The impact of use and non-use values on willingness to pay for the Norwegian wolf population

Master's thesis in Economic analysis.Which motivations determine people´s attitude towards the Norwegian wolf population? The current management goal for the Norwegian wolf population is 3 annual breedings within a geographically specified zone. This paper assesses the attitudes of Hunters and other outdoors users towards this management policy, as well as other potential scenarios. We do this using a willingness to pay survey. We argue that positive attitudes toward the wolf is mainly related to non- use values, while personal experience will change an individuals attitude towards becoming negative. We also review relevant literature and relate our findings to several other studies covering the same subject

Verbbøyning: Hva skjer når hjernen får en skade? Eksperimentell evidens fra afasirammede og Alzheimer-pasienter

En test utviklet for å undersøke tilegnelse av preteritumsformer hos barn er gitt til en gruppe afasirammede, det vil si voksne med språkvansker etter fokal hjerneskade. Testen består av bilder av 60 verb representative for de tre store verbklassene i bokmål. De afasirammedes responser sammenlignes med resultatene fra normalspråklige voksne og Alzheimer-pasienter. Som gruppe skårer de afasirammede langt dårligere enn de to andre gruppene. En analyse av hva slags feil informantene gjør, avslører ulike feilmønstre i de tre informantgruppene. Resultatene diskuteres i forhold til hva de forteller om underliggende årsaker til vanskene, leksikonstruktur og bøyningssystem hos informantene, og vi diskuterer mulige konsekvenser for differensialdiagnostisering. Det er store individuelle forskjeller blant de afasirammede, og artikkelen gir også et innblikk i fire individuelle kasus

Family involvement in the intensive care unit in four Nordic countries

Background - Relevance to clinical practice The findings from the study highlighting family involvement, high-quality communication and flexible visiting policy as central aspects of family care may inspire clinicians to identify aspects of everyday family care in their ICUs calling for further improvement. Aims and objectives - To describe family involvement, communication practices and visiting policies in adult ICUs. Design - A cross-sectional survey. Method - A questionnaire consisting of 11 sections was developed, pilot tested and e-mailed to 196 ICUs. The participants were intensive care nurses in adult ICUs in four Nordic countries. Results - The survey was conducted in October to December 2019. The response rate was 81% (158/196) of the invited ICUs. Most of the units had fewer than 11 beds. Family participation in patient care, including involvement in ward rounds and presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation, varied between the countries, whereas most families in all countries were involved in decision-making. Family conferences were generally initiated by staff or family members. Children under 18 did not always receive information directly from the staff, and parents were not advised about how to inform their children. Although most respondents described open visiting, restrictions were also mentioned in free-text comments. Conclusions - The level of family care in ICUs in the four Nordic countries is generally based on nurses' discretion. Although most Nordic ICUs report having an open or flexible visiting policy, a wide range of potential restrictions still exists. Children and young relatives are not routinely followed up. Family members are included in communication and decision-making, whereas family involvement in daily care, ward rounds and family-witnessed resuscitation seem to be areas with a potential for improvement

Experimentally reduced insulin/IGF-1 signaling in adulthood extends lifespan of parents and improves Darwinian fitness of their offspring

Classical theory maintains that ageing evolves via energy trade-offs between reproduction and survival leading to accumulation of unrepaired cellular damage with age. In contrast, the emerging new theory postulates that ageing evolves because of deleterious late-life hyper-function of reproduction-promoting genes leading to excessive biosynthesis in late-life. The hyper-function theory uniquely predicts that optimizing nutrient-sensing molecular signaling in adulthood can simultaneously postpone ageing and increase Darwinian fitness. Here, we show that reducing evolutionarily conserved insulin/IGF-1 nutrient-sensing signaling via daf-2 RNA interference (RNAi) fulfils this prediction in Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes. Long-lived daf-2 RNAi parents showed normal fecundity as self-fertilizing hermaphrodites and improved late-life reproduction when mated to males. Remarkably, the offspring of daf-2 RNAi parents had higher Darwinian fitness across three different genotypes. Thus, reduced nutrient-sensing signaling in adulthood improves both parental longevity and offspring fitness supporting the emerging view that suboptimal gene expression in late-life lies at the heart of ageing

Antagonistically pleiotropic allele increases lifespan and late-life reproduction at the cost of early-life reproduction and individual fitness

Evolutionary theory of ageing maintains that increased allocation to early-life reproduction results in reduced somatic maintenance, which is predicted to compromise longevity and late-life reproduction. This prediction has been challenged by the discovery of long-lived mutants with no loss of fecundity. The first such long-lived mutant was found in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. Specifically, partial-loss-of-function mutation in the age-1 gene, involved in the nutrient-sensing insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IIS) signalling pathway, confers longevity, as well as increased resistance to pathogens and to temperature stress without appreciable fitness detriment. Here we show that the long-lived age-1(hx546) mutant has reduced fecundity and offspring production in early-life but increased fecundity, hatching success and offspring production in late-life compared to wild-type worms under standard conditions. However, reduced early-life performance of long-lived mutant animals was not fully compensated by improved performance in late-life and resulted in reduced individual fitness. These results suggest that the age-1(hx546) allele has opposing effects on early-life versus late-life fitness in accordance with antagonistic pleiotropy and disposable soma theories of ageing. These findings support the theoretical conjecture that experimental studies based on standing genetic variation underestimate the importance of antagonistic pleiotropy in the evolution of ageing

Environmental variation mediates the evolution of anticipatory parental effects

Theory maintains that when future environment is predictable, parents should adjust the phenotype of their offspring to match the anticipated environment. The plausibility of positive anticipatory parental effects is hotly debated and the experimental evidence for the evolution of such effects is currently lacking. We experimentally investigated the evolution of anticipatory maternal effects in a range of environments that differ drastically in how predictable they are. Populations of the nematode Caenorhabditis remanei, adapted to 20°C, were exposed to a novel temperature (25°C) for 30 generations with either positive or zero correlation between parent and offspring environment. We found that populations evolving in novel environments that were predictable across generations evolved a positive anticipatory maternal effect, because they required maternal exposure to 25°C to achieve maximum reproduction in that temperature. In contrast, populations evolving under zero environmental correlation had lost this anticipatory maternal effect. Similar but weaker patterns were found if instead rate-sensitive population growth was used as a fitness measure. These findings demonstrate that anticipatory parental effects evolve in response to environmental change so that ill-fitting parental effects can be rapidly lost. Evolution of positive anticipatory parental effects can aid population viability in rapidly changing but predictable environments

Conditions and strategies to meet the challenges imposed by the COVID-19-related visiting restrictions in the intensive care unit: A Scandinavian cross-sectional study

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Beneficial cumulative effects of old parental age on offspring fitness

Old parental age is commonly associated with negative effects on offspring life-history traits. Such parental senescence effects are predicted to have a cumulative detrimental effect over successive generations. However, old parents may benefit from producing higher quality offspring when these compete for seasonal resources. Thus, old parents may choose to increase investment in their offspring, thereby producing fewer but larger and more competitive progeny. We show that Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodites increase parental investment with advancing age, resulting in fitter offspring who reach their reproductive peak earlier. Remarkably, these effects increased over six successive generations of breeding from old parents and were subsequently reversed following a single generation of breeding from a young parent. Our findings support the hypothesis that offspring of old parents receive more resources and convert them into increasingly faster life histories. These results contradict the theory that old parents transfer a cumulative detrimental ‘ageing factor’ to their offspring

Microbiological, pathological and histological findings in four Danish pig herds affected by a new neonatal diarrhoea syndrome

BACKGROUND: Neonatal diarrhoea is a frequent clinical condition in commercial swine herds, previously regarded to be uncomplicated to treat. However, since 2008 it seems that a new neonatal diarrhoeic syndrome unresponsive to antibiotics and common management practices has emerged. Routine laboratory examinations have not detected any pathogen related to this syndrome. The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate if well-known enteric pathogens could be associated with outbreaks of neonatal diarrhoea, thus question the hypotheses of a new syndrome. Furthermore, we wanted to evaluate macroscopic and microscopic findings associated with these outbreaks and if possible propose a preliminary piglet-level case-definition on syndrome New Neonatal Porcine Diarrhoea syndrome (NNPDS). RESULTS: Four well-managed herds experiencing neonatal diarrhoea with no previously established laboratory conclusion and suspected to suffer from New Neonatal Porcine Diarrhoea Syndrome, were selected. Within these herds, 51 diarrhoeic and 50 non-diarrhoeic piglets at the age of three to seven days were necropsied and subjected to histological and microbiological examination. Faeces were non-haemorrhagic. Neither enterotoxigenic E. coli, Clostridium perfringens type A or C, Clostridium difficile, rotavirus, coronavirus, Cryptosporidium spp, Giardia spp, Cystoisospora suis nor Strongyloides ransomi were associated with diarrhoea in the investigated outbreaks. Macroscopically, the diarrhoeic piglets were characterized by filled stomachs and flaccid intestines without mucosal changes. The predominant histological lesions were villous atrophy in jejunum and ileum. Epithelial lesions in colon were seen in one third of the case piglets. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study supported the hypothesis that a new neonatal porcine diarrhoea was present in the investigated herds, since no known pathogen(s) or management factors could explain the diarrhoeal outbreaks. Based on the findings in the four herds the following case-definition of NNPDS was suggested: Non-haemorrhagic diarrhoea during the first week of life, without detection of known infectious pathogens, characterized by milk-filled stomachs and flaccid intestines at necropsy