Smoking Behaviour and Early Retirement Due to Chronic Disability

This paper considers the long-term effects of smoking on disability retirement. Exploiting population-wide registry data from Sweden, we contribute to the literature by accounting for a much broader range of potential confounders. In particular, by the use of sibling and twin fixed effects, we account for all unobserved heterogeneity in childhood environment and family characteristics. Moreover, we are able to control for detailed information on socioeconomic status, marital status and health. We also contribute by comparing effects on different diagnoses for which disability pension was granted, thus shedding some light on the biological mechanisms linking smoking to disability retirement. We demonstrate a strong association between smoking and disability retirement. Among individuals aged 50-64, smokers have a six percentage point higher probability of receiving (full) disability pension. However, while the relationship remains significant when accounting for confounders such as family environment, the size of the effect is much attenuated. Effects are concentrated to mental and musculoskeletal conditions, but effects on neoplasms, nervous system, eye and circulatory diagnoses are also found. The results are largely driven by health problems severe enough to merit hospitalization, and there is no evidence of a role played by financial incentives

A framework concept for data visualization and structuring in a complex production process

This paper provides a concept study for a visual interface framework together with the software Sequence Planner for implementation on a complex industrial process for extracting process information in an efficient way and how to make use of a lot of data to visualize it in a standardized human machine interface for different user perspectives. The concept is tested and validated on a smaller simulation of a paint booth with several interconnected and supporting control systems to prove the functionality and usefulness in this kind of production system.The paper presents the resulting five abstraction levels in the framework concept, from a production top view down to the signal exchange between the different resources in one production cell, together with additional features. The simulation proves the setup with Sequence Planner and the visual interface to work by extract and present process data from a running sequence

Spike generation estimated from stationary spike trains in a variety of neurons in vivo

To any model of brain function, the variability of neuronal spike firing is a problem that needs to be taken into account. Whereas the synaptic integration can be described in terms of the original Hodgkin-Huxley (H-H) formulations of conductance-based electrical signaling, the transformation of the resulting membrane potential into patterns of spike output is subjected to stochasticity that may not be captured with standard single neuron H-H models. The dynamics of the spike output is dependent on the normal background synaptic noise present in vivo, but the neuronal spike firing variability in vivo is not well studied. In the present study, we made long-term whole cell patch clamp recordings of stationary spike firing states across a range of membrane potentials from a variety of subcortical neurons in the non-anesthetized, decerebrated state in vivo. Based on the data, we formulated a simple, phenomenological model of the properties of the spike generation in each neuron that accurately captured the stationary spike firing statistics across all membrane potentials. The model consists of a parametric relationship between the mean and standard deviation of the inter-spike intervals, where the parameter is linearly related to the injected current over the membrane. This enabled it to generate accurate approximations of spike firing also under inhomogeneous conditions with input that varies over time. The parameters describing the spike firing statistics for different neuron types overlapped extensively, suggesting that the spike generation had similar properties across neurons

Betongens inverkan inom miljöcertifieringar

The construction industry accounts for a large proportion of the world’s total anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, CO2 among others. As a part of the effort to combat this are environmental certifications which have become increasingly more numerous and more frequent in use. This is partly because consumers have become more environmentally aware and motivated to pay more for products and services with low environmental impact, which has had effects on the construction industry where they take after and strive more climate-smart solutions. The report is limited to three environmental certification; Miljöbyggnad, LEED and BREEAM. Miljöbyggnad is limited to only take into account a building's direct environmental impact, unlike both the LEED and BREEAM which additionally ensures the impact on the immediate environment in the longer term. This study examines the impact of the concrete has the respective environmental certification, the differences and similarities between the systems and how a building of concrete frame affects the possibility of an environmental certification according to the Green Building. After review and analysis of the three systems could be drawn to the synthesis of the assessment areas discussed in Miljöbyggnad affected about 67% of the concrete. The corresponding ratio for the LEED and BREEAM were 42% and 35% respectively, due to these covers more areas than Miljöbyggnad. The assessment areas of certification systems for concrete affected the most were the aspects that deal with energy, indoor environment and materials. The certification of a building with concrete frame was made according to the requirements present in Miljöbyggand. Results showed that the building complies with BBR's requirements and guidelines. This result in that the building would at the very least be able to be certified according to the level of Bronze in Miljöbyggnad, which was also the final grade. The results of the report clearly showed that the concrete has a major impact on Green Building, LEED and BREEAM. By delivering concrete precious form and in high quality can be a significant part of the aspects of environmental certification already be met. Keywords: Environmental certification, concrete, Miljöbyggnad, LEED, BREEAM

Development of Picwear - A Multi-Platform Mobile Clothing and Fashion Service for Android, iOS and the Web

The purpose of this report is to describe the development of Picwear, a mobile service, in collaboration with a startup with the same name. The service offers consumers to find fashion from local clothing stores, using applications for Android and iOS. The report focuses on the development of native applications for the two mentioned platforms, a web portal for stores to upload pictures of their products, and an accompanying backend that connects these services. Particularly, the usage of a mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) is covered, along with how such a service can simplify the development of mobile applications. The report also discusses NoSQL databases, which often are part of MBaaS solutions, and how they with advantage can be used when building scalable services

Steady-State Heat Transport and Work With a Single Artificial Atom Coupled to a Waveguide: Emission Without External Driving

We observe the continuous emission of photons into a waveguide from a superconducting qubit without the application of an external drive. To explain this counterintuitive observation, we build a two-bath model where the qubit couples simultaneously to a cold bath (the waveguide) and a hot bath (a secondary environment). Our results show that the thermal-photon occupation of the hot bath is up to 0.14 photons, 35 times larger than the cold waveguide, leading to nonequilibrium heat transport with a power of up to 132 zW, as estimated from the qubit emission spectrum. By adding more isolation between the sample output and the first cold amplifier in the output line, the heat transport is strongly suppressed. Our interpretation is that the hot bath may arise from active two-level systems being excited by noise from the output line, and that the qubit coherence can be improved significantly by suppressing this noise. We also apply a coherent drive, and use the waveguide to measure thermodynamic work and heat, suggesting waveguide spectroscopy is a useful means to study quantum heat engines and refrigerators. Finally, based on the theoretical model, we propose how a similar setup can be used as a noise spectrometer which provides a solution for calibrating the background noise of hybrid quantum systems

Kemisk absorption av koldioxid efter en Water-Gas Shift-reaktor

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to create a reactor for carbon dioxide capture to use in between a water-gas shift reactor and a methanisation reactor in a process for creating methan gas from biomass. The reactor built in this study is set up from glas flasks with gas distributor and uses chemical absorption of carbon dioxide in sodiumhydroxide with calciumhydroxide added. Laborative experiments were made where different parameters were changed in order to reach optimal absorption of carbon dioxide from a gas stream with 20 % carbon dioxide. Complete absorption was acquired when two reactor flasks were put in series, each containing a sodium hydroxide solution with pH 13 and 3,66 g calciumhydroxide. A comparison between two different catalysts intended for use in a water-gas shift reactor with 3 respectively 5 weight-% of palladium was performed. Based on made experiments it cannot be concluded if the conversion is influenced by the amount of palladium in the catalysts. Evaluation of the absorption reactor created in this bachelor project leads to the conclusion that it is most probably not suitable for a fullscale process plant, but is on the other hand good for use in demonstrative purposes since the set is both simple and visual

Characterizing decoherence rates of a superconducting qubit by direct microwave scattering

We experimentally investigate a superconducting qubit coupled to the end of an open transmission line, in a regime where the qubit decay rates to the transmission line and to its own environment are comparable. We perform measurements of coherent and incoherent scattering, on- and off-resonant fluorescence, and time-resolved dynamics to determine the decay and decoherence rates of the qubit. In particular, these measurements let us discriminate between non-radiative decay and pure dephasing. We combine and contrast results across all methods and find consistent values for the extracted rates. The results show that the pure dephasing rate is one order of magnitude smaller than the non-radiative decay rate for our qubit. Our results indicate a pathway to benchmark decoherence rates of superconducting qubits in a resonator-free setting

Fast Multiqubit Gates through Simultaneous Two-Qubit Gates

Near-term quantum computers are limited by the decoherence of qubits to only being able to run low-depth quantum circuits with acceptable fidelity. This severely restricts what quantum algorithms can be compiled and implemented on such devices. One way to overcome these limitations is to expand the available gate set from single- and two-qubit gates to multiqubit gates, which entangle three or more qubits in a single step. Here, we show that such multiqubit gates can be realized by the simultaneous application of multiple two-qubit gates to a group of qubits where at least one qubit is involved in two or more of the two-qubit gates. Multiqubit gates implemented in this way are as fast as, or sometimes even faster than, the constituent two-qubit gates. Furthermore, these multiqubit gates do not require any modification of the quantum processor, but are ready to be used in current quantum-computing platforms. We demonstrate this idea for two specific cases: simultaneous controlled-Z gates and simultaneous iswap gates. We show how the resulting multiqubit gates relate to other well-known multiqubit gates and demonstrate through numerical simulations that they would work well in available quantum hardware, reaching gate fidelities well above 99%. We also present schemes for using these simultaneous two-qubit gates to swiftly create large entangled states like Dicke and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states