Unprecedented competition, fabulous technologies: A whole new ballgame for the energy industry

Technology developments on the horizon promise to transform the electricity industry far from its present shape and structure. But, just as technology has played a critical role in pushing the industry to its present thrust toward competition and vertical de-integration, a sensible technology policy can make a utility or power supplier a winmer tomorrow.     

Traveling wave method for calculation of linewidth, frequencytuning, and stability of semiconductor lasers

The authors present a new traveling wave method for calculating the linewidth, the frequency tuning efficiency, and a mode stability parameter for a general class of laser-diode structures. The method leads to simple semianalytic expressions which allow an easy numerical determination of the three parameters     

A systematic review of the literature on patient priorities for general practice care. Part 1: Description of the research domain

To make health care more responsive to patient needs, insight into patient priorities is needed. A systematic literature review, using electronic and manual searches, was made of studies on patient priorities with regard to primary health care. Data-extraction was performed by two researchers, followed by systematic analyses of study features. 57 studies were included. The aspects of care and methods used showed a wide variation. Aspects most often included were "informativeness", "humaneness" and "competence/accuracy". Based on an analysis of 19 studies, the following aspects were seen by patients as most important in more than 50% of the studies that included them: "humaneness", "competence/accuracy", "patients' involvement in decisions", "time for care", "other aspects of availability/accessibility", "informativeness", "exploring patients' needs", "other aspects of relation and communication" and "availability of special services".     

Participation of Danish and immigrant cleaners in a 1-year worksite intervention preventing physical deterioration

Worksite health promotion is seldom offered to workers who are low-educated and multi-ethnic, possibly due to an assumption that they are more reluctant to participate. Furthermore, little has been done to promote health at female-dominated workplaces. The main aim of this study was to investigate differences in participation among immigrant and Danish cleaners throughout a 1-year randomised controlled study tailored to cleaners and carried out in predominantly female workplaces. No significant differences in ethnicity were found in consent and participation throughout the 1-year intervention. Dropout was equally distributed among Danish and immigrant cleaners. This study indicates that a worksite health promotion intervention among a female-dominated, high-risk occupation such as cleaning can be equally appealing for Danes and immigrants. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: This study provides insight about participation of Danish and immigrant cleaners in a worksite health promotion intervention in a predominantly female occupation. For attaining high participation and low dropout in future worksite health promotion interventions among cleaners, the intervention ought to not only target the ethnic background of the workers, but also to be specifically tailored to the job group.     

Emergency admissions to a general hospital. Why emergency admission? Is there an alternative?

A study was conducted where the GPs in a district answered a questionnaire on reasons for hospital admission, divided into the categories: needed hospital investigation, hospital treatment, or needed care and nursing. They judged whether the admission could have been prevented. Finally, a multidisciplinary panel discussed ways to obtain better courses of admission. Of 266 admissions, 40 (15%) were due to a need for care and nursing. Ninety-seven (37%) of the admissions could be replaced by a short one-day stay, and 52 (20%) could have been postponed until the next day if that was possible. The panel discussion showed that municipalities can do more to strengthen the local professional support. It is concluded that the interface between primary care and the hospital should offer better opportunities for one-day admissions or sub-acute admissions, and that municipalities must be more aware of their responsibility for the care of fragile and ill people.     

Limiting the possibility of progressive collapse

The chance of progressive collapse is not confined to panel-frame buildings, though the latter may be more exposed to the danger. The following statement is issued by CIB Working Commission W23A on loadbearing walls and accordingly deals with the subject in the context of loadbearing walls. Professor Lewicki is based at the Centre for Building Systems Research and Development, Warsaw, and Professor Olesen at the Danish Engineering Academy.     

A method for diagnosing multiple diseases in MUNIN

A new method for diagnosing multiple diseases in large medical decision support systems based on causal probabilistic networks is proposed. The method is based on characteristics of the diagnostic process that we believe to be present in many diagnostic tasks, both inside and outside medicine. The diagnosis must often be made under uncertainty, choosing between diagnoses that each have small prior probabilities, but not so small that the possibility of two or more simultaneous diseases can be ignored. Often a symptom can be caused by several diseases and the presence of several diseases tend to aggravate the symptoms. For diagnostic problems that share these characteristic, we have proposed a method that operates in a number of phases: in the first phase only single diseases are considered and this helps to focus the attention on a smaller number of plausible diseases. In the second phase, pairs of diseases are considered, which make it possible to narrow down the field of plausible diagnoses further. In the following phases, larger subsets of diseases are considered. The method was applied to the diagnosis of neuromuscular disorders, using previous experience with the so-called MUNIN system as a starting point. The results showed that the method gave large reductions in computation time without compromising the computational accuracy in any substantial way. It is concluded that the method enables practical inference in large medical expert systems based on causal probabilistic networks.     

Partition noise in semiconductor lasers under CW and pulsed operation

A numerical model which simulates the mode partition noise in semiconductor lasers under CW as well as pulsed operation is presented. The noise levels in the individual modes under CW operation are in agreement with those predicted by an analytic small-signal model. Under simulated pulse modulation with pulse repetition frequencies of 633 MHz and 2.2 GHz, the probability density functions for the relative photon numbers in the individual modes are found. The data allow for an evaluation of the mode partition parameterk. For the central modes,kfactors are in the range of 0.31-0.42, depending on bias level and modulation frequency. Weaker side modes carrying less than 5 percent of the total output havekfactors smaller than 0.16.     

Center frequency shift and reduction of feedback in directlymodulated external cavity lasers

It is shown experimentally and theoretically that a center frequency shift occurs when an external cavity laser is directly modulated. The shift can be observed even when the frequency deviation is small compared to the roundtrip frequency of the external cavity and can qualitatively be explained by a reduction in the effective feedback level due to modulation. The frequency shift was measured as a function of modulation frequency and current, and frequency shifts up to 350 MHz were observed