The Black Lives Matter movement : understanding the impact on race and racial injustice in Norway following the 2020 protest wave

The Black Lives Matter movement rose as a force against the oppression and systematic violence of black people in the US but spread to become a worldwide movement with local adaptations. While it had existed for some years before 2020, the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 26 sparked a renewed anger and frustration among people around the world. Norway experienced a protest wave in the summer of 2020, which attracted and engaged youth of minority background, in particular, to participate. This study aims to investigate the extent to which the Black Lives Matter protest wave has had an impact on the current discussion about race and racial injustice in Norway by examining the role of minority youth in Norwegian society. The objective of the study is to deepen the understanding of racialized experiences by lifting the voices of people who have experienced racism or racial injustice, as well as to demonstrate whether the Black Lives Matter protest wave has had any value on the ongoing conversation about racism in Norway. Thus, the main research question that this study has attempted to answer is: How has the Black Lives Matter movement in Norway made an impact on the conversation around race and racial injustice in Norway? Our study suggests that the BLM protest wave has had a significant impact on the conversation around race and racial injustice in Norway, particularly by how it introduced a wider understanding and nuances to the comprehension of racialized experienced, as well as it increased the overall knowledge among the general population of what it is like to be a minority in Norway. It has had a noteworthy impact on minority youth’s role in Norwegian society because they experienced having more space in the public room to share their experiences and perspectives, and a reduced fear of voicing their opinions. Lastly, our study demonstrates that there is a considerable lack of trust among minority youth towards the police, primarily because they feel targeted and unfairly treated by law enforcement, based on first or secondary negative experiences with the police.M-DSM-I

Underskudd til fremføring: Eksistensen av den spesielle omgåelsesregelen i sktl. § 13-3 etter lovfestingen av sktl. § 13-2

MasteroppgaveJUS399MAJUR-2MAJU

Computational Test for Conditional Independence

Abstract Conditional Independence (CI) testing is fundamental in statistical analysis. For example, CI testing helps validate causal graphs or longitudinal data analysis with repeated measures in causal inference. CI testing is difficult, especially when testing involves categorical variables conditioned on a mixture of continuous and categorical variables. Current parametric and non-parametric testing methods are designed for continuous variables and can quickly fall short in the categorical case. This paper presents a computational approach for CI testing suited for categorical data types, which we call computational conditional independence (CCI) testing. The test procedure is based on permutation and combines machine learning prediction algorithms and Monte Carlo cross-validation. We evaluated the approach through simulation studies and assessed the performance against alternative methods: the generalized covariance measure test, the kernel conditional independence test, and testing with multinomial regression. We find that the computational approach to testing has utility over the alternative methods, achieving better control over type I error rates. We hope this work can expand the toolkit for CI testing for practitioners and researchers. Keywords: conditional independence; computational hypothesis testing; categorical variables; graphical models; causal inferencepublishedVersio

På hvilken måte påvirker Marketers senfase-innsikt tidligfasen av et utviklingsobjekt?- En kvalitativ studie av Marketer Real Estate Technologies AS

Eiendomsbransjen er en av verdens største industrier, men også en av de bransjene med lavest teknologisk utvikling fra et størrelsesperspektiv. Eiendomsbransjen er for tiden under stor utvikling, hvor eiendomsteknologi kjent som PropTech er særlig fremtredende. Majoriteten av PropTech selskaper har sitt fokusområde i senfase eiendomsteknologi, der de færreste har mulighet til å gjøre innsamlet data i senfase overførbart til tidligfase. Målet er å teste denne overførbarheten, ved å undersøke hvordan Marketer som et senfaseverktøy informerer tidligfase eiendomsutvikling. Fire teoretiske rammeverk benyttes for å besvare oppgaven. Teori knyttet til eiendomsutviklingsprosessen, digital markedsføring, digitalisering i eiendomsbransjen og innovasjonsteori har blitt brukt for å undersøke Marketers bidrag til endringer i eiendomspraksisen. Oppgaven er basert på kvalitativ metode med datainnsamling gjennom individuelle dybdeintervjuer. Intervjuobjektene består av eiendomsutviklere, uavhengige aktører med kjennskap til PropTech og aktører internt i Marketer. Videre har dokumentanalyse blitt benyttet for å vurdere brukeropplevelse av verktøyet. Resultatene av forskningen tyder på at ved overførbarheten av Big data fra senfase til tidligfase, vil Marketer ved bruk av produktøkosystemet redusere risikoen til utvikler som vil føre til bedre nabolagsutvikling.The real estate industry is one of the largest industries in the world, but also one of the industries with the lowest technological development from a size perspective. The real estate industry is currently undergoing significant development, where property technology known as PropTech is particularly prominent. The majority of PropTech companies focus on late-stage property technology, with few having the ability to transfer collected data from late-stage to early-stage. The aim is to test this transferability by examining how Marketer, as a late-stage tool, informs early-stage property development. Four theoretical frameworks are used to answer the task. Theory related to the property development process, digital marketing, digitization in the real estate industry, and innovation theory have been used to investigate Marketer's contribution to changes in property practice. The task is based on qualitative methodology with data collection through individual in-depth interviews. The interviewees consist of property developers, independent actors familiar with PropTech, and actors internally in Marketer. Furthermore, document analysis has been used to assess the user experience of the tool. The results of the research suggest that by transferring Big data from late-stage to early-stage, Marketer, using the product ecosystem, will reduce the risk to developers, which will lead to better neighborhood development

In-Line Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Gives Rapid and Precise Assessment of Product Quality and Reveals Unknown Sources of Variation—A Case Study from Commercial Cheese Production

Abstract: Quality testing in the food industry is usually performed by manual sampling and at/offline laboratory analysis, which is labor intensive, time consuming, and may suffer from sampling bias. For many quality attributes such as fat, water and protein, in-line near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a viable alternative to grab sampling. The aim of this paper is to document some of the benefits of in-line measurements at the industrial scale, including higher precision of batch estimates and improved process understanding. Specifically, we show how the decomposition of continuous measurements in the frequency domain, using power spectral density (PSD), may give a useful view of the process and serve as a diagnostic tool. The results are based on a case regarding the large-scale production of Gouda-type cheese, where in-line NIRS was implemented to replace traditional laboratory measurements. In conclusion, the PSD of in-line NIR predictions revealed unknown sources of variation in the process that could not have been discovered using grab sampling. PSD also gave the dairy more reliable data on key quality attributes, and laid the foundation for future improvements.publishedVersio

Airborne laser scanning reveals increased growth and complexity of boreal forest canopies across a network of ungulate exclosures in Norway

Large herbivores are often classed as ecosystem engineers, and when they become scarce or overabundant, this can alter ecosystem states and influence climate forcing potentials. This realization has spurred a call to integrate large herbivores in earth system models. However, we lack a good understanding of their net effects on climate forcing, including carbon and energy exchange. A possible solution to this lies in harmonizing data across the myriad of large herbivore exclosure experiments around the world. This is challenging due to differences in experimental designs and field protocols. We used airborne laser scanning (ALS) to describe the effect of herbivore removal across 43 young boreal forest stands in Norway and found that exclusion caused the canopy height to increase from 1.7 0.2 to 2.5 0.2 m (means SE), and also causing a marked increase in vertical complexity and above-ground biomass. We then go on to discuss some of the issues with using ALS; we propose ALS as an approach for studying the effects of multiple large herbivore exclosure experiments simultaneously, and producing area-based estimates on canopy structure and forest biomass in a cheap, efficient, standardized and reproducible way. We suggest that this is a vital next step towards generating biome-wide predictions for the effects of large herbivores on forest ecosystem structure which can both inform both local management goals and earth system models biomass, herbivory, large herbivores, LiDAR, moose, remote sensingpublishedVersio

Bulletin (1945-1946)

https://red.mnstate.edu/bulletins/1026/thumbnail.jp

Alginate-based diblock polymers: preparation, characterization and Ca-induced self-assembly

Renewable resources can provide a range of different polysaccharide blocks that can be used to prepare new types of stimuli-responsive polysaccharide-based block copolymers. Alginates are natural polysaccharides widely used as biomaterials. Functional properties depend on the content and distribution of the two 4-linked monomers (β-D-mannuronate (M) and α-L-guluronate (G)). Blocks of L-guluronate (Gn) are responsible for cooperative binding of calcium ions and hydrogel formation. Incorporation of such blocks in block polysaccharide copolymers would represent a new class of engineered, Ca-sensitive biomacromolecules. Dioxyamines and dihydrazides have recently been shown to be well suited for preparation of block polysaccharide structures. Here we first show that when applied to alginate blocks (Gn and Mn) the two types are both very reactive, but the detailed distribution of acyclic (E)- and (Z)-forms and cyclic N-pyranosides, reaction kinetics, conjugate stability, and the rate of Schiff base reduction with α-picoline borane differ considerably, also compared to other polysaccharides. Hence, alginate specific protocols were developed. The linkers introduce a highly flexible joint in otherwise semiflexible Gn-based diblocks. This was demonstrated by SEC-MALS using a symmetrical Gn-b-Gn diblock, which in solution can best be described according to a broken rod model. Ca-Induced self-assembly of Gn-b-dextran diblocks was studied by dynamic light scattering, demonstrating that well defined nanoparticles could be prepared for certain combinations of chain lengths. Taken together, this approach provides a new class of engineered, stimuli-responsive block polysaccharide copolymers solely based on natural resources

The Norwegian degenerative spondylolisthesis and spinal stenosis (NORDSTEN) study: study overview, organization structure and study population

Purpose To provide an overview of the The Norwegian Degenerative spondylolisthesis and spinal stenosis (NORDSTEN)-study and the organizational structure, and to evaluate the study population. Methods The NORDSTEN is a multicentre study with 10 year follow-up, conducted at 18 public hospitals. NORDSTEN includes three studies: (1) The randomized spinal stenosis trial comparing the impact of three different decompression techniques; (2) the randomized degenerative spondylolisthesis trial investigating whether decompression surgery alone is as good as decompression with instrumented fusion; (3) the observational cohort tracking the natural course of LSS in patients without planned surgical treatment. A range of clinical and radiological data are collected at defined time points. To administer, guide, monitor and assist the surgical units and the researchers involved, the NORDSTEN national project organization was established. Corresponding clinical data from the Norwegian Registry for Spine Surgery (NORspine) were used to assess if the randomized NORDSTEN-population at baseline was representative for LSS patients treated in routine surgical practice. Results A total of 988 LSS patients with or without spondylolistheses were included from 2014 to 2018. The clinical trials did not find any difference in the efficacy of the surgical methods evaluated. The NORDSTEN patients were similar to those being consecutively operated at the same hospitals and reported to the NORspine during the same time period. Conclusion The NORDSTEN study provides opportunity to investigate clinical course of LSS with or without surgical interventions. The NORDSTEN-study population were similar to LSS patients treated in routine surgical practice, supporting the external validity of previously published results.publishedVersio

Heterogeneous distribution of plankton within the mixed layer and its implications for bloom formation in tropical seas

Intensive sampling at the coastal waters of the central Red Sea during a period of thermal stratification, prior to the main seasonal bloom during winter, showed that vertical patches of prokaryotes and microplankton developed and persisted for several days within the apparently density uniform upper layer. These vertical structures were most likely the result of in situ growth and mortality (e.g., grazing) rather than physical or behavioural aggregation. Simulating a mixing event by adding nutrient-rich deep water abruptly triggered dense phytoplankton blooms in the nutrient-poor environment of the upper layer. These findings suggest that vertical structures within the mixed layer provide critical seeding stocks that can rapidly exploit nutrient influx during mixing, leading to winter bloom formation