"Den solberske parlamentarisme": Ny og særegen i norsk politikk?

Ved stortingsvalget 11. september 2017 fikk Høyre, Fremskrittspartiet (FrP), Venstre og Kristelig Folkeparti (KrF) samlet flertall i Stortinget, og statsminister Erna Solbergs regjering fra 2013 kunne fortsette. Etter sonderinger med Høyre og FrP frem mot årsskiftet besluttet Venstre å innlede forhandlinger om å delta i en trepartiregjering. Forhandlingene ledet frem til Jeløya-plattformen, og Venstre ble en del av regjeringen 17. januar 2018 etter de lengste koalisjonsforhandlingene i norsk politisk historie. De varte i 128 dager. Da statsministeren la frem regjeringserklæringen til den utvidede regjeringen i Stortinget, mente parlamentarisk leder i Senterpartiet (Sp), Marit Arnstad, at det var utviklet en ny regjeringspraksis i Norge som hun kalte «Den solbergske parlamentarismen». I dette la hun at regjerings- og støttepartiene av og til stemmer mot egen regjering, at de ikke forsvarer vedtak som skal gjennom- føres, og at enkelte medlemmer av regjeringen av og til bruker en retorikk som andre regjerings- medlemmer ikke kan stille seg bak. I en kommentar til Arnstad skrev leder i tankesmien Civita, Kristin Clemet, at «(h)vis jeg forstår Arnstad rett, mener hun at denne formen for parlamentarisme er kritikkverdig, og at den «flytter grenser i norsk politikk»».1 Selv mente Clemet at det hverken er rart, nytt eller i seg selv kritikkverdig at «praktiseringen av parlamentarismen arter seg forskjellig under ulike regjeringer. Det har den gjort opp gjennom historien, og det gjør den fordi den parlamentariske situasjonen stadig er i endring.»2 Dessuten har det, som Clemet også påpeker, stor betydning for måten regjeringen arbeider på og hvordan den forholder seg til Stortinget, hvilke partier den består av og hvilke tradisjoner, kulturer og erfaringer partiene har med seg inn i regjeringssamarbeidet

Evaluation and Extension of an XNA Game Library used in Software Architecture Projects

For most young people growing up today, video games have been a part of their life on the same level as music, films, and other entertainment. They regard video games as a fun, exciting, and absorbing source of entertainment and stimulation. Transferring these properties into an educational context can prove to be very valuable and motivational. In this master thesis, the introduction of video game development with the XNA game development platform in software architecture projects at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) is evaluated. This includes an evaluation of a 2D XNA game library used in the projects. In addition, we present an assessment of the effort and time spent required to grasp the necessary 3D concepts and techniques involved in producing 3D games with XNA. We also describe our improvements and extensions of the game library to support and include 3D features, based on the evaluation and assessment. The students of the course had the choice between the traditional project (a robot simulation) and the new XNA project. We find that the students who chose the XNA project were more motivated, struggled less, and thus required less assistance. On the other hand, the XNA students admitted to over focusing on the gameplay of their game, at the expense of the software architecture. This should even out when more learning material specific to the XNA project becomes available. 40% of the XNA students used the game library in their project. Overall, they were satisfied with the usefulness and usability of it, but did not think it helped them focus less on technical matters and more on the architecture

An Evaluation of Using a Game Development Framework in Higher Education

This paper describes an application of a Game Development Framework (GDF)-Microsoft XNA in software architecture (SA) course at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and evaluates how well the GDF is to use and integrate in a software engineering (SE) course. The result of the evaluation is based on the questionnaire with 9 types of general questions related to SE learning. In most aspects, the result shows that XNA is a suitable teaching aid in SE learning and can be used to teach SA. It is easy to use and save students time in development, thus let them have more time focusing on the course theory

A risk assessment of the effects of mercury on Baltic Sea, Greater North Sea and North Atlantic wildlife, fish and bivalves

A wide range of species, including marine mammals, seabirds, birds of prey, fish and bivalves, were investigated for potential population health risks resulting from contemporary (post 2000) mercury (Hg) exposure, using novel risk thresholds based on literature and de novo contamination data. The main geographic focus is on the Baltic Sea, while data from the same species in adjacent waters, such as the Greater North Sea and North Atlantic, were included for comparative purposes. For marine mammals, 23% of the groups, each composing individuals of a specific sex and maturity from the same species in a specific study region, showed Hg-concentrations within the High Risk Category (HRC) and Severe Risk Category (SRC). The corresponding percentages for seabirds, fish and bivalves were 2.7%, 25% and 8.0%, respectively, although fish and bivalves were not represented in the SRC.publishedVersio