No description available.

Flooding is a natural phenomenon and in the past Thai people have adapted to flood events. However over the years land degradation, deforestation and bad urban practices have exacerbated the impact of flood disasters. This study of flood management in Thailand shows how human activities and interventions have impacted on the river basin system. This research focuses on the vulnerability to flood hazard of the people living or working near the Chao Phraya River. The case study is of the community living or working in the proximity of Wat Bang Luang (Bang Luang Temple) of the Pathum Thani Province, Thailand. This research explores the capacity of communities to live with or cope with floods. Their adaptations to changes in flood regimes will depend on several factors: political (especially when Thailand has a long history of preoccupation with engineering and technological solutions as the main approach to disaster response), economic, ecological (human modification to flood plains), social (kin-based networks) and cultural factors. The data collected from the target community showed a power struggle between Thai culture and the dominant hazard management paradigm. This research put a human face on natural disaster and looked at the issue of flooding from the experiences of ordinary people. The findings showed that some members of the community are resilient while others are passive and are more vulnerable to floods. However, it is important not to label any individual or group as either vulnerable or resilient as people can be both at the same time and policy makers need to build on the strengths, rather than focus on the weaknesses and on offering emergency relief.

<p>This report presents a study of the effect of reusing experience in the Hazards and Operability Analysis method (HazOp method) with regards to how the effectiveness of the method is affected. The study was conducted by first creating a software tool for experience reuse in HazOp, then testing that tool in a student experiment in which the participants used the tool when conducting a HazOp.</p><p>During the experiment it was found that students using the tool found 21% more hazards in the system under study than their counterparts. After conducting the experiment it was found that there was a 94% certainty that this improvement was not due to random effects.</p>

<p>The hazard perception test developed by Sagberg and Bjornskau (2006) measuring reaction times in relation to different hazardous situations in traffic, has been used in the present study to analyze older drivers’ visual behaviour when passing/responding to the test.</p><p>The overall objective of this study has been to investigate the relation between hazard perception in traffic and visual behaviour among older drivers in comparison with a younger age group. The purpose of the study was to provide knowledge on what traffic situations that are more difficult for older drivers to interpret or perceive as hazardous. The elderly were expected to have more problems in situations that included objects classified as context hazards. Context hazards consist of objects that are slowly moving on the side of the road, which poses a situation where the driver should be prepared for the potential behaviour of that object.</p><p>The study was composed of two groups of drivers, one group of middle-aged drivers, 35-55 years old, and one group of older drivers, 65 years old and above, who performed the hazard perception test wearing an eye tracker. Hazard interpretation level within age group and situation was investigated, and eye movement data analyzed in terms of fixation duration time.</p><p>Overall results showed that the older participants had more problems in interpreting situations classified as context hazards as risky, especially context hazards consisting of pedestrians or cyclists. The differences were nevertheless significant. In addition, when investigating total fixation time on the hazard objects, the differences between age groups were shown to be significant for one of the situations consisting of pedestrians, classified as context/hidden hazard. No significant differences between age groups were found in either of the other situations.</p><p>The conclusions are that the elderly tentatively should be exposed to context hazards composed by pedestrians or cyclist in future training schemes. Since there were no significant differences between age groups, more research is, however, needed in the area. Also, since the class of context/hidden hazards, which showed significant differences in fixation time between age groups, was composed by only one situation, resembling situations should be investigated in order to verify these differences.</p>

<p>Denna uppsats behandlar daglig väderpåverkan på anmälda respektive avslutade sjukskrivningar i tolv svenska regioner under perioden 1987-1990. Väderdata från SMHI består av soltid, temperatur och nederbörd. Sjukskrivningsdata är kopplade till väderstationsdata. Undersökningarna är differentierade för tre dimensioner: påbörjade/avslutade sjukskrivningar, sommar-/vinterhalvår samt kvinnor/män. Vi har funnit att sol har en signifikant dämpande effekt för anmälda sjukskrivningar under sommarhalvåret.</p><p>Kvinnor reagerar dessutom till skillnad mot män på väderomslag i soltid över vinterhalvåren när det gäller att avsluta sjukskrivningar.</p>

Interorganizational alliances are widely recognized as critical to product innovation. A notable trend is the rapid growth of new product development (NPD) alliances between large, well-established firms and small, growing firms. This dissertation is comprised of two studies on the formation and termination of asymmetric new product development alliances. In study one I examine the factors that drive the changes in shareholder values of the partner firms. I develop and empirically test a model of short-term changes in shareholder values of larger and smaller firms involved in NPD alliances, using the event study methodology on data covering 167 asymmetric alliances in the information technology and communication industries. The model accounts for selection correction, potential cross-correlation across the residuals from the models of firm value changes for the larger and smaller firms, and unobserved heterogeneity. The results suggest that both the partners experience significant short-term financial gains, but there are considerable asymmetries between the larger and smaller firms with regard to the effects of alliance, partner and firm characteristics on the gains of the partner firms. The findings of this study have important implications for managers of both large and small firms. In study two I develop and test a framework of the determinants of new product alliance (NPA) terminations. The hypotheses for study two are tested on a unique database comprised of 401 new product alliances involving 24 pharmaceutical firms during 1990-2005. NPA terminations are modeled using Cox’s proportional hazard specification that accounts for the unobserved heterogeneity of firms with multiple NPAs, competing risks and ties among NPA duration times. The results suggest that NPA terminations are not made in isolation but are influenced by composition of the firm’s portfolio. The results also suggest that NPA terminations are predicted to a great extent by competition between alliances (i.e., product market rivalry) and competition within alliances (i.e., partner value). The findings of this study have important implications for managing a portfolio of new product partnerships.

This report presents a study of the effect of reusing experience in the Hazards and Operability Analysis method (HazOp method) with regards to how the effectiveness of the method is affected. The study was conducted by first creating a software tool for experience reuse in HazOp, then testing that tool in a student experiment in which the participants used the tool when conducting a HazOp. During the experiment it was found that students using the tool found 21% more hazards in the system under study than their counterparts. After conducting the experiment it was found that there was a 94% certainty that this improvement was not due to random effects.

Denna uppsats behandlar daglig väderpåverkan på anmälda respektive avslutade sjukskrivningar i tolv svenska regioner under perioden 1987-1990. Väderdata från SMHI består av soltid, temperatur och nederbörd. Sjukskrivningsdata är kopplade till väderstationsdata. Undersökningarna är differentierade för tre dimensioner: påbörjade/avslutade sjukskrivningar, sommar-/vinterhalvår samt kvinnor/män. Vi har funnit att sol har en signifikant dämpande effekt för anmälda sjukskrivningar under sommarhalvåret. Kvinnor reagerar dessutom till skillnad mot män på väderomslag i soltid över vinterhalvåren när det gäller att avsluta sjukskrivningar.

No description available.

The hazard perception test developed by Sagberg and Bjornskau (2006) measuring reaction times in relation to different hazardous situations in traffic, has been used in the present study to analyze older drivers’ visual behaviour when passing/responding to the test. The overall objective of this study has been to investigate the relation between hazard perception in traffic and visual behaviour among older drivers in comparison with a younger age group. The purpose of the study was to provide knowledge on what traffic situations that are more difficult for older drivers to interpret or perceive as hazardous. The elderly were expected to have more problems in situations that included objects classified as context hazards. Context hazards consist of objects that are slowly moving on the side of the road, which poses a situation where the driver should be prepared for the potential behaviour of that object. The study was composed of two groups of drivers, one group of middle-aged drivers, 35-55 years old, and one group of older drivers, 65 years old and above, who performed the hazard perception test wearing an eye tracker. Hazard interpretation level within age group and situation was investigated, and eye movement data analyzed in terms of fixation duration time. Overall results showed that the older participants had more problems in interpreting situations classified as context hazards as risky, especially context hazards consisting of pedestrians or cyclists. The differences were nevertheless significant. In addition, when investigating total fixation time on the hazard objects, the differences between age groups were shown to be significant for one of the situations consisting of pedestrians, classified as context/hidden hazard. No significant differences between age groups were found in either of the other situations. The conclusions are that the elderly tentatively should be exposed to context hazards composed by pedestrians or cyclist in future training schemes. Since there were no significant differences between age groups, more research is, however, needed in the area. Also, since the class of context/hidden hazards, which showed significant differences in fixation time between age groups, was composed by only one situation, resembling situations should be investigated in order to verify these differences.