Equitable access to essential medicines is a major challenge for policy-makers world-wide, including Central and Eastern European countries. This study analyses whether socioeconomic determinants influence the use of prescribed and non-prescribed medicines in eight Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia). Further, the study discusses observed (in)equalities in medicine use in the context of the pharmaceutical policy framework and the implementation in these countries. The study is based on cross-sectional data from the first wave of the European Health Interview Survey (2007-2009). Multivariate logistic regression analyses were carried out to determine the association between socioeconomic status and medicine use (prescribed and non-prescribed medicines). This was supplemented by a pharmaceutical policy analysis based on indicators in four policy dimensions (sustainable funding, affordability, availability and accessibility, and rational selection and use of medicines). Overall, the analysis showed a gradient favouring individuals from higher socioeconomic groups in the consumption of non-prescribed medicines in the eight surveyed countries, and for prescribed medicines in three countries (Latvia, Poland, Romania). The pharmaceutical systems in the eight countries were, to varying degrees, characterized by a lack of (public) funding, thus resulting in high and growing shares of private financing (including co-payments for prescribed medicines), inefficiencies in the selection of medicines into reimbursement and limitations in medicines availability. Pharmaceutical policies aiming at reducing inequalities in medicine use require not only a consideration of the role of co-payments and other private expenditure but also adequate investment in medicines and transparent and clear processes regarding the inclusion of medicines into reimbursement. (authors' abstract)

As modern embedded systems are becoming more sophisticated the demands on their applications significantly increase. A current trend is to utilize the advances of heterogeneous platforms (i.e. platform consisting of different computational units (e.g. CPU, FPGA or GPU)) where different parts of the application can be distributed among the different computational units as software and hardware implementations. This technology can improve the application characteristics to meet requirements (e.g. execution time, power consumption and design cost), but it leads to a new challenge in finding the best combination of hardware and software implementation (referred as system configuration). The decisions whether a part of the application should be implemented in software (e.g. as C code) or hardware (e.g. as VHDL code) affect the entire product life-cycle. This is traditionally done manually by the developers in the early stage of the design phase. However, due to the increasing complexity of the application the need of a systematic process that aids the developer when making these decisions to meet the demands rises. Prior to this work a methodology called MULTIPAR has been designed to address this problem. MULTIPAR applies component-/model-based techniques to design the application, i.e. the application is modeled as a number of interconnected components, where some of the components will be implemented as software and the remaining ones as hardware. To perform the partitioning decisions, i.e. determining for each component whether it should be implemented as software or hardware, MULTIPAR proposes a set of formulas to calculate the properties of the entire system based on the properties for each component working in isolation. This thesis aims to show to what extent the proposed system formulas are valid. In particular it focuses on validating the formulas that calculate the system response time, system power consumption, system static memory and system FPGA area. The formulas were validated trough an industrial case study, where the system properties for different system configurations were measured and calculated by applying these formulas. The measured values and calculated values for the system properties were compared by conducting a statistical analysis. The case study demonstrated that the system properties can be accurately calculated by applying the system formulas.

Bakgrund: För företag är alla ekonomiska aspekter viktiga, dit hör medarbetarnas hälsa som kan bli en stor kostnadspost. I dagens samhälle ökar stress och depression från arbetsplatsen trots gedigna kunskaper inom ämnet. Syfte: Studiens syfte är belysa kopplingen mellan medarbetarskap och arbetshälsa. Teori: Studien har sin utgångspunkt ur medarbetarskap och arbetshälsa. Tidigare forskning inom arbetshälsa har kopplats till medarbetarskapshjulet för att studera om något av medarbetarskapets fyra begreppspar kan förklara arbetshälsa i högre grad än något annat begreppspar. Metod: Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom en kvantitativ undersökning i form av en enkät där antalet respondenter uppgick till 83 individer. Tidigare forskning har gjort det möjligt att koppla svaren från enkäten till möjliga påverkande faktorer för arbetshälsa inom medarbetarskap. Analys: I resultatet framkommer att det finns många faktorer som har samband med arbetsglädje. Det visade sig att kommunikation, samhörighet, relationer, uppskattning och utveckling har starka samband med den arbetsglädje som medarbetarna upplever. För faktorn stress visades samband med förtroende för chefen och kontroll. Slutsats: Medarbetarskap är ett bra redskap för att förhindra arbetsohälsa. Då arbetshälsa är komplext och många faktorer för arbetshälsa påverkar varandra bör inga av medarbetarskapets begreppspar bortses ifrån. / Background: For companies are every economic aspect essential. One aspect is the workplace health that employees feel whom can be a big cost. In our society is stress and depression increasing despite extensive knowledge in the topic for workplace health. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to illustrate the connection between followship and workplace health. Theory: The study has it starting point from followship and workplace health. Previous research in the topic for workplace health have been related to the wheel of followship to study if one of the four factors in followship can explain workplace health more than the other factors. Method: The empirical material have been collected from a quantitative research in form of a survey, is was 83 participants who responded. Previous research and literature have made it possible to relate the answers from the survey to factors affecting workplace health in the strategy of followship. Result: The result show that there are many factors that influence workplace happiness. It showed that communication, affinity, relations, appreciation and personal development have connections with workplace happiness. Factors that influence in stress is trust in the manager and control of the workday. Conclusion: Followship is a good tool to prevent workplace related illnesses. Workplace health is a complex topic and many factors for workplace health affect each other, therefore should none aspect of followship be ignored.

Uppsatsens syfte är att utforska hur deltagande design kan möjliggöra samlärande mellan elever i gymnasieskolan. Underlaget för studien är ett designpedagogiskt projekt som jag utformat vid namn Design Lab. Inom Design Lab arbetade en grupp gymnasieelever med pedagoger och barn på en närliggande förskola. Design Lab är utformat efter metoden deltagande design och ramverket participatory prototyping cycle. Undersökningen har ett elevperspektiv och försöker svara på frågorna: På vilka olika sätt sker samlärande inom det deltagande designprojektet Design Lab? Hur möjliggör ramverket participatory prototyping cycle samlärande för eleverna inom det deltagande designprojektet Design Lab? Pia Williams myntade begreppet samlärande och menar att begreppet innefattar lärandet mellan människor, mellan kollektiv, kulturer, miljöer och diskurser. Då forskning kring elevers samlärande främst inriktats på naturvetenskapliga ämnen och inom läs- och skrivinlärning ämnar jag studera elevers samlärande inom det avgränsade designområdet deltagande design. Jag hoppas därmed att undersökningen lyfter hur samlärande kan förstås utifrån ett vidgat kunskapsbegrepp. Undersökningen avser även introducera hur participatory prototyping cycle kan användas som didaktiskt förhållningssätt inom designundervisning. Resultatet visar att elevernas samlärande inom det deltagande designprojektet Design Lab består av ett växelspel av olika verktyg som: bild, praktiska handlingar, skrift, tal och rörlig bild. Eleverna intog olika läranderoller inom projektet vilket skapade situationer för samlärande mellan elev-elev, elev-barn, elev-förskolpedagog och elev-artefakter. Undersökningen synliggör samlärandets praktiska dimensioner genom att visa hur eleverna samlär tillsammans med andra medverkande aktörer när de designar och formger artefakter och tjänster. Den gestaltande delen av examensarbetet består av två utställningar. Den första utställningen presenterades på ett bibliotek i närheten av gymnasieskolan där projektet drevs. Den andra utställningen visades i januari 2015 under examensutställningen på Konstfack. Min intention var att visa elevernas arbetsprocess i installationsform.

The cause of the high HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa is incompletely understood, with heterosexual penile-vaginal transmission proposed as the main mechanism. Heterosexual HIV transmission has a very low probability; further, a single estimation of heterosexual probability of HIV transmission fails to reproduce the variation associated with important biological cofactors. In particular, studies of HIV incidence suggest that co-infection with other infectious diseases influence the HIV transmission, and therefore might substantially vary the pattern of the spread of the infection. To assess the effect of co-infection on the spread of HIV, I developed and analyzed several mathematical and statistical models based on published data. The results show that despite the low probability of heterosexual transmission per sexual contact, the inclusion of individual variation generated by transient but repeated increases in HIV viral load associated with co-infections may provide a biological basis for the accelerated spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and raises the possibility that that the natural history of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be fully understood if individual variation in infectiousness is neglected. Co-infection might be a key explanatory variable for the rapid spread of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa; in fact, co-infection may be a necessary factor, rather than merely being a contributing factor, in the successful spread and survival of HIV in populations where heterosexual vaginal-penile contact is the main mechanism of transmission. Consequently, broad population based control strategies to decrease infectivity and reduce the incidence of other sexual and parasitic infectious diseases might be effective strategies in diminishing the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

With the dramatic increase in the worldwide demand for the crude oil and with the fact that the oil and gas resources are depleting, the enhanced oil recovery process plays an important role to increase the production from the existing hydrocarbon reservoirs. Chemical enhanced oil recovery is one of the most important techniques to unlock significant amount of trapped oil from oil reservoirs. Surface agent materials (Surfactants) are used to lower the interfacial tension (IFT) between water and oil phases to ultralow values and mobilize the trapped oil. When surfactant, water, and oil are mixed together they form a thermodynamically stable phase called microemulsion which can be characterized by ultralow interfacial tension and the ability to solubilize both aqueous and oil compounds. Another characteristic of microemulsion solution is its viscosity which plays an important role in the creation and movement of the oil bank. The microemulsion micro-structure is complex and its viscosity is difficult to predict. Various viscosity models and correlations are presented in the literature to describe microemulsion viscosity behavior, but they fail to represent the rheological behavior of many microemulsion mixtures. Most of these models are valid in the lower and higher ranges of solute where one of the domains is discontinuous. The majority of the models fail to calculate the rheology of microemulsion phase in bicontinuous domains. In this work, we present a systematic study of the rheological behavior of microemulsion systems and the effect of additives such as polymer and co-solvent on rheological properties of microemulsions. Several laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the rheological behavior of surfactant solutions. A new empirical model for the viscosity of microemulsion phase as a function of salinity is introduced. The model consists of three different correlations one for each phase type of Windsor phase behaviors. The proposed model is validated using a number of experimental results presented in this document. The proposed viscosity model is implemented in the UTCHEM simulator and the simulator results are compared with the coreflood experiments. Excellent matches were obtained for the pressure. We further improved the proposed viscosity model to incorporate the effect of polymer and co-solvent on the microemulsion viscosity. / text

Aqueous piperazine (PZ) blended with N-(2-aminoethyl) piperazine (AEP) is an attractive solvent for CO₂ capture from coal-fired power plants. Blending PZ with AEP can remediate the precipitation issue of concentrated PZ while maintaining its high CO₂ absorption rate, and high resistance to degradation. 5 m PZ/2 m AEP also shows a milder nitrosamine issue than concentrated piperazine. A rigorous thermodynamic model was developed in Aspen Plus® to predict properties of PZ/AEP/H₂O/CO₂, using the electrolyte-Nonrandom Two-Liquid (eNRTL) activity coefficient model. A sequential regression was performed to represent CO₂ solubility, speciation, and amine volatility data over operationally significant loading and temperature ranges. The model predicts a CO₂ cyclic capacity of 0.78 mol/kg (PZ + AEP + water) for 5 m PZ/2 m AEP, compared to 0.50 mol/kg for 7 m MEA and 0.86 mol/kg for 8 m PZ. The predicted heat of absorption is 75 to 80 kJ/mol CO₂ at the operating loading range (0.290-0.371 mol CO₂/mol alkalinity). Although 5 m PZ/2 m AEP has a slightly lower CO₂ capacity than 8 m piperazine, its higher heat of absorption may offset the negative effect on energy consumption. Speciation for PZ/AEP/H₂O at various CO₂ loading and temperature was also predicted, from which behavior of CO₂ in the amine system was proposed. / text

Foam has been used as a mobility control technique in CO₂ flooding to improve volumetric sweep efficiency. Stabilizing CO₂ foam with nanoparticle instead of surfactant has some notable advantages. Nanoparticle-stabilized foam is very stable because a large adsorption energy is required to bring nanoparticles to the bubble interfaces. As a solid, nanoparticle can potentially withstand the high temperature in the reservoir, providing a robust foam stability for an extended period of time. The ability of nanoparticles to generate foam only above a threshold shear rate is promising as foam can be engineered to form only in the high permeability zone. These nanoparticles are hundreds of times smaller than pore throats and thus can travel in the reservoir without plugging the pore throats. Surface-modified silica nanoparticle was found to stabilize CO₂ -in-water foam at temperature up to 80 ˚C and salinity as high as 7.2 wt%. The foam was generated through the co-injection of aqueous nanoparticle dispersion and CO₂ into consolidated rock cores, primarily sandstones, with and without an induced fracture in the core. A critical shear rate for foam generation was found to exist in both matrix and fracture, however, this critical rate varied with the experiment conditions. The effects of experimental parameters on the critical shear rate and foam apparent viscosity were also investigated. Additionally, the flow distribution calculation in fractured sandstone cores revealed a diversion of flow from fracture toward matrix once foam was generated, suggesting conformance control potential in fractured reservoirs. In order to study foam rheology, high-permeability beadpack was installed upstream of the core to serve as a foam generator. This allows the foam mobility to be measured solely while being transported through the core, without the complicating effect of transient foam generation in the core. The injection of the pre-generated foam into the core at residual oil condition was found to reduce the residual oil saturation to the same level as CO₂ flood, however, with the advantage of mobility control. The 'coalescence-regeneration' mechanism of foam transport in porous media possibly allowed the foam's CO₂ to contact and mobilize the residual oil. The injection of the foam slug followed by a slug of only CO₂ was also tested, showing similar viscosification as the continuous foam injection, however, required less nanoparticles. / text

Heavy oil resources are huge and are currently produced largely with steam-driven technology. The purpose of this research was to evaluate an alternative to steam flooding in heavy oils: chemical EOR. Acidic components abundant in heavy crude oils can be converted to soaps at high pH with alkali, reducing the interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and water to ultra-low levels. In an attempt to harness this property, engineers developed alkaline and alkaline-polymer (AP) flooding EOR processes, which met limited success. The primary problem with AP flooding was the soap is usually too hydrophobic, its optimum salinity is low and the ultra-low IFT salinity range narrow (Nelson 1983). Adding a hydrophilic co-surfactant to the process solved the problem, and is known as ASP flooding. AP floods also form persistent, unpredictable and often highly viscous emulsions, which result in high pressure drops and low injection rates. Addition of co-solvents such as a light alcohol (typically 1 wt %) improves the performance of AP floods; researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have coined the term ACP (Alkaline Co-solvent Polymer) for this new process. ACP has significant advantages relative to other chemical flooding modes to recover heavy oils. It is less costly than using surfactant, and has none of the design challenges associated with surfactant. It shows the benefit of nearly 100% displacement sweep efficiency in core floods when properly implemented, as heavy oils tend to produce significant IFT reducing soaps. The use of polymer for mobility control ensures good sweep efficiency is also achieved. Since heavy oils can be extremely viscous at reservoir temperature, moderate reservoir heating to reduce oil viscosity is beneficial. In a series of core flood experiments, moderately elevated temperatures (25-75°C) were used in evaluating ACP flooding in heavy oils. The experiments used only small amounts of inexpensive co-solvents while recovering >90% of remaining heavy oil in a core, without need for any surfactant. The most successful experiments showed that a small increase in temperature (25°) can have very positive impacts on core flood performance. These results are very encouraging for heavy oil recovery with chemical EOR. / text

<p>Olika former av allianser har numera börjat utvecklas och bli allt mer vanliga. Eftersom det kan vara svårt att höras och synas försöker företag i allt större utsträckning göra det i nya sammanhang. Den mättade marknaden driver företag till att särskilja sig, vilket ofta med enklaste medel görs med deras varumärken. Varumärken är en stor resurs som används i detta syfte, och de får en allt större attraktionskraft. Företag som är mer varumärkesinriktade har också visat sig vara mer framgångsrika.</p><p>Den här undersökningen avser behandla co-branding, som uppstår när två företag med distinkta varumärken inom samma eller olika branscher väljer att samarbeta. Vi har valt att inrikta oss på olikartade företag eftersom co-branding-allianser allt oftare breddar sig till olika branscher. Dessutom känns det mer spännande att undersöka hur samverkan mellan helt olika verksamheter fungerar. Syftet är att belysa motiven bakom samarbetena, samt möjligheter och begränsningar. Undersökningen avser även att analysera effekterna som kan uppstå i dessa konstellationer.</p><p>Genom sex stycken fallstudier av samarbeten mellan företag i Stockholm som ingått co-branding med kaféer, har vi försökt belysa hur de har kommit till och fungerar, samt om dessa samarbeten är co-branding överhuvudtaget. Vi har främst använt oss av intervjuer som grund för det empiriska materialet. De samarbeten som ingått i vår undersökning är Akademibokhandelns, SEBs, Planet Fitness och Konserthusets med Wayne’s Coffee, c/o Stockholms med Sosta samt 3s med Espresso House.</p><p>Vi har konstaterat att starka varumärken har en stor attraktionskraft och att vissa företag skapar co-branding om de tror att deras varumärken gemensamt kommer att bidra till mer givande associationer. Undersökningen visade att en ny kontext skapades då verksamheterna startade ett samarbete, eftersom de kom från olika branscher. Vi kom också fram till att det i samtliga fall aldrig var kaféerna som tagit initiativ till co-branding. Hos dem som däremot var initiativtagare, var huvudmotiven att ge något extra till sina kunder och att utöka sin kundkrets. Motiven för kaféerna var främst att öka varumärkeskännedomen samt att finnas på bra lägen med ett stort flöde av människor. För de inblandade företagen har samarbetena lett till en del bakslag men mestadels haft positiva effekter.</p>