Regional valuation of infrastructure improvements. The case of Swedish road freight

Is it possible to identify regional differences among shippers in their valuation of infrastructure improvements? The question is analysed within a random utility approach where parameters are estimated by a logit model. Data consists of a Swedish stated preference study from 1992. The results indicate that regional differences may exist but a considerable heterogeneity in the empirical material prohibit robust results in some cases. However, regional differences seem to exist when industrial mix, shipping distance and goods values are held constant. Independent of the limitations, the results should render implications to any infrastructure benefit analysis where parameters from spatial averages are used. The results are based on short term decisions and one should recognise that parameters may vary under mid- and long- term.Regional preferences; road transportation; freight demand; stated preference analysis; random utility models; logit model

Estimation of interregional freight flows with a gravity model by OLS estimation, Poisson and neural network specifications

In this paper we compare three different specifications of gravity models for inter regional freight flow prediction. The most used specification with OLS estimation is compared with a model where data are assumed to be Poisson distributed. We also compare these with a Feed Forward Back Propagation Neural Network. Data consists of freight flows between Norwegian counties. The attribute describing the nodes is population and distance in kilometers gives the friction on transport links. Since we here only are interested in inter regional flows all intra regional flows are excluded. Results are also compared with an earlier study by Bergkvist and Westin (1997) were all data were used. Estimations indicate that OLS compared to Poisson and Neural Network specifications will produce worse predictions. However, the question on how to compare performance is not undisputable and of great importance since different measures can produce quite different results, not just in scale but also in ranking. When non-linear models are used the lack of a simple interpretable R-square measure as in linear regression is evident. We therefore use different measures of performance and discuss their pros and cons. Bergkvist E. and Westin L. (1997) Estimation of gravity models by OLS estimation, NLS estimation, Poisson and Neural Network specifications. Submitted to "Analytical advances in Transportation Systems and Spatial Dynamics." Eds. Gastaldi M. and Reggiani A.

Encounters in Nursing Homes - Experiences from Nurses, Residents and and Relatives

Abstract: The care of residents in nursing homes (special housing) is a major challenge for the nursing profession, especially as the population of older people has increased in recent decades. One important aim of this care is to promote the wellbeing and security of the residents. Encounters between residents, nurses and relatives are one important and frequent activity in the daily care of the residents. Available knowledge shows that the outcome of these encounters can affect the quality of care both in positive and negative ways. The meaning of these encounters is still a fairly unknown topic. The reason for conducting research on the meaning of encounters in nursing homes is mainly due to the lack of research with this focus and a need to improve understanding and knowledge about nursing home care with an emphasis on the meaning of encounters. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the experiences of encounters between nurses, residents, their relatives and other significant persons in order to acquire a deeper understanding of the meaning of these encounters in nursing homes. A hermeneutic method was used for all four studies in this thesis (I–IV). The hermeneutic method was inspired by Hans George Gadamer and his philosophical hermeneutics. The hermeneutic method provides opportunities to interpret the meaning of human language. All data from participants in this thesis were collected through open-ended interviews with nurses, residents and relatives in four nursing homes in a municipality in Western Sweden in 2004-2005. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The main results of the original papers showed that the meaning of was interpreted and illuminated as the good encounter (I–IV) and the bad encounter (I–IV). In this thesis, encounters between people in nursing homes have been shown to be important for residents’ everyday life in terms of being visible and confirmed but also for nurses’ and relatives’ need to be visible and confirmed as significant persons in the care for the resident. Nurses play an important role in encounters with residents and their relatives in order to make the residents visible and to maintain his/her respect and dignity as a human being in the nursing home. It is therefore important for nurses to establish intentions for being able to contribute to the good encounter. Being present, attentive and open in the encounter with residents and their relatives and listening to their thoughts is the start of a caring action that will result in making the residents visible and confirmed. It is of great importance to realize that there are both good and bad encounters in a nursing home context, which makes certain demands on the nurses’ competence to be able to meet the resident with an open mind as an effort to achieve the good encounter, which means to see the resident as someone belonging somewhere. Accordingly, it is an urgent matter to implement knowledge about the meaning of encounters in this caring context, knowledge that can probably be transferred to nurses working in other forms of long-term care. This thesis can be seen as a contribution to generating knowledge and providing new understanding that can facilitate the development of such nursing competence; knowledge in the art of caring that gives a deeper understanding of how fundamental each encounter can be for making residents and relatives visible and confirmed as an effort to maintain good quality in the care of residents in nursing homes. Key words: Nursing homes, encounters, nursing homes staff, residents, relatives, nurses. ISBN 978-91-628-7591-

Distribution Center Location Analysis For Nordic Countries By Using Network Optimization Tools

Many supply chain and logistics related location decisions are driven by demand. This paper analyses population densities in Sweden, Finland, Norway and partly Denmark and analyses how a minimum impedance approach would set up the distribution center (DC) locations. For each scenario, travel time maps are generated. Firstly, each country is analyzed separately and 1...5 DC cases are analyzed. Then a merged Nordic area is introduced and a similar approach is used to set up 1…6 DCs. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to study how the large population of Umeå or Vaasa should be increased in order to make the top five in the Nordic level. The results show distribution centers could be formed in the case of population driven demand products. This also gives insight into how the results can vary when changing perspective from national analysis to Nordic level.fi=vertaisarvioimaton|en=nonPeerReviewed

Godstransporter i Botnia Atlantica-regionen : metoder for kartlegging og dokumentasjon

Rapporten drøfter hvilke faktorer som påvirker godsmengder og godsstrømmer i en region, redegjør for datakilder og metoder som kan benyttes til å dokumentere omfanget av godstransport i en region samt skissere mulig opplegg for en godstransportkartlegging i Botnia Atlantica-regionen. Det etableres en prinsipiell modell som kan benyttes til å diskutere hvordan ulike faktorer påvirker valg av transportløsning, godsmengder, godsstrømmer og antall godsbevegelser. Videre diskuteres hvilken informasjon ulike datakilder kan gi om godstransport i en region og hvilken nytte de ulike datakilder har. En konklusjon er at pålitelig informasjon, spesielt om transportstrømmer, er ressurskrevende å fremskaffe. En kombinasjon av primær- og sekundærdatakilder kan være en mulig tilnærming. Før en gjennomfører en storstilt datainnhenting er det viktig at brukerne av informasjonen har en klar oppfatning av hva det ønskes informasjon om

A pooled analysis of karyotypic patterns, breakpoints and imbalances in 783 cytogenetically abnormal multiple myelomas reveals frequently involved chromosome segments as well as significant age- and sex-related differences.

The cytogenetic features (ploidy, complexity, breakpoints, imbalances) were ascertained in 783 abnormal multiple myeloma (MM) cases to identify frequently involved chromosomal regions as well as a possible impact of age/sex. The series included MM patients from the Mitelman Database of Chromosome Aberrations in Cancer and from our own laboratory. Hyperdiploidy was most common, followed by hypodiploidy, pseudodiploidy and tri-/tetraploidy. Most cases were complex, with a median of eight changes per patient. The distribution of modal numbers differed between younger and older patients, but was not related to sex. No sex- or age-related differences regarding the number of anomalies were found. The most frequent genomic breakpoints were 14q32, 11q13, 1q10, 8q24, 1p11, 1q21, 22q11, 1p13, 1q11, 19q13, 1p22, 6q21 and 17p11. Breaks in 1p13, 6q21 and 11q13 were more common in the younger age group. The most frequent imbalances were + 9, - 13, + 15, + 19, + 11 and - Y. Trisomy 11 and monosomy 16 were more common among men, while -X was more frequent among women. Loss of Y as the sole change and + 5 were more common in elderly patients, and - 14 was more frequent in the younger age group. The present findings strongly suggest that some karyotypic features of MM are influenced by endogenous and/or exogenous factors

Incidence, Etiology, and Outcomes of Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Population-Based Study

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked FilesBACKGROUND: The microbial etiology of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is often unclear in clinical practice, and previous studies have produced variable results. Population-based studies examining etiology and incidence are lacking. This study examined the incidence and etiology of CAP requiring hospitalization in a population-based cohort as well as risk factors and outcomes for specific etiologies. METHODS: Consecutive admissions due to CAP in Reykjavik, Iceland were studied. Etiologic testing was performed with cultures, urine-antigen detection, and polymerase chain reaction analysis of airway samples. Outcomes were length of stay, intensive care unit admission, assisted ventilation, and mortality. RESULTS: The inclusion rate was 95%. The incidence of CAP requiring hospitalization was 20.6 cases per 10000 adults/year. A potential pathogen was detected in 52% (164 of 310) of admissions and in 74% (43 of 58) with complete sample sets. Streptococcuspneumoniae was the most common pathogen (61 of 310, 20%; incidence: 4.1/10000). Viruses were identified in 15% (47 of 310; incidence: 3.1/10000), Mycoplasmapneumoniae were identified in 12% (36 of 310; incidence: 2.4/10000), and multiple pathogens were identified in 10% (30 of 310; incidence: 2.0/10000). Recent antimicrobial therapy was associated with increased detection of M pneumoniae (P < .001), whereas a lack of recent antimicrobial therapy was associated with increased detection of S pneumoniae (P = .02). Symptoms and outcomes were similar irrespective of microbial etiology. CONCLUSIONS: Pneumococci, M pneumoniae, and viruses are the most common pathogens associated with CAP requiring hospital admission, and they all have a similar incidence that increases with age. Symptoms do not correlate with specific agents, and outcomes are similar irrespective of pathogens identified.Icelandic Center for Research, Rannis Landspitali University Hospital Science Fund University of Iceland Research Fun

Critical, Engaged and Change-oriented Scholarship in Environmental Communication. Six Methodological Dilemmas to Think With

While calls for critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship in environmental communication (EC) abound, few articles discuss what this may practically entail. With this article, we aim to contribute to a discussion in EC about the methodological implications of such scholarship. Based on our combined experience in EC research and drawing from a variety of academic fields, we describe six methodological dilemmas that we encounter in our research practice and that we believe are inherent to such scholarship. These dilemmas are (1) grasping communication; (2) representing others; (3) involving people in research; (4) co-producing knowledge; (5) engaging critically; and (6) relating to conflict. This article does not offer solutions to these complex dilemmas. Rather, our dilemma descriptions are meant to help researchers think through methodological issues in critical, engaged and change-oriented EC research. The article also helps to translate the dilemmas to the reality of research projects through a set of questions, aimed to support a sensitivity to, and understanding of, the dilemmas in context. critical, engaged, change-oriented, methodology, dillemmaspublishedVersio

High-cycle thermal fatigue in mixing tees. Large-eddy simulations compared to a new validation experiment

ABSTRACT The present paper describes new experimental data of thermal mixing in a T-junction compared with results from Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) and Detached Eddy Simulations (DES). The experimental setup was designed in order to provide data suitable for validation of CFD-calculations. The data is obtained from temperature measurements with thermocouples located near the pipe wall, velocity measurements with Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) as well as single-point concentration measurements with Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF). The LES showed good agreement with the experimental data also when fairly coarse computational meshes were used. However, grid refinement studies revealed a fairly strong sensitivity to the grid resolution, and a simulation using a fine mesh with nearly 10 million cells significantly improved the results in the entire flow domain. The sensitivity to different unsteady inlet boundary conditions was however small, which shows that the strong large-scale instabilities that are present in the mixing region are triggered independent of the applied inlet perturbations. A shortcoming in the performed simulations is insufficient near-wall resolution, which resulted in poor predictions of the near-wall mean velocity profiles and the wall-shear stress. Simulations using DES improved the near-wall velocity predictions, but failed to predict the temperature fluctuations due to high levels of modeled turbulent viscosity that restrained the formation of small scale turbulence