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We consider the conforming of finite element approximations of reaction-diffusion problems. We propose new a posteriori error estimators based on H(div)- conforming finite elements and equilibrated fluxes. It is shown that these estimators give rise to an upper bound where the constant is one in front of the indicator, up to higher order terms. Lower bounds can also be established with constants depending on the shape regularity of the mesh and the local variation of the coefficients. We further analyze the convergence of an adaptive algorithm. The reliability and efficiency of the proposed estimators are confirmed by various numerical tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present new a posteriori error estimates for the finite volume approximations of elliptic problems. They are obtained by applying functional a posteriori error estimates to natural extensions of the approximate solution and its flux computed by the finite volume method. The estimates give guaranteed upper bounds for the errors in terms of the primal (energy) norm, dual norm (for fluxes), and also in terms of the combined primal-dual norms. It is shown that the estimates provide sharp upper and lower bounds of the error and their practical computation requires solving only finite-dimensional problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Due to recent changes in legislation on occupational health and safety, a national monitor on stress and physical load was developed in The Netherlands to monitor (a) risks and consequences of stress and physical load at work, (b) preventive actions in companies to reduce these risks, and (c) organisational and environmental variables that facilitate preventive actions.Methods: Information was gathered from employers, employees, and employees' representatives. The monitor was used with a nationally representative sample of companies in industry, wholesale trade, and banking and finance, 782 companies in total.Results and Conclusions: The information from the employees, aggregated at the company level, was not found to be correlated with that from the employer from the same companies. Although many employers do recognise risk factors for both physical load and stress as a problem they often seem to underestimate the problem when compared with employees or their representatives. This is particularly the case for psychosocial risk factors. Also, the perception of outcome measures, especially employers who consider emotional exhaustion to be work related, were fewer than the employees' representatives of the same organisation. Preventive measures on physical load are much more popular than measures against stress. It is the responsibility of the employer to take more preventive action of all kinds. They need to recognise risk factors as problems and health outcomes to be related to work. Employees of larger companies should participate with employers to consider effective measures, and more use should be made of support at branch level. For specific preventive measures, specific predictors emerged. Except for measures to prevent work stress, information from employees did not sufficiently contribute to the initiation of preventive measures in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated care is seen as an important new method towards more demand-driven and cost-conscious health systems. In October 2013, a 4-year, multidisciplinary and multi-method research project on integrated care in Flanders (Belgium) will be launched: 'Care Organization: a ReThinking EXpedition in search for Sustainability' (CORTEXS). The €3 million project focuses on long term care. CORTEXS strives to combine high quality innovative basic research with a strategic utilization of the research results. The project is oriented at over 30 stakeholders from seven major groups: care; cure; interest groups; policy; labor market; knowledge and education; regional actors. The research agenda covers three domains: To develop concepts of integrated care that meet the requirements of availability, quality, feasibility, patient empowerment and job quality; To optimize the work processes and design of care organizations in terms of care quality, job quality, and productivity; To identify the conditions that foster (or impede) effective organizational coordination, normative integration and implementation of high quality care concepts. Especially the innovative combination of expertise on organization sciences, social innovation and (integrated) care is expected to lead to substantial knowledge development. The paper presents the CORTEXS research framework, aimed at the joint realization of the basic and strategic research objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]