Marine Genetic Resources in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: Developing States and issues related to equitable benefit sharing

One of the “2011 package” issues brought to light through the BBNJ negotiation is the question of benefit sharing. In that context, this thesis aims to consider which measures are necessary to ensure fair and equal access and utilization of the benefits derived from MGR activities in ABNJ. The research will examine the previous negotiations to identify the range of potential measures that could be adopted to meet the aim of fair and equal access and benefit sharing. In order to answer these questions, focus will be directed towards the existing legal framework that regulates MGRs in ABNJ, the ongoing BBNJ negotiations and the potential of an ABS-regime. This topic has been tried resolved earlier, without success. However, this objective of this thesis is to confirm which conditions contributes to inhibit fair and equal benefit sharing of MGRs, with due regard for developing States. Finally, possible solutions will be set out with a view on filling the gaps, in light of the final negotiation stage under the auspices of UNGA. In summary, the specific objectives of this thesis are to (1) identify how activities in ABNJ currently are governed; (2) identify the legal gaps regarding utilization and equitable benefit sharing of genetic resources in ABNJ; and (3) assess how these legal issues could be resolved through an updated and supplementary international framework

A characterization and comparison of the microRNA expression profile in breast cancer cell lines and exosomes

Breast cancer is the leading cause in cancer deaths among woman worldwide, and one in ten women will experience the disease during their lifetime. Breast cancer accounted for 23% of the total new cancer incidences and 14% of the total cancer deaths in Norway in 2008. One way to potentially improve long-term cancer survival statistics is earlier detection. That includes the discovery and characterization of minimally invasive and unique breast cancer biomarkers to aid early diagnosis. The presence of circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) in blood components (including serum and plasma) has been repeatedly observed in cancer patients as well as healthy controls. Since the deregulation of miRNA is associated with cancer development and progression, profiling of circulating miRNAs has been used in a number of studies that aim to identify novel miRNA biomarkers. MiRNAs are small RNA molecules that regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. They play a key role in diverse biological processes, including development, cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Hence, altered miRNA expression contributes to the development and progression of human disease, including cancer. In this thesis, we used a strategy of small RNA profiling by Applied Biosystem’s next-generation sequencing system (SOLiD) to analyze the different genome-wide miRNA expression profiles in breast cancer cell lines and exosomes originating from breast cancer cell lines. We found a number of key miRNAs that were highly expressed in both the breast cancer cell lines and exosomes; miRNAs that could have potential as biomarkers for early breast cancer detection. We also sequenced miRNA from 14 breast cancer cell lines of different subtypes and miRNA from exosomes from 9 of those cell lines. This was done to investigate the potential differences in the miRNA expression patterns, both between the different subtypes of breast cancer cell lines and the exosomes originating from the cell lines. We identified miRNAs with a consistent high expression among all the cell lines and exosomes and miRNAs that were differentially expressed between the cell lines and exosomes. Finally, a comparison of the miRNA expression pattern between the exosomes and the cell lines revealed that the miRNA profiles in exosomes did not reflect the miRNA profiles observed in the parental cells

Evaluation of a nonlinear cumulative creep damage model for design applications

Master's thesis in Mechanical engineeringPredicting creep damage and remaining life of an engineering design is a complex task. There are many types of creep material models and they provide significantly different predictions. Furthermore, the necessary material data required for the material models are rarely available. Creep tests are typically performed in uniaxial tension under constant load and temperature. However, such similar conditions are rarely encountered in practical engineering applications where multiaxial stresses and cyclic load and temperature often are present. Creep-fatigue interaction and correlation between uniaxial and multiaxial stress states also add on to the complexity of the damage assessment in creep conditions. Pavlou have proposed a nonlinear cumulative creep damage model (NCCDM) that considers the sequence effect from the previous load history in the damage assessment. NCCDM has been evaluated for use in design applications and compared to a widely-used linear summation method known as the time fraction rule (TFR); TFR is used in several engineering design codes. Pavlou, Grell et. al, Lin and Teng have shown that NCCDM can predict creep damage more accurately than TFR under stepwise constant uniaxial stress and temperature conditions. However, NCCDM has not been used yet in practical engineering design applications. In this thesis, NCCDM will be applied to a X8CrNiMoNb-16-16 pressure vessel designed in accordance with ASME VIII-2 to demonstrate its use in conjunction with practical engineering problems. The pressure vessel will be subjected to elevated temperatures with applied variable two-step loading. This is used as a representative engineering example for the comparison of the two models, i.e., NCCDM vs. TFR. Firstly, by considering proposals made by Pavlou, Grell, Lin and Teng, an evaluation of the best use of the NCCDM was made. The model behaviour was also studied by considering fictive load cases. Based on the findings, conditions for further use of the model was established. Secondly, rupture and creep strength data obtained from a material database were used to create fitted curves with the Larson-Miller parameter from which time-to-rupture and time-to-1% strain could be obtained for different stresses. Thirdly, the finite element (FE) method was used to evaluate several types of stress criteria on a generic model of a pressure vessel. Variable-step internal pressure at a constant elevated temperature was applied to the model. A linear-elastic and an elastic-plastic material model was used in the analysis. By considering high-to-low (H-L) and a low-to-high (L-H) loading sequence the remaining life to rupture and to 1% strain was calculated for the pressure vessel with both NCCDM and TFR. It was found that the NCCDM and the TFR gave very different predictions. For the L-H type of loading sequence the NCCDM predicted more conservative remaining life than TRF. The opposite was seen for the H-L type of loading. Larger variation in stress between the two load steps resulted in an increased difference between the predictions made with the two models. Due to the difficulty of performing a time-dependent creep analysis, the NCCDM model would benefit from being combined with an elastic-analysis procedure to approximate the time-dependent stress distribution, like the procedure in ASME-NH. Because of the simple use of NCCDM, there is potential for it to gain acceptance for engineering applications. However, further analysis and research should be made to fully understand the damage processes considered in the NCCDMs remaining life assessment

Strategisk planlegging og styring i kommunesektoren

The topic of this study is strategic planning and management in the municipal sector, specifically, the extent to which local government has adopted strategic planning and management, which planning and management elements that are used, and what is the nature of municipal strategy. We also examined whether the size of the municipality, economic freedom and the strategic positions – prospector, defender and reactor – are affecting the municipality's strategic management. In recent years there has been carried out many international studies on the use of strategic management in the public sector. We wanted to assess how the situation is in Norwegian municipalities, and based our examination on a survey conducted by Poister and Streib in 2005. They pointed out that strategic planning has been used in the public sector for over 20 years, and their results suggest that there is increasing use of complex links between multiple management processes in strategic work. We adjusted this study to fit Norwegian conditions and added questions about strategic content from a study by Andrews, Boyne and Walker (2006). The data was collected via a questionnaire sent to all municipalities. There are responses from a total of 176 municipalities, which yielded a response rate of 41%. We also collected secondary data from Statistics Norway (SSB). The results from our survey show that local authorities make extensive use of strategic planning and management processes and, in general, experience the effects of strategic planning as positive. We found that municipalities connect several strategic management processes of planning in a complex way, though to varying degrees. It was also an objective of this study to gain more knowledge about what is the content of municipal strategy. The data suggest that municipalities are not passively controlled by the expectations and orders from external stakeholders, but act proactively within the room to maneuver that exists to create public value. A regression analysis showed that the factors of municipality size, economic freedom and the strategic positions advocate, defender and reactive, explains 33 percent of the variation in the strategic management of municipal councils. The analysis also showed that the strategic position prospector is more correlated to the variation in strategic management than the size of the municipality and economic freedom. The size of the municipality and the strategic position defender is more influential to variation in strategic management than economic freedom.Master i styring og ledels

Establishing equivalence classes in children using familiar and abstract stimuli and many-to-one and one-to-many training structures

In the present experiment, the effects of responding in accordance with stimulus equivalence were tested using one-to-many (OTM) and many-to-one (MTO) training structures and familiar and abstract stimuli. Sixteen typically developing children, ages 8 to 9 years, were trained and tested for formation of two 5-member equivalence classes in four conditions: OTM–familiar, OTM–abstract, MTO–familiar, and MTO–abstract. In the the familiar conditions, the nodes were familiar stimuli while the other stimuli were abstract stimuli. In the abstract condition, all stimuli were abstract stimuli. The results showed that the conditions with the familiar stimulus sets were more effective in formation of equivalence classes than the conditions with abstract stimuli. Furthermore, the results showed small discrepancies between the training structures in the formation of equivalence classes, and OTM was more effective than MTO in the first condition. In the conditional discrimination training, OTM was faster in establishing the conditional relations than MTO. The results suggest the use of familiar stimuli to establish equivalence relations and the use of OTM for effective establishment of conditional relations

"Strålende samhold" : en analyse av hvordan lærebøker for den videregående skole mellom 1945 og 2008 har fremstilt landssvik og hvordan dette har endret seg, i lys av historisk forskning, historiedidaktikk og samfunnskontekst

Masteroppgave i historie- Universitetet i Agder, 201

Risikofylt lek og sikkerhet

Problemstilling: Hvilken oppfatning har foreldre/foresatte i barnehagen av risikofylt lek og hvordan mener de barnehagen forholder seg til det å ivareta barnas sikkerhet?bachelor-v201

Rehabilitation models that support transitions from hospital to home for people with acquired brain injury (ABI): a scoping review

Background - Research shows a lack of continuity in service provision during the transition from hospital to home for people with acquired brain injuries (ABI). There is a need to gather and synthesize knowledge about services that can support strategies for more standardized referral and services supporting this critical transition phase for patients with ABI. We aimed to identify how rehabilitation models that support the transition phase from hospital to home for these patients are described in the research literature and to discuss the content of these models. Methods - We based our review on the “Arksey and O`Malley framework” for scoping reviews. The review considered all study designs, including qualitative and quantitative methodologies. We extracted data of service model descriptions and presented the results in a narrative summary. Results - A total of 3975 studies were reviewed, and 73 were included. Five categories were identified: (1) multidisciplinary home-based teams, (2) key coordinators, (3) trained family caregivers or lay health workers, (4) predischarge planning, and (5) self-management programs. In general, the studies lack in-depth professional and contextual descriptions. Conclusions - There is a wide variety of rehabilitation models that support the transition phase from hospital to home for people with ABI. The variety may indicate a lack of consensus of best practices. However, it may also reflect contextual adaptations. This study indicates that health care service research lacks robust and thorough descriptions of contextual features, which may limit the feasibility and transferability to diverse contexts