Swedish Farmers’ Acceptance of RCTs and Economic Experiments

A shift in the Common European Agriculture (CAP) towards agri-environmental payment schemes meant to incentivise the provision of environmental public goods calls for a diverse set of policy evaluation methods. Economic experiments such as RCTs can be efficient and cost-effective tools for improving and evaluating the effectiveness of these novel policies. However, the randomisation of benefits required in RCTs is controversial and might be ill-regarded among farmers. Despite their potential usefulness, the application of economic experiments remains limited in this context due to potentially low acceptability by farmers for being the subject of such studies. In an online survey with Swedish farmers, we explore the acceptability of two different hypothetical RCT scenarios and the general willingness to participate in an economic experiment using thought experiments. Our results suggest low acceptability of RCTs in which a group of farmers is excluded from receiving a payment. Moreover, we do not find support for an alternative RCT based on randomly varying the amount of payments in a scheme. Additionally, we find that farmers state a higher willingness to participate in economic experiments if aspects of fairness and transparency are highlighted while randomised or unequal payouts are rather ill-regarded. We also find some ambiguity between stated preferences and actual behaviour in regards to the willingness to participate in experimental studies after testing two modes of monetary incentivisation for participation in our study. We conclude that in the context of agricultural policy evaluation, RCTs should only be applied with great care and that future research should focus on finding ways to adapt RCTs in a way that would increase acceptability and that aspects of fairness, transparency, and a desire for equal payments should be considered in the recruitment for economic experiments.Uppsatsen undersöker svenska lantbrukares åsikter om användningen av så kallade randomised controlled trials (RCTs) och andra ekonomiska experiment för utvärdering av nya politiska styrmedel inom lantbruket. RCT och andra ekonomiska experiment kan effektivt bidra till att förbättra miljöprogram som förser lantbrukare med betalningar för att engagera dem i miljövänliga jordbruksmetoder. Potentiella användningen av RCT inom lantbruket skulle innebära att slumpmässigt inkludera eller exkludera lantbrukare från betalningen av sådana program. För att kunna använda RCT inom lantbruket behövs det svar på frågan om acceptansen av såna forskningsmetoder. Ytterligare undersöker vi hur man kan uppmuntra fler lantbrukare att delta i ekonomiska experiment. Vi använder oss av två tankeexperiment som presenterades i sammanhang med en enkät som skickades ut via mejl till lantbrukare i Sverige. Uppsatsens resultat visar att acceptansen för RCT är låg. Bara 24% av lantbrukarna som deltog tycker det är ett acceptabelt sett att bedöma effektiviteten av miljöprogram inom lantbruket. Studien visar också att lantbrukare med större sannolikhet deltar i ekonomiska experiment om forskarna framhåller aspekter såsom rättvisa och transparens

Recent developments for surgical aortic valve replacement: the concept of sutureless valve technology

Aortic stenosis has become the most frequent type of valvular heart disease in Europe and North America and presents in the large majority of patients as calcified aortic stenosis in adults of advanced age. Surgical aortic valve replacement has been recognized to be the definitive therapy which improves considerably survival for severe aortic stenosis since more than 40 years. In the most recent period, operative mortality of isolated aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis varies between 1–3% in low-risk patients younger than 70 years and between 4 and 8% in selected older adults. Long-term survival following aortic valve replacement is close to that observed in a control population of similar age. Numerous observational studies have consistently demonstrated that corrective surgery in symptomatic patients is invariably followed by a subjective improvement in quality of life and a substantial increase in survival rates. More recently, transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has been demonstrated to be feasible in patients with high surgical risk using either a retrograde transfemoral or transsubclavian approach or an antegrade, transapical access. Reported 30-day mortality ranges between 5 and 15%) and is acceptable when compared to the risk predicted by the logistic EuroSCORE (varying between 20 and 35%) and the STS Score, although the EuroScore has been shown to markedly overestimate the effective operative risk. One major concern remains the high rate of paravalvular regurgitation which is observed in up to 85% of the patients and which requires further follow-up and critical evaluation. In addition, long-term durability of these valves with a focus on the effects of crimping remains to be addressed, although 3-5 year results are promising. Sutureless biological valves were designed to simplify and significantly accelerate the surgical replacement of a diseased valve and allow complete excision of the calcified native valve. Until now, there are 3 different sutureless prostheses that have been approved. The 3f Enable valve from ATS-Medtronic received CE market approval in 2010, the Perceval S from Sorin during Q1 of 2011 and the intuity sutureless prosthesis from Edwards in 2012. All these devices aim to facilitate valve surgery and therefore have the potential to decrease the invasivness and to shorten the conventional procedure without compromise in term of excision of the diseased valve. This review summarizes the history and the current knowledge of sutureless valve technology

Entwicklung einer neuartigen Plasmafiltertechnik für die Abscheidung defektarmer superharter Kohlenstoffschichten

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Entwicklung eines Plasmafilters für die Herstellung defektarmer wasserstofffreier Kohlenstoffschichten (ta-C) auf Basis einer leistungsfähigen gepulsten Vakuumbogentechnologie sowie der Charakterisierung der mit dieser Technologie abgeschiedenen Schichten

Robuste Produktionsprogrammplanung in der hierarchischen Produktionsplanung für in der Industrie eingesetzte operative Produktionsplanungen und -steuerungen

Dieser Beitrag basiert auf einer Planungshierarchie zur Produktionsplanung und -steuerung, die üblicherweise in der industriellen Praxis verwendet wird. In der Produktionsprogrammplanung werden meist deterministische Planungsparameter unterstellt. Tatsächlich sind insbesondere die Bedarfe zum Planungszeitpunkt nicht bekannt und somit unsicher. Zur Berücksichtigung dieser Unsicherheit wird in der aktuellen Forschung insbesondere die szenariobasierte robuste Optimierung verwendet. In diesem Forschungsvorhaben wird untersucht, wie eine robuste Produktionsprogrammplanung in einer solchen Planungshierarchie eingesetzt werden kann