67 research outputs found
Naked wine letting grapes do what comes naturally
No full text"Naked wine is wine stripped down to its basics-wine as it was meant to be: wholesome, exciting, provocative, living, sensual, and pure. Naked, or natural, wine is the opposite of most New World wines today; Alice Feiring calls them "overripe, over-manipulated, and overblown" and makes her case that good (and possibly great) wine can still be made, if only winemakers would listen more to nature and less to marketers, and stop using additives and chemicals. But letting wine make itself is harder than it seems. Three years ago, Feiring answered a dare to try her hand at natural winemaking. In Naked Wine, she details her adventure-sometimes calm, sometimes wild, always revealing-and peers into the nooks and crannies of today's exciting, new (but centuries-old) world of natural wine"--"In the fall of 2008, Alice Feiring, wine and travel columnist, author, and leading advocate for natural wines (made with nothing but crushed bunches of fruit) answered a dare to try her hand at natural wine making. That experience is entertainingly told with caustic wit in Naked Wine. Naked wine is wine stripped down to its basics--wine as it was meant to be: wholesome, exciting, provocative, living, sensual, and pure. The word "naked" in the title refers also to the author's skin-on-skin contact with the wine she helped make. She weaves her adventure, sometimes calm, sometimes wild, into this new (but centuries-old) world of natural wine, the most powerful movement rocking today's wine world"-
On the relevance of personal responsibility in priority setting: a cross-sectional survey among Norwegian medical doctors
No full textThe debate on responsibility for health takes place within political philosophy and in policy setting. It is increasingly relevant in the context of rationing scarce resources as a substantial, and growing, proportion of diseases in high-income countries is attributable to lifestyle. Until now, empirical studies of medical professionals' attitudes towards personal responsibility for health as a component of prioritisation have been lacking. This paper explores to what extent Norwegian physicians find personal responsibility for health relevant in prioritisation and what type of risk behaviour they consider relevant in such decisions. The proportion who agree that it should count varies from 17.1% ('Healthcare priority should depend on the patient's responsibility for the disease') to 26.9% ('Access to scarce organ transplants should depend on the patient's responsibility for the disease'). Higher age and being male is positively correlated with acceptance. The doctors are more willing to consider substance use in priority setting decisions than choices on food and exercise. The findings reveal that a sizeable proportion have beliefs that conflict with the norms stated in the Norwegian Patient Act. It may be possible that the implementation of legal regulations can be hindered by the opposing attitudes among doctors. A further debate on the role personal responsibility should play in priority setting seems warranted. However, given the deep controversies about the concept of health responsibility and its application, it would be wise to proceed with caution. DESIGN: Nationally representative cross-sectional study. SETTING: Panel-data. PARTICIPANTS: 1072 respondents, response rate 65%
Antimicrobial stewardship: a qualitative study of the development of national guidelines for antibiotic use in hospitals
No full textAbstract Background As effective antibiotics are becoming a scarce resource, governmental regulation is needed to promote responsible use. Implementation of antibiotic stewardship and practice guidelines in health care facilities seems to be crucial to this effort. Empirical studies suggest, however, that guidelines have limited influence on health professionals’ behavior and practice. Barriers and facilitators to guideline implementability are much studied, but little attention has been given to health professionals’ perceptions of normative acceptability of guidelines as a condition for compliance. The aim of the present study was first, to examine if and how aspects potentially promoting acceptability and compliance among clinical target users were addressed during development of Norwegian national guidelines for antibiotic use in hospitals and second, to identify procedural characteristics of the development process that were perceived by target users to yield legitimate guidelines. Methods Qualitative deductive thematic analysis was used. A theoretical framework inspired by the AGREE II Instrument and the Accountability for reasonableness framework assisted data gathering and interpretation. Archival data was collected and used to detail the guideline development process. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews with eight clinicians with extensive knowledge of the guidelines were carried out. Results Guideline development was characterized by i) broad agreement about scope and purpose, ii) broad involvement of stakeholders in the development process, iii) use of systematic methods to search for and apply evidence, iv) easily identifiable and specific recommendations, v) provision of tools on how to put recommendations into practice, and vi) editorial independence. Several procedural characteristics were perceived by the interviewees as promoting guideline legitimacy; i) diverse perspectives systematically involved in the process, ii) accessibility and transparency of the rationales for decision making, iii) opportunities for appeals and reconsiderations, and iv) regulative authority. Conclusions This study provides insights as to how guidelines that are intended to promote responsible use of antibiotics in hospitals can be carefully developed to facilitate perceptions of relevance, transparency, and authority by health professionals
No conflicting results in the article “HPV vaccination and risk of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis: A nationwide register-based study from Norway”
No full textMarechera: Meaning in the Shadows
No full textIn his book, Nationalism and African Intellectuals, Toyin Falola poses the fundamental question of "How can Africa uplift itself?" in the wake of decolonization. This question of how Africa should proceed from colonization is one of the last ideological dilemmas of the modern world. Dambudzo Marechera, an African author of fiction and arguably Zimbabwe's most important creative writer of the 20th century, attempted to solve the challenge.1 This paper will contextualize his life within the larger history of Zimbabwe surrounding the governments of Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe, and show how his experiences manifested into a political philosophy that blended pacifism and individuality in favor of collective or nationalist identit
Et utvalg innvandreres perspektiv på den norske nasjonaldagsfeiringen
No full textEn innvandrer er en person som forlater sitt samfunn og kommer til et annet samfunn og en annen kultur, enten mot sin vilje eller frivillig. Denne masteroppgaven har et innvandrerperspektiv på 17. mai, og på innvandreres erfaringer med og perspektiver på feiringen. Innvandreres beskrivelser av sin deltakelse på 17. mai kan brukes til å utforske dagen som sosial arena og mulighetsrom for utvikling av tilhørighet og nasjonal identitet.
En undersøkelse, et nettskjema, ble lagt ut i ulike nettforum og sendt til nøkkelpersoner på arbeidsplasser for å få data fra personer som anså seg selv som innvandrere i Norge. For å forstå den sosiale konteksten disse innvandrerne var en del av, har jeg brukt Tematisk Analyse (TA) og posisjoneringsteori. Dette muliggjorde en inndeling av det empiriske materialet i hoved- og undertemaer. Hvert tema gir ulike perspektiver på innvandreres oppfatning og opplevelse av 17. mai-feiring, både positive og negative. Temaene handler om ulike nivåer og typer av fellesskap, om symboler, om livsløp, tradisjoner og sist men ikke minst, om forventninger, ensomhet og utenforskap og mangel på mangfold.
Innvandrere med ulike bakgrunner og personlige opplevelser, viser ulike posisjoneringer og har ulike tradisjoner på 17. mai. Tilknytning til jobb, skole, kolleger, venner og familie ser ut til å spille en stor rolle for hvor deltakerne i studien var i feiringen av 17. mai. De fleste tok flagget som symbolsk element og brukte det til å posisjonere seg som en del av det nasjonale felleskapet. Ingen ga uttrykk for ambivalens ved å pynte med norske flagg, men bunad fremsto som et komplekst symbol på norskhet og det kom til uttrykk et savn etter et mer mangfoldig landskap av tradisjonelle festdrakter. Det samlede inntrykket er at deltakerne i studien setter stor pris på nasjonaldagsfeiringen og at 17. mai er et mulighetsrom med potensial til å styrke samholdet og fellesskapet mellom ulike grupperinger i den norske flerkulturelle befolkningen.An immigrant is a person who leaves his or her community and comes to another community and culture, either involuntarily or willingly. This master's thesis has an immigrant perspective on May 17th, Norway’s national day, and on immigrants' experiences with and perspectives on its celebration. Immigrants' descriptions of their participation may be used to investigate the day as a social arena and a space for developing belonging and national identity.
A survey, an online questionnaire, was posted to various online forums and to key persons in workplaces to collect data from people defining themselves as immigrants in Norway. In order to understand the social context to which these immigrants related, I used Thematic Analysis (TA) and Positioning Theory. This enabled me to divide the empirical material into main and sub-themes. Each of these offer different perspectives on perception and experiences of the celebration, both positive and negative ones. The themes relate to different levels and types of community, symbols, life courses, traditions, and last, but not least, expectations, loneliness, exclusion, and lack of diversity.
Immigrants of different backgrounds and personal experiences show different positions and have different traditions on May 17th. Attachment to work, school, colleagues, friends and family seems to play a significant role in where the participants were in the May 17th celebration. Most of them used the flag as a symbolic element to position themselves as part of the national community. No-one expressed ambivalence towards decorating with Norwegian flags, but the bunad (national costume) turned out to be a complex symbol of Norwegian-ness, with a longing for a more diverse landscape of traditional festive attire. The overall impression is that the participants highly value the celebration of the national day celebration, and that May 17th offers a space for strengthening the unity and community among different groups in Norway's multicultural population
Usefulness of health registries when estimating vaccine effectiveness during the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic in Norway
No full textAbstract Background During the 2009-2010 pandemic in Norway, 12 513 laboratory-confirmed cases of pandemic influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, were reported to the Norwegian Surveillance System for Communicable Diseases (MSIS). 2.2 million persons (45% of the population) were vaccinated with an AS03-adjuvanted monovalent vaccine during the pandemic. Most of them were registered in the Norwegian Immunisation Registry (SYSVAK). Based on these registries, we aimed at estimating the vaccine effectiveness (VE) and describing vaccine failures during the pandemic in Norway, in order to evaluate the role of the vaccine as a preventive measure during the pandemic. Methods We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study, linking MSIS and SYSVAK with pandemic influenza vaccination as exposure and laboratory-confirmed pandemic influenza as outcome. We measured VE by week and defined two thresholds for immunity; eight and 15 days after vaccination. Results The weekly VE ranged from 77% to 96% when considering 15 days or more after vaccination as the threshold of immunity and from 73% to 94% when considering eight days or more. Overall, 157 individuals contracted pandemic influenza eight or more days after vaccination (8.4/100,000 vaccinated), of these 58 had onset 15 days or more after vaccination (3.0/100,000 vaccinated). Most of the vaccine failures occurred during the first weeks of the vaccination campaign. More than 30% of the vaccine failures were found in people below 10 years of age. Conclusions Having available health registries with data regarding cases of specific disease and vaccination makes it feasible to estimate VE in a simple and rapid way. VE was high regardless the immunity threshold chosen. We encourage public health authorities in other countries to set up such registries. It is also important to consider including information on underlying diseases in registries already existing, in order to make it feasible to conduct more complete VE estimations.</p
Folkehelseinstituttet under influensapandemien 2009. Delrapport: Overvåkning
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