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This paper investigates the technical efficiency of labor market matching from a stochastic frontier approach. The true fixed-effects model (Greene J Prod Anal 23:7–32, ; J Econom 126:269–303, ) is utilised in order to separate cross-sectional heterogeneity from inefficiency, and inefficiency terms are modelled following Battese and Coelli (Empir Econ 20:325–332, ). The data set consists of almost 17,000 observations from Local Labor Offices (LLOs) in Finland. According to the results, there are notable differences in matching efficiency between regions, and these differences contribute significantly to the number of filled vacancies. If all regions were as efficient as the most efficient one, the number of total matches per month would increase by over 23%. The heterogeneity of the job-seeker stock is an important determinant of matching efficiency: the weight of the composition of the job-seeker stock in the inefficiency terms is on average 85%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The propagation of broadband ultrasonic pulses in combined media that consist of printing paper of different porosity saturated with different liquids is studied. The experiments are performed with three types of paper, namely, Zoom Ultra (Stora Enso, Finland) with surface densities of 80 and 100g/m2 and Data Copy (Mo Do, Sweden) with a surface density of 160g/cm2, and with two types of saturating liquids: ethanol and transformer oil. To excite ultrasonic pulses and to detect them with a high time resolution, the laser optoacoustic spectroscopy method is used. For each type of liquid-saturated paper, the phase velocity of ultrasound is measured in the frequency range of 5–35 MHz. The absence of any noticeable frequency dispersion of the phase velocity is revealed. The possibility of measuring the porosity of printing paper on the basis of the theoretical model of a two-phase medium with the use of the corresponding experimental data is demonstrated. © 2005 Pleiades Publishing, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]