Welcome note for the conference on coordinated cross-sector continuity of care in Odense, 31 March 2011

Ensuring continuity of care across different sectors is one of the greatest challenges for the health service in Denmark. It is a challenge that we are already working hard to address, but also one that we are not going to meet either today or tomorrow. We know that citizens, quite rightly, expect coherence and continuity of care if they should become ill, regardless of whether their care is provided by a hospital, their general practitioner or the municipality. One sector needs to know what the other is doing—or not doing. Collaboration and communication are key words in this context

Nanostructured titanium dioxide: fate in the aquatic environment and effects on the marine mussel mytilus edulis

Master's thesis in Biological chemistryThe rapid development of nanotechnology and the corresponding increase in the use of nanoparticles in commercial products have led to concerns about their health risks and environmental impact. As the aquatic systems act as a sink for many pollutants, nanoscale particles are likely to enter the aquatic environment and pose a threat to aquatic organisms. In particular, filter-feeding organisms, such as the blue mussel Mytilus edulis, may represent a unique target group for nanoparticle toxicology. The present study reviews the key aspects concerning fate and behavior of nanoparticles in the aquatic systems, the availability for uptake by biota and toxic effects in aquatic invertebrates, with a particular focus on nanostructured titanium dioxide (nano-TiO2). The experimental part of this study, explores the hypothesis that nano-TiO2 can cause sub-lethal impacts on Mytilus edulis exposed through the water column. The behaviour of nano-TiO2 in the aquatic system is explored and the possible effects of in vivo exposure to nano-TiO2 on mussel haemocytes (blood cells) are investigated. Mussels were exposed to different concentrations of nano-TiO2 suspensions for six days and a lysosomal biomarker was evaluated in the haemocytes. The results show a great tendency of nano-TiO2 to aggregate when dispersed in water, in particular in seawater, which will affect the subsequent fate within the aquatic environment. Significant lysosomal membrane destabilisation is found in mussel haemocytes exposed to 5 and 25 mg L-1 nano-TiO2, as evaluated by the neutral red retention time (NRRT) assay. Overall, the obtained data demonstrates that nano-TiO2 can induce sub-lethal effects in the filter-feeding organism

Memories of a Contested Homeland: Nostalgia, Postmemories, and Exile in Mornings in Jenin, Here I Am, and A Map of Home

Denne masteroppgaven tar for seg hvordan identitet, hjem og hjemland er fremstilt gjennom ulike former av minner i moderne litteratur som, direkte eller indirekte, omhandler konflikten i Israel/Palestina. Selv om denne spesifikke konflikten fungerer som et bakteppe for diskusjonen om et omstridt hjemland, vil oppgaven ikke gå nærmere inn på selve konflikten, da det er litteraturens rolle som står i sentrum. De utvalgte bøkene – Mornings in Jenin (Abulhawa 2011), Here I Am (Foer 2016) og A Map of Home (Jarrar 2008) – er skrevet av forfattere med ulike perspektiver og tilknytning til konflikten, noe som resulterer i et mangfold av ulike vinklinger der flere sider av situasjonen belyses. Således utgjør denne masteroppgaven et viktig bidrag i et litterært felt som har vist tendenser til å hovedsakelig fremstille én side som det dominerende perspektivet av en kompleks situasjon der to ulike folkeslag ser på det samme området som sitt hjem.Engelsk mastergradsoppgaveENG35

Accurate, automatic annotation of peptidases with Hotpep-protease

Peptidases are essential for intracellular protein processing, signaling and homeostasis, physiological processes and for digestion of food. Moreover, peptidases are important biotechnological enzymes used in processes such as industrial food processing, leather manufacturing and the washing industry. Identification of peptidases is a crucial step in their characterization but peptidase annotation is not a trivial task due to their large sequence diversity.In the present study short, conserved sequence profiles were generated for all peptidase families with more than four members in the comprehensive Merops peptidase database. The sequence profiles were combined with the Homology to Peptide Pattern (Hotpep) method for automatic annotation of peptidases. This method is a stand-alone software that annotates protease sequences to Merops family and subgroup and is suitable for large-scale sequence analysis. Compared to the Mammalian Degradome Database Hotpep-protease had an accuracy of 92% and a sensitivity of 96% for annotation of the human degradome. Annotation by commonly used methods (Blast and conserved domains) had an accuracy of 69% and a sensitivity of 78%. For fungal genomes, there were large differences between annotation with Hotpep-protease, Blast- and Hidden Markov Model-based annotation and the Merops annotation, which confirms the difficulty of large-scale peptidase annotation. Manual annotation indicated that Hotpep-protease had a positive prediction rate of 0.90 compared to a positive prediction rate of 0.67 for Blast search. Hence, Hotpep-protease is highly accurate method for fast and accurate annotation of peptidases