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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]

Background: Pulmonary Vein Isolation (PVI) is evolving as an established treatment option in atrial fibrillation (AF). Different fluoroscopy-guided ablation devices exist either on the basis of expandable circumferential and mesh designs with mapping and ablation of pulmonary vein potentials, or of a balloon technology, a “single shot” device with a purely anatomical approach. Systematic comparisons between procedure duration (PD), fluoroscopy time (FT) and clinical outcome in using different ablation tools are lacking in the literature.Methods: In a single center retrospective analysis, 119 PVI procedures were performed between August 2008 and March 2011 in paroxysmal AF (PAF, 59.7%) and persistent AF (persAF, 40.3%) patients with mean age of 59.4±10.3 years and history of AF since 8.1±9.7 months. The PVI procedures were evaluated by comparing PD and FT using I) the High Density Mesh Mapper (HDMM), II) the High Density Mesh Ablator (HDMA), and III) the Arctic Front® Cryoballoon. The primary endpoints were FT and PD, the secondary endpoint was procedural safety and efficacy in short- and longterm follow-up.Results: The procedures performed for 119 patients (63.0 % male) included 42 PVIs with the HDMM (35.3 %), 47 with the HDMA (39.5 %) and 30 with the cryoballoon (25.2 %). Comparing the 30 first procedures in groups of 10 in the HDMM and HDMA group, PD and FT fell in the HDMM group (PD from 257.5 to 220.9 min and FT from 80.5 to 67.3 min, both p < 0.05) as well as in the HDMA group (PD from 182.9 to 147.2 min and FT from 41.02 to 29.1 min, both p < 0.05). In the cryoballoon group, there was a steep learning curve with a steady state after the first 10 procedures (PD and FT decreased significantly from 189.5 to 138.1 min and 36.9 to 27.3 min, p values 0.005 and 0.05 respectively). With respect to recurrence of AF in a 24 months follow up, the HDMM and cryoballoon group showed comparable results with ~72% of patients free of arrhythmias. None of the patients died due to severe complications, or suffered a hemodynamic relevant pericardial effusion and/or stroke. Impairment of the phrenic nerve was observed in three patients.Conclusion: Use of the cryoballoon technology was associated with a steep learning curve and a reduced PD and FT; the long-term outcome was similar compared with the HDMM group. The efficacy and safety of the devices but also PD and FT should be respected as the strongest indicators of the quality of ablation. Further studies with long time follow-ups will show if the time for correct mapping of the PV potentials is a price we should be willing to pay or if we should adopt a “wait-and-see” attitude referring the AF recurrence.

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]

Instantaneous 2D phosphor thermometry was performed on the windows and combustion chamber posts of an optically accessible dual-swirl gas turbine model combustor operated with CH 4 at atmospheric pressure. Two phosphors were used in order to measure different surface temperature ranges: YAP:Eu (temperature range 850 K – 1150 K) and YAG:Eu (temperature range 1100 K – 1300 K). Phosphor coatings were applied to the combustion chamber post and to three vertically oriented stripes on one combustion chamber window. Using interpolation, this allowed the determination of the surface temperature of the complete combustion chamber window. Heat losses across the combustion chamber window were determined by measuring the surface temperature on the inner and outer surface of the window. The phosphor coating was illuminated using the fourth harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser, which was formed into a broad light sheet. The spatially resolved, temperature-dependent decay rate of the phosphorescence was measured with a high speed CMOS camera. Three flames with similar flow fields and thermal powers between 22.5 kW and 30 kW and equivalence ratios between 0.63 and 0.83 were studied. Because the flame characteristics including flow field, heat release and temperature distributions were known from previous measurements the interaction between the flame and the surface temperature could be examined. In this way, the different wall temperatures of the flames could be explained. [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]

Abstract Auto-ignition is a complex process which is extremely sensitive to boundary conditions such as local temperature, mixture or strain rate and occurs on very short time-scales. Therefore, measurement techniques with high spatio-temporal resolution have to be applied to test cases with well-defined boundary conditions in order to generate high-quality validation data for numerical simulations. In the current paper, the auto-ignition of a transient propane jet-in-hot coflow was studied with high-speed OH* chemiluminescence imaging and high-speed Rayleigh scattering for the simultaneous determination of mixture fraction, mixture temperature and scalar dissipation rate immediately prior to the onset of auto-ignition. A variation of the coflow temperature showed a pronounced temperature dependence of the auto-ignition location and time, and the temperature sensitivity was higher than for a comparable methane test case from the literature. This is explained by the lower sensitivity of propane ignition delay times to the local strain rate in comparison to methane. The Rayleigh measurements however showed that the formation mechanism of auto-ignition kernels is similar for propane and methane. Ignition kernels were found to form upstream of bulges of the inflowing jet at locations with locally low scalar dissipation rate. [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]

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]

Copyright of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab is the property of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

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]

Copyright of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab is the property of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

After total hip arthroplasty, impingement of implant components may occur during everyday patient activities causing increased shear stresses at the acetabular implant-bone interface. In the literature, impingement related lever-out moments were noted for a number of acetabular components. But there is little information about pelvic load transfer. The aim of the current study was to measure the three-dimensional strain distribution at the macrostructured hemispherical interface and in the periphery of a standard acetabular press-fit cup in an experimental implant-bone substitute model. An experimental setup was developed to simulate impingement loading via a lever arm representing the femoral component and the lower limb. In one experimental setup 12 strain gauges were embedded at predefined positions in the periphery of the acetabular cup implant inside a tray, using polyurethane composite resin as a bone substitute material. By incremental rotation of the implant tray in steps of 10 and 30 deg, respectively, the strains were measured at evenly distributed positions. With the described method 288 genuine strain values were measured in the periphery of an embedded acetabular cup implant in one experimental setup. In two additional setups the strains were evaluated at different distances from the implant interface. Both in radial and meridional interface directions strain magnitudes reach their peak near the rim of the cup below the impingement site. Values of equatorial strains vary near zero and reach their peaks near the rim of the cup on either side and in some distance from the impingement site. Interestingly, the maximum of averaged radial strains does not occur, as expected, close to the interface but at an interface offset of 5.6 mm. With the described experimental setup it is now possible to measure and display the three-dimensional strain distribution in the interface and the periphery of an embedded acetabular cup implant. The current study provides the first experimental proof of the high local stresses gradients in the direct vicinity of the impingement site. The results of the current study help for a better understanding of the impingement mechanism and its impact on acetabular cup stability. [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]

The eighteenth topical meeting on Laser Applications to Chemical, Security, and Environmental Analysis (LACSEA) was held in Vancouver, Canada from 11-15 July 2022, as part of the Optica Optical Sensors and Sensing Congress in a hybrid format allowing on-site and online attendance. The meeting featured a broad range of distinguished papers focusing on recent advances in laser and optical spectroscopy. A total of 52 contributed and invited papers were presented during the meeting, including topics such as photo-acoustic spectroscopy, imaging, non-linear technologies, frequency combs, remote sensing, environmental monitoring, aerosols, combustion diagnostics, hypersonic flow diagnostics, nuclear diagnostics, fs/ps applications, and machine learning and computational sensing.