Sickness absence culture: A Scoping Review

ABSTRACT Background: Several studies have reported significant variations in sickness absence rates between comparable cohorts of employees, which by some authors have been attributed to sickness absence cultures. A sickness absence culture represents the shared absence-related norms and behaviors within a workgroup. Even when controlling for factors associated with sickness absence, there are still unexplained variations. To our knowledge, there are no systematic reviews on the concept of sickness absence culture. We conducted a scoping review to identify and map existing knowledge on sickness absence culture. We also investigated what methods and designs were used. Methods: We searched the following electronic databases for studies on sickness absence culture and related phenomena: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Clarivate Web of Science, and Bielefeld Academic Search Engine. Both abstract and full-text screening was conducted by two independent reviewers. Data extraction was conducted jointly by the two reviewers. The final stage of the review included a narrative synthesis. The review was conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews. Results: The final review consisted of 29 studies. In terms of design, the majority of included studies were categorized as observational quantitative. Ten of the included studies attempted to measure sickness absence culture directly with survey questions. None of these studies utilized the same scales for assessing sickness absence culture, which indicates a lack of standardized measurement for sickness absence culture. Eight of the included studies suggested sickness absence culture as an explanation for observed variations in sickness absence rates, without having measured sickness absence culture directly. Conclusions: The concept of sickness absence culture could be a useful explanation for the observed unexplained variations in sickness absence rates. However, further research is warranted to determine the effect of sickness absence culture on sickness absence rates, and to develop standardized measures of sickness absence and sickness absence culture

Patterns of childhood adverse events are associated with clinical characteristics of bipolar disorder

Background Previous studies in bipolar disorder investigating childhood trauma and clinical presentations of the illness have mainly focused on physical and sexual abuse. Our aim was to explore further the relationship between childhood trauma and disease characteristics in bipolar disorder to determine which clinical characteristics were most strongly associated with childhood trauma total score, as well as subtypes of adverse childhood events, including physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect. Methods 141 Patients with bipolar disorder were consecutively recruited, and disease history and clinical characteristics were assessed. History of childhood abuse was obtained using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Statistical methods used were factor analysis, Poisson and linear regression, and generalized additive modeling (GAM). Results The factor analysis of CTQ identified three factors: emotional abuse/neglect, sexual abuse and physical abuse. There were significant associations between CTQ total score and earlier onset of illness, reduced level of psychosocial functioning (GAF; Global Assessment of Functioning) and decreased number of hospitalization, which mainly were due to the factor emotional abuse/neglect. Physical abuse was significantly associated with lower GAF scores, and increased number of mood episodes, as well as self-harm. Sexual abuse was significantly associated with increased number of mood episodes. For mood episodes and self-harm the associations were characterized by great variance and fluctuations. Conclusions Our results suggest that childhood trauma is associated with a more severe course of bipolar illness. Further, childhood abuse (physical and sexual), as well as emotional abuse and neglect were significantly associated with accelerating staging process of bipolar disorder. By using specific trauma factors (physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse/neglect) the associations become both more precise, and diverse

Light-level geolocators reveal spatial variations in interactions between northern fulmars and fisheries

Seabird−fishery interactions are a common phenomenon of conservation concern. Here, we highlight how light-level geolocators provide promising opportunities to study these interactions. By examining raw light data, it is possible to detect encounters with artificial lights atnight, while conductivity data give insight on seabird behaviour during encounters. We used geolocator data from 336 northern fulmars Fulmarus glacialis tracked from 12 colonies in the North-East Atlantic and Barents Sea during the non-breeding season to (1) confirm that detections of artificial lights correspond to encounters with fishing vessels by comparing overlap between fishing effort and both the position of detections and the activity of birds during encounters, (2) assess spatial differences in the number of encounters among wintering areas and (3) test whethersome individuals forage around fishing vessels more often than others. Most (88.1%) of the track encountered artificial light at least once, with 9.5 ± 0.4 (SE) detections on average per 6 mo nonbreeding season. Encounters occurred more frequently where fishing effort was high, and birds from some colonies had higher probabilities of encountering lights at night. During encounters, fulmars spent more time foraging and less time resting, strongly suggesting that artificial lights reflect the activity of birds around fishing vessels. Inter-individual variability in the probability of encountering light was high (range: 0−68 encounters per 6 mo non-breeding season), meaning that some individuals were more often associated with fishing vessels than others, independently of their colony of origin. Our study highlights the potential of geolocators to study seabird−fisheryinteractions at a large scale and a low cost.publishedVersio

Six pelagic seabird species of the North Atlantic engage in a fly-and-forage strategy during their migratory movements

Bird migration is commonly defined as a seasonal movement between breeding and non-breeding grounds. It generally involves relatively straight and directed large-scale movements, with a latitudinal change, and specific daily activity patterns comprising less or no foraging and more traveling time. Our main objective was to describe how this general definition applies to seabirds. We investigated migration characteristics of 6 pelagic seabird species (little auk Alle alle, Atlantic puffin Fratercula arctica, common guillemot Uria aalge, Brünnich’s guillemot U. lomvia, black-legged kittiwake Rissa tridactyla and northern fulmars Fulmarus glacialis). We analysed an extensive geolocator positional and saltwater immersion dataset from 29 colonies in the North-East Atlantic and across several years (2008-2019). We used a novel method to identify active migration periods based on segmentation of time series of track characteristics (latitude, longitude, net-squared displacement). Additionally, we used the saltwater immersion data of geolocators to infer bird activity. We found that the 6 species had, on average, 3 to 4 migration periods and 2 to 3 distinct stationary areas during the non-breeding season. On average, seabirds spent the winter at lower latitudes than their breeding colonies and followed specific migration routes rather than non-directionally dispersing from their colonies. Differences in daily activity patterns were small between migratory and stationary periods, suggesting that all species continued to forage and rest while migrating, engaging in a ‘fly-and-forage’ migratory strategy. We thereby demonstrate the importance of habitats visited during seabird migrations as those that are not just flown over, but which may be important for re-fuelling.publishedVersio

Estimating survival rate in Brünnich's guillemot (Uria lomvia) chicks. A study of mark-recapture methods using photo series data

Three different mark-recapture models were applied to resighting data for Brünnich's guillemot (Uria lomvia) chicks obtained from photo series. Performances of the various models as potential tools for estimating chick survival over the breeding season were assessed. Of particular interest was Pradel’s multievent model, estimating state transition probabilities while accounting for uncertainty of the state of the chicks when only the adults were observed. The performances of the Cormack-Jolly-Seber (CJS) model and Pollock’s robust design were also explored. Estimates produced by all models were compared to field observations of breeding success. All of the models tested had difficulties coping with the strong heterogeneity in capture probabilities among chicks on wide and densely populated ledges. These conditions caused underestimated survival probabilities. Strong site fidelity exhibited by adult Brünnich's guillemots despite chick loss was another potential cause of bias in the multievent model estimators. The CJS model and Pollock’s robust design produced realistic survival rate estimates when heterogeneity in capture probabilities was low or could be modeled. Although sample size was relatively small, this study provides a good basis for further investigations, as it identifies the main challenges facing investigators planning to estimate chick survival in cliff-nesting seabirds using resighting data from photo series

Fast Seeded Region Growing in a 3D Grid

The purpose of this thesis was to examine ways to adapt common 2D segmentation techniques to work with 3D grids. The focus of the thesis became how to automate and improve the performance of region growing in 3D grids. After examining relevant literature and developing a tool to run experiments, a simple automatic region grower for 3D grids was developed. Quantitative performance measures and qualitative analysis of the segmentation results were performed. This algorithm was then used as a baseline for comparison when developing a more advanced region grower for 3D grids based on the seeded region grower (SRG) for 2D grids. This new algorithm was then modified to improve its speed and later extended to allow fully automatic operation by automating the placement of starting seeds. It was found that for the algorithms that were extended to a 3D grid, the main challenge was the resources needed by these algorithms when operating on high resolution grids. It was found that even though there have been steady and rapid improvements in consumer hardware since the original region growing algorithms were used on 2D grids, the very large amounts of data resulting from an extension from surface grids to volume grids requires that special attention is paid to handling resources effectively. It was further revealed that what was considered the best data structures and algorithms for the SRG algorithm when it was first introduced, is not necessarily the best choice on todays computing hardware. Also, the conclusion is drawn that with regards to performance, it is now possible to segment volumes approximately as fast as surfaces were segmented in the early 1990s

Om nominal tellelighet

This thesis aims to investigate aspects of nominal countability, mainly in Norwegian common nouns. There is a constant debate on how best to describe the countability of nouns, typically claimed for Indo-European languages. Nouns are often described as belonging to one of two categories, count nouns and mass nouns (or countables and uncountables), divided by properties whose nature are of some controversy. The fundamental question remains: Is countability best considered a semantic, pragmatic or a syntactic phenomenon? Is a feature ±COUNTABLE located in the lexicon, in larger syntactic units or elsewhere? This thesis tries to answer the following questions: 1. Can differences in countability be claimed for Norwegian common nouns, how could this be claimed, and is countability best considered a lexical, a grammatical, or a pragmatic phenomenon, governed or influenced by context? 2. Are the data best captured by mutually exclusive Aristotelian categories countables/uncountables, or can concepts like prototype theory and markedness theory better our description? 3. Is (un)countablity arbitrary in a noun? It is found that Norwegian nouns exhibit behaviour that can be described as countable or uncountable, primarily a pragmatic phenomenon with implications for grammar, best captured in categories based on prototypes. It is the need or absence of need to refer that forms the pragmatic essence of the distinction. The typical alignments that constitute countable/uncountable (which are argued to be biased labels) can be described as oppositions in an asymmetrical relationship between the marked and the unmarked respectively. It is claimed that even though the countability typical for a noun is in fact motivated by its typical need for reference, countability is arbitrary. The possibility of motivation is inherent in the principle of the arbitrariness of linguistic signs