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Patient Choice, Government Invoice: A mixed Methods Study of the Effects of Privatisation on Government Expenditure in Healthcare
Get PDFSince the 1980s, a debate about privatisation of welfare services has been ongoing. This thesis aims to contribute insight to the ongoing debate about privatisation of healthcare by examining the effects of privatisation reforms within the provision of healthcare on government expenditure on healthcare in the National Health Service model. Focusing on reforms implemented in Sweden and Norway in 2010 and 2015, respectively, the thesis investigates whether the introduction of patient choice and private provision has contributed to an increase or decrease of government expenditure on healthcare.
To assess the effect of these reforms, I have implemented a mixed methods approach. First, I employ two synthetic control analyses to estimate the causal effects of the reforms by constructing a counterfactual estimate. Second, I have conducted two supplementary qualitative case studies to strengthen the results of the synthetic control analyses, as well as explore the contextual and institutional dynamics behind the reforms. Both the synthetic control analyses suggest that the reforms led to an increase in government expenditure on healthcare, with government expenditure increasing significantly in Sweden, and moderately in Norway. The qualitative case studies support the findings of the synthetic control analyses, strengthening the findings.
The findings from the qualitative case study suggest that both reforms contributed to increased government expenditure on healthcare. In Sweden, the number of primary care healthcare centres rose substantially post-reform. In Norway, the reform led to significant increased costs for public hospitals and the weakening of the public hospital sector. Both cases exhibit underutilisation of patient choice, limited increased efficiency, little reduced waiting times, and increased socioeconomic differences in healthcare.MasteroppgaveSAMPOL350MASV-SAP
Arminius: From National Hero to De-ideologization - The Reception of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in Germany Over the Past 200 Years
No full textThis thesis examines how the reception of the famous battle in 9 A.D., between germanic tribes and the mighty Roman empire, have evolved over the last 200-years. The aim of the thesis is to answer the following: "How has the reception of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest changed from the Napoleonic Wars to the present day?". Furthermore I will try to answer the question on wether we can see a tendency in what the reception of Arminius will look like in the near future?
My approach to answer these questions is by undergoing a few case-studies on different contemporary movies about the subject and using some historical dramas as a comparison/contrast. The first chapter outlays earlier research on the field as well as my methods, which include comparative method, representation analysis and movie analysis. The second chapter will however look at a selection of ancient sources about the battle, which I believe is important to include on the basis of primary foundation of knowledge and to understand reception over time. To analyse how the view of the battle and Arminius have changed it is important to know what the origins were. The third and fourth chapter examines the play Die Hermannschlacht (1808) by Heinrich von Kleist and the play with the same name (1836) by Christian Dietrich Grabbe. The two chapters also include a case-study on the movie Die Hermannschlacht (1924) by Leo König and season 1 of the Netflix-series Barbarians (2020). I examine through these four examples how the reception of both the battle and Arminius have changed over time and if some of the other ‘main characters’ such as Varus or Thusnelda have experiences similar changes.
My research suggest that the reception of the battle and Arminius have undergone four periods since the Napoleonic Wars: national unity, national strenghtening, ideological propaganda and lastly de-ideologization. This last and fourth period is what we are undergoing at the moment. These finds implicate that national myth and reception-history is not separate from the evolution of the society on a bigger scale.Historie mastergradsoppgaveHIS350MAHF-LÆHRMAHF-HI
Representation Learning for Object Detection
Get PDFWhile traditional classifiers work well with data that is labeled with disjoint classes and
reasonably balanced class abundances, reality is often less clean. An alternative is to learn
a vector space embedding that reflects semantic relationships between objects, and deriving classes from this representation. This is especially useful for classes for which we only have a few samples in our training data. The task is to extend YOLOv8, a modern object detector, with ~\gls{lmcl} from CosFace and \gls{aaml} from ArcFace. By projecting the features onto a hypersphere and adding a cosine margin (CosFace) or an angular margin (ArcFace), the aim is to increase the discriminative power of the model. The project is done in collaboration with the Institute of Marine Research in Norway (Havforskningsinstituttet), where the goal is to improve the model's ability to classify species of fish of which there are few training examples. By projecting the weights and features of the model onto a hypersphere and adding an angular margin, the aim is to learn semantically meaningful embeddings that will improve the discriminatory power of the model.Masteroppgave i informatikkINF399MAMN-PROGMAMN-IN
Applying the socioecological model to illuminate nuance in collaborative functioning: Trust and overcoming SARS-CoV-2 vaccine hesitancy in the Somali communities in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, US and Bergen, Vestland, Norway
Get PDFMaster's ThesisGLODE33
Labor onset and delivery mode in women with congenital heart disease—A nationwide cohort study
Get PDFIntroduction
More women with congenital heart disease (CHD) are pursuing pregnancy. Their cardiac condition may impact the pregnancy and necessitate interventions during childbirth. We aimed to investigate labor onset and delivery mode in women with CHD relative to women without heart disease and explore the time trends of induced labor and cesarean deliveries.
Material and Methods
In a nationwide cohort in Norway from 1994 to 2014, we compared childbirths of women with mild, moderate/severe, or other CHD to childbirths of women without heart disease. Associations between maternal CHD and labor onset and delivery mode were estimated using log-binomial regression. Time trends were assessed using Joinpoint regression.
Results
Among 1 218 452 childbirths, 2425 (20 per 10 000) had mild maternal CHD, 603 (5 per 10 000) moderate/severe maternal CHD, and 522 (4 per 10 000) other maternal CHD. Mild maternal CHD was associated with induced labor (aRR 1.11, 95% CI 1.01–1.22) and cesarean delivery (aRR 1.27, 95% CI 1.18–1.39), and the associations were stronger with moderate/severe CHD (induced labor: aRR 1.34, 95% CI 1.13–1.58; cesarean delivery: aRR 1.80, 95% CI 1.57–2.05) and other CHD (induced labor: aRR 1.39, 95% CI 1.17–1.66; cesarean delivery: aRR 1.62, 95% CI 1.39–1.89). From the first seven years (1994–2000) to the last (2008–2014), the cesarean delivery occurrence rose about 2% per year in childbirths without maternal heart disease and with mild maternal CHD (from 12.4% to 16.4% and from 14.2% to 21.2%, respectively), but remained stable in childbirths with moderate/severe maternal CHD (23.3% to 25.6%). For induced labor, there was a 2% increase per year in childbirths without maternal heart disease, contrasting a 3%–4% increase in those with mild and moderate/severe maternal CHD.
Conclusions
Maternal CHD was associated with higher risks of induced labor and cesarean delivery. From 1994 to 2014, the increase in induced labor was steeper in childbirths of women with CHD than in those of women without heart disease. The occurrence of cesarean deliveries rose in childbirths of women with mild CHD but was stable in childbirths of women with moderate/severe CHD.publishedVersio
I grenselandet: Rettslige kriterier for EØS-relevans med utgangspunkt i EUs karbongrensejusteringsmekanisme (CBAM)
Get PDFMasteroppgaveJUS399MAJURMAJUR-
Effects of fish behaviour on abundance and length frequency estimates from in-trawl stereo cameras
Get PDFIn-trawl stereo cameras can provide fine-scale spatial and temporal information on species along the trawl path and record small-sized and fragile organisms typically absent from catches. Reliable estimates of abundance and length frequency from in-trawl cameras will improve ecosystem understanding and lessen the need for physical catches on scientific surveys. However, determining these estimates from camera footage is challenging since the same individual can appear in multiple frames and swim repeatedly in and out of the camera’s field of view. The manual image analysis performed in this study provides important information on how the swimming behaviour of three abundant pelagic taxa in the Norwegian Sea, along with a camera’s field of view and frame rate, affect the number of repeated appearances. Moreover, these manual annotations serve as a valuable dataset for validating automatic image analyses. Our results show that, depending on the taxa, swimming orientation, length, density of individuals, and distance to the camera affect the extent of time an individual is observed. If the repeated appearance of individuals is not accounted for, taxa or length classes with fewer appearances are under-represented in relative abundance and lead to skewed length frequency distributions. Compared to herring and blue whiting, a large fraction of mesopelagic fishes remains undetected during automatic analysis (RetinaNet). Assessing the factors driving repeated appearances improves our understanding of in-trawl camera data and highlights the importance of integrating tracking with automatic image analysis.publishedVersio
Operational approaches and recommendations to interrupt transmission of Mycobacterium leprae
Get PDFThe Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy (GPZL) Zero Transmission Symposium (May 23–25, 2024, Bergen, Norway) brought together a diverse group of experts to discuss developments over 10 years to interrupt Mycobacterium leprae transmission, both in research and operationally. Through a well-structured and participatory agenda, research and operational approaches were discussed.
The operational approaches from the symposium are described here and focus on defining optimal methods for monitoring infection transmission and prevalence using current tools; additional tools to customise implementation based on local context, such as mapping; identifying critical gaps and interventions to accelerate transmission interruption through scaled-up programmatic implementation; and expanding community coverage of interventions. Recommendations were developed in diagnostics, active case detection, post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and treatment, antimicrobial resistance surveillance, vaccination, and social determinants of health.
Recommendations in diagnostics included forming a diagnostics consortium, global initiatives (including updating WHO Guidelines) and national initiatives to optimise availability of ‘point-of-care’ tools, active case detection, including contact tracing, integrated programmes, and cluster-based campaigns considering strategic alignment with other disease consortia/initiatives; maximizing the use of molecular techniques and genotyping technologies; and improving epidemiological surveillance.
Overall, considerable progress has been made in interrupting transmission in the last 10 years, especially at the sub-national level. Implementing symposium recommendations will further accelerate interruption of M. leprae transmission.publishedVersio
Tiny shrimp, big questions: Exploring the effects of the pesticide Imidacloprid on the non-target species Rockpool shrimp (Palaemon elegans)
Get PDFThe aquaculture industry in Norway has expanded rapidly since the 1970s, and today Norway is the world’s largest producer of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). This growth has created favorable conditions for sea lice (Lepeophterius salmonis and Caligus elongatus), leading to an increasing need for effective delousing methods to control sea lice infestations.
Imidacloprid, originally developed as a pesticide for agriculture use, was banned for outdoor use in the EU in 2018. Nevertheless, Ectosan® Vet, which contains imidacloprid, was introduced to the aquaculture industry as a new and effective delousing compound. However, increased use of imidacloprid raises concerns about potential effects on marine non-target species, as it has previously been linked to a decline of pollinating insects such as bees.
This study explores the effects of imidacloprid, as well as the chemicals stability in seawater and potential accumulation in the rockpool shrimp (Palaemon elegans), a common species along the Norwegian coast. Shrimp were exposed to eight different concentrations under controlled laboratory conditions. The exposure lasted for 48 hours, followed by a 48-houers post-exposure period. The shrimps were analyzed for accumulation post-exposure. Additionally, a new set of shrimps were exposed to the same concentrations for two hours, followed by a behavioral analysis to assess swimming behavior and other physical responses.
The results show that imidacloprid remained relatively stable in seawater over 72 hours under different light conditions. The chemical primarily caused sublethal effects in form of paralysis, with an estimated EC50 of 0.46 mg/L. Swimming ability was significantly reduced, and accumulation was confirmed.
These findings suggest that imidacloprid may have harmful effects on marine non-target species and highlight the importance of the precautionary principle.MasteroppgaveSDG350MAHF-SD
The Beating Heart of Communities: The Role of Community Spaces in Political Engagement and Community Self-Determination
Get PDFThis thesis seeks to bring attention to a significant gap in the literature, exploring how community spaces, here understood as neutral, accessible, and informal venues for social interaction, impact the civic and political participation of its guests and the community it resides in. Building on theories of civil society, third places, social capital, and political participation, the study develops a conceptual framework linking community spaces to increased civic skills, sociopolitical awareness, and political mobilisation. Using a confirmatory and exploratory mixed-method case study of the café EA in Inderøy, Norway, the research combines participant observation with augmented synthetic control analysis to infer a causal relationship and explore causal pathways. Findings indicate that community spaces hold the potential to not only facilitate informal civic education and foster bridging and bonding social capital but also act as catalysts for grassroots mobilisation. Results from the causal analysis show that the Establishment of EA lead to increased electoral participation and decreased organisational density in Inderøy, while no reliable effect was found on charitable contributions. The participant observation study reveals how the café functions not only as a space for casual political conversation, but also as a space for external actors to engage with community members, and as a civic structure and agent. Although it is difficult to assess the representativeness of the finding, the thesis shows strong evidence supporting the significant role community spaces may play in the political and civic participation of a community, laying the groundwork for future research on the subject. Ultimately, the thesis argues that investment in such spaces may strengthen democratic participation and community self-determination, particularly in contexts experiencing social atomisation and declining formal civic involvement.MasteroppgaveSAMPOL350MASV-SAP