletter and Antiqua). In this paper, we explore the training of a variety of OCR models with deep neural networks (DNN). First, we find an optimal DNN for our data and, with additional training data, successfully train high-quality mixed-language models. Furthermore, we revisit the effect of confidence voting on the OCR results with different model combinations. Finally, we perform post-correction on the new OCR results and perform error analysis. The results show a significant boost in accuracy, resulting in 1.7% CER on the Finnish and 2.7% CER on the Swedish test set. The greatest accomplishment of the study is the successful training of one mixed language model for the entire corpus and finding a voting setup that further improves the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes two original contributions to research on young adults' boomerang mobility. First, it reveals the magnitude and complexity of return moves by young people to their parental home and neighbourhood. Secondly, it shows that the determinants and associates of return migration vary significantly when analysed at two different geographical scales—the parental home and the parental neighbourhood area. Using longitudinal data (1986–2009) on four cohorts of young adults, we find that boomeranging to the parental home in Sweden has increased in times of economic recession and is associated with economic vulnerability, such as leaving higher education or entering unemployment, and partnership dissolution. While returning to the parental home can offer financial support in times of life course reversal, we found gender differences indicating a greater independence among young women than men. Returning to the parental neighbourhood is found to be a very different kind of mobility than returning to co-reside with one's parents, involving the migration decisions of more economically independent young adults. Results also indicate that returns to the parental neighbourhood, as well as returns to the parental home, can be part of young people's life course changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some local governments deliver public services directly while others rely on providers from the private sector? Previous literature on local contracting out and on the privatization of state-owned enterprises have offered two competing interpretations on why center-right governments rely more on private providers. Some maintain that center-right politicians contract out more because, like Adam Smith, they believe in market competition. Others claim that center-right politicians use privatization in a Machiavellian fashion; it is used as a strategy to retain power, by 'purchasing' the electoral support of certain constituencies. Using a unique dataset, which includes the political attitudes of over 8,000 Swedish local politicians from 290 municipalities for a period of 10 years, this paper tests these ideological predictions together with additional political economy factors which have been overlooked in previous studies, such as the number of veto players. Results first indicate support for the Machiavellian interpretation, as contracting out increases with electoral competition. Second, irrespective of ideological concerns, municipalities with more veto players in the coalition government contract out fewer services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between income taxes and the decision to become self-employed using data from Sweden. By making it possible to track a large number of individuals over extended time periods and across a number of tax rate changes while controlling for important additional determinants, available tax-return information from Sweden allows for statistical estimation of the influence that income taxes have on the probability of becoming self-employed. The changing tax rate structure combined with the fact that the Swedish tax system does not provide additional tax benefits to small-business entrepreneurs compared with those who work as employees provides a powerful setting through which to examine the tax rate structure's influence on individuals' choice to become self-employed. Contrary to many earlier studies based on US data, this paper finds that both average and marginal taxes have a negative impact on the decision to become self-employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In managing environmental problems, several countries have chosen the management by objectives (MBO) approach. This paper investigates how focus group participants from the Swedish environmental administration used metaphors to describe the mode of organization needed to attain environmental objectives. Such analysis can shed light on how an MBO system is perceived by actors and how it works in practice. Although the Swedish government intended to stimulate broad-based cooperation among many actors, participants often saw themselves as located at a certain 'level,' i.e., 'higher' or 'lower,' in the MBO system-that is, their conceptions corresponded to a traditional, hierarchical interpretation of MBO. Prepositions such as 'in' and 'out' contributed to feelings of inclusion and exclusion on the part of MBO actors. However, horizontal metaphors merged with vertical ones, indicating ongoing competition for the right to interpret how the system of environmental objectives should best be managed. The paper concludes that any organization applying MBO could benefit from discussing alternate ways of talking and thinking about its constituent 'levels.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares sibling and neighborhood correlations in school performance, educational attainment and income as a way to learn whether the neighborhood where a child grows up in might explain parts of the sibling similarities found in previous sibling correlation studies. The data are based on a cohort of nearly 13,000 individuals born in 1953 and their siblings, all of whom grew up in the Stockholm area. The results show that neighborhood correlations are in general very small and in particular they are much smaller than the sibling correlations. Living in the same neighborhood does not seem to add much to the sibling similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

key feature of the Swedish economy over the last two decades has been the rapid internationalisation of its economy, both through FDI and exports. In this paper we consider their inter-relationship, examining whether there have been spillovers from foreign firms to the export performance of domestic firms. We also contribute to the empirical modelling of export spillovers. We do this by exploiting information on whether foreign MNE sales are intra-firm or inter-firm, and by allowing for heterogeneity in the characteristics of the sender and receiver of spillovers. Our results indicate that foreign MNEs had positive effects on Swedish exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]