Earnings management using classification shifting: Are pro forma earnings and debt explanatory factors?

Masteroppgave i revisjon og regnskap - Nord universitet 202

Intra- and interobserver variation in lung sound classification. Effect of training.

This study explores how last year medical students at the University of Tromsø, the Arctic University of Norway, interpret and describe different lung sounds. This is done by measuring intra- and interobserver variation in agreement among 16 students, when reporting abnormal lung sounds after listening to audio recordings. Agreement with a reference standard is included, and testing of effect on training on these agreements. To test the training effect the students were separated in two groups, one of them having an intervention, a 3 hour course. The results serves to inform the medical society about the inconsistency in reporting lung sounds in this particular population, and hopefully also help finding measures to obtain better agreement. Cohens kappa have been used to measure intraobserver agreement and agreement with the reference standard, Fleiss kappa to measure interobserver agreement. An “exact” Mann-Whitney U test for testing the effect of the course. The kappa level of agreement set to define acceptable agreement is “moderate”, with a lower limit of .41. The results indicate highly acceptable intraobserver agreement, and the agreement tended to improve in both the intervention and the control group. The agreement with the reference standard was also highly acceptable for the category wheezes and acceptable for crackles and the abnormal category. A tendency to positive change in the intervention group when compared to the control group was found, but the difference was only statistically significant for the abnormal category in the agreement against reference standard. The interobserver agreement did not reach the limit of acceptable, except for wheezes. Summarized, a weak effect of the intervention was observed

Development of a non-viral gene therapy strategy for choroideremia

Non-viral plasmids harbouring scaffold matrix attachment regions (S/MARs) provide stable and functional episomal maintenance, resistance to epigenetic silencing and have been shown to be capable of sustained expression in murine tissues. S/MARs are an attractive alternative to conventional viral gene delivery vectors due to their low toxicity and reduced immunogenicity. This thesis documents the development of this novel non-viral episomal plasmid DNA (pDNA) expression system for persistently expressing vectors for Choroideremia (CHM) gene therapy. To this end, our goal was to analyse the ability of S/MAR plasmids to generate efficient and stable transgene expression in the mouse retina following subretinal injections. We generated and analysed a series of S/MAR constructs expressing either REP1 cDNA or the reporter enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) or Luciferase (Luc) genes driven by the elongation factor-1 short (EFS) or cytomegalovirus (CMV) early enhancer/chicken beta actin (CAG) promoter. We demonstrate using the AtT20 cell line, the principle that S/MAR containing plasmids can provide long-term episomal EGFP and REP1 transgene expression in vitro. Furthermore, long-term REP1 expression was also analysed in CHM fibroblasts, where we showed in preliminary experiments that DNA constructs expressing REP1 were able to rescue CHM derived cells by rescue of their Rab27a prenylation defect and provide long-term expression of hREP1 after transfection of human and mouse CHM fibroblasts. We also developed an optimised method for delivering S/MAR containing plasmids in the eye via subretinal injections of complexed pDNAs, and provide evidence for the utility and versatility of S/MAR plasmids in ocular tissue. We show for the first time the longitudinal transgene expression of Luc in the retina as measured using bioluminescent imaging. Long- term maintenance and expression of EGFP and REP1 transgenes were also observed by PCR and Western blot analysis. Further analysis provided evidence for the long term episomal maintenance of these vectors in the eye as shown by Southern analysis. We provide evidence for the superiority of an S/MAR containing plasmid in providing long-term expression in the eye. All control pDNA constructs were shown to be incapable of sustaining significant transgene expression beyond one-month following pDNA delivery. We further demonstrate the lack of toxicity within the eye and show that fundus examinations as well as detailed histological examinations of retinal sections do not elicit an inflammatory response to our plasmids once subretinally injected in the eye. Finally, we explored the therapeutic potential of the REP1-S/MAR episome, by subretinally injecting mouse models of CHM. Further repeat experiments in CHM mouse models would add confidence to the overall experiments; however initial findings were encouraging where a partial correction of the REP1 protein and functional rescue in the eye was shown.Open Acces

Development of a new tyre tread by using silanized pre-treated silica nanofiller

The tyre tread compound for passenger car tyres is a blend of natural rubber (NR), styrene butadiene rubber (SBR), polybutadiene rubber (BR) and synthetic polyisoprene (IR). It is designed to have high abrasion resistance and traction, low rolling resistance and long durability in service. To achieve these requirements, reinforcing fillers such as colloidal carbon blacks and synthetic silicas are added to raw rubbers. Reinforcing fillers helps to increase the properties mentioned above and also hardness, tensile properties and tear strength. In recent years, silica has been replacing carbon black in industrial rubber articles, for example passenger car tyres, offering significant benefits. Some studies have shown that using silicas in rubber compounds can reduce the excessive use of the curing chemicals without compromising the mechanical properties of rubber vulcanisates, which are essential for long service life. In this study, effects of 60 parts per hundred rubber by weight (phr) precipitated amorphous white silica nanofiller on the viscosity, curing, mechanical and dynamic properties of NR, SBR, BR and IR rubber compounds were investigated. [Continues.

Integrated Water Resource Management and Climate Change

The documentation of local progress assistances from climate change qualification is a likely inspiring feature to attain this. But, there is a deficiency of applied instances of how climate change qualification and progress priorities can be combined in general development procedures, chiefly in low- and internal-profits nations. Evolving information-based and practical climate change strategies requires creating science-policy lines through which information makers and politicians unite. Present investigation discloses that co-creation-depend lines conquered neither by information creators nor politicians prosper in enabling the alteration of information into policy. Amphibious vehicle is chiefly defenseless to climate changes that are predictable to source environment destruction and damage and, eventually, resident excisions. But, little is recognized about how the collaboration amongst climate change and destruction may delay the ability of amphibians to adjust to climate change

D-Lactate and its related metabolic intermediates: Potential biomarkers for diabetic vascular complications

Micro- and macrovascular diseases are the main causes of mortality and morbidity among patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM2). Routine surveillance for vascular complications in these individuals is important to optimize their health outcomes. Endothelial dysfunction is one of the known root causes of micro- and macrovascular problems of all patients including diabetic patients, yet endothelial function is not directly tested in diabetic individuals. Intracellular Adhesion Molecule (ICAM), Vascular Adhesion Molecule (VCAM), and E-selectin are three important research biomarkers of endothelial function. D- and L-Lactate and methylglyoxal are three natural glucose metabolites and have known toxicity to the endothelium. We aimed to explore the correlation of these three key glucose metabolites in diabetic patients with the biomarkers of endothelial dysfunction to determine if glucose control is reflective of endothelial health. Metformin, a common oral diabetic medication, may increase D-lactate levels in serum and may directly damage endothelium, which was also explored in this study. The study involved an open label randomized design with four unique groups of participants. Two groups were patients with a DM2 diagnosis who either were prescribed metformin (DM2 plus MET) or were not treated with metformin (DM2 no MET). The remaining two control groups did not have DM2, but one group was prescribed metformin for unrelated indications (i.e. women with PCOS) (NonDM plus MET) and the other group was not prescribed metformin (NonDM no MET). Multiple fasting blood samples were collected from each individual over the 1-year study at the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon. In total 76 persons participated in the study, 6 in DM2 plus MET, 1 in DM2 no MET, 39 in NonDM plus MET and 30 in NonDM no MET groups. In the non-DM2 groups, 35 of 39 participants were women treated for >6 months with metformin for polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and were originally recruited as part of another study. We hypothesized that the hyperglycemia associated with DM2 correlates with relatively high levels of glucose metabolites and endothelial damage markers. To test this correlation, fasting glucose, hemoglobin A1C, and fasting insulin levels of all participants were measured. All these measurements revealed that levels of these factors among diabetic patients are higher than non-diabetic patients consistent with their underlying hyperglycemia. The mean for fasting glucose levels was 9.4 mmol/L for diabetic participants and 5.0 mmol/L in non-diabetic participants over three independent testing times. The mean levels for HbA1C were 7.2% in the diabetic groups and 5.2% for non-diabetic participants (normal <7%). These findings revealed suboptimal long- (reflected by HbA1c) and short-term (fasting glucose) glucose control among diabetic participants. As predicted, the levels of three glucose metabolites, D-lactate, L-lactate, and methylglyoxal, were higher in the diabetic population than in non-diabetic participants. We did not detect D-lactate elevations above normal for any of our individual cases or in grouped analysis including those taking metformin. However, the mean D-lactate level in diabetic participants was significantly higher than non-diabetic participants (P-value 0.05). Our fasting samples did not provide enough examples of hyperglycemia to conduct a comparison between the levels of D-lactate, L-lactate, and methylglyoxal among participants with high and normal levels of blood glucose. To address if the levels of the glucose metabolite, D-lactate, directly correlated with markers of endothelial damage, we explored the association of three endothelial biomarkers, ICAM, VCAM, and E-selectin with D-lactate levels. We detected a significant positive association between D-lactate and both ICAM and E-selectin (P-value 0.05). This positive correlation of 2 out of 3 markers of endothelial dysfunction with D-lactate levels provides opportunity to consider D-lactate as a potential biomarker for endothelial dysfunction in diabetic patients. Measuring D-lactate needs simpler instruments and in general can improve access for monitoring cardiovascular consequences in DM2 patients. In addition, except for a few differential diagnoses, D-lactate may provide a reliable opportunity for identification of the cardiovascular consequences. A number of limitations existed in this study included the small number of recruited patients as the demographic and health-related differences of diabetic and non-diabetic patients, including sex, age, race, weight, and BMI all of which have the potential to affect the results of the study. All the NonDM plus MET group were women so that the sex was not equally represented and may impact the outcomes. Furthermore, we need to consider that the diabetic participants were much older than the control group which can influence the results. These exciting and novel results in our pilot study will require a larger study to confirm the generalizability of D-lactate as a potential biomarker of endothelial damage

Building Management System for Supporting the repaired Building

Energy storage for updating of a new building represents an opportunity to estimate the costs that this issue should be considered in efficient buildings. Most old buildings have a lot of energy dissipations due to inappropriate control system and building components. According to the sustainable and durable development, repair of the buildings reduces energy consumption and improves the overall condition of the building. To attract the long-term saving of money and convenience of residents, technical innovation has been enhanced as a potential solution of this issue for many years and only computer tools are collected and their information is provided for required examinations. This paper explains improvement in the control and supervision of building services in Building Management System (BMS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM)

Building Management System for Supporting the repaired Building

Energy storage for updating of a new building represents an opportunity to estimate the costs that this issue should be considered in efficient buildings. Most old buildings have a lot of energy dissipations due to inappropriate control system and building components. According to the sustainable and durable development, repair of the buildings reduces energy consumption and improves the overall condition of the building. To attract the long-term saving of money and convenience of residents, technical innovation has been enhanced as a potential solution of this issue for many years and only computer tools are collected and their information is provided for required examinations. This paper explains improvement in the control and supervision of building services in Building Management System (BMS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM)

Effect of silver nanoparticles for Coli forms disinfection in drinking water

Background and aims: Silver is the metal as a safe and effective antibacterial agent which can be raised more than 650 types of microorganisms such as bacteria and virus. Common indicator used to assess water quality and compliance with standards to determine the presence of total coli forms and fecal coli forms are bacteria. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of nanosilver on inactivation the coli forms and fecal coli forms from drinking water. Methods: This bench-scale experimental study was carried out in a batch system on artificially contaminated water samples prepared by adding 10 ml effluent to 90 liters of distilled water. In each run, the nanosilver (30-180 μgL) was added to 6 containers of contaminated water and then a sample was taken every 20 minutes for a 100-minute period. The samples were tested by 15-tube series method based on the instruction no. 9221-B of 21th edition of standard method book on water and wastewater experiments (21st edition). Results: Results revealed that the coli forms and fecal coli forms inactivation significantly increased with increasing the contact time of nonosilver (P=0.001), but there was no significant correlation between the nanosilver concentrations and coli forms and fecal coli forms inactivation (P=0.13). The maximum coli forms and fecal coli forms inactivation (76.2, 65%) was achieved within 100 minutes contact time for 180 μgL of silver. Conclusion: Based on the current results, it can be concluded nanosilver treatment is effective in coli forms and fecal coli forms inactivation from contaminated water and advice as a new method for water disinfection