Redistribution at the hospital

This paper studies redistribution by means of a public supply of medical treatment. We show that the government can redistribute income towards low-ability individuals in a world of asymmetric information by offering bundles of medical treatment and redistributive payment. If self-selection is a problem, then the separating scheme offers high-ability individuals complete treatment against a high payment, and low-ability individuals partial treatment against a low payment. In particular, the level of treatment offered low-ability individuals is distorted downwards.health; medical treatment; insurance; redistribution; self-selection

Health Insurance: Treatment vs. Compensation

In this paper, we view health insurance as a combined hedge against the two consequences of falling ill: treatment expenditures and loss in income. We discuss how an individual’s ability when healthy affects her decision on whether to buy health insurance with treatment to full recovery if ill or with partial treatment combined with cash compensation for the resulting loss in income. We find that a highability individual demands full recovery and is fully insured, while a low-ability individual demands partial treatment and cash compensation and is only partly insured.Health Insurance; Treatment; Compensation

Staging Cultural Identities as Political Performance: Hålogaland Teater, North Norwegian stage language and the emancipation of North Norwegian identities

When Hålogaland Teater was established in Tromsø in 1970 as Norway’s first regional theatre, the main goal was to create a professional company that would act as a people’s theatre of North Norway. In order to achieve this, the underlying principle of the theatre was that they should produce plays about the North Norwegian reality using a North Norwegian stage language and that these plays should be devised in close collaboration with the local population. Initially this caused a lot of controversy because the theatre challenged accepted standards of theatre-making both in terms of content and representation. For some it was utterly inconceivable that national and international classics such as Peer Gynt and Hamlet should be performed in a low-status North Norwegian dialect. It was simply perceived to be a sign of the deterioration of the arts! Despite heated debates and major conflicts, the artistic and political principles of Hålogaland Teater remained constant and today, almost fifty years later, both Shakespeare and Ibsen are performed in North Norwegian dialect without any protests and with great success. How was this development possible? And what has it meant for the northern region and its people? These are questions that I am exploring in this article with the aid of Bourdieu's “thinking tools”. The main argument is that Hålogaland Theatre has been central in the revaluation of Northern Norwegian identities and culture by elevating the low-status Northern Norwagian dialect to the status of official stage language

Brave new world: Myth and migration in recent Asian-Australian picture books

From Exodus to the American Dream, from Terra Nullius to the Yellow Peril to multicultural harmony, migration has provided a rich source of myth throughout human history. It engenders dreams, fears and memories in both migrant and resident populations; giving rise to hope for a new start and a bright future, feelings of exile and alienation, nostalgia for lost homelands, dreams of belonging and entitlement, fears of invasion, dispossession and cultural extinction. It has inspired artists and writers from the time of the Ancient Testament to the contemporary age of globalisation and mass migration and it has exercised the minds of politicians from Greek and Roman times to our era of detention centres and temporary visas. This reading of Asian-Australian picture books will focus on immigrants’ perception of the ‘new worlds’ of America and Australia. The Peasant Prince, a picture-book version of Li Cunxin’s best-selling autobiography Mao’s Last Dancer, sets up tensions between individual ambition and belonging, illustrated by contrasts between the Chinese story ‘The Frog in the Well’ and the Western fairy-tale of Cinderella, to which Li Cunxin’s own trajectory from poor peasant boy in a Chinese village to international ballet star is explicitly related. Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing and The Arrival trace the journey from alienation to belonging by means of fantasy worlds encompassing both utopic and dystopic visions. By way of a conclusion, the paper considers the nature of myth as evoked and dramatised in these texts, contrasting the idea of myth as eternal truth with Roland Barthes’ insistence that myth is a mechanism which transforms history into nature

Early Cell Kinetic Effects of a Single Dose of Monochromatic Ultraviolet B Irradiation on Hairless Mouse Epidermis

Hairless mice were exposed to a single erythemic (25 mJ/cm2) or suberythemic dose (12.5 mJ/cm2) of ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiation at 297 um. The cell kinetic changes were observed at several times during the first 7 d after the irradiation. The mitotic count, the mitotic rate (stathmokinetic method), and the number of suprabasal and basal cells were scored in histologic sections. The incorporation of [3H]thymidine was measured after pulse labeling, and the DNA distribution pattern was studied by flow cytometry. Initially, both UVB-doses induced a block or delay in the cell proliferation. The rate of entrance of cells into mitosis and the uptake of [3H]thymidine were reduced, and cells accumulated in the S phase of the cell cycle. Hence, during the first period after irradiation, UVB seemed to interfere with the DNA synthesis by inducing a prolonged S phase duration. The DNA synthesis rate was reduced to the same degree after both UVB-doses. From 24 h after irradiation rapid regenerative proliferation took place, most pronounced alter the highest UVB-dose. Waves of proliferation seemed to arise from partially synchronized cohorts of cells proceeding through the cell cycle at a higher speed than normal. Thus, the present study indicates that UVB irradiation is comparable with the cell kinetic effects following both chemical skin carcinogens and non-carcinogenic skin irritants. UVB induces an inhibitory effect on the DNA synthesis activity, in addition to regenerative cell proliferation subsequent to cell toxicity

Places within a small town: Halden, Norway

The thesis addresses how the town of Halden in Norway will be effected by a planned new station and other infrastructure projects to serve the anticipated high speed rail link between Oslo and Gothenburg . It does so by examining how the structure of the town will be affected using a variety of analytical tools. Besides the station other infrastructure projects are planned and these too are critically reviewed especially from the perspective of the pedestrian experience. The thesis is concerned with city form and the role of different urban design methodologies to help restructure and improve the town whilst accommodating the new railway infrastructure.The research underpinning the thesis follows from the authors design project undertaken as part of the Diploma in Architecture in 1994 and subsequently at Masters level. Earlier work concentrated on understanding the characteristics and opportunity for urban change in the town, the need for infrastructure improvement, and the capacity for change concerning the town in general and the area around the station in particular.As a starting point for this thesis, a detailed examination was undertaken of the physical situation using tools such as space syntax analysis. This was then extended into the analysis of different possible future restructuring possibilities beyond those anticipated using tools beyond space syntax. The thesis argues that it is important to examine how different future infrastructure possibilities could influence physical change in different geographical areas of the town.The main issue of the PhD thesis is how to direct possible future changes in order to create a better movement pattern in the town (especially for pedestrians) and how this in turn will help improve the town's most vulnerable places. In order to examine in detail the attitude of the town's people to the future, a questionnaire was used to elucidate criticism of the existing town, its places and comment on the needs and potential opportunities for the future. One of the products of the thesis is to shed light on the public perception of the most relevant and valuable places in the town and to clarify the function and usage of the past in order to guide future change. Each of these places was identified and examined in terms of how they interact with the town's new structure and how through urban design analysis they could be integrated to create a town with an improved physical environment.The use of the questionnaire survey and space syntax together made it test the hypothesis that "A people- friendly town is not just a collection of people - friendly places but a linked network of these so integrated into a coherent whole that the overall settlement can readily perceived and effectively planned ". This was confirmed and allowed answers to the following research questions: • How is integration achieved in the context of the whole town? • What are the indicators of overall quality in the context of public places in Halden? • What lessons can be learned from Halden that have wider application?The lesson learned from Halden which has a wider application, is that the smallest need of change can create the greatest opportunity to achieve better integration in the context of the whole town. This can then create the opportunity for improvement of the overall quality in the context of public places in the town

Shared jurisdiction between veterinarians and aqua medicine biologists in fish health - a Norwegian model for inter-professional and cross-sectoral collaboration

This article investigates, using a sociology of profession approach, why veterinarians and aqua medicine biologists share jurisdiction in fish health in Norway. I use a five-actor framework to highlight key events in the development of the Norwegian model for inter-professional and cross-sectoral collaboration in fish health. Veterinarians were initially the only profession involved in fish health. However, in the late 1980s, the Norwegian aquaculture industry suffered great losses due to significant disease outbreaks. Lack of scientific knowledge about the disease causing the outbreaks, Hitra disease, and lack of veterinary capacity to cope with the problem resulted in a situation in which veterinarians continued, as an early response to the disease, to use antibiotic-based therapies. The marine science milieu, with support from the aquaculture industry, instituted a vaccine solution to the endemic Hitra disease in 1987. This scientific breakthrough had major impacts on combatting fish diseases and on the further development of vaccines. New vaccine solutions for other diseases, such as furunculosis, were developed by international and multidisciplinary collaboration. Over a 7-year period, the use of antibiotic-based therapy was dramatically reduced. The control of fish diseases is aquaculture’s X factor, and without these vaccine solutions and regulation regimes, the story of Norwegian aquaculture could have been different. The successful development of the Hitra disease vaccine enabled the marine science milieu at the University of Bergen and the University of Tromsø to establish a new programme of education for aqua medicine biologists based on their own scientific knowledge base. However, their struggle for shared jurisdiction, including the right to prescribe veterinary medicine, lasted nearly 20 years. In 2005, veterinary legislation was amended, and in addition to medical doctors, dentists and veterinarians, aqua medicine biologists, as the fourth profession in Norway, gained the right to prescribe medical products. I argue that the experience in Norway, where professionals from two different sectors share jurisdiction and work side by side in fish health, is worth examining as a model for organizing inter-professional and cross-sectoral collaboration

Surface modification of liposomes increases drug efficacy in local vaginal therapy

The vaginal inflammation and infection are one of the major female health issues, and unfortunately rather neglected. The anatomical structure and physiological conditions make vagina vulnerable to inflammation and infection, which if not successfully treated, can lead to deteriorating female health conditions. In pregnant patients, the pregnancy outcome can be severely affected. Although a standard treatment for vaginal infection is available, it is often not successful and recurrence rates are high. Therefore, a patientfocused drug development targeted at the vaginal inflammation and infection is the current social demand. Research and practice have shown that the topical treatment by the drugs against vaginal inflammation and infection can be superior comparing to the classical oral drug administration. However, the thick vaginal mucus lining the luminal surface of vagina and cervix, which protects the underlying tissue, limits the ability of a drug to reach vaginal mucosa. The success of mucosal delivery is highly dependent on a suitable drug carrier. Current dosage forms suffer from limited residence time at administration site and unpleasant leakage of dosage forms residues due to the self-cleansing action of the vagina, resulting in a reduced therapeutic effect. Therefore, liposomal drug delivery systems, with the ability to incorporate poorly soluble drugs and assure their stability, would be suitable for this purpose. Moreover, the modification of liposomal surface with mucoadhesive or mucoresistant polymers, might further enable improved mucosal drug delivery by providing prolonged residence time or rapid mucuspenetration, respectively. We selected chitosan as a mucoadhesive polymer due to its biocompatibility, low toxicity and intrinsic anti-microbial potential. By combining the liposomal carrier and the mucoadhesive chitosan, an optimized vaginal drug delivery system with specific, prolonged and controlled drug release properties might be developed. Alternatively, improved drug delivery to vaginal mucosa can be provided through mucoresistant properties of the delivery system. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) plays an important role in this approach, and PEGylated liposomes enable controlled drug release in close proximity to the vaginal epithelium. Three model drugs/active ingredients were tested in mucoadhesive/mucoresistant liposomebased delivery systems, namely clotrimazole, resveratrol and interferon. Particularly interesting were the anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties of resveratrol, which has a great potential in the treatment of vaginal inflammation and infection, however, its low solubility and poor bioavailability accompanied by poor stability limit its therapeutic effects. Liposomal system enhanced its activities and confirmed its potential. The in vitro drug release and ex vivo penetration confirmed a sustained release of all liposomallyassociated drugs/active molecules. PEGylated liposomes (mucoresistant) assured improved penetration of interferon. By modulation of liposomal surface properties to be either mucoadhesive or mucoresistant it is possible to achieve prolonged residence time or deeper penetration of drug within vaginal epithelium, respectively. Moreover, the system can be modified for the different drugs, regardless of their molecular size and physicochemical characteristics