The Organization of R&D - Sourcing Strategy, Financing and Relation to Trade

This thesis deals with the organization of R&D from a micro perspective in order to get a better idea of how to generate economic growth in the long run. What kind of R&D policies should be promoted? This thesis contributes to the existing literature by investigating other data sets than before, by using more modern econometric techniques and by extending the investigated variables. Chapter 2 examines the role of foreign sales in stimulating R&D as compared to a domestic sales effect, and finds, in line with the literature, that R&D rises proportionally to sales in cross-sections from 1991 to 2001. Among manufacturing firms, foreign sales are distinctly more associated with an increase in R&D than domestic sales. For service firms, domestic sales are as important as foreign. The results are consistent with the hypotheses that manufacturing firms more easily separate production from R&D, economize on transport costs and are subject to learning-by-exporting effects. In general, the results highlight the dependence on openness in stimulating R&D in a small economy, especially among manufacturing firms. Chapter 3 uses a panel of Swedish manufacturing firms to examine the effects of internal and external R&D on total factor productivity over the period 1991-2004. The findings give some support to the notion of complementarity between internal and external R&D, especially in industries with high R&D intensities, and suggest that the employees’ level of education is important for the firm’s capabilities to absorb external R&D. However, external R&D is generally found to have a negative effect on productivity and internal R&D is only significant when not including interaction terms between internal R&D and external R&D or human capital. Chapter 4 examines the productivity effects of privately and publicly funded R&D, both performed in the private sector. In doing so, it ascertains whether there are differences in the direct effects on an industry’s total factor productivity growth, and whether the spillover effects of R&D performed in other industries within a country differ in terms of the two sources of funding. Using a panel of industries from 13 OECD countries, it is found that privately funded R&D has a positive productivity effect, but with diminishing returns. Publicly funded R&D shows signs of increasing returns to scale, but the total effect is negative for most industries in the sample. The results concerning spillover effects are less robust, but there is some evidence of positive spillover effects from privately funded R&D, whereas spillovers from publicly funded R&D have an insignificant or a negative effect on an industry’s productivity growth

Implementing a person centred collaborative health care model – A qualitative study on patient experiences

Background: Collaborative Health Care (CHC) is a unique model in which ambulance services, home health care, hospital care and the national telephone helpline for healthcare in Sweden – Swedish health care direct (SHD1177) collaborate to provide the fastest possible health care for inhabitants living in eleven municipalities in western region of Sweden. Aim: To explore how patients experience and perceive health care received in the CHC. Method: Qualitative descriptive study using open-ended individual telephone interviews with fifteen community dwelling persons with experiences of care throughthe model CHC were conducted. Results: Two main categories and six subcategories were identified. The category “Thoughts of time in regard to acute health care” include “CHC leads to shorter waiting time for health care”, “Knowledge about the staff working hours” and “To alert or not alert”. The category “Thoughts on unplanned health care from CHC” involved “Receiving health care in my home”, ”Coordination from SHD1177 surprises” and “Accessibility of health care values higher than continuity”. Conclusion: Integrated health care models such as CHC are time saving and highly appreciated by community dwelling persons. The benefits of provision of coherent health care like in CHC, addresses the need to implement innovative integrated healthcare models in today’s health care

Flexibilitetens konsekvenser

Problem/Bakgrund: Flexibiliseringen av arbetslivet har påverkat och ändrat arbetsförhållandena för människor. I den här studien undersöker vi arbetsflexibilitetens konsekvenser så som de upplevs av enskilda individer i arbeten som innebär en frihet vad gäller arbetstider, distansarbete och eget ansvar. Syfte: Vi ämnar pröva om sociologen Richard Sennetts teori stämmer för svenska arbetsförhållanden och genom det också skildra hur individer upplever konsekvenserna av flexibla arbeten. Uppsatsens utgångspunkter: Vår teoretiska utgångspunkt i studien är Sennetts dystra bild av de konsekvenser det flexibla arbetslivet får för individer. Sennetts teori identifierar en ny maktordning och en begränsad ansvarsskyldighet i de flexibla organisationerna. Han menar att en rådande kortsiktighetsprincip framkallar ytliga relationer, ändrat tidsperspektiv, oro, ett risktagande, strategisk förvirring och en meritokratisk bedömning av individens kompetens. Vi använder dessa begrepp för att tematisera olika problemområden som kan uppstå för en individ i ett flexibelt arbetsliv. Vi utför en kvalitativ undersökning med semistrukturerade intervjuer. Vårt urval för undersökningen består av fem personer, två kvinnor och tre män som alla arbetar på samma företag och har så kallat fria flexibla arbeten. Vi genomför intervjuer med de fem deltagarna och analyserar deras upplevelser mot de teman vi valt ut i Sennetts teori. Slutsatser: Vi finner stöd för delar av Sennetts teori i vårt material. En ny maktordning kan identifieras i vår empiri. Kortsiktighetsprincipens konsekvenser i form av ändrat tidsperspektiv, oro, risktagande och en meritokratisk bedömning av individens kompetens ger alla avtryck i det empiriska materialet. Vi finner delvis stöd för en begränsad ansvarsskyldighet. Vi finner inte stöd för de konsekvenser kortsiktighetsprincipen ger i form av ytliga relationer och strategisk förvirring

Chronic pain and health-related quality of life in women with autism and/or ADHD: a prospective longitudinal study

Purpose: To investigate the prevalence of chronic pain and its association with health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in a group of women, diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and/or attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) in childhood. Patients and methods: Prospective longitudinal 16–19 years follow-up study of 100 Swedish females diagnosed with ASD and/or ADHD in childhood/adolescence. Seventy-seven of the women were included in the current sub-study, using validated measures of pain perception and quality of life. Results: A large majority of the women (76.6%) reported chronic pain. HRQoL was low overall and lower still for those reporting chronic pain. Women with ADHD who had ongoing treatment with stimulants reported a significant lower prevalence of chronic widespread pain (CWP) than those not treated. Conclusion: Comorbidity with chronic pain is common in women with ASD and/or ADHD and important to address in the clinic since it is associated with an already low HRQoL. Treatment for ADHD might reduce the pain in some cases

Dielectric secondary relaxation of water in aqueous binary glass-formers

The dielectric relaxation of water in glassy aqueous binary mixtures exhibits an Arrhenius behaviour with a nearly universal activation energy. We here demonstrate that its characteristic relaxation time follows a remarkably general functional dependence on the weight fraction of water for a wide range of molecular systems

Low RBM3 protein expression correlates with tumour progression and poor prognosis in malignant melanoma: An analysis of 215 cases from the Malmö Diet and Cancer Study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We have previously reported that expression of the RNA- and DNA-binding protein RBM3 is associated with a good prognosis in breast cancer and ovarian cancer. In this study, the prognostic value of immunohistochemical RBM3 expression was assessed in incident cases of malignant melanoma from a prospective population-based cohort study.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Until Dec 31^st2008, 264 incident cases of primary invasive melanoma had been registered in the Malmö Diet and Cancer Study. Histopathological and clinical information was obtained for available cases and tissue microarrays (TMAs) constructed from 226 (85.6%) suitable paraffin-embedded tumours and 31 metastases. RBM3 expression was analysed by immunohistochemistry on the TMAs and a subset of full-face sections. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests were used for comparison of RBM3 expression and relevant clinicopathological characteristics. Kaplan Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards modelling were used to assess the relationship between RBM3 and recurrence free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>RBM3 could be assessed in 215/226 (95.1%) of primary tumours and all metastases. Longitudinal analysis revealed that 16/31 (51.6%) of metastases lacked RBM3 expression, in contrast to the primary tumours in which RBM3 was absent in 3/215 (1.4%) cases and strongly expressed in 120/215 (55.8%) cases. Strong nuclear RBM3 expression in the primary tumour was significantly associated with favourable clinicopathological parameters; i.e. non-ulcerated tumours, lower depth of invasion, lower Clark level, less advanced clinical stage, low mitotic activity and non-nodular histological type, and a prolonged RFS (RR = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.27-0.91) and OS (RR = 0.36, 95%CI = 0.20-0.64). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the beneficial prognostic value of RBM3 remained significant for OS (RR = 0.33; 95%CI = 0.18-0.61).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In line with previous in vitro data, we here show that RBM3 is down-regulated in metastatic melanoma and high nuclear RBM3 expression in the primary tumour is an independent marker of a prolonged OS. The potential utility of RBM3 in treatment stratification of patients with melanoma should be pursued in future studies.</p

Individual development and adaptation: A life-span longitudinal program suited for person-oriented research

In this article, we give a presentation of the longitudinal research program Individual Development and Adaptation (IDA) that can be helpful as a template for researchers considering to launch their own longitudinal studies, and that opens the door to IDA for researchers looking for suitable data to be analyzed within their own project or in collaboration with IDA. We also introduce the holistic-interactionistic theoretical framework of IDA and the associated person-oriented approach – an approach that is especially suited for analyzing the rich IDA data set with its broad coverage of different areas of adjustment and related factors. The paper provides an overview of the essential features of the IDA database, as well as of ongoing and planned IDA research