Health technology assessment in Finland

Finland has a long tradition of supporting social programs that promote equality and the welfare state. The healthcare system is financed mainly by taxation. Everyone is insured against illness. Each of Finland's five provinces is run by a provincial government that monitors the provision of social welfare and health care. However, the municipalities actually provide the services and regulate medical equipment and regionalization of services. During the early 1990s, gross domestic product (GDP) fell dramatically, and healthcare expenditure rose to 9.4% of GDP. Due to the economy's rapid recovery, the share of healthcare expenditure has again decreased and now matches the average level of OECD countries of approximately 7.7 %. The former Finnish method of central planning and norm setting has guaranteed a fairly uniform development of necessary services throughout the country and free or low-cost access. Tight central planning did not, however, create incentives to contain costs. Therefore, in the beginning of the 1990s, decision-making power was largely decentralized to the municipalities, and the principles of state subsidies were reformed. In 1995, the Finnish Office for Health Care Technology Assessment (FinOHTA) was set up as a new unit of the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES). FinOHTA is intended to function as a national central body for advancing HTA-related work in Finland, with the ultimate goal of promoting the effectiveness and efficiency of Finnish health care. At present, the importance of HTA is widely recognized in Finland, especially in the face of rising healthcare costs.</jats:p

Erratum to: Estimation of Sintering Kinetics of Magnetite Pellet Using Optical Dilatometer

Authors have used a new way for measuring bulk volume based on the image (pixel) analysis named as Light Table Imaging (LTI), and subsequently bulk densities and porosities. Authors lately found that there was a slight error in calibrating the scale (known distance) to pixel measurement and understand the need to communicate the error and subsequent corrections.  Erratum in: Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B, vol. 47, iss. 1, p. 309–319, DOI: 10.1007/s11663-015-0505-9</p

Investigation of Magnetite Oxidation Kinetics at the Particle Scale

The induration of magnetite pellets is a complex physico-chemical process that involves oxidation, sintering, and heat transfer. The thermal- and gas-composition profile that is experienced by the pellet in an induration reactor could result in the formation of a homogenous or heterogeneous pellet structure, which could affect the pellet quality. The oxidation kinetics of magnetite pellets from sintering studies have been studied at two levels, namely, the pellet scale and at the particle scale, and the findings of the latter are presented here. The rate of oxidation of the magnetite concentrate depends primarily on temperature, oxygen content in the oxidizing gas, and particle size. These factors are investigated in this study. It was found that the oxidation of the magnetite concentrate is comprised of two distinct stages, a primary stage with high rates followed by a secondary stage where rates decrease significantly. The isothermal oxidation behavior as analyzed by the Avrami kinetic model was found to fit better than the shrinking-core model. The partially oxidized particles were examined microstructurally to supplement the experimental and model results. The Avrami kinetic model for isothermal oxidation was extended to non-isothermal profiles using the superposition principle, and the model was validated experimentally.Validerad;2019;Nivå 2;2019-02-01 (johcin) Investigations on the Physico-Chemical Phenomena during Induration of a Magnetite Pelle