Styrer politikerne utviklingen av Forsvaret? Hæren 2005 - en casestudie

This Master Thesis deals with political control on the development of the Armed Forces in Norway. More specifically it is an analysis on the development of the Norwegian Army between 2001 and 2005 and how political decisions have influenced on the development. This is done answering three questions: · To what extent was the Army's structure by the end of 2005 a consequence of political decisions? · What was The Standing Committee on Defence’s role in the development of the Army in 2001-2005? · What factors other than political decisions have had the greatest influence on the development of the Army? The thesis is based on the theories of Mintzberg (strategy development), Allison & Zelikow (rational actor), Raiffa, Richardson & Metcalfe (negotiations) and others (lobbyism). Sources have been political biographies, newspaper articles, governmental documents, Parliamentary White Papers, minutes from debates in the Parliament and other documents. This thesis suggests that the development of the Norwegian Army in the period 2001-2005 was based on rational political decisions. The Standing Committee on Defence handled all defence matters in the Parliament and therefore had an important role in the development of the Army. The politicians in the committee were older than average, less active than their peers and most of them left the Parliament after the 2005 election. This is an indication that the committee was regarded as a “less important” committee. The most important factor for the reductions of the Army was the lack of economical resources. The political objectives in 2001 were four brigades, but in 2005 the Army consisted of two brigades. That was a consequence of reduced funding from the Parliament combined with increased operational costs in the Army. Furthermore, operations in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan influenced on the development of the Army and the Army budget. Within the Armed Forces there were different opinions on the development of the Armed Forces and the Army. The long term planning in the Armed Forces were often based on to optimistic economical figures. As a consequence the Army struggled to keep the budge

Prehabilitation Before Total Knee Arthroplasty Increases Strength and Function in Older Adults With Severe Osteoarthritis

Preparing for the stress of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) surgery by exercise training (prehabilitation) may improve strength and function before surgery and, if effective, has the potential to contribute to postoperative recovery. Subjects with severe osteoarthritis (OA), pain intractable to medicine and scheduled for TKA were randomized into a usual care (UC) group (n = 36) or usual care and exercise (UC + EX) group (n = 35). The UC group maintained normal daily activities before their TKA. The UC + EX group performed a comprehensive prehabilitation program that included resistance training using bands, flexibility, and step training at least 3 times per week for 4-8 weeks before their TKA in addition to UC. Leg strength (isokinetic peak torque for knee extension and flexion) and ability to perform functional tasks (6-minute walk, 30 second sit-to-stand repetitions, and the time to ascend and descend 2 flights of stairs) were assessed before randomization at baseline (T1) and 1 week before the subject\u27s TKA (T2). Repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated a significant group by time interaction (p \u3c 0.05) for the 30-second sit-to-stand repetitions, time to ascend the first flight of stairs, and peak torque for knee extension in the surgical knee. Prehabilitation increased leg strength and the ability to perform functional tasks for UC + EX when compared to UC before TKA. Short term (4-8 weeks) of prehabilitation was effective for increasing strength and function for individuals with severe OA. The program studied is easily transferred to a home environment, and clinicians working with this population should consider prehabilitation before TKA. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT

The value of electrical stimulation as an exercise training modality

Voluntary exercise is the traditional way of improving performance of the human body in both the healthy and unhealthy states. Physiological responses to voluntary exercise are well documented. It benefits the functions of bone, joints, connective tissue, and muscle. In recent years, research has shown that neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) simulates voluntary exercise in many ways. Generically, NMES can perform three major functions: suppression of pain, improve healing of soft tissues, and produce muscle contractions. Low frequency NMES may gate or disrupt the sensory input to the central nervous system which results in masking or control of pain. At the same time NMES may contribute to the activation of endorphins, serotonin, vasoactive intestinal polypeptides, and ACTH which control pain and may even cause improved athletic performances. Soft tissue conditions such as wounds and inflammations have responded very favorably to NMES. NMES of various amplitudes can induce muscle contractions ranging from weak to intense levels. NMES seems to have made its greatest gains in rehabilitation where directed muscle contractions may improve joint ranges of motion correct joint contractures that result from shortening muscles; control abnormal movements through facilitating recruitment or excitation into the alpha motoneuron in orthopedically, neurologically, or healthy subjects with intense sensory, kinesthetic, and proprioceptive information; provide a conservative approach to management of spasticity in neurological patients; by stimulation of the antagonist muscle to a spastic muscle stimulation of the agonist muscle, and sensory habituation; serve as an orthotic substitute to conventional bracing used with stroke patients in lieu of dorsiflexor muscles in preventing step page gait and for shoulder muscles to maintain glenohumeral alignment to prevent subluxation; and of course NMES is used in maintaining or improving the performance or torque producing capability of muscle. NMES in exercise training is our major concern

Quadriceps tendon autograft ACL reconstructed subjects overshoot target knee extension angle during active proprioception testing

Purpose To compare the active joint position sense (JPS), muscle strength, and knee functions in individuals who had anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction with quadriceps tendon autograft, hamstring tendon autograft, tibialis anterior allograft and healthy individuals. It was hypothesized that when compared to an age and gender-matched healthy control group, subjects who were post-ACL reconstruction would display impaired active joint position sense, knee extensor and fexor strength symmetry and knee function at 1 year post-surgery. A secondary hypothesis was that diferences would exist between the quadriceps tendon autograft, hamstring tendon autograft and tibialis anterior allograft groups. Methods Sixty-seven patients with ACL reconstruction and 20 healthy individuals were included. Active JPS reproduction was measured at 15°, 45° and 75° of knee fexion. International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) subjective score and one-leg hop test were used to assess the functional status of the patients. Results The JPS detection was diferent at the 15° target angle between groups (F3.86=24.56, p<0.001). A signifcantly higher proportion of quadriceps tendon autograft group patients failed to identify the 15° active JPS assessment position compared to the other groups (p<0.0001). The quadriceps index was lower in patients compared to healthy individuals (p<0.001), while the hamstring index was similar (n.s.). The knee functional outcomes were similar between ACL reconstructed groups and healthy controls (n.s.). Conclusion Knee proprioception defcits and impaired muscle strength were evident among patients at a mean 13.5 months post-ACL reconstruction compared with healthy controls. Patients who underwent ACL reconstruction using a quadriceps tendon autograft may be more likely to actively over-estimate knee position near terminal extension. Physiotherapists may need to focus greater attention on terminal knee extension proprioceptive awareness among this patient group

A multiproxy approach to understanding the impact of the Storegga tsunami upon Mesolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers across different regions of western Norway

publishedVersio

The MASSIVE Survey. VI. The spatial sistribution and kinematics of warm ionized gas in the most massive local early-type galaxies

We present the first systematic investigation of the existence, spatial distribution, and kinematics of warm ionized gas as traced by the [O ii] 3727 Å emission line in 74 of the most massive galaxies in the local universe. All of our galaxies have deep integral-field spectroscopy from the volume- and magnitude-limited MASSIVE survey of early-type galaxies with stellar mass $\mathrm{log}({M}_{* }/{M}_{\odot })\gt 11.5$ (M K < −25.3 mag) and distance D < 108 Mpc. Of the 74 galaxies in our sample, we detect warm ionized gas in 28, which yields a global detection fraction of 38 ± 6% down to a typical [O ii] equivalent width limit of 2 Å. MASSIVE fast rotators are more likely to have gas than MASSIVE slow rotators with detection fractions of 80 ± 10% and 28 ± 6%, respectively. The spatial extents span a wide range of radii (0.6–18.2 kpc; 0.1–4R e ), and the gas morphologies are diverse, with 17/28 ≈ 61 ± 9% being centrally concentrated, 8/28 ≈ 29 ± 9% exhibiting clear rotation out to several kiloparsecs, and 3/28 ≈ 11 ± 6% being extended but patchy. Three out of four fast rotators show kinematic alignment between the stars and gas, whereas the two slow rotators with robust kinematic measurements available exhibit kinematic misalignment. Our inferred warm ionized gas masses are roughly ~105 M ⊙. The emission line ratios and radial equivalent width profiles are generally consistent with excitation of the gas by the old underlying stellar population. We explore different gas origin scenarios for MASSIVE galaxies and find that a variety of physical processes are likely at play, including internal gas recycling, cooling out of the hot gaseous halo, and gas acquired via mergers

After the interaction: an efficiently star-forming molecular disk in NGC 5195

We present new molecular gas maps of NGC 5195 (alternatively known as M51b) from the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy, including ^(12)CO(1–0), ^(13)CO(1–0), CN(1_(0,2)–0_(0,1)), CS(2–1), and 3 mm continuum. We also detected HCN(1–0) and HCO^+(1–0) using the Onsala Space Observatory. NGC 5195 has a ^(12)CO/^(13)CO ratio (R_(12/13) = 11.4 ± 0.5) consistent with normal star-forming galaxies. The CN(1–0) intensity is higher than is seen in an average star-forming galaxy, possibly enhanced in the diffuse gas in photo-dissociation regions. Stellar template fitting of the nuclear spectrum of NGC 5195 shows two stellar populations: an 80% mass fraction of old (≳10 Gyr) and a 20% mass fraction of intermediate-aged (≈1 Gyr) stellar populations. This provides a constraint on the timescale over which NGC 5195 experienced enhanced star formation during its interaction with M51a. The average molecular gas depletion timescale in NGC 5195 is τ_(dep) = 3.08 Gyr, a factor of ≈2 larger than the depletion timescales in nearby star-forming galaxies, but consistent with the depletion seen in CO-detected early-type galaxies. While radio continuum emission at centimeter and millimeter wavelengths is present in the vicinity of the nucleus of NGC 5195, we find it is most likely associated with nuclear star formation rather than radio-loud AGN activity. Thus, despite having a substantial interaction with M51a ~1/2 Gyr ago, the molecular gas in NGC 5195 has resettled and is currently forming stars at an efficiency consistent with settled early-type galaxies