An assessment of environmental flow requirements of Indian river basins

River basins / Environmental flows / Assessment / Hydrology / Ecology / Ecosystems / Water allocation / Water requirements / Time series / India

Locating the poor: Spatially disaggregated poverty maps for Sri Lanka

Poverty / Mapping

Combination Therapy Is Superior to Sequential Monotherapy for the Initial Treatment of Hypertension:A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Guidelines for hypertension vary in their preference for initial combination therapy or initial monotherapy, stratified by patient profile; therefore, we compared the efficacy and tolerability of these approaches. Methods and Results: We performed a 1‐year, double‐blind, randomized controlled trial in 605 untreated patients aged 18 to 79 years with systolic blood pressure (BP) ≥150 mm Hg or diastolic BP ≥95 mm Hg. In phase 1 (weeks 0–16), patients were randomly assigned to initial monotherapy (losartan 50–100 mg or hydrochlorothiazide 12.5–25 mg crossing over at 8 weeks), or initial combination (losartan 50–100 mg plus hydrochlorothiazide 12.5–25 mg). In phase 2 (weeks 17–32), all patients received losartan 100 mg and hydrochlorothiazide 12.5 to 25 mg. In phase 3 (weeks 33–52), amlodipine with or without doxazosin could be added to achieve target BP. Hierarchical primary outcomes were the difference from baseline in home systolic BP, averaged over phases 1 and 2 and, if significant, at 32 weeks. Secondary outcomes included adverse events, and difference in home systolic BP responses between tertiles of plasma renin. Home systolic BP after initial monotherapy fell 4.9 mm Hg (range: 3.7–6.0 mm Hg) less over 32 weeks (P<0.001) than after initial combination but caught up at 32 weeks (difference 1.2 mm Hg [range: −0.4 to 2.8 mm Hg], P=0.13). In phase 1, home systolic BP response to each monotherapy differed substantially between renin tertiles, whereas response to combination therapy was uniform and at least 5 mm Hg more than to monotherapy. There were no differences in withdrawals due to adverse events. Conclusions: Initial combination therapy can be recommended for patients with BP >150/95 mm Hg. Clinical Trial Registration URL: http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00994617

Dissens i Høyesterett - En empirisk analyse av den rettskildemessige vekten av dissensavgjørelser i avtale- og strafferetten

Master i rettsvitenskapJUS399MAJU

Simulating land use change for assessing future dynamics of land and water resources

Models of land use change fall into two broad categories: pattern based and process based. This thesis focuses on pattern based land use change models, expanding our understanding of these models in three important ways. First, it is demonstrated that some driving variables do not have a smooth impact on the land use transition process. Our example variable is access to water. Land managers with access to piped water do not have any need for surface or groundwater. For variables like this, a model needs to change the way that driving variables are represented. The second important result is that including a variable which captures spatial correlation between land use types significantly increases the explanatory power of the prediction model. A major weakness of pattern based land use models is their inability to model interactions between neighbouring land parcels; the method proposed in this study can be an alternative to account for spatial neighbourhood association. These innovations are applied using the CLUE-S (Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at Small regional extent) system to the Deep Creek watershed in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. The results highlight the challenge of balancing the protection of agricultural land and conserving forest and natural areas when population and economic growth are inevitable. The results also demonstrate the implications of land use change on existing land use policies. The calibrated model was validated using remote sensing data. A series of discriminant functions were estimated for each land use type in the recent period and these functions were then used to classify. The calibrated model was run in reverse, back to the generated land use classification, and results compared. Fit was reasonable with error rates falling below ten percent when radii beyond 2.5 km were considered. Another important contribution is demonstrating the importance of modelling dynamic variables. Some important drivers are changing continuously and others depend on land use change itself. Failure to update these variables will bias model forecasts. Spatial neighbourhood association, an endogenous variable governed by land use change itself, is again used as the example dynamic variable. The study demonstrates the importance of updating all associated information.  Graduate Studies, College of (Okanagan)Graduat

An assessment of environmental flow requirements of Indian river basins

In Amarasinghe, Upali A.; Shah, Tushaar; Malik, R. P. S. (Eds.). Strategic Analyses of the National River Linking Project (NRLP) of India, Series 1: India?s water future: scenarios and issues. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI

Status epilepticus hos barn - en spørreundersøkelse og litteraturstudie

Status epilepticus (SE) er en nevrologisk akuttsituasjon definert som vedvarende eller gjentatte epileptiske anfall med varighet over 30 minutter uten rekonvalens av bevissthet mellom anfallene. SE skilles av praktiske grunner videre i konvulsiv SE (KSE) med krampeanfall og non-konvulsiv SE (NKSE) med absenser, eller fokale anfall med og uten bevissthetsendring. Førstnevnte er spesielt alvorlig og potensielt livstruende og skal dermed behandles aggressivt etter fastlagt skjema. I Norge har behandlingen av KSE gjennom flere år bestått av diazepam innen 5 minutter og fos-fenytoin innen 20–30 minutter. Dersom tilstanden vedvarer legges pasienten vanligvis i tiopentalnarkose innen 60 minutter. Pasienten har gått over i refraktær SE (RSE). Barnelegeforeningens Akuttveileder inneholder en kvalitetssikret behandlingsprotokoll som tar for seg behandling av SE. En slik prosedyreprotokoll er med på å sikre gode rutiner og kontinuitet i behandlingen. Med vår oppgave ønsket vi å kartlegge hvilke prosedyreprotokoller som eksisterer ved landets barneavdelinger og hvorvidt en slik protokoll brukes i behandlingstilnærmingen av KSE og NKSE. Er dette i tråd med erfaringer gjort internasjonalt