scholarly journals “Too shocked to search” The COVID-19 shutdowns’ impact on the search for apprenticeships

2021 ◽  
Vol 157 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Goller ◽  
Stefan C. Wolter

AbstractEven though the recession in Switzerland triggered by COVID-19 ultimately remained without consequences for the apprenticeship market, significantly fewer apprenticeship contracts had been signed in the months of the first shutdown in 2020 than in the same months of the previous year. Using daily search queries on the national administrative platform for apprenticeship vacancies from February 2020 until April 2021 as a proxy for the supply of potential apprentices, we find a temporal pattern that coincides perfectly with the development of signed apprenticeship contracts. Furthermore, the analyses show that the initially very strong relationship between the intensity of the politically imposed restrictions to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and the daily search queries diminished over time, leading to a search intensity in March 2021 that was back at pre-pandemic level.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1471082X2093976
Author(s):  
Meredith A. Ray ◽  
Dale Bowman ◽  
Ryan Csontos ◽  
Roy B. Van Arsdale ◽  
Hongmei Zhang

Earthquakes are one of the deadliest natural disasters. Our study focuses on detecting temporal patterns of earthquakes occurring along intraplate faults in the New Madrid seismic zone (NMSZ) within the middle of the United States from 1996–2016. Based on the magnitude and location of each earthquake, we developed a Bayesian clustering method to group hypocentres such that each group shared the same temporal pattern of occurrence. We constructed a matrix-variate Dirichlet process prior to describe temporal trends in the space and to detect regions showing similar temporal patterns. Simulations were conducted to assess accuracy and performance of the proposed method and to compare to other commonly used clustering methods such as Kmean, Kmedian and partition-around-medoids. We applied the method to NMSZ data to identify clusters of temporal patterns, which represent areas of stress that are potentially migrating over time. This information can then be used to assist in the prediction of future earthquakes.


Neurology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (9) ◽  
pp. e897-e909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison M. Barnard ◽  
Rebecca J. Willcocks ◽  
William T. Triplett ◽  
Sean C. Forbes ◽  
Michael J. Daniels ◽  
...  

ObjectiveTo investigate the potential of lower extremity magnetic resonance (MR) biomarkers to serve as endpoints in clinical trials of therapeutics for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) by characterizing the longitudinal progression of MR biomarkers over 48 months and assessing their relationship to changes in ambulatory clinical function.MethodsOne hundred sixty participants with DMD were enrolled in this longitudinal, natural history study and underwent MR data acquisition of the lower extremity muscles to determine muscle fat fraction (FF) and MRI T2 biomarkers of disease progression. In addition, 4 tests of ambulatory function were performed. Participants returned for follow-up data collection at 12, 24, 36, and 48 months.ResultsLongitudinal analysis of the MR biomarkers revealed that vastus lateralis FF, vastus lateralis MRI T2, and biceps femoris long head MRI T2 biomarkers were the fastest progressing biomarkers over time in this primarily ambulatory cohort. Biomarker values tended to demonstrate a nonlinear, sigmoidal trajectory over time. The lower extremity biomarkers predicted functional performance 12 and 24 months later, and the magnitude of change in an MR biomarker over time was related to the magnitude of change in function. Vastus lateralis FF, soleus FF, vastus lateralis MRI T2, and biceps femoris long head MRI T2 were the strongest predictors of future loss of function, including loss of ambulation.ConclusionsThis study supports the strong relationship between lower extremity MR biomarkers and measures of clinical function, as well as the ability of MR biomarkers, particularly those from proximal muscles, to predict future ambulatory function and important clinical milestones.ClinicalTrials.gov identifierNCT01484678.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Stein

Abstract This study analyzes the impact of bank relationships on a firm’s borrowing costs. We find that a firm’s borrowing costs decrease with relationship strength, proxied by the share of bank debt provided by the lender. Borrowing costs, however, rise with relationship length. While the increase over time is weak on average, bank-dependent borrowers face a substantial premium after several relationship years. Switching the lender initially leads to only a small price discount on average. However, the discount is considerable for borrowers that switch and had a strong relationship with their previous lender. Our results suggest that close lending relationships lead to benefits for the firm, but may also imply hold-up costs in the long term.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Jochner ◽  
J. M. Turowski ◽  
A. Badoux ◽  
M. Stoffel ◽  
C. Rickli

Abstract. Export rates of coarse particulate organic matter (CPOM) from mountain catchments have been observed to strongly increase with rising discharge, but the mechanism leading to this strong relationship is unclear. Here, we show that log jams in the Erlenbach, a steep headwater stream in the Swiss Prealps, are an effective barrier for the transport of CPOM pieces, and thus become sites of storage of large quantities of material over time. Exceptional discharge events with return periods exceeding 20 years play a dual role in CPOM transport. First, they destroy existing log jams, releasing the stored material (wood and sediment). Second, they intensify channel-hillslope coupling, thereby recruiting new logs to the channel, around which new jams can form.


2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 450-459
Author(s):  
Logan Dancey ◽  
Matthew Tarpey ◽  
Jonathan Woon

How do party reputations change over time? We construct a measure of the common movement in the parties’ perceived policy handling abilities for the period 1980 to 2016 and investigate its relationship with the public’s evaluation of Congress and the president. In contrast to key claims made in theories of congressional parties, we find an inconsistent relationship between evaluations of Congress and party reputations and find no evidence that successful agenda control enhances the majority party’s reputation. Instead, our analysis shows a strong relationship between party reputations and presidential approval, reaffirming the central role the president plays in shaping party reputations.


Author(s):  
Lia Bozarth ◽  
Ceren Budak

In this paper, we provide a large-scale analysis of the display ad ecosystem that supports low-credibility and traditional news sites, with a particular focus on the relationship between retailers and news producers. We study this relationship from both the retailer and news producer perspectives. First, focusing on the retailers, our work reveals high-profile retailers that are frequently advertised on low-credibility news sites, including those that are more likely to be advertised on low-credibility news sites than traditional news sites. Additionally, despite high-profile retailers having more resources and incentive to dissociate with low-credibility news publishers, we surprisingly do not observe a strong relationship between retailer popularity and advertising intensity on low-credibility news sites. We also do not observe a significant difference across different market sectors. Second, turning to the publishers, we characterize how different retailers are contributing to the ad revenue stream of low-credibility news sites. We observe that retailers who are among the top-10K websites on the Internet account for a quarter of all ad traffic on low-credibility news sites. Nevertheless, we show that low-credibility news sites are already becoming less reliant on popular retailers over time, highlighting the dynamic nature of the low-credibility news ad ecosystem.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. p11
Author(s):  
Mohammad Naser ◽  
Mohd Nazri Latiff Azmi ◽  
Kamariah Yunus ◽  
Hadir Alderaan

The goal of this research is to examine whether Saudi undergraduates who use certain grammatical forms in their writing are able to reproduce the same forms with similar accuracy in their speaking. The sample of the study comprised 180 EFL undergraduates’ (male/female) at the undergraduate level from the Institute of languages at the University of Tabuk. The researchers used varied research instruments including Holistic Proficiency Scores and grammatical Use and Accuracy. The data was analyzed using Pearson Product-Moment Correlation, and SPSS. The findings of the research showed that there is a strong relationship between writing and speaking at varied proficiency levels (intermediate and advanced) but the beginners level revealed a noticeable difference in terms of writing and speaking proficiencies’ development in which some of these learners indicated better improvement in writing compared to speaking and vice versa. In relevance to the explicit existence of grammatical items and their use by beginner learners; they were shown to use a considerable number of these grammatical items in their writing, but revealed comparable accuracy in both writing and speaking. This study recommended that further future research should include a similar longitudinal study looking at how the relationship between speaking and writing may change over time for each individual learner, a finding that is merely hypothesized in the present study. Also, the present study investigates this problem through holistic proficiency assessment and grammatical use and accuracy.


2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1591) ◽  
pp. 919-931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian C. J. Moore ◽  
Hedwig E. Gockel

A sequence of sounds may be heard as coming from a single source (called fusion or coherence) or from two or more sources (called fission or stream segregation). Each perceived source is called a ‘stream’. When the differences between successive sounds are very large, fission nearly always occurs, whereas when the differences are very small, fusion nearly always occurs. When the differences are intermediate in size, the percept often ‘flips’ between one stream and multiple streams, a property called ‘bistability’. The flips do not generally occur regularly in time. The tendency to hear two streams builds up over time, but can be partially or completely reset by a sudden change in the properties of the sequence or by switches in attention. Stream formation depends partly on the extent to which successive sounds excite different ‘channels’ in the peripheral auditory system. However, other factors can play a strong role; multiple streams may be heard when successive sounds are presented to the same ear and have essentially identical excitation patterns in the cochlea. Differences between successive sounds in temporal envelope, fundamental frequency, phase spectrum and lateralization can all induce a percept of multiple streams. Regularities in the temporal pattern of elements within a stream can help in stabilizing that stream.


2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yany Grégoire ◽  
Thomas M. Tripp ◽  
Renaud Legoux

Abstract Customer revenge and avoidance in the context of online complaints by the public are hot topics. This article helps managers to understand the phenomenon and to prevent damage. Do online complainers hold a grudge-in terms of revenge and avoidance desires-over time? Results show that time affects the two desires differently: although revenge decreases over time, avoidance increases over time, indicating that customers hold a grudge. Then, we examine the moderation effect of a strong relationship on how customers hold this grudge. Indeed firms’ best customers have the longest unfavorable reactions. This is called the love-becomes-hate effect. Specifically, over time the revenge of strong-relationship customers decreases more slowly, and their avoidance increases more rapidly, than for weak-relationship customers. Further, we explore a solution to attenuate this damaging effect: the firm offering an apology and compensation after the online complaint. Overall, strong-relationship customers are more amenable to any level of recovery attempt.


Biology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Padilla ◽  
Xiomara Lucas ◽  
Inmaculada Parrilla ◽  
Cristina Perez-Patiño ◽  
Heriberto Rodriguez-Martinez ◽  
...  

The concentrations of cytokines in seminal plasma (SP) fluctuate over time in healthy males, weakening their practical usefulness as diagnostic tools. This study evaluated the relevance of intra-male variability in SP cytokines and to what extent the period of the year when ejaculate is collected contributes to such variability. Thirteen cytokines (GM-CSF, IFNγ, IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-1ra, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12, IL-18, and TNFα) were measured using the Luminex xMAP® technology for 180 SP samples of ejaculate collected over a year from nine healthy and fertile boars. The SP samples were grouped into two annual periods according to decreasing or increasing daylight and ambient temperature. Intra-male variability was higher than inter-male variability for all cytokines. All SP cytokines showed concentration differences between the two periods of the year, showing the highest concentration during the increasing daylength/temperature period, irrespective of the male. Similarly, some cytokines showed differences between daylength/temperature periods when focusing on their total amount in the ejaculate. No strong relationship (explaining more than 50% of the total variance) was found between annual fluctuations in SP-cytokine levels and semen parameters. In conclusion, the period of the year during which ejaculates were collected helps explain the intra-male variability of SP-cytokine levels in breeding boars.


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