Factors Associated with Severe Disease from Malaria, Pneumonia and Diarrhea among Children in Rural Tanzania - a Hospital-Based Cross-Sectional Study.

Mild cases of malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea are readily treatable with complete recovery and with inexpensive and widely available first-line drugs. However, treatment is complicated and expensive, and mortality is higher when children present to the hospital with severe forms of these illnesses. We studied how care seeking behaviours and other factors contributed to severity of malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea among children less than five years in rural Tanzania. We interviewed consecutive care-takers of children diagnosed with malaria, pneumonia and/or diarrhea at Korogwe and Muheza district hospitals, in north-eastern Tanzania, between July 2009 and January 2010, and compared characteristics of children presenting with severe and those with non-severe disease. A total of 293 children with severe and 190 with non-severe disease were studied. We found persistent associations between severity of disease and caretaker's lack of formal education (OR 6.6; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.7-15.8) compared to those with post-primary education, middle compared to high socio-economic status (OR 1.9; 95% CI 1.2-3.2), having 4 or more children compared to having one child (OR 2.5; 95% CI 1.4-4.5), having utilized a nearer primary health care (PHC) facility for the same illness compared to having not (OR 5.2; 95% CI 3.0-9.1), and having purchased the first treatment other than paracetamol from local or drug shops compared to when the treatment was obtained from the public hospitals for the first time (OR 3.2; 95% CI 1.9-5.2). The old officially abandoned first line anti-malaria drug Sulfadoxin-pyrimethamine (SP) was found to still be in use for the treatment of malaria and was significantly associated with childrens' presentation to the hospital with severe malaria (OR 12.5; 95% CI 1.6-108.0). Our results indicate that caretakers with no formal education, with lower SES and with many children can be target groups for interventions in order to further reduce child mortality from treatable illnesses. Furthermore, the quality of the available drug shops and PHC facilities need to be closely monitored

Weaning of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus). Studying effects of dietary hydrolysed protein and intestinal maturation as a marker for readiness for weaning

The gastrointestinal tract of marine fish larvae undergoes extensive changes during the larval stage. The success in weaning increases as the juvenile stage approaches and the gastrointestinal tract attains a more adult-like form and functionality. In the present study, intestinal maturation in Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippolgossus) larvae was compared with weaning studies to give an indication whether intestinal maturation and weaning success were correlated. Activities of the brush border membrane (bbm) enzymes alkaline phosphatase (AP) and leucine aminopeptidase N (LAP) were used as markers for for intestinal maturation. In addition, the activity of intestinal leucylalanine peptidase (Leu-ala) was used as a marker for larval mode of digestion, but this marker gave no information in decline in larval digestive features in cod and halibut. The specific activities of AP and LAP increased abruptly from 30 to 40-50 dpff in both species, corresponding to 50-120 mg wet weight in halibut and 7-9 mm standard length (SL) in cod. These increases mark the time when the intestine achieves a more adult-like functionality, and thus, the fish larvae were considered to be better prepared to digest microparticulate diets. Comparison of intestinal maturation with early weaning studies with cod and halibut indicated that intestinal maturation was important for succeeding in weaning of these two species. However, several factors are supposed to influence the weaning results, and in particular the suitability of the diet. Marine fish larvae absorb hydrolysed protein more efficiently than intact protein. Thus, including part of the dietary protein in a hydrolysed form is thought to enhance growth and development during the larval stage when the gastrointestinal tract is not fully mature. Graded levels of pepsin hydrolysed protein (from 0 to 40-45 %) were included in the weaning diets for cod (11 mg wet weight) and halibut (120 and 220 mg wet weight) in order to define the optimal level of hydrolysed protein. Cod obtained the highest survival rate when 40 % of the dietary protein was exchanged with pepsin hydrolysed protein. Higher inclusion levels were not tested. In contrast, the diets added none or 10 % pepsin hydrolysed protein supported the highest survival rates in halibut. Specific activities of AP and LAP showed positive correlation with the survival results, supporting that cod and halibut took benefit of high and low levels of dietary hydrolysed protein, respectively. Dietary hydrolysed protein did not affect growth significantly. The main reason for the different results obtained with cod and halibut is considered to be a combination of different feeding practise in cod and halibut, and high leaching rates of hydrolysed protein from microparticulate diets. Determination of leaching rates from three microparticulate diets showed that nutrient losses were extensive, but to some extent dependent on type of feed, feed particle size and molecular size of the dietary peptides (i.e. amino acids>hydrolysed protein>intact protein). Halibut ingests diet particles slowly, allowing extensive losses of nutrients from the diet prior to ingestion. Cod ingests diet particles rapidly, and thus when the particles still contain some hydrolysed protein. The protein content in the diets offered to halibut was probably reduced comparatively with hydrolysed protein inclusion level, and since juvenile halibut is considered to have a high dietary protein requirement, a sub-optimal level of protein may have been reached when the diets contained high levels of hydrolysed protein. This may explain the low optimal level of dietary hydrolysed protein to halibut

Software as ideology: A multimodal critical discourse analysis of Microsoft Word and SmartArt

Author's accepted manuscriptSoftware has become ubiquitous in higher education, especially often takenfor-granted Microsoft Word. Educational writing involves more than horizontal lines of text, but also multimodal representations. When students write in Word, the affordances of the program constrain what multimodal representations of knowledge they can and cannot make. Software such as Word is not neutral tool-kits, but also historical and semiotic constructs loaded with social values and ideologies. By taking a social semiotic approach to Word and SmartArt, this article shows how this software is pre-loaded with values and styles from office management. These values are then infused into education, in the case this article investigates, grammar models in language studies.acceptedVersio

Geology, mineralogy and geochemistry of the Holmsletfjella Au-As occurrence, West Spitsbergen Fold Belt, Svalbard

Holmsletfjella is situated on the southern side of St. Jonsfjorden on the archipelago of Svalbard. The drill core herein studied is part of an exploration program by Store Norske. Chemical analysis of the drill cores in combination with the geological history have reviled the Holmsletfjella Formation and the Ultramafic Vestgötabreen Complex to have been altered by fluids migrating through the rocks during the formation of the Caledonian mountain chain. These fluids were sourced from VAMSNAZ (V, As, Mo, Se, Ni, Ag and Zn) shales, which is an excellent source of gold. At the same time as the fluids were migrating the serpentinites of the Ultramafic Vestgötabreen Complex underwent listwanite alteration that resulted in partial alteration of the serpentinites into listwanites. Possible gold deposits may have been displaced or remobilised during the generation of the West Spitsbergen Fold Belt thereby making the work locating the gold deposits harder

Dealing with the great unknown: A qualitative study on how representatives justify their decision-making

MasteroppgaveSAMPOL350MASV-SAP

Analysis of the probability of default in peer-to-peer lending. Application of different classification techniques.

In this thesis, peer-to-peer lending is explored and analyzed with the objective of fitting a model to accurately predict if borrowers default on their loans or not. The foundation for the thesis is a dataset from LendingClub, a peer-to-peer lending platform based in San Francisco, USA. Detailed information of borrowers’ financial history, personal characteristics and the specifics of each loan is used to predict the probability of default for the various loans in the portfolio. Methods used include elastic net regularization of logistic regression, boosting of decision trees, and bagging with random forests. The results are compared using accuracy metrics and a profitability measure, before a final model selection is carried out.Masteroppgave i statistikkMAMN-STATSTAT39

The effects of increased soil moisture on the timing of senescence of three plants grazed by Svalbard reindeer

Climate change is affecting the Arctic faster than anywhere else on the planet, with increases in temperature and precipitation predicted to have significant effects on Arctic ecosystems. Water availability is of key importance to plant growth in the Arctic, and the availability of grazing in the autumn is of particular importance to the winter survival of Arctic herbivores. Despite this, the effects of water availability on the senescence of plants in the Arctic is largely understudied. I experimentally tested how different levels of soil moisture impacted the senescence of a grass, an herb, and a shrub all commonly found on Svalbard, that are also important to the grazing of Svalbard reindeer. Increased soil moisture had a strong positive effect by delaying the timing of senescence of the grass in particular. Meanwhile, senescence was delayed for the herb and forb only under moderate increases in soil moisture, while high increases in soil moisture led to earlier senescence. Flooding events caused by heavy rainfall may have a strong negative impact on some species, such as the herb and forb, while species like the grass may be more resilient. These results indicate that a moderate increase in precipitation in the future may have a positive effect on the length of time with high quality forage available during the autumn, which may ameliorate the negative effects expected from increased icing events during the winter on Arctic herbivores such as the Svalbard reindeer

Making Sense of Stigmatized Organizations: Labelling Contests and Power Dynamics in Social Evaluation Processes

How do social audiences negotiate and handle stigmatized organizations? What role do their heterogenous values, norms and power play in this process? Addressing these questions is important from a business ethics perspective to improve our understanding of the ethical standards against which organizations are judged as well as the involved prosecutorial incentives. Moreover, it illuminates ethical concerns about when and how (the exploitation of) power imbalances may induce inequity in the burdens imposed by such social evaluations. We address these questions building on two event-based case studies involving Hells Angels Motorcycle Club Norway, and contribute to organizational stigma theory in three ways. First, social evaluations of a stigmatized organization by multiple audiences are found to interact, collide and combine in a labelling contest. Second, we show that labels employed in this contest are pushed to either negative extremes (‘moral panic’) or positive extremes (‘moral patronage’). Finally, we show when and how power represents a double-edged sword in social evaluation processes, which can be wielded either to the benefit or to the detriment of the actors under evaluation

Open process innovation practices : an exploratory study

Master's thesis Industrial Economics and Technology Management IND590 - University of Agder 2018Konfidensiell til / confidential until 01.07.202

Cost of intensive care in a Norwegian University hospital 1997–1999

AIM: The present study was performed in order to document costs of intensive care in a Norwegian university hospital and to perform an average cost-effectiveness study using the expected remaining life-years in survivors after 18 months. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients admitted to the general intensive care unit (ICU) at Haukeland University Hospital from 1997 to 1999 were followed up to 18 months post ICU using data from the Norwegian Peoples' registry. Our ICU patients have a further mortality equal to the average population in Norway from that time. By creating an age-matched and sex-matched sample of the general Norwegian population equal to survivors 18 months after ICU treatment, we could find the expected further survival time for each ICU survivor. Direct and indirect ICU expenses in the study period were retrieved using a 'top-down' method. Outcome assessment was performed using the total ICU expenses in the period divided by the sum of the life expectancy (years) in survivors after 18 months. RESULTS: The total ICU costs (converted to 2001 values) were € 16,697,415, excluding the costs of radiology and the use of operating theatres, which were both impossible to retrieve. A total of 1051 patients were treated, of whom 60.9% survived up to 18 months. Further total life expectancies were 24,428 years. The average costs of an ICU day and stay per patient were € 2601 and € 14,223, respectively, and the average cost per year of survival per patient was € 684. DISCUSSION: The absolute costs were found to be higher than recent European ICU studies reporting on the cost of ICU treatment. However, the price of a further life-year in survivors was lower and was comparable with other medical treatment