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Cost-effective methods are crucial in small-scale operations to assess the physicochemical properties of milk, identify potential clinical or subclinical mastitis, and test β-lactams in small ruminants. The aim was to evaluate the importance of physicochemical characteristics, somatic cells, and antibacterial substances as factors for monitoring the quality and safety of bulk tank milk from sheep and goats. Furthermore, we aimed to elucidate the influence of grazing capacity on the composition of sheep milk. The fat content of sheep milk (n=119) was found to be 7.7%, with a range of 5.3% to 9.9%. The average fat content of dairy goats (n=33) was found to be 4.9%, with a range of 2.8-6.7%. The results indicate that 2.8% of sheep milk samples and 7.8% of goat milk samples exhibited clear positive reactions when assessed using the California mastitis test. β-lactam antibiotics were present in 0.7% of sheep milk samples, but not in any of the goat milk samples using lateral flow strips. This measurement method can be useful to detect adulterated milk and better understand the quality and safety of small ruminant milk before processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the spatial dimension of environmental protectionism. Merging regional level and European Social Survey (ESS) data, we examine attitudes towards climate change policies in 186 Western European regions comparatively. Findings from multilevel models confirm that climate policies, which concentrate costs spatially, generate resistance from individuals who incur the costs of these policies. Specifically, individuals in rural and suburban areas who fear income losses and reduced purchasing power are less supportive of climate change policies. Living in poorer regions also drives resistance to such policies. Further, the regional context conditions the effects of egalitarian attitudes. People supporting redistribution oppose climate change measures if they live in poor regions with high unemployment. Overall, we provide empirical evidence of a centre-periphery cleavage dividing Western European attitudes on environment protectionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centre Parties (Agrarians, Christian Democrats and Liberals) used to be an established part of the Scandinavian party systems and have often been pivotal for government formation. With ongoing individualisation, secularisation, decline of traditional cleavages, and the rise of new ones such as immigration, as well as polarisation, these parties face the challenge of losing representation in parliament as already happened to the Danish Centre Democrats and Christian Democrats. To shift a party's bloc affiliation and coalition preferences is a feature of centre parties, and it may itself be a strategic decision to mobilise new voters in a changed political environment to survive. Yet, it may alienate voters. While the strategic decision to change bloc is common among Scandinavian centre parties and theoretically relevant, empirical investigations of the electoral effects of bloc changes have been dim. We provide a systematic analysis of the electoral effects of bloc changes in Scandinavia in the last four decades. We collected data on bloc changes of Scandinavian centre parties and found 24 between 1977 and 2021. Our panel regressions reveal that bloc changes are indeed electorally costly as centre parties on average lose around 2% after a bloc change. Frequent bloc changes in the past do also reduce a party's average electoral performance. The electoral punishment of a bloc change, however, is cushioned by a large membership base as centre parties evade significant losses if they have a strong anchor in the electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that voters are bad at responding in a meaningful way to policy events when deciding for whom to vote. Voters rely on so‐called "blind retrospection", punishing governments for events outside politicians' control. However, another core aspect of the blind retrospection perspective has not been put to the test: are voters unable to respond to policy decisions that clearly are under the politicians' control? We construct a unique large‐N dataset on legislative changes in German old age pensions and unemployment protection to see if cutbacks and expansions lead to lower/higher support for the government. Our data are exceptionally fine‐grained and allow us to track the policy‐vote link for 416 months from 1977 to 2013 with a total of 329,167 respondents. We find substantial support for the notion that voters react in a meaningful way to policy changes, but also that they can be distracted by high‐profile, extreme events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on studies on the political business cycle, the literature on welfare state retrenchment has argued that governments which cut the welfare state try to avoid blame by implementing painful measures in the beginning of the mandate and expanding benefits as elections approach. In contrast to this linear relationship, this article argues that governments often feel pressured to fulfil (mostly expansionary) campaign promises during the first months in office. Consequently, cutting right away is not what should be expected. Instead, a more nuanced, U-shaped timing trajectory is probable with a period in the beginning characterised by both cuts and fulfilment of expansionary pledges, followed by a period of cutbacks, and finally an expansive phase towards the end of a mandate. This argument is tested on our new original dataset of legislative changes in five European countries – Britain, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany – during the last four decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are welfare state reforms electorally dangerous for governments? Political scientists have only recently begun to study this seemingly simple question, and existing work still suffers from two shortcomings. First, it has never tested the reform–vote link with data on actual legislative decisions for enough points in time to allow robust statistical tests. Secondly, it has failed to take into account the many expansionary reforms that have occurred in recent decades. Expansions often happen in the same years as cutbacks. By focusing only on cutbacks, estimates of the effects of reforms on government popularity become biased. This article addresses both shortcomings. The results show that voters punish governments for cutbacks, but also reward them for expansions, making so-called compensation, a viable blame-avoidance strategy. The study also finds that the size of punishments and rewards is roughly the same, suggesting that voters' well-documented negativity bias does not directly translate into electoral behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnicity coding means that threat‐based views of ethnic minority members spur opposition to specific welfare programmes. To advance knowledge of the influence of political parties on ethnicity coding, we apply a dynamic approach. Longitudinal analyses show that: a) because right‐wing political parties persistently frame state pensions as benefitting native majority members, a perceived ethnic threat increases support for this welfare scheme, and b) a perceived ethnic threat reduces support for social assistance when right‐wing political parties frame it as favouring immigrants. Extending these findings, we show that opposition to immigrant welfare rights prompts electoral realignment, as left‐wing voters increasingly switch to right‐wing parties. More generally, political parties are capable of stimulating opposition to parts of the welfare state, including electoral mobilization against immigrant welfare rights. We utilize unusually rich mass‐level survey data from Denmark, covering a 25‐year period (1990‒2015). The broader implications of our findings for theories of ethnicity coding, political elite persuasion, and welfare state development are discussed in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transient auto-ignition is a key factor for flame stabilization and flame initialization in several technical combustion systems such as internal combustion engines or gas turbine combustors. Reliable numerical simulations of auto-ignition stabilized flames are important for the development of new combustor systems. For detailed model validation, knowledge of the sensitivity of different system response quantities (SRQs) of interest to the boundary conditions in combination with the accuracy of boundary conditions is essential, especially with respect to uncertainty quantification of numerical simulations. In the current study, the flame stabilization and auto-ignition in the DLR Jet-in-Hot-Coflow burner was examined experimentally using high-speed OH* chemiluminescence. Here, methane was either injected continuously to study the flame stabilization mechanism of steady state lifted jet flames, or in a pulsed manner to study the formation of auto-ignition kernels, into the hot exhaust gas of a lean, premixed hydrogen/air flame. The flame stabilization height, and the location and time of initial auto-ignition kernels for a case with transient auto-ignition were evaluated with respect to several boundary conditions, such as coflow temperature as well as coflow- and jet-velocity. A relative sensitivity of the measured SRQs on the boundary conditions was introduced in order to quantitatively compare steady state flame to transient auto-ignition characteristics and to assess the quantitative influence of different boundary conditions. Comparison of the auto-ignition dynamics in the steady state and during transient fuel injection allowed assessing the role of auto-ignition in the flame stabilization mechanism for different boundary conditions; accompanying chemical kinetic calculations were used to quantify the influence of strain on auto-ignition and flame propagation for the current conditions, allowing further insight into the flame stabilization mechanism in Jet-in-Hot-Coflow flames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The role of trade unions for public policy, public policy outcomes, and political behaviour is a well-studied topic. A serious shortcoming in this literature is that unions are usually treated as unitary actors. This is striking since not least the Scandinavian countries saw the membership growth in independent white-collar unions and their federations at the expense of the traditional blue-collar (and thus textbook-style) union federations. The growth of independent white-collar unions implies that the traditional assumptions about unions as advocates of redistribution and state intervention do not necessarily hold because this type of union represents potential 'losers' of redistribution and intervention. Moreover, their members do support less redistribution and more market-based allocation of incomes as well as privatization, since the solidarity effect fostered by traditional unionism is weakened if the higher-income strata are organized in separate federations. Consequently, this study addresses an important gap in the literature on union membership and political preferences by analysing the attitudes towards redistribution and state–market relations in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden across union federation membership in the past three decades. The findings demonstrate that members of independent academic/professional unions support market allocation of incomes and less state intervention, while the opposite is true for members of traditional blue-collar union federations. The effect of income on attitudes towards state and market is also consistently stronger in the independent white-collar federations in the three countries, which supports the muted solidarity effect in this type of union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A core, but so far untested, proposition of the new politics perspective, originally introduced by Paul Pierson, is that welfare state cutbacks will be implemented using so-called 'invisible' policy instruments, for example, a change in indexation rules. Expansion should, by implication, mainly happen using 'visible' policy instruments, for example, a change in nominal benefits. We have coded 1030 legislative reforms of old-age pensions and unemployment protection in Britain, Denmark, Finland and Germany from 1974 to 2014. With this unique data at hand, we find substantial support for this crucial new politics proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Carmines and Stimson’s seminal work, the concept of issue evolution has become a common theoretical toolkit to examine and explain polarization around cultural issues and partisan realignment in the United States. However, very few studies outside the United States have applied the concept of issue evolution to explain electoral change and realignment around new issues at national elections over time. Analyzing whether and how Carmines and Stimson’s concept travels to electoral change in a multiparty system would provide more theoretical leverage and create empirical knowledge on the logic of issue evolution outside the United States and also whether the logic of electoral change differs from U.S.-style two-party systems. This article applies the issue evolution concept to a multidimensional multiparty system using micro-level data from 1971 to 2011 in combination with data on elite-level polarization to demonstrate that partisan realignment in Denmark follows an issue evolution process with niche parties as main drivers. Moreover, niche party polarization on the new dimension of conflict has a stronger effect on vote choice than mainstream party polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theoretical advances in the welfare state literature have outlined the differences between labour market- and life course-related schemes as centre-right parties have difficulties in enacting retrenchment on life course-related schemes because these concern every voter. In contrast, the textbook risk profile of centre-right parties' electorates allows them to cutback on labour market-related schemes as these parties get negligible support from workers and low-income voters. Conducting a comparative case study of recent Danish and Swedish centre-right governments, this article analyses the stylized assumptions on the party level by comparing two similar centre-right governments, which differed in their voter coalitions' risk profile. I first argue that centre-right governments are generally constrained by the popular entrenchment of the universal welfare state when it comes to life course-related welfare schemes. Second, I argue that the leeway on labour market-related schemes is contingent on the actual risk profile of the centre-right's electorate, and thereby move beyond the stylized assumptions from recent literature. In this respect, the Danish centre-right did, in contrast to its Swedish counterpart, gain power with an unusual high support among workingclass voters which constrained its latitude on labour market-related schemes. I find that the Danish centre-right governments after 2001 acted with bound hands thanks to its high working-class backing, and refrained from outright cutbacks on both labour market- and life course-related schemes until 2010 except for labour market outsiders. In contrast, the Swedish centre-right had a much lower working-class backing and therefore engaged in some outright cutbacks of labour market-related schemes such as unemployment benefits directly after taking office 2006. The centre-right's actual voter coalition's risk profile is thus an important determinant for its public policies and its leeway for policy-seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the role of plant size for working class vote. We argue that workplace size does matter for political behaviour. Workers in smaller plants are less unionized and therefore base their voting decisions more strongly on their cultural attitudes, which undermine the support for social democratic parties. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002-2010), we find that workers in small plants have more right-wing attitudes and, consequently, vote for new and old right parties, contrarily to workers in larger plants. Our research points towards important structural explanations of working class support for the right and its cross-national differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issue evolution is a well-established theoretical perspective in the analysis of long-term party competition and partisanship in the US. However, this perspective has rarely been used to analyze political elite effects on partisan polarization in European multiparty systems. Consequently, I apply the issue evolution perspective to polarization in a European multiparty system. I find an emergence of cultural issues in Denmark, where mass level polarization on cultural issues followed elite level polarization. Unlike two-party systems, niche parties drive issue evolution on the elite level, which is then followed by niche partisan polarization and, finally, mainstream party adaption. The findings illustrate the mechanisms of issue evolution in a European-style multiparty system and the role of niche parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates to what extent social democratic parties still benefit from the support of union members at the polls. Not only are social democratic parties confronted with new competitors in the party systems, but also the union confederations of the socialist labour movement are in some countries losing their dominant position due to the rise of separate professional confederations. It is argued in the article that the effect of union membership on voting choice is conditioned by the structure of the trade union movement. The support of union members for social democracy is fostered by the strength of the confederations historically close to this party family, while it is hampered when strong separate (or politically unaffiliated) white-collar confederations exist. Using European Social Survey and Swedish Public Opinion data, the article shows that social democratic parties still enjoy important support from trade union members, but at the same time are under fierce competition from bourgeois and green parties among members of white-collar confederations. This reinforces the challenges for social democracy to build new voters' coalitions in post-industrial societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2015 election to the Danish Folketing saw yet another change of government as the centre-left minority government led by the social democratic Prime Minister Helle Thorning- Schmidt lost to the centre-right camp, which obtained a single-seat majority. Despite this narrow lead, the election also saw a political landslide since the liberal-conservative Venstre lost its position as largest party to the social democrats after going down more than seven percent of the votes. The national-conservative Danish People's Party became the second largest party after gaining almost nine percentage points. The social liberals and socialists, the former coalition partners of the social democrats, more than halved their seats. The 2015 election was thus the election with the highest net volatility and voter migration since the earthquake election of 1973. The new Prime Minister Lars L0kke Rasmussen from the liberal-conservative Venstre is now confronted with various challenges since he was not able to build a coalition with other centre-right parties. The third largest party therefore governs alone as a single party minority government with a single-seat majority for the centre-right camp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low signal-to-noise in particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements in systems such as high pressure gas turbine combustors can result in significant data gaps that negatively affect subsequent analysis. Here, gappy proper orthogonal decomposition (GPOD) is evaluated as a method of filling such missing data. Four GPOD methods are studied, including a new method that utilizes a median filter (MF) to adaptively select whether a local missing data point is updated after each iteration. These methods also are compared against local Kriging interpolation. The GPOD methods are tested using PIV data without missing vectors that were obtained in atmospheric pressure swirl flames. Parameters studied include the turbulence intensity, amount of missing data, and the amount of noise in the valid data. Two criteria to check for GPOD convergence also were investigated. The MF method filled in the missing data with the lowest error across all parameters tested, with approximately one-third the computational cost of Kriging. Furthermore, the accuracy of MF GPOD was relatively insensitive to the quality of the convergence criterion. Therefore, compared to the three other GPOD methods and Kriging interpolation, the MF GPOD method is an effective method for filling missing data in PIV measurements in the studied gas turbine combustor flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A gas turbine model combustor (Turbomeca Burner) for premixed methane/air flames has been operated at atmospheric pressure in two different modes of premixing. In the partially premixed mode, fuel was injected into the air flow within the swirl generator shortly upstream of the combustion chamber while in the perfectly premixed mode fuel and air were mixed far upstream. The main objective of this work is the study of the influence of the mode of premixing on the combustion behavior. Stereoscopic particle image velocimetry has been applied for the measurement of the flow field, OH chemiluminescence imaging for the visualization of the flame shapes and single-shot laser Raman scattering for the determination of the joint probability density functions of major species concentrations, mixture fraction and temperature. The mixing and reaction progress and effects of turbulence-chemistry interactions are characterized by scatterplots showing the correlations between different quantities. To isolate effects of mixing from combustion instabilities that were frequently observed in this combustor, operating conditions without thermo-acoustic oscillations or coherent flow structures were chosen. While the mode of premixing had no major influence on the general flame behavior characteristic differences were observed with respect to flame anchoring, the flow field in the inner recirculation zone and the CO concentration level. The results further extend the data base of previous experimental and numerical investigations with this burner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social democratic parties have changed their electoral appeals substantially to cater to new voter segments. This article examines social democracy’s fortunes in attracting new voters among the salaried middle class across different electoral systems. Previous research ignored the importance of electoral systems and was inconclusive as to whether social democratic parties succeeded in mobilizing new constituencies. I argue that electoral systems play a crucial role since proportional systems enhance the electoral competiveness of left-libertarian parties, social democracy’s most serious challengers among the salaried middle class. In contrast, majoritarian systems allow social democratic parties to gain a foothold among these voters as left-libertarians remain marginalized. Using ISSP data for 11 Western democracies, the findings demonstrate that social democratic parties were outperformed by their left-libertarian challengers among the salaried middle class under highly proportional systems, but not under majoritarian systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this manuscript, we describe an experimental approach to simultaneously measure high-speed image sequences of the mixture fraction and temperature fields during pulsed, turbulent fuel injection into a high-temperature, co-flowing, and vitiated oxidizer stream. The quantitative mixture fraction and temperature measurements are determined from 10-kHz-rate planar Rayleigh scattering and a robust data processing methodology which is accurate from fuel injection to the onset of auto-ignition. In addition, the data processing is shown to yield accurate temperature measurements following ignition to observe the initial evolution of the 'burning' temperature field. High-speed OH* chemiluminescence (CL) was used to determine the spatial location of the initial auto-ignition kernel. In order to ensure that the ignition kernel formed inside of the Rayleigh scattering laser light sheet, OH* CL was observed in two viewing planes, one near-parallel to the laser sheet and one perpendicular to the laser sheet. The high-speed laser measurements are enabled through the use of the unique high-energy pulse burst laser system which generates long-duration bursts of ultra-high pulse energies at 532 nm (>1 J) suitable for planar Rayleigh scattering imaging. A particular focus of this study was to characterize the fidelity of the measurements both in the context of the precision and accuracy, which includes facility operating and boundary conditions and measurement of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The mixture fraction and temperature fields deduced from the high-speed planar Rayleigh scattering measurements exhibited SNR values greater than 100 at temperatures exceeding 1,300 K. The accuracy of the measurements was determined by comparing the current mixture fraction results to that of 'cold', isothermal, non-reacting jets. All profiles, when properly normalized, exhibited self-similarity and collapsed upon one another. Finally, example mixture fraction, temperature, and OH* emission sequences are presented for a variety for fuel and vitiated oxidizer combinations. For all cases considered, auto-ignition occurred at the periphery of the fuel jet, under very 'lean' conditions, where the local mixture fraction was less than the stoichiometric mixture fraction ( ξ < ξ). Furthermore, the ignition kernel formed in regions of low scalar dissipation rate, which agrees with previous results from direct numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent elections yielded sweeping majorities for the centre-right in Scandinavia with a decade of pure centre-right majorities in Denmark and the longest sitting centre-right coalition in Sweden for decades. This is a blind spot in the issue voting literature, which would not expect centre-right parties to flourish in contexts where welfare issues have a natural salience as in the case of universal welfare states. In contrast, Scandinavian universal welfare states ought to benefit social democracy when it comes to issue voting on welfare issues. It is argued in this article that centre-right parties can beat social democrats by credibly converging to its social democratic opponent on issues of universal welfare. Issue ownership voting to the benefit of centre-right parties will then be strongest among voters perceiving the centre-right to have converged to social democracy and perceiving the centre-right as issue-owner. Using Danish National Election Studies, 1998-2007, the article shows that the Danish Liberal Party outperformed the Social Democrats on traditional welfare issues among those voters perceiving the Liberals to be ideologically close to the social democrats. The findings help us to understand why centre-right parties have recently turned into serious competitors on social democracy's turf: the universal welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article demonstrates that the big electoral defeat for Danish social democracy in the 2001 elections was not solely the consequence of the immigration issue, but of the welfare state reforms implemented by the Social Democratic government (1993-2001). Social democratic core voters opposed the reforms since they broke with the decommodification paradigm and turned away from social democracy. Against the arguments from the literature, the left-wing competitor Socialist People's Party's could not benefit from the reforms given its function as supporter party. Rather, the reforms caused the realignment of social democratic core voters with the Liberals and the Danish People's Party having expanded their voter base in 2001 as a consequence of the welfare reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2011 election to the Folketing led to a change of government as Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen's centre-right minority government supported by the Danish People's Party lost its parliamentary majority. A new coalition government of Social Democrats, Socialist People's Party, and Social Liberals was formed. Having no parliamentary majority on its own, this government, however, is dependent on the support of the radical left Unity List and MPs from Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Accordingly, the new centre-left government of Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt finds a difficult parliamentary situation, which already became apparent during and immediately after government formation. Furthermore, the intention of a number of leading politicians to break up the political camp formation reaching back to 2001 is impeded by the election results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of measurements was taken on two technically premixed, swirl-stabilized methane-air flames (at overall equivalence ratios of ϕ = 0.73 and 0.83) in an optically accessible gas turbine model combustor. The primary diagnostics used were combined planar laser-induced fluorescence of the OH radical and stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (PIV) with simultaneous repetition rates of 10 kHz and a measurement duration of 0.8 s. Also measured were acoustic pulsations and OH chemiluminescence. Analysis revealed strong local periodicity in the thermoacoustically self-excited (or ' noisy') flame (ϕ = 0.73) in the regions of the flow corresponding to the inner shear layer and the jet-inflow. This periodicity appears to be the result of a helical precessing vortex core (PVC) present in that region of the combustor. The PVC has a precession frequency double (at 570 Hz) that of the thermo-acoustic pulsation (at 288 Hz). A comparison of the various data sets and analysis techniques applied to each flame suggests a strong coupling between the PVC and the thermo-acoustic pulsation in the noisy flame. Measurements of the stable (' quiet') flame (ϕ = 0.83) revealed a global fluctuation in both velocity and heat-release around 364 Hz, but no clear evidence of a PVC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a vehicle, many parameters, such as the sprung mass, are not fixed. Rather, they change in a specified range. Vehicle control has to be able to cope with these potentially large parameter variations in the system. This paper deals with an algorithm, used to control the body slip angle. An estimator, part of the control, is used to obtain non-measurable signals. Whereas the vehicle parameters are uncertain, the estimator comprises of a vehicle model with fixed parameters. The objective is to find these nominal parameters, that guarantee optimal performance and stability in the complete parameter space of the vehicle. This requirement is defined in mathematics as an optimisation task. Even considering only the simple linear case, the problem very soon reaches such a complexity that it demands computational support. Nonlinear influences such as the tyre characteristics and weighting functions make analytical solutions either impossible or too restrictive for the design engineer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Control systems for vehicle stability require information about the actual vehicle state. While many states can be obtained from sensor signals, some important states, like the lateral velocity and the corresponding tyre-road friction have to be reconstructed by a vehicle state estimator, comprising of a simplified vehicle model. The efficiency of the developed vehicle state estimator has been proven in several projects for integrated vehicle dynamics control at the Ford Research Centre in Aachen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]