Innovasjon og organisasjonskultur. En undersøkelse av organisasjonskulturen blant ledere i Kvinesdal kommune.

Master´s thesis in management (ORG917

Innovasjon og organisasjonskultur. En undersøkelse av organisasjonskulturen blant ledere i Kvinesdal kommune.

Master´s thesis in management (ORG917

Absence of face recognition biases related to hand-washing behaviour in a hazardous health scenario

One of the main routes for the cross-transmission of infectious microorganisms is by the hands of health care workers (cf. Pittet et al., 1999). Recent health campaigns have highlighted the importance of hand-washing behaviou, especially in high-risk environments. Hence, this study used a hypothetical medical scenario to investigate face recognition linked to hand-washing behaviours (e.g. subject imagined she was a patient with an exposed injury in a hospital ward and observed the hand-washing habits of its medical staff). It was hypothesized that subjects would recognize the faces of staff who did not wash their hands better than the ones who washed them. There were 12 faces to be memorized in three conditions (washed hands, dirty hands, and neutral - i.e. unknown hand-washing behaviour). Experiment 1 (faces memorized individually) revealed that subjects (N=29) remembered faces of staff who washed and did not wash their hands better than the neutral ones. Experiment 2 (group memorization) showed that subjects' (N=31) accuracy to the faces in the three hand-washing conditions was statistically similar. No biases in reaction times were observed in the two experiments. In short, subjects did not attend differently to the hand-washing behaviour of medical staff. Since hygiene has strong biological roots (cf. Curtis, 2005), the lack of attention to hand-washing behaviours in a hazardous hypothetical scenario may be linked (among other reasons) to the fact that infectious microorganisms are invisible to the naked eye

Reaction of sandeel to seismic shooting: a field experiment and fishery statistics study

The reaction to seismics of lesser sandeel (Ammodytes marinus) was investigated in the North Sea using steel cages to enclose the fish while burried in the sand. Three cages were exposed to seismic shooting from SV "Falcon Explorer" during two days in May 2002. The sandeel behaviour was recorded on video from an ROV, and data analysed. The sandeel seemed to react slightly, but did not flee to the bottom. No injury or mortality caused by seismic shooting was observed. The fishing vessels tended to avoid the seismic area, and the days after the shooting the landings of sandeel declined temporarily. NORSK SAMMENDRAG: Atferden hos tobis (Ammodytes marinus) ble undersøkt ved å stenge fisken inne i stålbur og overvåke den under seismisk skyting fra et seismikkfartøy i Nordsjøen. Til dette ble det anvendt en ROV påmontert videokameraer, og opptakene ble senere analysert. Det ble påvist atferd som kan tolkes som fluktreaksjoner, men tobisen svømte ikke mot bunnen for å grave seg ned. Det ble heller ikke påvist skade eller død som skyldtes seismikk. Under eksperimentet syntes fiskeflåten i noen grad å søke vekk fra området og de leverte fangstene sank midlertidig et par dager