Veterinary pharmaceutical residues seen from a Swedish environmental and regulatory perspective: The case of intense livestock farming in close location to drinking water supplies

Veterinary pharmaceuticals used in areas with intense agriculture and livestock/horse yard facilities may leach into the soil and be further transported as runoff into surface waters used as drinking water supplies. The focus of this thesis is to clarify how the existing legal framework on monitoring and regulating these residues, help Sweden to comply with two of the national environmental quality objectives related to drinking water. While scientists point to potential unknown risks of the behaviour of pharmaceutical metabolites in the aquatic environment and to the largely unexplored long-term effects, the legislation addressing this matter seems rather poor. A review of a wide range of literature on legislation on water and pharmaceuticals in the EU and Sweden was conducted. Actors from several areas of expertise were identified through a case study of Lake Vomb in southern Sweden, which is a typical location for the described scenario. Interviews with some of the experts were conducted, and the results were analysed through the focus of actors and regulations. The research confirms that veterinary pharmaceuticals are perceived to likely end up as part of the runoff in the specified locationsand that there is a lack of pressure from the authorities, both from the EU and Sweden, to monitor the residues. However, in comparison to other contaminants from these agribusiness intense areas, like nutrients and pesticides ending up in the nearby water bodies, veterinary pharmaceuticals are regarded to be less of a problem to the environment. Instead, the majority of the actors assent to focus more on upstream, preventative efforts to reduce the pharmaceuticals ending up in the water bodies in the first place. In the course of the collaborating work at a local level to reduce runoff from pesticides and nutrients, veterinary pharmaceuticals should also have a natural place

Resource Transferability and Regional Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Bakgrund: Franchisekedjors framgång är beroende av att affärsidén följs till punkt och pricka, vilket medför att franchisetagare på många sätt blir styrda och begränsade i sitt agerande. Franchisetagare bör emellertid, inom de grundläggande ramarna, få ett visst spelrum för att driva sin verksamhet. En central fråga för franchisegivare är således hur de ska utforma de ramar inom vilka franchisetagarna ska hålla sig. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka vad franchisegivare ämnar uppnå genom att styra sina franchisetagare samt att beskriva hur de styr, vilka styrproblem som den aktuella styrningen kan motverka och vilka bieffekter som kan uppstå. Genomförande: Studien bygger på en litteraturstudie av texter som på olika sätt relaterar till franchising. Resultat: Franchisegivare strävar mot att få franchisetagare att fokusera på enhetlighet, en tillfredställande kvalitet och hög omsättning. Styrning sker framför allt genom omfattande direktstyrning i form av drifthandböcker och franchiseavtal, vilka både begränsar franchisetagarnas handlingar samt tydliggör vilka beteenden som är önskvärda. Personalstyrning, i form av rekrytering är ett mycket viktigt styrverktyg då det är av yttersta vikt för franchisegivare att hitta franchisetagare med de rätta attityderna. Den omfattande direktstyrningen kan skapa konflikter mellan parterna samt hämma franchisetagares initiativförmåga.Background: The success of franchise systems is to a large extent dependent on the strict following of the business concept, which implies that the franchisees’ behaviour in many ways is controlled and restricted. Franchisees should, however, within the frames of the business concept, be given a certain amount of freedom to manage their business. Thus, a key question for franchisors is how to design the frames within which the franchisees should operate. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate what franchisors intend to achieve by controlling their franchisees and to describe how they use management control, which control problems the management control can counteract and which side effects that may arise. Realisation: The study was carried out through a literature study. Results: Franchisors strive to encourage franchisees to focus on uniformity, a satisfying level of quality and high turnover. Management control is mainly carried out through extensive use of action control in the form of manuals and franchise contracts, which restrict the franchisees’ actions as well as clarify desirable behaviors. Personnel control, in the form of recruitment, is a highly important tool, since it is crucial for franchisors to find franchisees with the right attitudes. The comprehensive use of action control may cause conflicts between the parties as well as inhibit the franchisees’ initiatives

Postprandial lipid responses to an alpha-linolenic acid-rich oil, olive oil and butter in women: A randomized crossover trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Postprandial lipaemia varies with gender and the composition of dietary fat due to the partitioning of fatty acids between beta-oxidation and incorporation into triacylglycerols (TAGs). Increasing evidence highlights the importance of postprandial measurements to evaluate atherogenic risk. Postprandial effects of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) in women are poorly characterized. We therefore studied the postprandial lipid response of women to an ALA-rich oil in comparison with olive oil and butter, and characterized the fatty acid composition of total lipids, TAGs, and non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs) in plasma.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A randomized crossover design (n = 19) was used to compare the postprandial effects of 3 meals containing 35 g fat. Blood samples were collected at regular intervals for 7 h. Statistical analysis was carried out with ANOVA (significant difference = P < 0.05).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No significant difference was seen in incremental area under the curve (iAUC) plasma-TAG between the meals. ALA and oleic acid levels were significantly increased in plasma after ALA-rich oil and olive oil meals, respectively. Palmitic acid was significantly increased in plasma-TAG after the butter meal. The ratios of 18:2 n-6 to18:3 n-3 in plasma-TAGs, three and seven hours after the ALA-rich oil meal, were 1.5 and 2.4, respectively. The corresponding values after the olive oil meal were: 13.8 and 16.9; and after the butter meal: 9.0 and 11.6.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The postprandial p-TAG and NEFA response in healthy pre-menopausal women was not significantly different after the intake of an ALA-rich oil, olive oil and butter. The ALA-rich oil significantly affected different plasma lipid fractions and improved the ratio of n-6 to n-3 fatty acids several hours postprandially.</p

A Questionnaire Survey on Long-Term Outcomes in Cats Breed-Screened for Feline Cardiomyopathy

Simple Summary Feline cardiomyopathy (FCM) is a serious, potentially fatal disease in cats. There is an international screening program that aims to identify pedigree cats affected with FCM, as the disease is believed to be inherited in some cat families. Using a self-reporting questionnaire, this study explored the long-term outcomes of cats breed-screened for FCM. We found that approximately 9.3% of the cats developed FCM at some time-point of which approximately 50% were diagnosed within the screening program and 50% of these cats at the first breed-screen occasion. For cats that did develop FCM, there was a significantly higher risk for a cardiac related death and also a shorter time to all-cause mortality, compared to cats that did not develop FCM. Frequency and types of non-cardiac disease were similar in all screen classification groups. The large proportion of cats that did develop FCM later in life, despite normal previous screen results, underscores the value of repeated breed-screenings later in life to identify cats that develop FCM. Feline cardiomyopathy (FCM) is an important contributor to feline morbidity and mortality. This explorative follow-up questionnaire study was aimed at investigating the long-term outcome in cats breed-screened for FCM (BS-FCM) in three Nordic countries. Records of cats with >= 1 BS-FCM between 2004-2015 were included. Of the 1113 included cats, 104/1113 (9.3%) had developed FCM at some time-point. Fifty-nine of the 104 (56.7%) FCM cats were diagnosed within the screening program (Screen(FCM)), and 33/59 (55.9%) of these were diagnosed at the first BS-FCM. Screen(FCM) cats or with an owner-reported FCM diagnosis at a later time-point had a higher risk of cardiac-related death compared to cats that never developed FCM. A shorter lifespan was found in Screen(FCM) cats compared to those with normal screen results (p < 0.001). Times to all-cause mortality were shorter (p < 0.001) in cats that developed FCM at any time-point compared to those that did not. Non-cardiac morbidities were similar in all screen classification groups. The large proportion of cats that developed FCM at a later time-point underscores the need for repeated screenings later in life. Cats that developed FCM at any time-point had a shorter lifespan, with a similar proportion and in line with the nature of non-cardiac morbidities, compared to those without FCM

Hypertonibehandling i Primärvården. Telefonintervjuer med verksamhetschefer i södra Sverige

In Sweden, hypertension, is one of the most common reasons to attend primary care thus a Swedish public health problem of epic proportions. There is a general consensus about that effective antihypertensive treatment reduces the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and premature death. Non-pharmacological treatment is advocated to be the basis of treatment. The caregiver is responsible for systematically plan, direct, control, and monitor, evaluate and improve the quality of treatment. Leader of the primary care center is the operation manager. The purpose of the study was to make a survey of the primary health centers in the south of Sweden and their guidelines for hypertension treatment, and to investigate the managers' views on the care and treatment they provided. The study had a mixed methods approach and the data collection was made by telephone interviews. Of 252 invited operation managers 26 participated. The quantitative result was inconclusive. The qualitative result shows that the hypertension treatment offered currently in the south of Sweden is unequal partly due to economic factors but also because of the complex matter where the staff’s own interests and the internal structures are governing the treatment. The operational managers are clearly aware of the inequality problem and clearly expressed the need of a national guideline for hypertension care and were more than willing to introduce such a thing at their center. The study further concludes that District Nurses comprise a valuable asset in the hypertension treatment offered at the primary care centers

Heterogeneity of disease-causing variants in the Swedish galactosemia population: Identification of 16 novel GALT variants

The aim was to determine disease-causing variants in the GALT gene which codes for the enzyme galactose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase. Loss of activity of this enzyme causes classical galactosemia-a life threatening, treatable disorder, included in the Swedish newborn screening program since 1967. A total of 66 patients with the disease are known in Sweden and 56 index patients were investigated. An additional two patients with Duarte galactosemia were included. The disease-causing variants were identified in all patients. As reported from other countries only a few variants frequently recur in severe disease. The two variants p.(Gln188Arg) (c.563A\u3eG) and p.(Met142Lys) (c.425T\u3eA) are present in several index patients whereas the remaining are found in one to three patients each. The most common variant, p.(Gln188Arg), has an allele frequency of 51% in the cohort. A total of 16 novel variants were found among the 33 different variants in the cohort. Two of these are synonymous variants affecting splicing, demonstrating the importance of the evaluation of synonymous variants at the cDNA level. Concise sentence: Galactosemia is a rare disease in Sweden and the disease-causing variants are heterogenous including two synonymous variants

DNA Methylation Changes Caused by Lawsone

Lawsone is a pigment that occurs naturally in plants. It has been used as a skin and hair dye for a long time. Moreover, its different biological activities have been reported. The present study focused on the effect of lawsone on a plant cell model represented by tobacco BY-2 cell suspension culture, which is used as a model comparable with the HeLa cells. It has been shown that lawsone inhibits the cell growth in the concentration-dependent manner. In addition, changes in DNA methylation level have been determined. We observed decreasing level of DNA methylation in the presence of increasing concentrations of lawsone. These results were accompanied with overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Since epigenetic modifications can be caused by different stress factors, there could be a connection between the changes in the level of DNA methylation and ROS production caused by lawsone

Midlife risk factor exposure and incidence of cardiac arrest depending on cardiac or non-cardiac origin

Objective: Little is known about midlife risk factors of future cardiac arrest. Our objective was to evaluate cardiovascular risk factors in midlife in relation to the risk of cardiac arrest (CA) of cardiac and non-cardiac origin later in life. Methods: We cross-matched individuals of the population based Malmö Diet and Cancer study (n = 30,447) with the local CA registry of the city of Malmö. Baseline exposures were related to incident CA. Results: During a mean follow-up of 17.6. ±. 4.6. years, 378 CA occurred, of whom 17.2% survived to discharge. Independent midlife risk factors for CA of cardiac origin included coronary artery disease (HR 2.84 (1.86-4.34) (p 30kg/m2) (HR 2.37 (1.51-3.71) (p <0.001)), smoking (HR 2.05 (1.33-3.15) (p <0.001)) and being on antihypertensive treatment (HR 2.25 (1.46-3.46) (p <0.001)). Conclusion: Apart from smoking, which increases the risk of CA in general, the midlife risk factor pattern differs between CA of cardiac and non-cardiac origin. Whereas CA of cardiac origin is predicted by history of cardiovascular disease, dyslipidemia and diabetes mellitus, the main risk factors for CA of non-cardiac origin are obesity and hypertension. In addition to control of classical cardiovascular risk factors for prevention of CA, our results suggest that prevention of midlife obesity may reduce the risk of CA of non-cardiac origin

"Så länge det inte skadar någon" Hur sexuella beteenden på demensboenden bemöts

“As long as it does not hurt anybody” - The treatment of sexual behaviors of people with dementia in dementia care facilities The aim of this study was to examine how sexual behaviors in dementia accommodations are treated by medical staff. We were interested in seeing what attitude the staff had to sexual behaviors in dementia care facilities, how they talked about sexuality, and if some sexual behaviors were more accepted than others. We believe that sexual behaviors in dementia care facilities were interesting to study because dementia patients, because of their mental impairment, are dependent on staff to get their needs met. We were also interested in seeing if there among the staff were special strategies to address the residents' sexuality and their sexual behavior. The survey was targeted. We contacted three dementia care facilities in the region, and interviewed managers and nurses of both genders when we wanted to survey data would be as wide as possible. The data was processed by encoding all the answers, and from that revealed certain themes. These themes helped us to delineate this large topic, sexual behavior, and became the basis for the analysis. Our survey shows that among careworkers there is no general description of what sexually is explicit, hence there is also no general way to address sexual behaviors, but the staff handles questions about sexuality with discretion and sensitivity. However, we found that there were certain sexual behaviors were more accepted by staff than others. The general opinion of the respondents was that sexuality among older is natural, and should be treated with respect. Despite this awareness among health professionals, we have found that it can be difficult to incorporate this approach in their daily work with people with dementia