Danish Regulation Research Articles

POL-INTEL

AbstractSince the adoption of Section 2a of the Danish Police Act in 2017, the police have been able to conduct cross-sectional information analyses in IT systems designed for this purpose, and thus process personal data for purposes other than those for which they were originally collected. This is regulated by the Executive Order on Cross-sectional Information Analyses. According to this executive order, the police shall use the POL-INTEL system to perform the analyses. The article discusses the police’s use of personal data for new purposes based on the Law Enforcement Directive, the Danish Law Enforcement Act, and relevant case law from the European Court of Justice. It assesses whether the regulation of POL-INTEL in the Executive Order on Cross-sectional Information Analyses adheres to the principles of purpose limitation, data minimisation and legality, or whether there is a need for changes to the Danish regulation .

Determination of total extractable organofluorine (EOF) in food contact materials and target and non-target analysis of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances using LC–MS/MS and LC–HRMS simultaneously coupled to ICP-MS

Food contact materials (FCMs) from three countries were analysed for all extractable organofluorines (EOFs) from the materials and subsequently by target and non-target analysis for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The EOF varied by two orders of magnitude for FCM from UK and Saudi Arabia ranging between 2.14 and 483 ng cm−2 (0.2–48 ng g−1) showing that one quarter of all samples were above the Danish regulation for PFAS in FCM. Target PFAS showed high variability in composition and accounted for less than 1% of the EOF. Non-target PFAS screening using HPLC–ICP-MS and coupled simultaneously to HRMS showed the occurrence of organofluorines which were identified by neither LC–MS/MS nor LC–HRMS. This illustrates that the current target PFAS approaches fail to identify EOFs from FCM, which would be a problem with the new EU proposal to ban all PFAS.

The Significance of Corporate Losses in Transfer Pricing – The Danish Supreme Court Ruling in the Maersk Oil/Total Energies Case

On 6 September 2023, the Danish Supreme Court delivered its ruling in the largest Danish transfer pricing case to date. In addition to its considerable adjustments, the ruling has been a spectacular addition to a decade-long development in the Danish transfer pricing regulation due to the handling of corporate losses, discretionary assessments and aggregated assessments of individual transactions.

Mixed policy feedback and evolution of environmental regulation: analysing instrument recalibration and layering in Danish nitrogen policy

ABSTRACT Recent research has demonstrated that positive and negative feedback can occur simultaneously within environmental policy. This tends to occur when policy has multiple purposes. We engage with the concept of mixed feedback to highlight aspects of the phenomenon that have hitherto not been explored in detail and thus add more nuance to the feedback argument to improve our understanding of environmental policy evolution. Our first argument is that single-purpose policies may generate mixed feedback. Each instrument generates distinct feedback. Secondly, we challenge the assumption that negative feedback undermine policy and suggest that negative feedback may indeed contribute to maintaining policy. For policy to endure over longer periods, it needs to respond to feedback. Thirdly, we argue that mixed instrument feedback can result in a substantial reshuffling of an environmental policy mix through the recalibration of instruments. We use the trajectory of Danish regulation aimed at nitrogen run-offs to coastal waters over almost three decades to illustrate the three arguments.

Measuring low noise level in dwellings

DS 490:2018 "Akustik - Lydklassifikation af boliger", translated to "Acoustics - Acoustic Classification of Dwellings" relates to many acoustical parameters, and two of them "Noise from ventilation" and "Reverberation times" are now being tested in real life in the Danish "Voluntary sustainability classification".(Called FBK) Danish building regulation state a sound level limit in dwellings from all kinds of technical systems at 30 dB(A), equal to the Acoustical class C, comparable with the limit in several countries. Research shows that 30 dB(A) does not ensure acoustic satisfying comfort for most people. The FBK have chosen to lower the noise limit to 25 dB(A), equal to acoustical class B. We need to improve the ventilation systems in order to reach such lower level of sound emission, and to be able to measure it implemented in dwellings. The paper describes some methods and in situ experience fighting background noise problems caused by activities around and in the dwelling, as well as in the measurement systems. Special analyses and editing of recordings based on listening and pragmatic judgements are relevant. The goal is: Measure and document low noise without a cost in time and money being a barrier for lower noise levels in dwellings.

Tacit Concepts of Family in Legislation on Assisted Reproduction

Abstract This article examines the joint corpus of family and health legislation and practices to analyse the notions behind the Danish regulation of assisted reproduction. It introduces an analytical framework, which encompasses a more comprehensive approach and encapsulates the variety of regulatory tools that expressly or implicitly create restrictions on the provision of assisted reproduction. By providing a generally applicable framework for analyses of the de facto regulation to expose possible underlying tacit concepts, this article makes a methodological contribution to enhance the understanding of the intermingling fields of family and reproductive law. The analysis in this article shows that eligibility for receiving infertility care depends on one’s current family constellation and it is not children per se, which are the focal point. Surprisingly neither is the nuclear family. Rather, the consummation of the relationship between a man and a woman through one shared child is at the core of the regulation. Archaic notions of family and gender expectations are thus revealed. The article concludes by discussing how the raison d'être behind the regulation could have been something other than a specific concept of family. In this way, the article invites others to analyse their national regulation of assisted reproduction and to contribute to an international discussion about whom, in the pursuit of family formation through ART treatment, has an underprivileged status.

Quantifying benefits of the Danish transfat ban for coronary heart disease mortality 1991-2007: Socioeconomic analysis using the IMPACTsec model.

Denmark has experienced a remarkable reduction in CVD mortality over recent decades. The scale of the health contribution from the Danish regulation on industrially produced trans fatty acid (ITFA) has therefore long been of interest. Thus the objective was to determine health and equity benefits of the Danish regulation on ITFA content in Danish food, by quantifying the relative contributions of changes in ITFA intake, other risk factors and treatments on coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality decline from 1991 to 2007 in Denmark, stratified by socioeconomic group. To evaluate the effects of the ITFA ban (Danish Order no. 160 of March 2003) the Danish IMPACTSEC model was extended to quantify reductions in CHD deaths attributable to changes in ITFA (%E) intake between 1991-2007. Population counts were obtained from the Danish Central Office of Civil Registration, financial income from Statistics Denmark and ITFA intake from Dan-MONICA III (1991) and DANSDA (2005-2008). Participants were adults aged 25-84 years living in Denmark in 1991 and 2007, stratified by socioeconomic quintiles. The main outcome measure was CHD deaths prevented or postponed (DPP). Mean energy intake from ITFA was decimated between 1991 and 2007, falling from 1.1%E to 0.1%E in men and from 1·0%E to 0·1%E in women. Approximately 1,191 (95% CI 989-1,409) fewer CHD deaths were attributable to the ITFA reduction, representing some 11% of the overall 11,100 mortality fall observed in the period. The greatest attributable mortality falls were seen in the most deprived quintiles. Adding ITFA data to the original IMPACTsec model improved the overall model fit from 64% to 73%. In conclusion: Denmark's mandatory elimination of ITFA accounted for approximately 11% of the substantial reduction in CHD deaths observed between 1991 and 2007. The most deprived groups benefited the most, thus reducing inequalities. Adopting the Danish ITFA regulatory approach elsewhere could substantially reduce CHD mortality while improving health equity.

Implications of aggregation uncertainty in Data Envelopment Analysis: An application in incentive regulation

Researchers and practitioners who use Data Envelopment Analysis often want to incorporate several inputs and outputs in their model to consider as much relevant information as possible. However, too many inputs and outputs can result in the well-known dimensionality problem referred to as the “curse of dimensionality”. Several studies suggest how to solve, or at least reduce, this problem. One solution is to aggregate the inputs and outputs before using them in the model. This paper examines the implications when the methods used to aggregate the inputs and outputs contain uncertainty. The uncertainty can, for example, be price uncertainty if we use input and/or output prices for the aggregation. We show that the implications for a given unit depend entirely on its input and output mixes relative to those of its peers, and that the implications are higher the more heterogeneous the sector is. As an example, we use the Danish benchmarking regulation of the waste water companies. We find that uncertainty in the regulator’s aggregation scheme does not, on average, influence the companies’ efficiency scores a lot. Still, individual companies can be greatly affected by this uncertainty.

Incentives in regulatory DEA models with discretionary outputs: The case of Danish water regulation

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) based cost norms are widely used to regulate natural monopolies like water, electricity, and gas networks. In the typical application, demand is considered fixed and non-controllable (non-discretionary), and the challenge is to incentivize the monopoly to provide the demanded services at the lowest possible costs. In this paper, we investigate the incentives of a DEA based regulation when some of the demand dimensions, the cost drivers, can, in fact, be controlled by the monopoly. In such cases, the classical DEA based regulation may lead to suboptimal incentives. Specifically, we examine both analytically and numerically the impacts of including a discretionary quality indicator in the benchmarking model used to regulate Danish water firms. We show that the catch-up period allowed in this regulation gives strong incentives to reduce costs since the firms can keep possible cost reductions for several years before the cost norm fully internalizes the cost reduction potentials. However, on the other hand, this scheme also provides weak quality incentives since it takes several years before the extra cost of increasing quality is fully internalized in the cost norm.

The Danish Income-Cap Regulation in the Power Supply Sector

The break-even principle (a cost-based regulation approach) has been a fundamental principle for the price regulation of the Danish utilities for several decades. Following the liberalization of parts of the energy sector, this regulation has been supplemented with new instruments to regulate monopoly areas. This form of regulation was introduced in connection with a new electricity supply regulation from 1999. The detailed design of the income-cap regulation has been left to the Minister responsible for the energy sector and the supervisory authority (currently the Danish Utility Regulator (DUR)). Income-cap regulation of power grids has given rise to several challenges. Thus, the specific design of the revenue framework has been changed several times. At the same time, however, some experience has been gained with the administrative handling of this form of regulation. Several cases have, in the absence of administrative courts in Denmark, been dealt with by the Danish Energy Board of Appeals (EBA). Since the introduction of revenue frameworks, the power (electricity) sector has changed. Furthermore, the sector must now adapt to the green transition, which will require capacity expansion at both transmission and distribution levels, or other measures to be taken to prevent bottlenecks in the system. In this article the income-cap experience will be discussed. Income-cap, grid companies, green transition, electricity, power supply, utilities

Spectrum for Private Networks: Challenges and Opportunities—A Case Study Based on Danish Regulation

This paper investigates the challenges and opportunities for assigning spectrum for private 5G networks, with particular emphasis on the 3.5 GHz band and regulation issued by the Danish spectrum authority Energistyrelsen. We are chiefly interested in the dilemma between providing sufficient and clean spectrum for a private network versus ensuring that high network density can be supported. Indoor and outdoor scenarios are considered, and the performance impact of interference on different levels of service availability are investigated. We develop and propose new solutions for enhanced spectrum regulation options leveraging native 5G features, such as bandwidth part, to support denser outdoor and indoor deployments that can enhance best effort traffic and simultaneously protect spectrum for critical and delay sensitive traffic. System-level simulations show that our proposals can protect critical services and significantly increase the capacity per network in dense deployments.

Impact of Legionella regulation on a 4th generation district heating substation energy use and cost: the case of a Swiss single-family household

4th Generation District Heating (4GDH) systems can have a supply temperature lower than 50 °C to decrease losses and to favour the integration of renewable and waste heat. As the temperature requirement for space heating in new and retrofitted buildings is around 35 °C or lower, they would be suitable for 4GDH. However, Domestic Hot Water (DHW) is a significant barrier in district heating, because the temperature needs to be maintained above the standard Legionella growing range (25 °C–55 °C), even if 45 °C would be sufficient for comfort. Nonetheless, current regulations vary widely across countries in Europe, especially for small buildings. This paper aims to study the effect of different Legionella regulations on the DHW energy use, and on the substation cost of a Swiss single-family household connected to a 4GDH network. The Swiss standard is confronted with the requirements of the Danish regulation and the German “3-litre rule”. Results demonstrated that a relaxation of the current Swiss regulation could present energy and economic savings. The “3-litre rule” resulted in an annual heat consumption reduction of 13% while the Danish standard achieved the lowest annual running cost and annualized total cost.

The Danish Income-Cap Regulation in the Power Supply Sector: A Legal Perspective Considering the Green Transition

The break-even principle has been a fundamental principle for the price regulation of the Danish utilities for several decades. Following the liberalization of parts of the energy sector, this regulation has been supplemented with new instruments to regulate monopoly areas. This form of regulation was introduced in connection with a new electricity supply regulation from 1999. The detailed design of the income-cap regulation has been left to the Minister responsible for the energy sector and the supervisory authority (currently the Danish Utility Regulator). Income-cap regulation of power grids has given rise to several challenges. Thus, the specific design of the revenue framework has been changed several times. At the same time, however, some experience has been gained with the administrative handling of this form of regulation. Several cases have, in the absence of administrative courts in Denmark, been dealt with by the Danish Energy Board of Appeals. Since the introduction of revenue frameworks, the power (electricity) sector has changed. Furthermore, the sector must adapt to the Green Transition, which will require capacity expansion at both transmission and distribution levels, or other measures must be taken to prevent bottlenecks in the system. In this paper the income-cap experience will be discussed.

Decreasing Mental Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study Among Danes Before and During the Pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on people’s lives and may influence mental health in the general population. In a unique representative Danish longitudinal study, we examined mental well-being measured just before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: The Danish Health and Wellbeing Survey is the Danish contribution to the European Health Interview Survey. In this study, we included the wave from autumn 2019, which we re-invited in the autumn 2020. The study population consisted of 4,234 persons. The main outcome was the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS). Linear and logistic regression models were conducted to evaluate change in SWEMWBS between 2019 and 2020.Outcomes: The SWEMWBS distribution was similar in 2019 and 2020, although the distribution moved to lower scores in 2020 compared to 2019. Mean SWEMWBS decreased significantly from 25·5 in 2019 to 24·6 in 2020 corresponding to a mean change of -1·0 (95%CI, -1·1. to -0·8). The proportion with low SWEMWBS increased from 16·5% in 2019 to 20·1% in 2020 (pInterpretation: As expected, mental well-being significantly decreased in the adult Danish population during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, somewhat more unexpectedly, the decrease was most pronounced among persons without depression or long-standing illnesses and among higher educated groups.Funding Information: The project was financed by a grant by Velliv Foreningen (grant number 20-0438).Declaration of Interests: All authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.Ethics Approval Statement: In Denmark, register and questionnaire studies do not require approval by committees on biomedical research ethics. The surveys in 2019 and 2020 were approved by SDU Research & Innovation Organization. Since 2016, RIO examines and approves all scientific and statistical projects at the University of Southern Denmark according to the Danish Data Protection Regulation.

Expanding the upper age limit for cervical cancer screening: a protocol for a nationwide non-randomised intervention study

IntroductionCervical cancer screening ceases between the ages of 60 and 65 in most countries. Yet, a relatively high proportion of cervical cancers are diagnosed in women above the screening age....

Validation of noise propagation models against detailed flow and acoustic measurements

In this paper, four noise propagation models including the parabolic-equation based WindSTAR model, ray-tracing based Nord2000 model, Danish regulation BEK 135 model and ISO 9613-2 standard model are validated against flow and acoustic measurements of a sound source created from a speaker located at a turbine hub of 109 m height. The flow was measured with a fully instrumented met-mast at 350 m and 218 degrees from the turbine tower base. The sound was measured with 11 microphones: 8 were along a line of 45 degrees and a distance up to 1200 m away from the sound source, 3 were located at IEC positions, and 1 microphone close to the speaker, which was used to measure the source strength. White noise and 1/1 band-limited white noise sound at 2 different wind shears with exponents of 0.12 and 0.23 are used for validation. Results show that an overall agreement between experiment and computation is reached for all the numerical models. Among the 4 numerical models, Nord2000 gives the best prediction for the nearfield microphones of mic 4-mic 6 and WindSTAR gives the best prediction for the far-field microphones of mic 7 and mic 8.

Marketing of healthcare services in Denmark: the concept of misleading advertising.

As severe ill and incurable patients can be easy victims of misleading advertising activities for dangerous and non-effective healthcare treatments, the marketing of healthcare services are in many jurisdictions legislations tightly regulated. This article reviews the Danish regulation on marketing of healthcare services to identify which types of advertising activities that are legal. As the legislation only allows healthcare authorities to control the marketing and not the content and quality of the marketed healthcare services, their ability to intervene in serious cases of misleading advertising is limited. Misleading advertising are statements with the purpose to exaggerate or underestimate the effects and risks of healthcare services or to prevent patients from seeking conventional medical treatments. From a public health perspective, there is a need for a common EU legislation for regulation of the marketing of healthcare services as the increasing use of information technologies makes it possible for the providers to access consumers and patients directly across countries and legal systems.

From EU Directives to Local Stormwater Discharge Permits: A Study of Regulatory Uncertainty and Practice Gaps in Denmark

Climate changes and urbanization push cities to redesign their drainage systems, which may increase separate stormwater discharges to local recipients. In the EU, regulation of these is governed by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Floods Directive, but national implementation varies and is often supplemented with local non-legislative guidelines. By reviewing trends and discrepancies in the Danish regulation practice for separated stormwater discharges, this article investigates how the directives are put into effect. A legislative gap for separate stormwater discharges introduces uncertainty in the discharge permit conditions, which especially affect conditions targeting water quality. We point to several topics to be addressed, e.g., the level at which the regulation of separate stormwater discharges takes place, opportunities for coordination with flood risk and climate change adaptation initiatives, as well as uncertainties regarding the application of Best Available Techniques. Working with these issues would elevate the regulation practice and aid regulators in reaching a more holistic and consistent approach, thus improving chances of reaching the desired recipient status before or after the WFD deadline in 2027. This could be undertaken at river basin, river basin district or national level, but there is also potential for harvesting mutual benefits by addressing these challenges internationally.

Auditing and design evaluation of building automation and control systems based on eu.bac system audit – Danish case study

Abstract Improving the energy performance of buildings will prove vital for countries worldwide to reduce their energy consumption and emissions. A key player in reaching this goal is building automation and control, as having well-designed and operated building automation and control systems (BACS) provide large capabilities in optimizing the energy performance of different systems. In this regard, building owners and planners must be able to assess and evaluate the current status of their BACS and identify potential improvements. While there has been a large block of work done in Denmark along with regulations aiming to audit the overall building performance and individual systems characteristics, very little has been done in the field of auditing the building automation and control system and evaluating its structure and operation patterns. This lack of systematic BACS auditing and evaluation in Danish buildings is addressed in this work with the first implementation and evaluation of the eu.bac System methodology in a university office building. The building was found to comply with the lowest automation and control class E. Two BACS retrofit packages were proposed and evaluated, and energy savings up to 28.5% are reported. The preliminary assessment results reported demonstrate the potential of building automation and control retrofit measures in a combined holistic improvement package alongside building envelope upgrade. In addition, the impact of the eu.bac System improvements and labeling on the building's classification based on the recent Danish building regulation BR18 is evaluated. The study discusses the feasibility of eu.bac System tool implementation in Danish buildings and suggests improvements. It also correlates and compares the eu.bac System audit to the upcoming European SRI instrument. In light of the huge efforts to digitalize the Danish energy sector, ensuring proper design and operation of BACS is of great importance. Thus, a systematic and methodical BACS auditing and evaluation methodology will be a crucial part of buildings’ initial and retro-commissioning platforms.

The oral communication principle and coming up to informed decision requirements in national screening programs

ObjectiveInformed consent (IC) principles are often overlooked aspects in debates about national screening programs. This short communication examines the Danish approach to IC in decision-making about screening participation. Study designA descriptive approach is adopted in linking present screening practices with Danish regulation about IC and international ethical principles. MethodsTo ascertain the extent to which screening procedures come up to IC requirements, the article adopts a review approach by examining relevant Danish national legislation including ministerial orders as well as international ethical codes. ResultsThe article finds that, although Danish legislation as well as international IC principles generally stipulates a decision-making process requiring oral communication, current procedures largely rely on one-way communication through written information available from leaflets, web sites, etc. Screening programs seem to have established no general formula to qualify healthcare users' understanding of data underlying their choice whether to be screened. ConclusionThe deviance from common IC principles may reduce healthcare quality, pose a safety problem, and challenge healthcare users' ability to exercise autonomy.