Statistics Finland

As platforms for dialogue, art-science collaborations hold the potential to cross disciplinary boundaries to better understand and engage the public in addressing sustainability challenges. Moving beyond documenting outcomes, this study details how researchers and composers combined science communication and artistic expression to co-produce performances as part of the Baltic Sea Festival Science Lab. Drawing on insights from a joint reflection process, we recount our motivations for participation, provide insights on the co-production processes of six researcher-composer pairs, and share our experiences of the performances. We highlight openness to other ways of working, different perspectives and opinions, and emergence as well as collaborative skills, including listening, communication, and problem-solving skills, as key enablers for crossing disciplinary boundaries in art-science collaborations. As answers to the question on how, why, and in what ways platforms for dialogue can turn into platforms for learning, we discuss opportunities for designing safe-enough spaces, working towards a shared goal while embracing the unfolding nature of a process, and engaging in reflection to follow up on and make sense of one’s learning. Through this study, we hope to provide guidance for those who wish to engage in art-science collaborations to co-produce pathways towards sustainable futures together.

Metodologinen keskustelu väkivallan kehityksen mittaamisesta on usein typistynyt vertailuun kysely- ja viranomaistilastolähteiden välillä. Vähemmälle huomiolle on jäänyt erilaisten väkivallan osoittimien käytön vaikutus havaittuihin väkivallan trendeihin viranomaistilastojen sisällä. Tässä artikkelissa vertaillaan eri osoittimien piirtämää kuvaa 15–29-vuotiaiden nuorten tekemästä ja kokemasta vakavasta väkivallasta tarkastelemalla poliisin tietoon tulleiden törkeiden pahoinpitelyjen, henkirikoksen yritysten ja toteutuneiden henkirikosten sekä kuolemansyytilaston väkivaltaisten kuolemien kehityskulkuja 2000-luvulla. Avoimen tieteen (open science) periaatteisiin nojaten esitämme artikkelissa toistettavan ja läpinäkyvän tavan hakea ja mallintaa rikosten määrään ja kehitykseen liittyviä tilastotietoja. Analyysin tuloksena tarkastelujaksolla havaitaan, että eri rikoslajit ovat kehittyneet eri tavalla, ja saman rikoslajin sisällä eri tilastointitavat saattavat piirtää kehityksestä toisistaan hieman poikkeavaa kuvaa. Melko systemaattisesti havaitaan kuolemaan johtaneen väkivallan tekemisen pääsääntöisesti vähentyneen tarkastelujaksolla koko aineistossa. Vastaavaa selkeää laskua ei kuitenkaan havaita henkirikoksen uhriksi joutumisen osalta, ja lievempien väkivallan muotojen osalta havaitaan myös viimeaikaisia noususuuntaisia kehityskulkuja etenkin 15–20-vuotiaiden ikäryhmässä. Kokonaisuudessaan tulokset ovat yhdenmukaisia viimeaikaisten kansainvälisten tutkimusten kanssa, jotka korostavat varovaisuutta henkirikosten käyttämisessä kaiken väkivallan mittarina. Johtopäätöksenä peräänkuulutetaan myös varovaisuutta sen suhteen, että vakavan väkivallan kehitystä arvioitaisiin pelkästään yhden osoittimen perusteella ilman eri osoittimien muodostaman kokonaiskuvan tarkastelua.

Cancer therapies place an increasing financial burden on societies. In metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), an optimised curative-intent treatment combines metastasectomy, local ablative therapy, and perioperative systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) under multidisciplinary team guidance. The resource-intensive operative treatment strategy results in better survival than a non-operative approach with SACT only. The cost-effectiveness of the strategy including operative treatment has not been investigated in the era of modern treatment options. Patient/material and methods: A Markov model was developed to estimate lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Patients receiving operative treatment, including metastasectomy along with SACT, and those receiving non-operative treatment with SACT only, were identified from the prospective Finnish RAXO study that recruited 1,086 patients between 2012 and 2018. Cost-effectiveness analyses and sensitivity analyses were conducted from the healthcare payer's perspective using 2023 cost levels. The mean lifetime costs (158,309€) for patients with an operative treatment produced 6.57 life years and 5.91 QALYs according to the Markov model. The non-operative treatment group had costs of 77,182€, producing 1.99 life years and 1.74 QALYs. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was 19,455€/QALY, with the caveat that more favourable characteristics were present in the operative group. In probabilistic sensitivity analyses with a willingness-to-pay threshold of 30,000€/QALY, the operative treatment group had an 81% probability of being cost-effective. The results were robust in adjusted sensitivity analyses, including propensity score matched subgroups. An operative treatment strategy is cost-effective at a commonly referenced acceptability threshold.

The development of height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) in children has been the subject of considerable interest due to secular changes in growth patterns, such as increases in height and rising obesity rates. Predicting growth in a target population is particularly challenging when the population comprises of individuals with and without past growth data. In this study, we present three approaches for the joint prediction of height and weight in that situation. The predictive performance of each approach is evaluated using a range of measures that assess different properties of the prediction distributions. We also compare the approaches to interpret their clinical relevance, particularly in terms of prediction accuracy. The developed prediction approaches vary in their use of past growth data. We predict growth for a target population of children aged 4-11 years in 2021, residing in three municipalities in Finland. We employ longitudinal register data on height and weight, collected from children aged 2-11 years between 2014 and 2020 in these municipalities to construct a Bayesian hierarchical linear model (HLM) for growth prediction. Additionally, we estimate posterior unconditional distributions of height, weight, and BMI for within-sample model validation. The inclusion of individual-level data in the predictions reduced the divergence from observed measurements, particularly for weight and BMI. This is important given the skewed distribution of the measurements with increasing age. Incorporating individual-level information is also beneficial for child-specific predictions. Our study highlights the importance of multiple prediction checks to understand the flaws and strengths of each prediction approach.

Abstract This work describes and analyzes the domain derivative for a time-dependent acoustic scattering problem. We study the nonlinear operator that maps a sound-soft scattering object to the solution of the time-dependent wave equation evaluated at a finite number of points away from the obstacle. The Fréchet derivative of this operator with respect to variations of the scatterer coincides with point evaluations of the temporal domain derivative. The latter is the solution to another time-dependent scattering problem, for which a well-posedness result is shown under sufficient temporal regularity of the incoming wave. Applying convolution quadrature to this scattering problem gives a stable and provably convergent semi-discretization in time, provided that the incoming wave is sufficient regular. Using the discrete domain derivative in a Gauss–Newton method, we describe an efficient algorithm to reconstruct the boundary of an unknown scattering object from time domain measurements in a few points away from the boundary. Numerical examples for the acoustic wave equation in two dimensions demonstrate the performance of the method.

The recently proposed statistical finite element (statFEM) approach synthesises measurement data with finite element models and allows for making predictions about the unknown true system response. We provide a probabilistic error analysis for a prototypical statFEM setup based on a Gaussian process prior under the assumption that the noisy measurement data are generated by a deterministic true system response function that satisfies a second-order elliptic partial differential equation for an unknown true source term. In certain cases, properties such as the smoothness of the source term may be misspecified by the Gaussian process model. The error estimates we derive are for the expectation with respect to the measurement noise of the L 2 -norm of the difference between the true system response and the mean of the statFEM posterior. The estimates imply polynomial rates of convergence in the numbers of measurement points and finite element basis functions and depend on the Sobolev smoothness of the true source term and the Gaussian process model. A numerical example for Poisson’s equation is used to illustrate these theoretical results.

Abstract In this paper, we study the relationship between Sobolev extension domains and homogeneous Sobolev extension domains. Precisely, we obtain the following results, Let $$1\leq q\leq p\leq \infty$$ 1 ≤ q ≤ p ≤ ∞ . Then a bounded $$(L^{1, p}, L^{1, q})$$ ( L 1 , p , L 1 , q ) -extension domain is also a $$(W^{1, p}, W^{1, q})$$ ( W 1 , p , W 1 , q ) -extension domain. Let $$1\leq q\leq p<q ^{\star} \leq \infty$$ 1 ≤ q ≤ p < q ⋆ ≤ ∞ or $$n< q \leq p\leq \infty$$ n < q ≤ p ≤ ∞ . Then a bounded domain is a $$(W^{1, p}, W^{1, q})$$ ( W 1 , p , W 1 , q ) -extension domain if and only if it is an $$(L^{1, p}, L^{1, q})$$ ( L 1 , p , L 1 , q ) -extension domain. For $$1\leq q<n$$ 1 ≤ q < n and $$q<nq ^{\star} <p\leq \infty$$ q < n q ⋆ < p ≤ ∞ , there exists a bounded domain $$\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n$$ Ω ⊂ R n which is a $$(W^{1, p}, W^{1, q})$$ ( W 1 , p , W 1 , q ) -extension domain but not an $$(L^{1, p}, L^{1, q})$$ ( L 1 , p , L 1 , q ) -extension domain for $$1 \leq q <p\leq n$$ 1 ≤ q < p ≤ n .