Cross-sector surveys assessing perceptions of key stakeholders towards barriers, concerns and facilitators to the appropriate use of adaptive designs in confirmatory trials

Background Appropriately conducted adaptive designs (ADs) offer many potential advantages over conventional trials. They make better use of accruing data, potentially saving time, trial participants, and limited resources compared to conventional, fixed sample size designs. However, one can argue that ADs are not implemented as often as they should be, particularly in publicly funded confirmatory trials. This study explored barriers, concerns, and potential facilitators to the appropriate use of ADs in confirmatory trials among key stakeholders. Methods We conducted three cross-sectional, online parallel surveys between November 2014 and January 2015. The surveys were based upon findings drawn from in-depth interviews of key research stakeholders, predominantly in the UK, and targeted Clinical Trials Units (CTUs), public funders, and private sector organisations. Response rates were as follows: 30(55 %) UK CTUs, 17(68 %) private sector, and 86(41 %) public funders. A Rating Scale Model was used to rank barriers and concerns in order of perceived importance for prioritisation. Results Top-ranked barriers included the lack of bridge funding accessible to UK CTUs to support the design of ADs, limited practical implementation knowledge, preference for traditional mainstream designs, difficulties in marketing ADs to key stakeholders, time constraints to support ADs relative to competing priorities, lack of applied training, and insufficient access to case studies of undertaken ADs to facilitate practical learning and successful implementation. Associated practical complexities and inadequate data management infrastructure to support ADs were reported as more pronounced in the private sector. For funders of public research, the inadequate description of the rationale, scope, and decision-making criteria to guide the planned AD in grant proposals by researchers were all viewed as major obstacles. Conclusions There are still persistent and important perceptions of individual and organisational obstacles hampering the use of ADs in confirmatory trials research. Stakeholder perceptions about barriers are largely consistent across sectors, with a few exceptions that reflect differences in organisations’ funding structures, experiences and characterisation of study interventions. Most barriers appear connected to a lack of practical implementation knowledge and applied training, and limited access to case studies to facilitate practical learning. Keywords: Adaptive designs; flexible designs; barriers; surveys; confirmatory trials; Phase 3; clinical trials; early stopping; interim analyses

A study of adaptive thermal comfort in a well-controlled climate chamber

This paper aims to critically examine the application of Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) in an air-conditioned environment in the hot-humid climate region. Experimental studies have been conducted in a climate chamber in Chongqing, China, from 2008 to 2010. A total of 440 thermal responses from participants were obtained. Data analysis reveals that the PMV overestimates occupants' mean thermal sensation in the warm environment (PMV > 0) with a mean bias of 0.296 in accordance with the ASHRAE thermal sensation scales. The Bland–Altman method has been applied to assess the agreement of the PMV and Actual Mean Vote (AMV) and reveals a lack of agreement between them. It is identified that habituation due to the past thermal experience of a long-term living in a specific region could stimulate psychological adaptation. The psychological adaptation can neutralize occupants’ actual thermal sensation by moderating the thermal sensibility of the skin. A thermal sensation empirical model and a PMV-revised index are introduced for air-conditioned indoor environments in hot-humid regions. As a result of habituation, the upper limit effective thermal comfort temperature SET* can be increased by 1.6 °C in a warm season based on the existing international standard. As a result, a great potential for energy saving from the air-conditioning system in summer could be achieved.

Wireless energy behaviour monitoring (Wi-be) for office buildings

This paper presents a study on reduction of energy consumption in buildings through behaviour change informed by wireless monitoring systems for energy, environmental conditions and people positions. A key part to the Wi-Be system is the ability to accurately attribute energy usage behaviour to individuals, so they can be targeted with specific feedback tailored to their preferences. The use of wireless technologies for indoor positioning was investigated to ascertain the difficulties in deployment and potential benefits. The research to date has demonstrated the effectiveness of highly disaggregated personal-level data for developing insights into people’s energy behaviour and identifying significant energy saving opportunities (up to 77% in specific areas). Behavioural research addressed social issues such as privacy, which could affect the deployment of the system. Radio-frequency research into less intrusive technologies indicates that received-signal-strength-indicator-based systems should be able to detect the presence of a human body, though further work would be needed in both social and engineering areas.

Cross layer based protocols for energy aware and critical data delivery related applications using wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been an exciting topic in recent years. The services offered by a WSN can be classified into three major categories: monitoring, alerting, and information on demand. WSNs have been used for a variety of applications related to the environment (agriculture, water and forest fire detection), the military, buildings, health (elderly people and home monitoring), disaster relief, and area or industrial monitoring. In most WSNs tasks like processing the sensed data, making decisions and generating emergency messages are carried out by a remote server, hence the need for efficient means of transferring data across the network. Because of the range of applications and types of WSN there is a need for different kinds of MAC and routing protocols in order to guarantee delivery of data from the source nodes to the server (or sink). In order to minimize energy consumption and increase performance in areas such as reliability of data delivery, extensive research has been conducted and documented in the literature on designing energy efficient protocols for each individual layer. The most common way to conserve energy in WSNs involves using the MAC layer to put the transceiver and the processor of the sensor node into a low power, sleep state when they are not being used. Hence the energy wasted due to collisions, overhearing and idle listening is reduced. As a result of this strategy for saving energy, the routing protocols need new solutions that take into account the sleep state of some nodes, and which also enable the lifetime of the entire network to be increased by distributing energy usage between nodes over time. This could mean that a combined MAC and routing protocol could significantly improve WSNs because the interaction between the MAC and network layers lets nodes be active at the same time in order to deal with data transmission. In the research presented in this thesis, a cross-layer protocol based on MAC and routing protocols was designed in order to improve the capability of WSNs for a range of different applications. Simulation results, based on a range of realistic scenarios, show that these new protocols improve WSNs by reducing their energy consumption as well as enabling them to support mobile nodes, where necessary. A number of conference and journal papers have been published to disseminate these results for a range of applications.

Mobile sink based fault diagnosis scheme for wireless sensor networks

Network diagnosis in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is a difficult task due to their improvisational nature, invisibility of internal running status, and particularly since the network structure can frequently change due to link failure. To solve this problem, we propose a Mobile Sink (MS) based distributed fault diagnosis algorithm for WSNs. An MS, or mobile fault detector is usually a mobile robot or vehicle equipped with a wireless transceiver that performs the task of a mobile base station while also diagnosing the hardware and software status of deployed network sensors. Our MS mobile fault detector moves through the network area polling each static sensor node to diagnose the hardware and software status of nearby sensor nodes using only single hop communication. Therefore, the fault detection accuracy and functionality of the network is significantly increased. In order to maintain an excellent Quality of Service (QoS), we employ an optimal fault diagnosis tour planning algorithm. In addition to saving energy and time, the tour planning algorithm excludes faulty sensor nodes from the next diagnosis tour. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms through simulation and real life experimental results.

Fluorimetric determination of intra- and extracellular free amino acids in the microalgae Tetraselmis gracilis (Prasinophyceae) using monolithic column in reversed phase mode

This paper describes the development and application of an RP HPLC method using a C(18) monolithic stationary phase for the separation and quantification of extra- and intracellular amino acids in a batch cultivation of the marine alga Tetraselmis gracilis. Fluorimetric detection was made after separation of the o-phthaldialdehyde 2-mercaptoethanol (OPA-2MCE) derivatives using a binary gradient elution. Separation of 19 amino acids was achieved with resolution >1.5 in about 39 min at a flow rate of 1.5 mL/min. RSD of analyses in seawater medium ranged from 0.36% for Orn (0.50 mu mol/L) to 12% for Ile (0.10 mu mol/L). The main constituents of the intracellular dissolved free amino acids (DFAAs) in the exponential growth phase were arginine (Arg), asparagine (Asn), alanine (Ala), aspartic acid (Asp), glutamic acid (Glu), serine (Ser), glycine (Gly), glutamine (Gln), and leucine (Leu). The major amino acids excreted to the media were valine (Val), Ala, Ser, and Gly. The monolithic phase facilitates the analysis by shortening the separation time and saving solvents and instrumentation costs (indeed conventional HPLC instrumentation can be used, running at lower pressures than those ones used with packed particle columns).

Transcriptional Response to Hypoxia in the Aquatic Fungus Blastocladiella emersonii

Global gene expression analysis was carried out with Blastocladiella emersonii cells subjected to oxygen deprivation (hypoxia) using cDNA microarrays. In experiments of gradual hypoxia (gradual decrease in dissolved oxygen) and direct hypoxia (direct decrease in dissolved oxygen), about 650 differentially expressed genes were observed. A total of 534 genes were affected directly or indirectly by oxygen availability, as they showed recovery to normal expression levels or a tendency to recover when cells were reoxygenated. In addition to modulating many genes with no putative assigned function, B. emersonii cells respond to hypoxia by readjusting the expression levels of genes responsible for energy production and consumption. At least transcriptionally, this fungus seems to favor anaerobic metabolism through the upregulation of genes encoding glycolytic enzymes and lactate dehydrogenase and the downregulation of most genes coding for tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle enzymes. Furthermore, genes involved in energy-costly processes, like protein synthesis, amino acid biosynthesis, protein folding, and transport, had their expression profiles predominantly down-regulated during oxygen deprivation, indicating an energy-saving effort. Data also revealed similarities between the transcriptional profiles of cells under hypoxia and under iron(II) deprivation, suggesting that Fe(2+) ion could have a role in oxygen sensing and/or response to hypoxia in B. emersonii. Additionally, treatment of fungal cells prior to hypoxia with the antibiotic geldanamycin, which negatively affects the stability of mammalian hypoxia transcription factor HIF-1 alpha, caused a significant decrease in the levels of certain upregulated hypoxic genes.

NUCEL (Cell and Molecular Therapy Center): A multidisciplinary center for translational research in Brazil

Social and economical development is closely associated with technological innovation and a well-developed biotechnological industry. In the last few years, Brazil`s scientific production has been steadily increasing; however, the number of patents is lagging behind, with technological and translational research requiring governmental incentive and reinforcement. The Cell and Molecular Therapy Center (NUCEL) was created to develop activities in the translational research field, addressing concrete problems found in biomedical and veterinary areas and actively searching for solutions by employing a genetic engineering approach to generate cell lines over-expressing recombinant proteins to be transferred to local biotech companies, aiming at furthering the development of a national competence for local production of biopharmaceuticals of widespread use and of life-saving importance. To this end, mammalian cell engineering technologies were used to generate cell lines over-expressing several different recombinant proteins of biomedical and biotechnological interest, namely, recombinant human Amylin/IAPP for diabetes treatment, human FVIII and FIX clotting factors for hemophilia, human and bovine FSH for fertility and reproduction, and human bone repair proteins (BMPs). Expression of some of these proteins is also being sought with the baculovirus/insect cell system (BEVS) which, in many cases, is able to deliver high-yield production of recombinant proteins with biological activity comparable to that of mammalian systems, but in a much more cost-effective manner. Transfer of some of these recombinant products to local Biotech companies has been pursued by taking advantage of the Sao Paulo State Foundation (FAPESP) and Federal Government (FINEP, CNPq) incentives for joint Research Development and Innovation partnership projects.

Print quality study of a laboratory offset press

PAPRO operates within the Forest Research company and their mission is to develop value-addingindustry solutions. At present there are no good ways for mills to easily test the printing quality on newsprintpaper. There is a great need for a fast way to do this on different paper qualities; with a laboratory-offset press this can be both a time and money saving method. At PAPRO Forest Research, NewZealand, a laboratory offset press has been developed and designed, during the past seven years, concerningthis issue. Earlier projects were made concerning the press, e.g. to establish the optimal settings.The mission with this project was to partly determine the present variability of the print quality andto evaluate if the fountain solution, distilled water and 2% Diol green concentrate, used at the momentmixed with different percentages of Isopropanol could decrease the variability and contribute to morestabile results. Throughout the whole project the print quality showed a high variation and was evenmore variable when the Isopropanol was added. All in all 50 print rounds times twelve printed paperstrips was carried out through the project divided into three parts. To analyse the print quality, amicroscope with an image capture camera has been used. Data from the taken images was analysedand inserted into charts to see the variations.The conclusions of the whole project are not satisfying because no final evaluations were possible tomake. Main conclusions are that the additive of Isopropanol to the ordinary fountain solution, used atpresent, only contributed to more unstable results of the print quality. And it seems to be difficult toget some stable results from the lab press as long as the room where it is placed is not fully conditionedas required for the process of offset printing. And the fact that the airbrush which applies theamount of fountain solution is also variable, as shown in earlier projects, which contributes to unstableresults as well. For further work more exact parameters as a conditioned room are required and thepossibility to further design the laboratory press to use waterless offset printing instead.

Provtryck på skärm

This Degree Project is carried through in association with Fototext in Guthenburg. The firmsees benefits using”Soft Proof” technology for both economic and time-saving. The reasonfor ”Soft Proofing” for internal/ external production is to estimate and controll documentswithout using digital or chemical printing output.The different technical solutions to ”Soft Proof”, knowledges and facts aboutColorManagement together with PDF-workflow is going to pattern for a correct succesfull”Soft Proofing” on the monitor.Acrobat 5 in association with Photoshop 6 are effectively used in ”Soft Proofing” technic.The advance and capacity of the graphical softwares which are explained in this reporthelps the users to begin to experiment with ”Soft Proof”. Graphical firms which are interestedto begin working with ”Soft Proof” need to allready have knowledge in ICC-profilingand a practical ColorManaged workflow.

Borlänge and Falun Brundtland cities

Development of an infrastructure for Brundtland Renewable Energy Network - BREN is a European Commission Alterner Project with Contract no XVII/4. 1030/Z96-032.The project has its origin in the UN-report “Our Common Future”, 1989. A change in and reduction of the use of energy was fundamental in order to reach the goals which the report proposed. Denmark decided on an action plan on how energy consumption could be reduced “Energi 2000 - Handlingsplan för en bäredygtig udvikling”. The ministries of energy in Denmark and Schleswig Holstein both agreed to start an energy saving project in a smaller town. The project was called “Brundtlandby” and the two first were Toftlund in South Jutland and Bredstedt in North Friesland. After a short period a further two German Cities, Rheinsberg and Viernheim, and Rajec in Slovakia joined the group. A network for the exchange of knowledge and experience between the cities was formed. The network, Brundtland City Project, inspired the participating cities in the continuing work with energy saving measures. The Brundtland City Project was presented at an international conference “Cities and Energy” in Trondheim, Norway,in December 1995. Great interest was shown in the project and it was decided that a network should be developed in northern European countries as a pilot project to be enlarged with other European countries later on. A steering committee was formed with representatives from the nordic countries.An application was sent to the European Commission, Alterner Program, and was approved in Juli 1996. The project was subdivided into nine activities. Activity 1, consisted of summarising the experiences of the Brundtland City Project in Toftlund, Denmark and the Brundtland Cities network in Slovakia, Germany and Denmark. The Scandinavian part started with Activity 2, to engage municipalities/cities in Finland, Norway and Sweden in the project. The Solar Energy Research Center, SERC, Högskolan Dalarna was appointed as co-ordinator for the Swedish part. The project was presented at a seminar on the 30th September for representatives from the municipalities of Borlänge and Falun. On the 10th of December 1996 the two municipalities accepted the invitation to join the Northern network. Pelle Helje, Borlänge Energi, has been informant for the municipality of Borlänge and Anders Goop, Department of Urban Planninginformant for the municipality of Falun with Jan Kaans, Estates department providing information to the basis for the Newsletter.Reports on the work in Borlänge and Falun municipalities have been made to Brundtland Center Denmark on three occasions; Activities 2-5, 16-12-1997, Activities 6-7, including parts of activities 8-9, 03-03-1998, and the basis for the Newsletter, 01-07-1998. The Nordic reports have been compiled at the Brundtland Center Denmark for submission to the European Commission. English has been the common language. After the report of activities 2 - 5 the participants wereinvited to a project meeting and a workshop at Brundtland Center the 23rd and 24th March 1998.This was the first occasion the participants in the project met and the network thus took a moreconcrete form. It also was decided that the next meeting should be in Borlänge in August 1998,with Borlänge Energi and Solar Energy Research Center SERC as organisers. As BrundtlandCentre Denmark was wound up for financial reasons, the project meeting in Borlänge wascancelled.Compilation of the Final Report was carried out by Esbensen Consultants in October 1998Future development of the networkIt is intended to continue the work with the Brundtland City Network as an “EU Thermie Bproject”and the network will be enlarged with the addition of four new Brundtland Cities from Austria, Germany, Italy and Great Britain. In addition the village of Putja in Estonia will join the network but this will be financed by the EU-Phare programme.

Los asilados de las embajadas de Europa Occidental en Chile tras el golpe militar y sus consecuencias diplomáticas : El caso de Suecia

Given the expectations that western governments had in the reforms being implemented by the Unidad Popular, the September 1973 coup d’état in Chile caused a great international outcry. The violence and repression that accompanied the military coup produced a worldwide repudiation of the military junta. Sweden stood out most consistently among the countries that declared their opposition to Chile during the period of the dictatorship by continuously denouncing the violations to human rights. In this context, Sweden’s Ambassador to Chile, Harald Edelstam, played a very important role in saving the lives of hundreds of Chilean citizens and foreign nationals who sought refuge from the regime’s bloody repression. Making use of the privileges he enjoyed as a diplomat, Edelstam confronted the military authorities to release people wrongfully sentenced to the death penalty. As a result, he was declared persona non grata and forced to leave Chile. This was the beginning of a long and controversial diplomatic relationship that lasted until the return of democracy in Chile in 1990. This article is a first attempt at understanding how human rights violations affected bilateral relations between Chile and Sweden with respect to the diplomatic efforts of Ambassador Harald Edelstam.

Improvement of Routine Test Process of High Voltage Power Capacitors

The capacitor test process at ABB Capacitors in Ludvika must be improved to meet future demands for high voltage products. To find a solution to how to improve the test process, an investigation was performed to establish which parts of the process are used and how they operate. Several parts which can improves the process were identified. One of them was selected to be improved in correlation with the subject, mechanical engineering. Four concepts were generated and decision matrixes were used to systematically select the best concept. By improving the process several benefits has been added to the process. More units are able to be tested and lead time is reduced. As the lead time is reduced the cost for each unit is reduced, workers will work less hours for the same amount of tested units, future work to further improve the process is also identified. The selected concept was concept 1, the sway stop concept. This concept is used to reduce the sway of the capacitors as they have entered the test facility, the box. By improving this part of the test process a time saving of 20 seconds per unit can be achieved, equivalent to 7% time reduction. This can be compared to an additional 1400 units each year.

Energieffektivisering av klimatskal med hänsyn till kulturhistorisk värdering : Fallstudier av tre befintliga småhus från 1900-talet ur bevarandesynpunkt

Allt hårdare lagkrav gör att det är svårt att energieffektivisera befintliga byggnader utan att förändra deras utseende. Syftet med examensarbetet är att utreda hur stor energieffektivisering, för tre befintliga småhus uppförda under 1900-talet, som är möjlig att uppnå genom förbättring av byggnadernas klimatskal, det vill säga tak, väggar, golv, fönster och dörrar, utan att förvanska byggnadernas utseende och samtidigt bevara deras kulturhistoriska värden. Arbetet bestod av en förstudie där tre byggnader identifierades, ett undersökningsskede där information om byggnaderna togs fram och ett slutsatsskede där energibesparande åtgärdsförslag togs fram och utvärderades. Byggnader som var goda representanter för sin tid och stil söktes. Byggnader från 1910-talet, 1930-talet och 1970-talet, lokaliserades. Sedan gjordes det fallstudier med intervjuer och inventeringar. För att utreda byggnadens klimatskal utfördes u-värdesberäkningar och energiberäkningar av befintliga byggander och byggnader baserade på föreslagna åtgärdsförslag. Ingen av byggnaderna nådde efter föreslagna åtgärder ner till passivhuskravet 59 kWh/år/m2 Atemp eller BBR-kravet 110 kWh/år/m2 Atemp för en byggnads specifika energianvändning. Den största möjliga energieffektivisering för de tre byggnaderna uppförda under 1900-talet, som är möjlig att uppnå utan att förvanska byggnadernas utseende och samtidigt bevara deras kulturhistoriska värden är 13,0 kWh/år/m2 Atemp, 49,7 kWh/år/m2 Atemp respektive 64,8 kWh/år/m2 Atemp. Slutsatser från arbetet är att byggnader från 1910-tal kan åtgärdas genom att isolera fönstren, sätta dit en extra dörr på insidan av ytterdörren samt tilläggsisolera snedtaket. Byggnader från 1930-tal kan åtgärdas genom att isolera fönstren med en isolerruta på insidan av fönstret och dörrarna med en extra dörr på insidan av ytterdörren. Byggnader från 1970-tal kan åtgärda fönstren genom att byta ut dem till energifönster, ingen åtgärd för golvet men fasaden isoleras utvändigt med vakuumisolering. Byggnaden från 1970-talet klarade sig bäst i jämförelsen eftersom den var i autentiskt skick från början vilket gjorde att förbättringen blev större än för till exempel byggnaden från 1910-talet som redan var ombyggd innan åtgärder föreslogs.

Tid som välfärdsfaktor : förändrade motiv i svensk arbetstidspolicy

Time as a welfare factor This article presents the results of an archive study of working time development in Sweden. It investigates how structural policy change is moving from a social discourse closely related to Swedish welfare reforms, towards an economic discourse motivated by financial arguments. By doing so, the political measures to solve working time related problems in today’s flexible working life appear to be contradictory. On one side we find time-poor people on the labour market mainly supported by tax-reductions and private time saving solutions. On the other side we find time-rich people mainly supported by activation programs and/or welfare benefits. This is a system and a policy strategy that obviously disregards the other side of the coin.