Objectives: Electro-acupuncture (EA) has been demonstrated to be effective in reducing post-operative acute consumption of opioid-like medications (OLM) by previous studies. This effect has not been examined in patients with chronic pain. In this thesis, a randomised, double-blind, sham acupuncture-controlled study was reported. The trial aimed to evaluate the effect of EA in reducing OLM consumption in patients with chronic non-malignant pain. Methods: Thirty-five patients were recruited from a multidisciplinary pain management clinic in Melbourne. After a two-week baseline assessment, participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups by a computer generated randomisation sequence: real EA (REA, n = 17) or sham EA (SEA, n = 18). The REA group received 2/100 Hz EA stimulation on two pairs of acupoints (Zusanli ST36 and Fenglong ST40 on one leg and Hegu LI4 and Quchi LI11 on one arm) and manual acupuncture on an additional five chosen acupoints for 30 minutes. The SEA group received superficial needling on non-acupoints without Deqi sensation or electrical stimulation. Both groups received treatment twice a week for six weeks. Participants were followed up for 12 weeks at intervals of four weeks. During the trial, participants were given clear instructions on how to reduce their OLM usage. A researcher telephoned the participants three times during the trial to encourage them to reduce OLM intake. The assessor, researcher and participants were blinded to treatment allocation. Outcome measures: The primary outcome measures included OLM consumption, related side effects, dosage of non-opioid analgesics and the intensity and unpleasantness of pain. These measures were recorded daily for two weeks before the intervention, six weeks during the treatment period and three times during the follow up period. Secondary outcome measures were depression and quality of life as assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the Medical Outcome Study 36-Item Short Form (SF-36), respectively. Data were analysed with independent t-tests or analysis of variance (ANOVA) where appropriate and per protocol analysis was employed. Results: Nine participants withdrew from the study. At baseline, the two groups were comparable on all demographic characteristics and major outcome variables except for the average intensity of pain. During the treatment period, the reduction of OLM consumption was more rapid in the REA group (64%) than in the SEA (46%) (ANOVA, p less than 0.05). The effect was maintained for four weeks in the REA group. There were no differences in the improvement of all other measures between the two groups. The incidence of EA-related adverse events (AEs) per treatment was 21% and 10% in the REA and SEA groups, respectively. All AEs were minor. Over 90% of the participants were satisfied with the treatments given and would recommend EA to others. The blinding was successful. Conclusions: EA could be an effective and safe treatment for reducing OLM consumption for patients with chronic pain, and may be used as an adjunct therapy in chronic pain management. Further studies with larger sample sizes are warranted.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

El Niño is typically viewed as an episode of destructive weather anomalies that can last from a few months to several years. The majority of research looks at the negative impacts of this event. However, not all impacts of El Niño are necessarily bad. This study outlines areas of the United States that are most highly impacted by anomalous temperature and rainfall during El Niño years and determines whether these anomalies affect energy consumption. These effects will be examined on both a national and regional scale. Areas of the northwestern and southeastern United States exhibit anomalous temperatures during El Niño years. The southern US and Great Plains area receives positive anomalous precipitation during El Niño years while an area of the east central US experiences negative anomalous precipitation. Natural gas consumption in the northwestern US is reduced by the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During an ENSO event consumers actually save money because less is spent on natural gas for home heating purposes. Hydroelectricity may also be affected by ENSO in the southeastern US but the results at this time are inconclusive. At the national level, ENSO influences the consumption of nuclear electricity.

A recent surge in the usage of instant messaging (IM) applications on mobile devices has brought the energy efficiency of those applications into the light. We are entering an era where IM applications are changing the message communication on mobile devices, beginning to overtake SMS messages and even phone calls in some cases. Smartphones experience a tremendous increase of data transmissions through wireless interfaces. As illustrated in this work, today's IM applications differ vastly in energy consumption when using the third generation (3G) cellular communication. This thesis focuses on studying the 3G transmission energy footprint of IM applications at the handset level. The energy cost of a common feature used in IM applications that informs that the user is currently typing a response ('typing notify'), is evaluated. The feature is shown to incur a great increase in energy cost compared to the base chat function, ranging from an increase of 43 % to 117 %. The work also proposes a bundle technique that aggregates chat messages over time reducing the energy consumption at the cost of delay for the user. The results show that the bundle technique can save up to 47 % in energy consumption while still keeping the chat function. For the evaluation, conversations collected from a popular IM application are used.

Sustainable design - a study on sustainable design and its incentives and barriers The purpose of this study was to investigate the incentives and barriers existing within companies focusing on eco-design. The aim was also to examine the consumers’ thoughts on eco-design and sustainable products. A further aim was to try to concretize important lessons for future work on sustainable production and consumption. Two methods were used for completing this study; a literature study and a practical study consisting of interviews with companies focusing on eco-design and a survey among students. The result shows that durable goods over the last decades have had a varied revenue growth, showing an increasing trend over recent years. The result also shows a slightly increasing trend on sustainable consumption and production. The main incentives presented in the result were based on some form of recognition of the unsustainable attitude in our society. Among existing barriers the most prominent was associated to economic issues, ignorance and material problems. The result of the survey showed that consumers ranked factors related to eco-design among those who are least considered. For the work towards a sustainable future, people with a similar attitude as the ones involved in the interviewed companies are of great importance. There also seems to be a need for altered market conditions, but this would require a dramatic behavioral change.

Increasing  environmental  pressure  makes  it  significantly  important  to  improve  the share  of  renewable  energy  source  in  terms  of  sustainable  development.  Photovoltaic  (PV)  cells are one of the most promising technologies at present for utilizing solar radiation. However,  the large  scale  of  PV  penetration  with  its  character  of  intermittency  may  cause  problems  for  the power system and requires a more complex power system control. Self-consumption is a feasible solution to reduce the negative impact of PV on the power system. On the other hand, Plugged-in electric vehicle which could get charged by the electricity from the grid is a potential load for the general household in the future since the introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) is critical for building  a  fossil-fuel  independent  transportation.  The  aim  of  the  project  is  to  investigate  the effect on the power consumption profile when adding PV generation and electric vehicle load, as well  as  whether  the  introduction  of  electric  vehicle  will  help  improve  the  matching  between electricity consumption and PV generation. This study is done on both an individual household scale and a national scale. Conclusion from the simulation is that home-charged EV accounts for a  great  deal  of  energy  consumption  for  a  single  household  and  it  could  improve  the  national energy  consumption  to  some  extent  if  largely  introduced  into  the  power  system.  In  addition, Home-charged EV without strategic control does not improve self-consumption of PV either for a single household or on a national scale. / <p></p><p></p>

That ecological and evolutionary processes can take place on the same time scale is a recent insight. Today we also know that they are directly linked to each other. In the lake Tåkern, in year 2000, there was a structural change when phytoplankton declined and submerged vegetation, mainly stoneworts began to spread. This led to evolutionary changes in the aquatic sowbug, Asellus aquaticus which had previously been limited to the reed, most likely feeding on detritus. But then, sowbugs could exploit the new habitat in stoneworts and a new food resource in terms of periphyton. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the differentiation of the populations has led to specialization in the ecological roles of sowbugs as shredder of coarse detritus and grazer of periphyton. The study was a laboratory experiment in which groups of sowbugs were feeding on decomposing alder (Alnus glutinosa) leaves or periphyton growing on tiles. The results showed that there was no specialization in the habitat-specific food. However, reed animals had a greater (31 %) grazing effect than the stonewort animal on periphyton. There was also a non-significant tendency for reed animals to consume more leaves than the stonewort animals. The conclusion is that the different populations are not different in their functional roles, but the reed animals consume approximate 25 % more food than the stonewort animals, possibly because of higher activity.

In temperate climate with pronounced seasonality, ice and snow cover reduces light conditions during winter which in turn reduce search efficiency for visual feeding consumers like fish. Furthermore, a suggested major effect of future climate change is an increased input of allochtonous DOC to aquatic systems which causes an increased brownification and hence reduced overall light conditions. In this study, I sampled YOY three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) of different sizes overwintering in clear and brown water model ecosystems to examine if consumption were dependent on light conditions (natural light variability over winter) and if consumption were reduced in brown water. Three-spined sticklebacks were able to feed at different winter conditions and the prey biomass in stomachs was higher in clear- than in brown water despite higher resource levels in brown water treatments. Moreover when light intensity increased in late winter compared to midwinter conditions prey biomass in stomachs increased in both clear and brown water systems. Dominated prey taxa in the diet were chironomids and copepods. Results from this study suggest that when fish species are able to feed at low temperature and resource availability are sufficient light conditions during winter can be an important factor affecting overwinter survival in YOY fish because visual prey encounters and hence consumption rates are affected by light conditions. Future climate change scenarios with predicted increased brownification may therefore affect over winter survival in fish because of the negative effect of low light intensity (brownification) on prey consumption in fish in turn potentially changing recruitment success and densities of fish.

Background: The Georgia Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (GSFMNP) is intended to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables among Georgia’s low-income, older adults. The program provides $20 in vouchers with which participants may purchase Georgia-grown fruits and vegetables at approved farmers’ markets. Similar programs operate in other states, and studies suggest that these programs are successful in increasing fruit and vegetable intake among participants. However, because Georgia’s program operates somewhat differently, offering only a single market event at most locations, it may have different results. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not produce purchased at GSFMNP events in 2008 contributed to an increase in the fruit and vegetable intakes of the participants and to identify factors that may have influenced those intakes. The study focused on purchase, consumption, preservation, waste, and sharing of fresh fruits and vegetables. Methods: For this qualitative study, a sample of 198 GSFMNP participants was surveyed from ten metro Atlanta senior centers where markets were held in August and September of 2008. Descriptive statistics were produced to summarize purchase behaviors, food utilization behaviors, and attitudes. Analyses of relationships between variables were performed using Pearson chi-square tests. Results: Twenty-seven percent of subjects reported consuming more fruits and vegetables than usual in the week following the farmers’ market event. There was a significant association between a larger than usual purchase amount and increased intake. There was also a significant association between increased intake and sharing purchased items. No significant associations with increased intake were found for variety of items purchased, preserving food, or discarding food. Those who purchased more fresh produce than usual appeared to be more likely to share their food with others but were not more likely to discard food. Ninety-seven percent of subjects said they would participate in the program again. Conclusion: Results of this study suggest that the majority of GSFMNP participants did not increase their intakes of fruits and vegetables. Sharing, preserving, and discarding food did not appear to be responsible for this outcome. More research is needed to discover what strategies could increase fruit and vegetable intakes among participants of the GSFMNP.

The purpose of the thesis at hand is to shed light on factors that will have impact on the future development of the tourism industry and the importance of preparing for them.  The main issue is the future availability of oil and the subsequent behaviour of consumers. In order to answer the questions posed for the purpose of the thesis at hand a number of interviews were carried out with people working in the tourism industry as well as people working within administrative authorities focused on environmental issues. In order to deepen the understanding for the topic of the thesis at hand extensive literary reviews were made and out of that material a state of the art was composed. In addition to this a number of theories on consumption and consumerism were used.  The empirical material showed that there were a number of factors that need to be dealt with in order for the tourism industry to be prepared for what might happen in the future. The future of the tourism industry is bright at least when considering the predictions of increasing arrival numbers and the revenue it will bring. On the other hand the tourism industry is facing many challenges in the future some of which cause more concern than others. For example tourism is greatly dependent on various forms of transportation in order to function. And transportation, especially aviation, is dependent on fuel to function. This means that when tourism increases so does transportation and with it oil consumption. Researchers are now predicting that the oil reserves are running out and that the risk of reaching a peak in oil production is drawing closer. At the moment the solutions to this problem are few and the fact that tourism is increasing steadily is not helping. The suggestion put forth in the thesis at hand is that consumption behaviours of tourists need to change in order to secure a sustainable future.   Tourism is a form of consumption and consumption is a natural part of human life and a function that is continuous. The way we consume naturally has consequences on many different levels in society. However the negative consequences related to consumption of tourism are shaping what our future will look like. Thus it is time for change.