The aim of this paper is to present cDVF-E scales for families with children of 0-18 years, on one hand, and over 18 years, on the other, that researchers from five spanish universities have recently ...validated and standardized to the spanish population. To this end, first, the importance of the construct of quality of family life and its implications for research and practice should be emphasized. Afterwards, we introduce the first international initiatives measuring the quality of family life developed in the first decade of this century. Then the features, dimensions and psychometric properties of the scales are synthetically presented. Finally, the authors encourage practitioners and organizations to use these tools in the context of family-centered model and provides, as a conclusions, some considerations
Hospital payment systems are being changed to mixed systems, composed of case-mix categories and structure indicators. The Health Care Financing Administration’s Diagnosis-Related-Groups (HCFA’s ...DRGs) and DRG-weights are used in Catalonia as Prospective Payment System (PPS)-instruments for hospital inpatient reimbursement. The Catalonian and Spanish health systems, however, are very different from the US health environment. The aim of this study is to determine whether the HCFA’s DRGs and DRG-weights fit the special characteristics of a European environment. To do this, cost-based weights, determined from information from the cost accounting system of two public hospitals in Barcelona, are compared with Medicare-weights. A total of 35 262 discharges representing 12 794 million pesetas are analyzed. Medicare-weights do not differ globally from cost-based-weights and the adjusted correlation weighted least squares regression between the two weight-scales is 95%. There are, however, systematic deviations in six DRG-groupings. The most important deviations are concentrated in Ambulatory Surgery categories, in DRGs in which prostheses are used, and in specialties excluded from several PPSs because of extreme variability in treatment intensity. In conclusion, Medicare-weights can be used to pay hospital output in a European environment but they should be adjusted to avoid systematic deviations.
The increase of distributed generation is expected to generate instabilities, such as power imbalances or voltage deviations in the power system. At the distribution level, maintaining the bus ...voltages within the stipulated limits is one of the major challenges for the distribution system operator. Under low penetration levels, several voltage regulation elements have been efficiently employed up to now. However, under large distributed generation levels, the traditional techniques have to be coordinated with new upcoming solutions, such us demand response. In this paper a simple and decentralized approach is introduced in order to coordinate the voltage control capability from different assets in medium voltage networks. In this sense, the on-load tap changer strategy of the primary substation and the power factor control of wind turbines and combined heat and power plants are combined with the power factor control of the existing Power-to-Gas facilities. The feasibility of the coordination strategy is tested in a benchmark medium voltage network. The results show that the voltage magnitude is kept within the stipulated boundaries when applying the proposed approach, making limited use of the on-load tap changer and the reactive power from dispersed generation while maximizing the capacity usage of the Power-to-Gas load.
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