A central limit theorem via differential equations

In a paper from 1995, Wormald gave general criteria for certain parameters in a family of discrete random processes to converge to the solution of a system of differential equations. Based on this method, we show that if some further conditions are satisfied, the parameters converge to a multivariate normal distribution.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-AAP557 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Gender Quotas on Corporate Boards: Similarities and Differences in Quota Scenarios

In this article, the use of gender quotas to strengthen gender equality on corporate boards is explored. Examining national practices in ten European countries we provide an overview, categorizing the design of various corporate board quotas (CBQs) and the contexts in which they are embedded. In particular, similarities and differences along two dimensions are investigated: the design of the CBQs in terms of their hardness and progressiveness, and the institutional context in which they are embedded. From patterns of design and context configurations, different quota scenarios are discerned. We advance the discussion of female representation and the strategies of corporate boards beyond the rather misleading dichotomy of voluntary targets versus mandatory quotas, proposing a framework for understanding various CBQ designs. Moreover, we suggest that the configuration of design and institutional context, resulting in different quota scenarios affects female representation on corporate boards

Exploring the Norwegian paradox of vertical sex segregation: strategies and experiences in politics, academia and company boards

PhDOn all international measures of gender equality Scandinavian countries emerge as more equal with Norway as the most equal of countries. Yet, despite an apparent equality, vertical segregation is resilient in Scandinavian countries. The use of affirmative action (AA) has been offered as a potential way to challenge inequality and occupational sex segregation, yet, as illustrated by Acker (2006b) these strategies often fail. Few studies have investigated women’s experience of gender segregation in Norway, moreover, we know little of the experience of women in occupations influenced by AA strategies. This thesis aims to contribute to understanding the experience of women in the ‘most equal of countries’ and it draws on Acker’s (2006b) ‘inequality regimes’ as an analytical framework. This thesis takes a multilevel approach to explore gendering practices within Norway in three occupational groups; politics, academia and corporate boards of directors to understand the processes underpinning vertical segregation. The rationale for focusing on these three occupational groups lies in the nature of the groups and their use of AA, as well as the different representation of women. The thesis builds on a variety of methods of both a qualitative and quantitative nature and will demonstrate the nature of the interrelationship of structural factors and individual agency in understanding the Norwegian paradox. In particular, 66 in-depth interviews with women employed in senior positions within the three occupational groups form the key method. In addition, the thesis draws on secondary quantitative data to situate women in the three occupational groups and in Norway. Findings reveal that the idea of Norway’s equality is still more of an aspiration than reality as gender inequality regimes are present in politics, academia, and boards of directors, but they take different forms. The thesis finds that Norwegian organisations are not gender neutral; instead they provide a set of institutional conditions that encourage forms of vertical segregation. In particular, the thesis identifies the importance of political strategies, both related to AA as well as welfare for improving equality. Nevertheless, the thesis also acknowledges the complexity of these strategies and the importance of designing country and occupational group specific strategies in order to progress. The thesis uncovers the resilience of gendered social processes in women’s exclusion but also highlights the fewer and more constrained conditions under which ‘woman’ may also have an advantage. Hence, this thesis contributes to the literature on occupational sex segregation and AA

'Men han har forskjellig farge på øynene.' Om barns møte med litteratur i skolen sett i lys av teori om mentalisering og Theory of Mind.

Utgangspunktet for artikkelen er en resepsjonsstudie av en gruppe seksåringer på barnetrinnet som leser bildeboken Bukkene Bruse på Badeland av Rørvik og Moursund (2009). I samtale om boken begynner barna å undre seg over og kommentere trollets mentale tilstander og følelser ut fra trekk ved tegningene. Hvorfor har trollet forskjellig farge på øynene? Er han sint eller kanskje redd? Hva betyr det egentlig at munnen er åpen? Er trollet glad da? Siktemålet med artikkelen er å undersøke om utsagnene til barna i studien kan forståes som forsøk på å mentalisere, å søke å forstå andre menneskers – og dermed egne – tanker og følelser. I artikkelen drøftes det om begrepet mentalisering kan bidra til å gi økt innsikt i barns litteraturlesing. Deretter drøftes det om dette perspektivet får didaktiske konsekvenser. Hvilke følger får forståelsen som ligger i begrepet mentalisering når det gjelder synet på og bruken av skjønnlitteratur i skolens morsmålsfag

Cellular clearance and protein binding partners of pathogenic CEL-HYB

The CEL gene encodes the digestive enzyme carboxyl ester lipase, which is mainly expressed in the acinar cells of the pancreas. In 2015, our research group discovered a CEL hybrid gene, named CEL-HYB, resulting from non-allelic homologous recombination between CEL and its pseudogene CELP. Interestingly, the CEL-HYB allele was found to be a genetic risk factor for chronic pancreatitis. In cellular studies performed by us and others, CEL-HYB showed reduced secretion, intracellular aggregation as well as induced cell stress and autophagy. Based on these findings, CEL-HYB allele is likely to belong to the misfolding-dependent pathway of genetic risk in chronic pancreatitis. With this master’s project, we wanted to study the cellular fate and to reveal potential protein binding partners of CEL-HYB, to learn more about its disease mechanism. To do so, we used both cellular and mouse model systems. Our results showed that CEL-HYB is less secreted and tends to aggregate in the insoluble pellet fraction of transfected HEK293 cells. Moreover, Cel-HYB proteins accumulated on the inside of the apical cell membrane, forming a tubular-like expression pattern in the pancreatic acinar cells of mice. We also found the autophagy marker LC3B to be upregulated in the pancreas of Cel-HYB expressing mice, but not in control mice. By co-immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry we discovered possible protein binding partners of CEL-HYB, including a cluster of nine proteins related to protein folding. In summary, we have shown that CEL-HYB aggregation takes place both in the cell and at the organ level, strengthening the hypothesis that protein misfolding is involved in the disease mechanism. Misfolded CEL-HYB is then most likely cleared in the cell by induced autophagy. Interestingly, in our search for CEL-HYB binding partners we found proteins that facilitate the folding of other proteins. These results will be followed up and further analyzed in future studies.Masteroppgave i biomedisinBMED395MAMD-MEDB

European Rule of Law in National Judiciaries - On the obligation of Member States to establish an independent judiciary

The topic of this paper is the obligation of EU Member States to establish and uphold an independent national judiciary under Article 19(1) TEU, as developed in recent case law by the ECJ in an attempt to combat rule of law-backsliding. The paper seeks to investigate the background, analyse the requirements and threshold and discuss some of the implications of this case law

Measurements of carotid intima media thickness in non-invasive high-frequency ultrasound images: the effect of dynamic range setting

Background Carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) measured with ultrasound (US) is widely used as biomarker for arteriosclerosis and as surrogate endpoint in interventional studies to assess efficacy of drug therapies. Strict US protocols are necessary to ensure reproducibility. The range of US signal intensities used for image formation, the dynamic range (DR), is rarely reported in studies and little is known about its effect on CIMT measurements in humans. The purpose of this study was to quantify the impact of DR on measurements of CIMT. Methods US was used to examine 313 carotid arteries in participants from two different clinical studies. For each artery, images with DR of 40, 55, 70 and 85 dB were captured from the same frozen US frame. Mean CIMT (CIMTmean), maximum CIMT (CIMTmax) and standard deviation of CIMT (CIMTsd) were obtained for all images. CIMT for different DRs were compared using student t-test. Results CIMTmean for 40, 55, 70 and 85 dB were 0.529, 0.564, 0.590 and 0.605 mm respectively. For CIMTmax the corresponding values were 0.626, 0.667, 0.698, and 0.716 mm. CIMTmean and CIMTmax increased significantly for increasing DR steps (p < 0.01). The relative change in CIMTmean and CIMTmax were largest between 40 and 55 dB (6.7% and 7.0%) and smallest between 70 and 85 dB (2.6% and 2.7%) indicating a declining dependency for increasing DR. Conclusions DR significantly changes CIMT measurements and the changes are most prominent for lower DRs. The effect of changing DR is larger in human arteries than in phantoms. Reporting the DR will therefore increase the validity of CIMT data

The Critical Phase for Random Graphs with a Given Degree Sequence

We consider random graphs with a fixed degree sequence. Molloy and Reed [11, 12] studied how the size of the giant component changes according to degree conditions. They showed that there is a phase transition and investigated the order of components before and after the critical phase. In this paper we study more closely the order of components at the critical phase, using singularity analysis of a generating function for a branching process which models the random graph with a given degree sequence

Flerspråklige elevers opplevelse av teoretisk undervisning i ungdomsskolen

Hovedmålet med denne kvalitative studien er å gi innsikt i flerspråklige elevers opplevelse av undervisning i en norsk ungdomsskole. Hensikten er å analysere elevenes egen opplevelse og forklare språkets, spesielt, morsmålets betydning for enkelte individer. Problemstillingen i denne oppgaven lyder: «I hvilken grad opplever flerspråklige elever med kort botid i Norge språklig ivaretakelse i undervisningen?» Problemstillingen utdypes med følgende underspørsmål: I hvilken grad blir teoretisk undervisning tilpasset til de flerspråklige elevenes behov? Hvordan føler elevene at de er ivaretatt i teoretisk undervisning? Metoden i denne studien er individuelle intervjuer, som ble gjennomført med tre minoritetsspråklige elever på 9. og 10. trinn. Datamaterialet ble samlet gjennom semi-strukturerte intervjuer. Analysen ble gjennomført med hjelp av den hermeneutiske sirkelen og en analysemetode hvor materialet blir sammenlignet med seg selv. Forskerens forforståelser spiller også en rolle i fortolkningen. Over 17% av grunnskoleelever i Norge har minoritetsspråklig bakgrunn, men kun et fåtall lærere har kompetanse i andrespråkdidaktikk. Mange flerspråklige elever møter store utfordringer i skolen. Til tross for at forskning viser at morsmålet har en stor påvirkning på innlæring av andrespråket, synker antallet elever som får morsmålsundervisning. Elevenes innlæring av andrespråket blir betraktet i lys av aktuell forskning hvor teoriene til språkforskeren Jim Cummins står sentralt. Cummins teorier blir belyst fra en pedagogisk side med hjelp av teorier til de norske forskerne Engen, Kulbrandstad og Øzerk. Hovedfunn i denne kasusstudien viser at elevene føler seg godt ivaretatt i teoretisk undervisning, mens tilrettelegging skjer mest gjennom at elevene får særskilt norskopplæring i en mindre gruppe. Informantene opplever en del utfordringer i teoretisk undervisning, samtidig som de opplever mestring i de teoretiske fagene, støttet av læringspartnere og lærer. Denne mestringen kan forklares med Vygotskij sin sone for nærmeste utvikling. Elevene er trygge til å bruke norsk som kommunikasjonsmiddel og de er på vei å tilegne seg norsk som undervisningsspråk. Deres morsmål har fått en mindre viktig rolle, mens deres store mål er å lære seg bedre norsk

Evaluation of forecasts by a global data-driven weather model with and without probabilistic post-processing at Norwegian stations

During the last two years, tremendous progress in global data-driven weather models trained on numerical weather prediction (NWP) re-analysis data has been made. The most recent models trained on the ERA5 at 0.25{\deg} resolution demonstrate forecast quality on par with ECMWF's high-resolution model with respect to a wide selection of verification metrics. In this study, one of these models, the Pangu-Weather, is compared to several NWP models with and without probabilistic post-processing for 2-meter temperature and 10-meter wind speed forecasting at 183 Norwegian SYNOP stations up to +60 hours ahead. The NWP models included are the ECMWF HRES, ECMWF ENS and the Harmonie-AROME ensemble model MEPS with 2.5 km spatial resolution. Results show that the performances of the global models are on the same level with Pangu-Weather being slightly better than the ECMWF models for temperature and slightly worse for wind speed. The MEPS model clearly provided the best forecasts for both parameters. The post-processing improved the forecast quality considerably for all models, but to a larger extent for the coarse-resolution global models due to stronger systematic deficiencies in these. Apart from this, the main characteristics in the scores were more or less the same with and without post-processing. Our results thus confirm the conclusions from other studies that global data-driven models are promising for operational weather forecasting.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure