Ritual, Performance and Bodily Transformation

Kjersti Larsen analyse la transformation du corps dans des rituels où les participants acquièrent différentes identités. A Zanzibar, pendant les cérémonies du ngoma ya sheitani, les esprits habitent les participants dans le but de se matérialiser et d’agir parmi les hommes. La parodie - un jeu de répétition et de distance critique - y joue un rôle décisif. Les protagonistes sont engagés dans une création interactive. Ils explorent leurs savoirs sur le différent et le même, sur ce qu’ils sont et ce qu’ils ne sont pas. Donnant la possibilité d’endosser successivement plusieurs identités et de se projeter dans des contextes différents, la performance se révèle être comme une discipline mentale visant la production de connaissances nouvelles.The paper explores performance and the analysis of bodily transformations during rituals in which the participants become both disassociated from and re-associated with different dimensions of their identity. Ethnographically, the focus is on certain rituals performed in Zanzibar called ngoma ya sheitani. During the rituals, spirits embody human beings in order to materialize and act in the ‘human world.’ In general, the difference between humans and spirits is one of excess rather than reversal. As such, parody – not in terms of satire but rather as repetition with critical distance – seems to play an important part in bodily transformations in the context of ngoma ya sheitani. In the process of transformation, participants are engaged in the interactional creation of what can be called a ‘performance reality,’ which, simultaneously, is and is not a state outside time. This implies that meanings are generated in social space through performance and that performance is a fundamental dimension of any culture and important in the production of knowledge about culture. Through performance, people both enact and extend their knowledge about difference and sameness, about who they are or are not, and about various others. An important aspect of knowledge representation, the author will argue, is that ritual and performance give the participants a possibility to experience reality, in the sense that participants and audience reflect on other contexts of meaning in the performance setting, as well as in the social and cultural world from which ritual emerges. As such, performances form part of the language of aesthetics

DFT-modellering av elektroniske og optiske egenskaper i CPO-27-Zn

Målet med prosjektet var å få mer kunnskap og forståelse om de fysikalske og kjemiske egenskapene til én-dimensjonale kjeder av sinkoksid som en tilnærming til sinkoksidnanotråder. Hovedfokuset har vært å forstå de elektroniske og optiske egenskapene og dette har blitt studert både ved teoretiske og eksperimentelle metoder. Forbindelsen som ble benyttet som utgangsstruktur for å studere disse egenskapene har kjemisk formel [Zn2(dhtp)(H2O)2] . 8 H2O og betegnes i oppgaven som Coordination Polymer of Oslo number 27 type Zn (CPO-27-Zn). Sinkatomet er oktaedrisk koordinert ved romtemperatur og det dannes ZnO6-enheter der fem av oksygenatomene stammer fra de organiske ligandene og det gjenværende sjette oksygenatomet er en del av et vannmolekyl. Ved dehydratisering gjennomgår forbindelsen en endring av strukturen som medfører at koordinasjonstallet til sinkatomet reduseres fra seks til fem. Det ble konstruert klyngemodeller med bakgrunn i den eksperimentelle strukturen av CPO-27-Zn, men det viste seg å være vanskelig å lage modeller som var representative for koordinasjonspolymeren, og det var store avvik i resultatene fra de ulike metodene. Det har blitt utført både ikke-periodiske og periodiske beregninger i forbindelse med det teoretiske arbeidet med henholdsvis programvarepakkene Gaussian09 og VASP. Resultatene fra de ikke-periodiske beregningene indikerer at HOMO-LUMO-gapet er større i de dehydrerte modellene av CPO-27-Zn sammenlignet med de hydrerte modellene, mens de estimerte båndgapene fra de periodiske beregningene indikerer det motsatte. Derfor ble det i tillegg utført målinger med ultrafiolett synlig diffusreflektansspektroskopi av CPO-27-M (M=Zn, Co, Ni, Mg, Mn) for å få mer kunnskap om hvordan båndgapet påvirkes i dette materialet. Konklusjonen fra det eksperimentelle arbeidet er at det er en liten endring i båndgapet fra CPO-27-Zn til CPO-27-Mg, mens det er en større endring i CPO-27-Mn. Imidlertid er båndgapsendringen ved dehydrering av CPO-27-Zn som også medfører endring i koordinasjonstallet til sinkatomet, svært liten. Dette er i tråd med tidligere studier, men er ikke i overenstemmelse med noen av konklusjonene fra beregningene. Modellene som ble konstruert er derfor ikke fullt ut representative for forbindelsen CPO-27-Zn

Automatic Estimation of Coronary Blood Flow Velocity Step 1 for Developing a Tool to Diagnose Patients With Micro-Vascular Angina Pectoris

Aim: Our aim was to automatically estimate the blood velocity in coronary arteries using cine X-ray angiographic sequence. Estimating the coronary blood velocity is a key approach in investigating patients with angina pectoris and no significant coronary artery disease. Blood velocity estimation is central in assessing coronary flow reserve. Methods and Results: A multi-step automatic method for blood flow velocity estimation based on the information extracted solely from the cine X-ray coronary angiography sequence obtained by invasive selective coronary catheterization was developed. The method includes (1) an iterative process of segmenting coronary arteries modeling and removing the heart motion using a non-rigid registration, (2) measuring the area of the segmented arteries in each frame, (3) fitting the measured sequence of areas with a 7◦ polynomial to find start and stop time of dye propagation, and (4) estimating the blood flow velocity based on the time of the dye propagation and the length of the artery-tree. To evaluate the method, coronary angiography recordings from 21 patients with no obstructive coronary artery disease were used. In addition, coronary flow velocity was measured in the same patients using a modified transthoracic Doppler assessment of the left anterior descending artery. We found a moderate but statistically significant correlation between flow velocity assessed by trans thoracic Doppler and the proposed method applying both Spearman and Pearson tests. Conclusion: Measures of coronary flow velocity using a novel fully automatic method that utilizes the information from the X-ray coronary angiographic sequence were statistically significantly correlated to measurements obtained with transthoracic Doppler recordings.publishedVersio

Culture crash regarding nursing students' experience of implementation of EBP in clinical practice

Dette er en pdf av forlagets publiserte versjon etter avtale. Tidsskriftets side: http://www.vardinorden.no/vin/forsideAims: The aim of this study was to examine nursing students’ experiences of the implementation of evidence-based practice (EBP) in a clinical setting. Background: Educating students in EBP is a challenge to both faculties and clinical practices, because EBP educational interventions may improve knowledge but do not ensure application of EBP in clinical settings. Becoming skilled in the application of EBP requires practice and nurses that motivate students to use EBP. Methods: Fourteen second-year students were divided into three focus groups according to the ward in which they undertook their clinical practice. Each group contained 4–5 students. Findings: The students were able to implement EBP according to the goals of the syllabus, but encountered a clinical setting that was insufficiently prepared, both structurally and in terms of knowledge, to mentor them regarding EBP. The findings indicate a culture crash between the students’learning goals of EBP at the faculty and the application of EBP in practice. Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrated that EBP is feasible in clinical practice, but highlighted the various factors obstructing its implementation. There is a need to find pathways to reduce hindrance in implementation of EBP

Professional home care providers' conceptualisations of frailty in the context of home care: A focus group study

Background: In Norway, as in many other countries, more people receive health and care services in their homes than before. Home care professionals provide care and support to people with a range of health and care needs. Older home care service users are sometimes referred to as ‘frail’, but the terms ‘frail’ and ‘frailty’ have different meanings in different contexts, and little is known about the meaning ascribed to the terms in the context of home care services. Home care services are crucial for many older persons who have health challenges, and how home care professionals conceptualise frailty might shape clinical encounters. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to explore how home care professionals conceptualised frailty in the context of home care. Methods: We conducted four focus group discussions with 14 home care professionals who worked in municipal home care in northern Norway and analysed the data using thematic analysis. Results: Our analysis resulted in five themes: ‘“Frail” – a term which is too imprecise to be useful’, ‘Frailty as a consequence of ageing’, ‘Frailty as lack of engagement and possibilities for engagement’, ‘Frailty as a contextual phenomenon’ and ‘Frailty as potentially affected by care’. The home care professionals conceptualised frailty as an individual trait but also as resulting from the interplay between individual and environmental factors. Moreover, their conceptualisations of frailty represented a continuum between frailty as related to prevention and management (‘cure’) and frailty as related to ageing as natural decline (‘care’). Conclusion: The home care professionals conceptualised frailty diversely, as moving along a continuum between cure and care. Diverse conceptualisations of frailty might be necessary if nurses are to meet the changing and varying care needs of older persons who live in their own homes and need health and care services

Systemic immune response induced by oxaliplatin-based neoadjuvant therapy favours survival without metastatic progression in high-risk rectal cancer

Background Systemic failure remains a challenge in rectal cancer. We investigated the possible systemic anti-tumour immune activity invoked within oxaliplatin-based neoadjuvant therapy. Methods In two high-risk patient cohorts, we assessed the circulating levels of the fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Flt3L), a factor reflecting both therapy-induced myelosuppression and activation of tumour antigen-presenting dendritic cells, at baseline and following induction chemotherapy and sequential chemoradiotherapy, both modalities containing oxaliplatin. The primary end point was progression-free survival (PFS). Results In both cohorts, the median Flt3L level was significantly higher at completion of each sequential modality than at baseline. The 5-year PFS (most events being metastatic progression) was 68% and 71% in the two cohorts consisting of 33% and 52% T4 cases. In the principal cohort, a high Flt3L level following the induction chemotherapy was associated with low risk for a PFS event (HR: 0.15; P < 0.01). These patients also had available dose scheduling and toxicity data, revealing that oxaliplatin dose reduction during chemoradiotherapy, undertaken to maintain compliance to the radiotherapy protocol, was associated with advantageous PFS (HR: 0.47; P = 0.046). Conclusion In high-risk rectal cancer, oxaliplatin-containing neoadjuvant therapy may promote an immune response that favours survival without metastatic progression

Pseudomyxoma peritonei – two novel orthotopic mouse models portray the PMCA-I histopathologic subtype

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) is a rare malignant disease, most commonly originating from appendiceal lesions and characterized by accumulation of mucinous tumor tissue in the peritoneal cavity. Since the disease is infrequent, the task of carrying out studies of treatment efficacy and disease biology in the clinical setting is challenging, warranting the development of relevant <it>in vitro </it>and <it>in vivo </it>PMP models.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Human tumor tissue was implanted in the peritoneal cavity of nude mice to establish two orthotopic models exhibiting noninvasive intraperitoneal growth without metastasis development.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Xenograft tissues have retained essential properties of the original human tumors, such as macro- and microscopic growth patterns, mucin production as well as expression of carcinoembryonal antigen, cytokeratins 20 and 7 and the proliferation marker pKi67. Upon microscopic examination, the human tumors were categorized as the PMCA-I (peritoneal mucinous carcinomatosis of intermediate features) subtype, which was conserved through 14 examined passages in mice, for the first time modeling this particular histopathologic category.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In conclusion, two novel orthotopic models of human PMP have been established that consistently portray a distinct histopathologic subtype and reflect essential human tumor properties. Xenografts can easily and reproducibly be transferred to new generations of mice with acceptable passage periods, rendering the models as attractive tools for further studies of PMP biology and treatment.</p

Increasing Incidences and Clonal Diversity of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the Nordic Countries-Results From the Nordic MRSA Surveillance

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is notifiable in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The prevalence of MRSA in this region has been low for many years, but all five countries experience increasing numbers of new cases. The aim of the study was to describe the molecular epidemiology in the Nordic countries 2009-2016. Numbers of new cases of MRSA from 1997 to 2016 were compared, and a database containing information on spa-type and place of residence or acquisition, for all new MRSA isolates from 2009 to 2016 was established. A website was developed to visualize the geographic distribution of the spa-types. The incidence of new MRSA cases increased in all Nordic countries with Denmark having 61.8 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016 as the highest. The number of new cases 2009 to 2016 was 60,984. spa-typing revealed a high genetic diversity, with a total of 2,344 different spa-types identified. The majority of these spa-types (N = 2,017) were found in 1-10 cases. The most common spa-types t127/CC1, t223/CC22, and t304/CC6:8 increased significantly in all Nordic countries during the study period, except for Iceland, while spa-type t002/CC5 decreased in the same four countries. The trends of other common spa-types were different in each of the Nordic countries. The Nordic countries were shown to share similar trends but also to have country-specific characteristics in their MRSA populations. A continued increasing numbers of MRSA will challenge the surveillance economically. A more selected molecular surveillance will probably have to be employed in the future

Solstien 3 – et digitalt læringshus med 360° videoer og tilhørende læringsaktiviteter for studenter i helse- og sosialfaglige utdanninger

En tverrfaglig prosjektgruppe ved VID vitenskapelige høgskole (VID) fikk høsten 2020 tildeling av midler fra Direktoratet for høyere utdanning og kompetanse til utvikling av «Solstien 3 - et digitalt læringshus for studentaktive arbeidsformer». Hovedmålet med prosjektet var å øke kvaliteten i utdanningen slik at studentene bedre kan ruste seg til å forstå og handle faglig og etisk forsvarlig i møte med mennesker i sårbare livssituasjoner. Derfor ønsket vi å ta i bruk virtual reality (VR)- teknologi for å fremme studentaktive læringsformer. Prosjektet ble gjennomført som et tverrfaglig samarbeid mellom fire helse- og sosialfaglige profesjonsutdanninger ved VID campus Stavanger, Bergen og Oslo. I prosjektet har vi utviklet realistiske scenarier som er filmet med 360˚-kamera og skal oppleves i VR-briller. Scenarioene viser komplekse og etisk utfordrende situasjoner, og læringsoppgavene fokuserer på at studenter skal utvikle evne til refleksjon og dømmekraft. Refleksjon og diskusjoner rundt hva som skjer i scenariene og hvordan man som fagperson kan og bør handle har til hensikt å styrke studentenes ferdigheter og øke deres teoretiske forståelse til bruk i praksis. I starten av prosjektet kartla vi ønsker for treningssituasjoner blant studenter, ansatte og fagpersoner fra praksisfeltet ved hjelp av en spørreundersøkelse (kap.2). Spørreundersøkelsen avdekket et ønske og behov for trening på å håndtere sterke følelser i situasjoner som konflikthåndtering, tvangsbruk og grensesetting. Både i kartleggingen og ved involvering av studentmedvirkere har vi jobbet for medvirkning gjennom hele prosjektperioden. Resultatene førte til utvikling av VR-scenarioer som reflekterer slike utfordringer. Disse scenarioene er ila prosjektperioden integrert i undervisningen i de fire involverte utdanningene (sykepleie, sosialt arbeid, ergoterapi og vernepleie) på VIDs fakultet for helsevitenskap og fakultet for sosialvitenskap. Prosjektets produkter har et bredt nedslagsområde med gode muligheter for overføring av resultater til andre studieprogram og institusjoner. Dette har allerede vist seg i praksis, da kolleger fra både Universitetet i Stavanger, Høgskolen på Vestlandet, OsloMet, samt fra Utviklingssenter for hjemmebaserte tjenester i Innlandet har bedt om å få bruke våre 360˚ videoer og simuleringsguide. Implementeringsprosessen har møtt utfordringer som behov for lærerressurser og teknisk støtte. Det er foreslått endringer i studieplaner for å integrere VR-simulering som en obligatorisk del av enkelte emner. Prosjektet har vist at VR-simulering kan være en effektiv metode for å simulere praksisnære situasjoner, men det krever fortsatt innsats for å implementere det fullt ut i utdanningsprogrammene. Tilbakemeldinger på VR-filmene og de tilhørende læringsoppgavene har vært overveiende positive. Høy produksjonskvalitet og overbevisende skuespill bidrar til en realistisk og engasjerende læringsopplevelse. Teknologien har vist seg nyttig, men også krevende, både teknisk og ressursmessig. Prosjektet har imidlertid styrket satsingen på simulering i utdanningene og økt kompetansen blant ansatte i bruk av ny læringsteknologi.publishedVersio

Second review of the Um Jawasir Project

Fra NORAGRIC. Ethiopia.The Um Jawasir project is an irrigation project implemented by ADRA to benefit people from the Hawaweer tribe in Sudan. The pilot phase (phase O) of the project has been operational since 1991 with 4 pumps. Phase 1 was launched in 1995 with 6 pumps which were larger than the original 4. The project has been reviewed by Noragric in November 1995, anda new review mission was set up in June 1997. Over the past two years, most of the targets set for the project period have been fulfilled. However, the farms do not yet yield a surplus that can be set aside as a contribution to future expansions of the project