This chapter makes use of the first effort to construct cross-country comparable reference budgets in Europe to show what the large cross-national differences in living standards imply in practice for the adequacy of incomes at the level of the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. The budgets show that, in the poorest EU Member States, even adequate food and housing are barely affordable at the level of the threshold, whereas a decent living standard is much more in reach for those living on the threshold in the richer EU Member States. The reference budgets also suggest that the poverty risk of some groups (for instance, children) is underestimated relative to that of other age groups, while the poverty risk of homeowners is probably relatively overestimated.

The aim of this study is to analyse whether or not people are in consensus on what the necessities of life are in Finland. Consensus is analysed through two criteria: a public oriented view on the necessities and agreement between individuals. The study utilises a Finnish postal survey from 2015 where people were asked about the necessity of 23 items. The results suggest that individual views are shaped by personal circumstances and a fully public-oriented view cannot be established. Further, the respondents did not seem to agree on what are necessities. This implies that the minimum living standard could not be established consensually.

While material deprivation is often used to measure poverty, analyses focusing on the measurement of material deprivation are scarce. This study provides new information on material deprivation by analyzing how differences in the considerations of necessities and possession of deprivation items among all respondents and within population subgroups affect group-level differences in material deprivation in Finland. In line with many previous studies on material deprivation, this study focused on age groups. There is a significant age gradient regarding considerations of necessities, possession, and deprivation of many deprivation items. On average, younger adults experience material deprivation more often than older adults do. This study considers the differences in the considerations of necessities and possession of deprivation items using different weighting approaches. The study found that these differences are not largely transmitted to deprivation indices. Two causes of this finding were found: (1) individuals, on average, are not deprived of items in which there are differences between age groups regarding consensus and prevalence and (2) in those items in which deprivation is high, the consensus and the prevalence rates are often lower compared to other items. The results provide new information on which factors are important when using weighting approaches to measure material deprivation.

BACKGROUND: Normative performance (NP) describes the pilots’ adherence to tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Until now, there has not been a global NP measurement technique for beyond visual range (BVR) air combat, and the methodology and technology related to the evaluation of NP have fallen behind the pace of the overall technical progress of distributed mission operations (DMO) training.METHODS: Platform-independent core air combat tasks were identified. The execution of these tasks is directed with TTPs. BVR air combat missions were flown in a DMO simulator system and the design NP was varied between missions. Observers viewed debriefs of these missions and attempted to identify TTP-regulated air combat tasks. Once identified, they scored the pilots’ NP in those tasks. The scoring was based on the level of TTP adherence and the impact a nonadherence had on the mission accomplishment.RESULTS: All observers were able to identify most of the TTP-regulated air combat tasks. There was a strong positive correlation between the observed and design NP scores. The overall Kappa indicated a fair agreement between the observers. The percentage of observers’ NP assessments which agreed with the design NP varied from 49.60 to 85.28% in different air combat missions. On average, 73.96% of the observers’ NP scores agreed with the design NP scores.CONCLUSIONS: Observers were able to accurately identify TTP-regulated tasks and score NP of these tasks during an air combat debrief. There was a moderate agreement between the observers’ NP scores.Mansikka H, Virtanen K, Mäkinen L, Harris D. Normative performance measurement in simulated air combat. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2021; 92(11):908–912.

Changing patterns of bone trabeculae were observed at the interparietal, interfrontal, fronto-parietal, temporo-zygomatic, and mid-palatal sutures of vitally stained (alizarin red S ) rabbit skulls of 3 to 33 weeks of age. The changes appeared to represent changes in direction and velocity of bone growth at these sites. The method may offer a new approach to the study of skull growth, complementary to the traditional split-line and vital staining methods.Several reports on skeletal growth using the vital staining technique with alizarin red S have appeared in the literature (Massler and Schour, '51; Baer, '54; Craven, '56; Mednick and Washburn, '56; Erickson and Ogilvie, '58; Hoyte, '60). The purpose of these studies has usually been to follow the incremental bone growth on the bone surfaces.In the course of inspecting a series of vitally stained rabbit skulls our attention was drawn to the patterns of bone trabeculae, which were quite clear in the young thin-boned specimens and could be observed even in the older ones, although with increasing difficulty. It appeared that the direction of the trabeculae changed with age, and especially at the sutures, seemed to reflect the direction and changing velocity of bone growth. As this finding points out another possible application of the vital staining technique, our preliminary observations are presented here. MATERIAL AND METHODSThe material consisted of 27 skulls of white rabbits, representing ages from 3 to 33 weeks, one skull for every week, except for 19, 26, 30 and 32 weeks of age. The animals were given intraperitoneal injections of alizarin red S as a 2% suspension of sodium alizarinsulphonate in 0.45% saline seven days before killing. The dose was calculated to be 100 mg per 1,000 gm of body weight; a single dose was given to animals weighing less than 1,000 gm, whereas heavier animals received two doses on two consecutive days. The weight of AM. J. PHYS. ANTHROP., 23: 19-22.the animals was checked weekly; there was a temporary drop in weight following the double injections in some of the older animals, but no other obvious harmful effects were noted.The heads of the animals were severed, skinned, and boiled in water for 15-30 minutes. Then the soft tissues were removed by cutting and scraping with suitable instruments, and the clean skulls were stored in glycerol.The skulls were inspected under a dissection stereomicroscope, wet, using various light sources so as to reveal the bone architecture in the best possible way. The direction of the bone trabeculae at the interparie t al, in terfront al, fronto-parie t al, temporo-zygomatic, and mid-palatal sutures was noted and drawn on schematic pictures of these areas. Due to the difficulties mentioned earlier the results presented below refer mainly to the ectocranial surfaces of the calvarial bones of the younger specimens. RESULTSThe interparietal suture In the beginning trabeculae are seen to radiate from the ossification centers, approaching the suture at various angles ( fig. la). From the three-w...