Methods library of embedded R functions at Statistics Norway

Statistics Norway is modernising the production processes. An important element in this work is a library of functions for statistical computations. In principle, the functions in such a methods library can be programmed in several languages. A modernised production environment demand that these functions can be reused for different statistics products, and that they are embedded within a common IT system. The embedding should be done in such a way that the users of the methods do not need to know the underlying programming language. As a proof of concept, Statistics Norway soon has established a methods library offering a limited number of methods for macro-editing, imputation and confi dentiality. This is done within an area of municipal statistics with R as the only programming language. This paper presents the details and experiences from this work. The problem of fi tting real word applications to simple and strict standards is discussed and exemplifi ed by the development of solutions to regression imputation and table suppression. Keywords: Offi cial statistics, R; Common Statistical Production Architecture, Generic Statistical Information Model, Validation and Transformation Language, Imputation, Statistical disclosure control JEL Classifi cation: C18, C88publishedVersio

Food risk communication to consumers: The scare of antibiotic resistant bacteria in chicken

In 2014 a food scare following a report on antibiotic resistant bacteria in chicken fillets led to a dramatic drop in sales of chicken. Actors in the food chain as well as the authorities were unprepared for the consequences of the case. The study investigated how risk communicators coped with the crisis through in-depth interviews with 14 relevant actors. The case study illustrated how delayed risk communication from authorities opened for stakeholders with contradictory views and other agendas. Further, although the risk communicators were aware of the concept of risk perception, they may not truly acknowledge the power triggering emotions

Usikkerheten i barnevernsarbeidet: en begrepsliggjøring av barneverntjenestens strategier overfor uforutsigbarhet, usikkerhet og tvetydighet ved beslutninger om hjelpetiltak

Artikkel 3 og 4 er ikke med i denne utgaven, på grunn av manglende tillatelser fra tidsskriftene. Begge er med i den trykte utgaven.Tre av fire familier i barnevernet mottar frivillige hjelpetiltak. Til tross for at dette er den vanligste tiltaksformen i barneverntjenesten, synes forskningsfeltet å ha vært mest opptatt av beslutninger om omsorgsovertakelse og plasseringer av barn utenfor hjemmet. Hensikten med denne avhandlingen er å få mer innsikt i prosessen som leder fram til beslutninger om frivillige hjelpetiltak. Gjennom avhandlingen utforsker jeg hva som er mest utfordrende i beslutningsarbeidet, og hvordan utfordringen håndteres av barneverntjenesten, samt hvordan barneverntjenesten argumenterer for beslutningene i de skriftlige vedtakene. Datamaterialet består av intervjuer med til sammen 18 barnevernsarbeidere samt 23 enkeltvedtak med tildeling av frivillige hjelpetiltak. Av grounded theory-analysen kommer det fram at hovedutfordringen i beslutningsprosessen handler om usikkerheten som følger av uforutsigbarhet, usikkerhet og tvetydighet i beslutningsarbeidet. Analysen synliggjør tre strategier som barneverntjenesten benyttet i et forsøk på å eliminere slik usikkerhet. Disse strategiene presenteres i avhandlingen i form av tre konseptuelle hypoteser: en barnevernskapt virkelighet, problemfragmentering og normalitetsmålestokken «gode nok foreldre». De tre konseptuelle hypotesene bygger på mønstrene som vokste fram av analysen av intervjuene. Det er en begrepsliggjøring av studiens empiriske data og representerer hovedresultatet som ligger til grunn for avhandlingen (jf. artikkel I–III). Den første konseptuelle hypotesen diskuteres med utgangspunkt i Berger og Luckmans konstruktivistiske perspektiv i artikkel I. En barnevernskapt virkelighet kan i dette perspektivet forstås som et uttrykk for at barneverntjenestens oppfatning av virkeligheten er internalisert gjennom en spesifikk institusjonell logikk av normer som er formet av et juridisk og psykologisk språk. I artikkelen argumenteres det for at denne normen uttrykker standarden for hvordan virkeligheten i familien forstås og håndteres av barneverntjenesten. Implikasjoner av en slik standard kan inkludere en endret selvoppfatning hos foreldrene og en snevrere ramme for foreldreskap for foreldre i barnevernet enn for andre foreldre. Den andre konseptuelle hypotesen drøftes i lys av et kompleksitetsperspektiv i artikkel II. Problemfragmentering refererer til barnevernsarbeidernes beskrivelser av fragmentering av familiens behov for å redusere usikkerhet i beslutningsprosessen. I denne artikkelen argumenteres det for at barneverntjenestens opplevelse av usikkerhet kan forklares med systemisk usikkerhet i barnevernet, og forfatterne foreslår at det kan være en fordel å anvende kompleksitetsteori som ramme for problemløsning. Den tredje konseptuelle hypotesen diskuteres i artikkel III med referanse til Foucaults teori om disiplinær makt. I artikkelen argumenteres det for at normalitetsmålestokken «gode nok foreldre» i dette perspektivet kan forstås som et uttrykk for en oppfordring til selvundertrykkelse gjennom standarder for normalitet som er basert på humanitetsvitenskapens vekt på statistikk fra psykologi og medisin. Artikkelen diskuterer mulige implikasjoner av å benytte «gode nok foreldre» som et mål på normalitet, inkludert innvirkning på forholdet mellom barnevernsarbeider og foreldre. I tillegg til intervjuene inneholder avhandlingen en analyse av argumentasjonen og begrunnelsen for hjelpetiltak i 23 enkeltvedtak. Argumentasjonsanalysen synliggjør at det foreligger en diskrepans mellom forvaltningslovens begrunnelsesnorm og barneverntjenestens praksis, jf. artikkel IV. I artikkelen diskuteres avstanden mellom norm og praksis i et rettssikkerhetsperspektiv. Avhandlingens bidrag til forskningsfeltet ligger primært i de fire artiklenes samlede begrepsliggjøring av barneverntjenestens praksis. Gjennom en identifisering, begrepsfesting og teoretisering av mønstre ved barnevernsarbeidernes muntlige beskrivelser og skriftlige argumentasjon bidrar avhandlingen med en større forståelse for hvilken tenkning, kunnskap og rasjonalitet som uttrykkes i håndteringen av usikkerhet i beslutningsprosessen knyttet til vedtak om frivillige hjelpetiltak. Avhandlingens resultater og påfølgende diskusjon utfordrer samtidig den etablerte tenkningen om at barneverntjenestens beslutningsarbeid kan styres og kontrolleres utenfra – herunder gjennom en rettsliggjøring av kravet til skriftlig begrunnelse.Abstract: Three in four families in the child welfare service receives voluntary preventive measures. Despite these being the most widely used measures, the focus in child welfare research has largely been on decisions such as care orders and the placement of children outside of the home. The purpose of this study has therefore been to develop the understanding of the process leading to decisions on voluntary preventive measures. The thesis investigates what child welfare services experience as challenging in the decision-making process, how these challenges are handled, as well as how they argue their choices in the written decisions. The data consists of interviews with a total of 18 child welfare workers, as well as 23 individual decisions of voluntary preventive measures. A grounded theory analysis revealed uncertainty as a result of unpredictability, uncertainty and ambiguity, as the main challenge in the decision-making process. The analysis further identified three strategies used by the child welfare service in the attempt to eliminate the experience of such uncertainty. These strategies are presented in the thesis as three conceptual hypotheses: Constructed reality in child welfare, problem fragmentation and the normality measure “good enough parents”. The three conceptual hypotheses constitute the main result from the study which forms the basis of the thesis (cf. Article I-III). The first conceptual hypothesis is discussed in relation to Berger and Luckman’s constructivist perspective in article I. Constructed reality in child welfare can in this perspective be understood as an expression of the child welfare service's conception of reality, internalized through a specific institutional logic of norms, shaped by legal and psychological language. This article argues that this norm expresses a general standard for how the reality of the family is understood and handled by the child welfare service. The implications of such a standard may include a changed sense of self-understanding from the parents and a narrower framework for parenting for parents within the child welfare service than that of other parents. The second conceptual hypothesis is discussed in relation to a complexity perspective in article II. Problem fragmentation refers to the child welfare workers’ descriptions of their attempts to manage the experience of uncertainty in the decision-making process through fragmenting the needs of the family. This article argues that the child welfare service's experience of unpredictability can be explained by systemic uncertainty in the child welfare service and proposes that applying complexity theory as a framework for problem-solving may be an advantage. The third conceptual hypothesis is discussed in article III with reference to Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power. This article argues that the normality measure “good enough parents” in this perspective can be understood as an expression of a call for self-suppression, through standards of normality based on the humanities’ focus on statistics, particularly within the fields of psychology and medicine. The article discusses possible implications of using “good enough parents” as a measure of normality, including implications for the relationship between the child welfare worker and the parents. In addition to the interviews, the thesis includes an argument analysis of 23 individual decisions on voluntary preventive measures, from which it emerged that the norm of providing reason under the Public Administration Act was breached by the child welfare service's practice (cf. article IV). This article discusses inconsistencies between the norm and the practice in the perspective of the rule of law. The contribution of the thesis to the scientific field lies primarily in the four articles’ conceptualization of practices in the child welfare service. Through identification and conceptualization of patterns in child welfare workers’ descriptions and written argumentation, the thesis presents a greater understanding of the thinking, knowledge and rationale expressed in the management of uncertainty in the decision-making process for voluntary preventive measures. Further, the results of the study and the following discussion in the four articles challenges established thinking regarding decision-making processes within the child welfare service as controllable and manageable from the outside – including legalization of requirement of justification

Hand hygiene practices during meal preparation-a ranking among ten European countries

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Mapping the Kitchen Microbiota in Five European Countries Reveals a Set of Core Bacteria across Countries, Kitchen Surfaces, and Cleaning Utensils

The residential kitchen is often heavily colonized by microbes originating from different sources, including food and human contact. Although a few studies have reported the bacterial composition in cleaning utensils and surface samples there is limited knowledge of the bacterial diversity across different sample types, households, and countries. As part of a large European study, we have identified the microbiota of 302 samples from cleaning utensils (sponges and cloths), kitchen surfaces (sinks, cutting boards, countertops, tap handles, and a pooled sample of other handles) in 74 households across 5 countries (France, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, and Romania). In total, 31 bacterial phyla were identified, with Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidota, and Actinobacteria being the most abundant. Despite large variations in households with respect to kitchen standards, kitchen practices, cleaning regimes, and diet and considerable differences in bacterial diversity between samples, eight bacterial genera/families commonly associated with environmental sources were identified in most samples and defined as a core microbiota: Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Enhydrobacter, Enterobacteriaceae, Psychrobacter, Chryseobacterium, Bacillus, and Staphylococcus. These genera/families were also among the bacteria with the highest relative abundance across all samples, in addition to Yersiniaceae, Kocuria, Pantoea, and Streptococcus. Taxa associated with potential pathogens and fecal indicators were low in abundance but broadly distributed throughout the households. The microbial composition of surface samples indicated that the microbial composition on kitchen surfaces is more characteristic for the particular country than the object type, while the microbiota of cleaning utensils was similar across countries but differed between types (sponge or cloth).publishedVersio

Survival potential of wild type cellulose deficient Salmonella from the feed industry

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Biofilm has been shown to be one way for <it>Salmonella </it>to persist in the feed factory environment. Matrix components, such as fimbriae and cellulose, have been suggested to play an important role in the survival of <it>Salmonella </it>in the environment. Multicellular behaviour by <it>Salmonella </it>is often categorized according to colony morphology into rdar (red, dry and rough) expressing curli fimbriae and cellulose, bdar (brown, dry and rough) expressing curli fimbriae and pdar (pink, dry and rough) expressing cellulose.</p> <p>The aim of the study was to look into the distribution of morphotypes among feed and fish meal factory strains of <it>Salmonella</it>, with emphasis on potential differences between morphotypes with regards to survival in the feed factory environment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>When screening a total of 148 <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Agona, <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Montevideo, <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Senftenberg and <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Typhimurium strains of feed factory, human clinical and reference collection origin, as many as 99% were able to express rough morphology (rdar or bdar). The dominant morphotype was rdar (74%), however as many as 55% of <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Agona and 19% of <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Senftenberg displayed the bdar morphology.</p> <p>Inconsistency in Calcofluor binding, indicating expression of cellulose, was found among 25% of all the strains tested, however <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Agona showed to be highly consistent in Calcofluor binding (98%).</p> <p>In biofilm, <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Agona strains with bdar mophology was found to be equally tolerant to disinfection treatment as strains with rdar morphotype. However, rdar morphology appeared to be favourable in long term survival in biofilm in a very dry environment.</p> <p>Chemical analysis showed no major differences in polysaccharide content between bdar and rdar strains. Our results indicate that cellulose is not a major component of the <it>Salmonella </it>biofilm matrix.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The bdar morphotype is common among <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Agona strains isolated from the factory environment. The rdar and the bdar strains were found to be equally tolerant to disinfectants, while the rdar strain was found to be more tolerant to long-term desiccation and nutrient depletion in biofilm than the bdar strain. Cellulose does not appear to be a major component of the <it>Salmonella </it>biofilm matrix.</p

Biofilm forming abilities of Salmonella are correlated with persistence in fish meal- and feed factories

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Feed contaminated with <it>Salmonella </it>spp. constitutes a risk of <it>Salmonella </it>infections in animals, and subsequently in the consumers of animal products. <it>Salmonella </it>are occasionally isolated from the feed factory environment and some clones of <it>Salmonella </it>persist in the factory environment for several years. One hypothesis is that biofilm formation facilitates persistence by protecting bacteria against environmental stress, e.g. disinfection. The aim of this study was to investigate the biofilm forming potential of <it>Salmonella </it>strains from feed- and fishmeal factories. The study included 111 <it>Salmonella </it>strains isolated from Norwegian feed and fish meal factories in the period 1991–2006 of serovar Agona, serovar Montevideo, serovar Senftenberg and serovar Typhimurium.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Significant differences were found between serovars regarding the abilities to form biofilm on polystyrene (microtiter plate assay) and in the air-liquid interface of nutrient broth (pellicle assay). Strains of serovar Agona and serovar Montevideo were good biofilm producers. In Norwegian factories, clones of these serovars have been observed to persist for several years. Most serovar Senftenberg clones appear to persist for a shorter period, and strains of this serovar were medium biofilm producers in our test systems. Strains of the serovar Typhimurium were relatively poor biofilm producers. <it>Salmonella </it>ser. Typhimurium clones have not been observed to persist even though this serovar is resident in Norwegian wild life. When classifying strains according to persistence or presumed non-persistence, persistent strains produced more biofilm than presumed non-persisting strains.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results indicate a correlation between persistence and biofilm formation which suggests that biofilm forming ability may be an important factor for persistence of <it>Salmonella </it>in the factory environment.</p

CO2 packaging increases shelf life through reduction of off-odor production by CO2 tolerant bacteria in addition to growth inhibition of the spoilage bacteriota

Optimized packaging conditions to improve the shelf life of chicken fillets is important to prevent food spoilage and food waste. Anaerobic packaging with CO2 or by vacuum packaging is commonly used to increase the shelf life of skinless chicken fillets, but the literature is inconsistent about the spoilage bacteriota. The aim of this work was to determine which bacterial genera that spoil raw chicken fillets packaged under two common packaging conditions and how the packaging gas itself affects the production of off odors for these genera. The spoilage potential of Pseudomonas, Carnobacterium, Hafnia, Serratia, Brochothrix and Shewanella isolated from spoiled chicken fillets was evaluated. Fresh chicken fillets were inoculated with mono- and multi genera strain cocktails (4 log CFU/cm2) and packaged with 100% N2 or 60% CO2/40% N2, stored at 4 °C, and bacterial numbers, bacteriota, gas in headspace and sensory profiles assessed. Additionally, the effect of CO2 on the production of off-odors from fillets inoculated with similar levels of Shewanella spp. or Brochothrix spp. was determined by both sensory profiling and measuring volatile organic components. All bacterial cocktails grew relatively well in chicken meat packed with 100% N2, while 60% CO2/40% N2 resulted in growth inhibition of all isolates compared to 100% N2. All genera except Serratia and Pseudomonas gave rise to off-odors after 11 days of storage in 100% N2. During storage in 60% CO2/40% N2, only fillets with Carnobacterium spp. and Brochothrix spp. showed significantly higher intensities of off-odors compared to the reference fillets. Shewanella spp. and Brochothrix spp. also exhibited significantly higher intensities of negative odor attributes during storage in 100% N2 compared to 60% CO2/40% N2, at a similar total bacterial count. Thus, CO2 improves shelf life not only by reduction of the growth of CO2 tolerant and sensitive bacteria, but also through inhibition of the production of off-odors.CO2 packaging increases shelf life through reduction of off-odor production by CO2 tolerant bacteria in addition to growth inhibition of the spoilage bacteriotapublishedVersio

Micro ecosystems from feed industry surfaces: a survival and biofilm study of Salmonella versus host resident flora strains

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The presence of <it>Salmonella </it>enterica serovars in feed ingredients, products and processing facilities is a well recognized problem worldwide. In Norwegian feed factories, strict control measures are implemented to avoid establishment and spreading of <it>Salmonella </it>throughout the processing chain. There is limited knowledge on the presence and survival of the resident microflora in feed production plants. Information on interactions between <it>Salmonella </it>and other bacteria in feed production plants and how they affect survival and biofilm formation of <it>Salmonella </it>is also limited. The aim of this study was to identify resident microbiota found in feed production environments, and to compare the survival of resident flora strains and <it>Salmonella </it>to stress factors typically found in feed processing environments. Moreover, the role of dominant resident flora strains in the biofilm development of <it>Salmonella </it>was determined.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Surface microflora characterization from two feed productions plants, by means of 16 S rDNA sequencing, revealed a wide diversity of bacteria. Survival, disinfection and biofilm formation experiments were conducted on selected dominant resident flora strains and <it>Salmonella</it>. Results showed higher survival properties by resident flora isolates for desiccation, and disinfection compared to <it>Salmonella </it>isolates. Dual-species biofilms favored <it>Salmonella </it>growth compared to <it>Salmonella </it>in mono-species biofilms, with biovolume increases of 2.8-fold and 3.2-fold in the presence of <it>Staphylococcus </it>and <it>Pseudomonas</it>, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results offer an overview of the microflora composition found in feed industry processing environments, their survival under relevant stresses and their potential effect on biofilm formation in the presence of <it>Salmonella</it>. Eliminating the establishment of resident flora isolates in feed industry surfaces is therefore of interest for impeding conditions for <it>Salmonella </it>colonization and growth on feed industry surfaces. In-depth investigations are still needed to determine whether resident flora has a definite role in the persistence of <it>Salmonella </it>in feed processing environments.</p