155 research outputs found
On special Riemannian -manifolds with distinct constant Ricci eigenvalues
No full textsummary:The first author and F. Prufer gave an explicit classification of all Riemannian 3-manifolds with distinct constant Ricci eigenvalues and satisfying additional geometrical conditions. The aim of the present paper is to get the same classification under weaker geometrical conditions
Price Indexes For Multi-dwelling Properties In Sweden
No full textThe econometric test in this paper indicates that standard property and municipality attributes are important determinants of sales prices for MDCBs (multi-dwelling and commercial buildings) in Sweden. I also employ spatial econometric techniques and find that spatial specified regressions improved the models? explanatory power. The constant quality price for a model estimated with OLS is roughly one percentage point higher than for a model controlling for spatial autocorrelation. When the constant quality price trend is estimated on a yearly basis, there are hardly any differences between the estimated parameters, notwithstand-ing if all MDCBs are in the sample or if the sample is split into sub markets. However, estimating models with a quarterly constant quality price trend to some extent shows different price trends for the three sub markets.
Transmission of malaria in relation to distribution and coverage of long-lasting insecticidal nets in central Côte d'Ivoire
No full textThe use of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) is an effective malaria control strategy. However, there are challenges to achieve high coverage, such as distribution sustainability, and coverage keep-up. This study assessed the effect of LLINs coverage and contextual factors on entomological indicators of malaria in rural Côte d'Ivoire.; The study was carried out between July 2009 and May 2012 in three villages (Bozi, N'Dakonankro and Yoho) of central Côte d'Ivoire. In Bozi and Yoho, LLINs were distributed free of charge by the national malaria control programme in 2008. In Bozi, an additional distribution was carried out in May 2011. No specific interventions were done in N'Dakonankro. Entomological surveys were conducted in July 2009 and July 2010 (baseline), and in August and November 2011 and in February 2012. Frequency of circumsporozoite protein was determined using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Regression models were employed to assess the impact of LLINs and changing patterns of irrigated rice farming on entomological parameters, and to determine associations with LLINs coverage and other contextual factors.; In Bozi, high proportion of LLIN usage was observed (95-100%). After six months, 95% of LLINs were washed at least once and 79% were washed up to three times within one year. Anopheles gambiae was the predominant malaria vector (66.6% of all mosquitoes caught). From 2009 to 2012, in N'Dakonankro, the mean annual entomological inoculation rate (EIR) increased significantly from 116.8 infectious bites/human/year (ib/h/y) to 408.8 ib/h/y, while in the intervention villages, the EIR decreased significantly from 514.6 ib/h/y to 62.0 ib/h/y (Bozi) and from 83.9 ib/h/y to 25.5 ib/h/y (Yoho). The risk of an infectious bite over the three-year period was significantly lower in the intervention villages compared to the control village (p >0.001).; High coverage and sensitization of households to use LLINs through regular visits (particularly in Bozi) and abandoning irrigated rice farming (in Yoho) resulted in highly significant reductions of EIR. The national malaria control programme should consider household sensitization and education campaigns and other contextual factors to maximize the benefit of LLINs
Fra «å være feit» til «å lide av fedme»: en etnografisk studie av barn i langvarig rehabilitering av fedme
No full textSammendrag
Denne avhandlingen er et bidrag til kritisk refleksjon over hvordan barn med fedme blir forstått og behandlet innen pediatrisk fedmerehabilitering. Min studie befinner seg innenfor rammeverket til den sosiale barne- og barndomsforskningen. Deltagende observasjon ble brukt som metode for datainnsamling. I denne avhandlingen, som består av et bokkapittel, to artikler og en sammenfatningsartikkel, har jeg undersøkt konstruksjoner av barn og barndom innen pediatrien som barnemedisinsk vitenskap og hvordan dette har påvirket innholdet i rehabiliteringstilbudet. Jeg har også undersøkt hvordan barn med fedme blir påvirket av det biopedagogiske innholdet i rehabiliteringstilbudet gjennom å analysere endringer i barnas språk om mat og fysisk aktivitet og om kroppen og tilstanden deres.
Biopedagogikk handler om hvordan den såkalte fedmeepidemien har skapt pedagogiske praksiser eller «instruksjoner» om hvordan folk skal «leve sunt». Disse fungerer normaliserende og regulerende, og plasserer individer under kontinuerlig overvåkning og skaper økt selv-monitorering.
Innen pediatrisk fedmerehabilitering er det i dag mest vanlig å bruke såkalte familiebaserte tilnærminger hvor målet er å påvirke barns vektrelaterte atferd gjennom foreldrene. Dette var tilnærmingen til barna og deres familier også på rehabiliteringssentrene hvor jeg gjorde hovedfeltarbeid. Selv om det var foreldrene som stort sett fikk undervisning i kosthold og fysisk aktivitet, viser min forskning at barna likevel plukket opp og tok til seg rehabiliteringsteamenes biopedagogiske budskaper om mat, fysisk aktivitet og årsaker til utvikling av fedme. De fleste barna ble også sterke agenter i familiens livsstilsendringsprosess. Forskere innen rammeverket til biopedagogikk hevder at formuleringen av biopedagogiske budskap og instruksjoner til barn kan føre til økt, og farlig, selv-monitorering ved at de kan utvikle spiseforstyrrelser eller et «hemmet» forhold til kropp og fysisk aktivitet. Selv om barna med fedme utviklet nettopp slik økt selv-monitorering, argumenterer jeg for at biopedagogikken også fungerte som en ressurs ved å gi dem en følelse av kontroll og mestring av lidelsen. Det ga dem også et endret syn på kroppen deres, slik at forståelsen «jeg er feit» ble byttet ut med «jeg lider av fedme». I denne avhandlingen tolker jeg dette som en prosess av medikalisering hvor barna tar til seg den biomedisinske forståelsen av sin lidelse.Summary
This thesis contributes to a critical reflection of treatment of children with obesity. My study is localized within the framework of social studies of children and childhood. Participant observation was the main method for data collection. This thesis is built around one book chapter and two articles. I have explored constructions of children and childhood within pediatrics, and how these affect the content of treatment. Also, I have explored how children with obesity were affected by the biopedagogical content involved in treatment by analysing changes in the children’s language about food, physical activity, their bodies and their condition.
Biopedagogies is about how the so-called obesity epidemic has created pedagogical practices or “instructions” of how people are supposed to “live healthy”. These biopedagogies are normalizing and regulating, and place the individual under constant surveillance and create increased self-monitoring.
Within pediatric obesity treatment today, it is common to use so-called family-based approaches in order to influence the children’s weight-related behaviours indirectly through the parents. This was also the approach taken by the rehabilitation teams towards the children and their families in my study. Even though it was the parents that got lessons in diet and physical activity, my research shows that the children still picked up the rehabilitation teams’ biopedagogical instructions and discourses about food, physical activity and their condition. Most children also became strong agents in their families’ life style change process. Researchers within the framework of biopedagogies emphasise the dangers involved with conveying biopedagogical messages and instructions to children, claiming it can lead to increased, and dangerous, self-monitoring, making children develop eating disorders or an impaired relationship with their bodies and physical activity. Even though the children I observed developed such increased self-monitoring, I claim that the biopedagogies also functioned as a resource by giving them a sense of control and helping them cope with their condition. Due to the biopedagogies involved, the children went through a transformation from viewing themselves as “being fat” to “suffering from obesity”. In this thesis, I interpret this as a result of a process of medicalization of their condition
Long-term trends in Anopheles gambiae insecticide resistance in Côte d'Ivoire
No full textMalaria control is heavily dependent on the use of insecticides that target adult mosquito vectors via insecticide treated nets (ITNs) or indoor residual spraying (IRS). Four classes of insecticide are approved for IRS but only pyrethroids are available for ITNs. The rapid rise in insecticide resistance in African malaria vectors has raised alarms about the sustainability of existing malaria control activities. This problem might be particularly acute in Côte d¿Ivoire where resistance to all four insecticide classes has recently been recorded. Here we investigate temporal trends in insecticide resistance across the ecological zones of Côte d¿Ivoire to determine whether apparent pan-African patterns of increasing resistance are detectable and consistent across insecticides and areas.MethodsWe combined data on insecticide resistance from a literature review, and bioassays conducted on field-caught Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes for the four WHO-approved insecticide classes for ITN/IRS. The data were then mapped using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and the IR mapper tool to provide spatial and temporal distribution data on insecticide resistance in An. gambiae sensu lato from Côte d¿Ivoire between 1993 and 2014.ResultsBioassay mortality decreased over time for all insecticide classes, though with significant spatiotemporal variation, such that stronger declines were observed in the southern ecological zone for DDT and pyrethroids than in the central zone, but with an apparently opposite effect for the carbamate and organophosphate. Variation in relative abundance of the molecular forms, coupled with dramatic increase in kdr 1014F frequency in M forms (An. coluzzii) seems likely to be a contributory factor to these patterns. Although records of resistance across insecticide classes have become more common, the number of classes tested in studies has also increased, precluding a conclusion that multiple resistance has also increased.ConclusionOur analyses attempted synthesis of 22 years of bioassay data from Côte d¿Ivoire, and despite a number of caveats and potentially confounding variables, suggest significant but spatially-variable temporal trends in insecticide resistance. In the light of such spatio-temporal dynamics, regular, systematic and spatially-expanded monitoring is warranted to provide accurate information on insecticide resistance for control programme management
Bifurcation theory of the time-dependent von Kármán equations
No full textsummary:In this paper the author studies existence and bifurcation of a nonlinear homogeneous Volterra integral equation, which is derived as the first approximation for the solution of the time dependent generalization of the von Kármán equations. The last system serves as a model for stability (instability) of a thin rectangular visco-elastic plate whose two opposite edges are subjected to a constant loading which depends on the parameters of proportionality of this boundary loading
Improper Supplementation Habits of Folic Acid Intake by Hungarian Pregnant Women: Improper Recommendations
No full textBackground: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are some of the most common congenital anomalies. Proper folic acid supplementation is a dominant risk factor, which has been shown to decrease the incidence of NTDs. In Canada, the incidence of neuroblastoma has presented a considerable decrease of 60% as a result of enrichment cereal grain flours with synthetic folic acid. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of folic acid intake by pregnant women on the incidence of NTDs and neuroblastoma. Methods: Regular folic acid intake has been recommended to pregnant women in Hungary since the eighties of the last century by health visitors eventually raking effect as an official protocol which had been released in 1997. During 2001, 2002 and 2003. folic acid intake habits of pregnant women were evaluated by health visitors, proving to be successful in collecting data front 95.06% of the pregnant women. The incidence of NTDs has been registered by the Hungarian National Centre of Epidemiology, Department of Human Genetics and Teratology. The Pediatric Cancer Registry provided the incidence of neuroblastoma in children. Results: Consistent findings revealed a regular intake of supplementary folic acid products by 68.71% of the pregnant women. Out of these. 93.13% of pregnant women who were taking folic acid, started the supplementation after their 7 weeks of pregnancies, a time designated as the completion period of the development of the neural tube. The dose of folic acid supplementation was evaluated as less than 5 mg/day in 84.75% of the pregnant women. In Hungary, the incidence of NTDs has remained constant, while the incidence of neuroblastoma has shown constant slight increase in spite of the introduction of folic acid supplementation in 1997. Conclusions: Based on our experience, folic acid supplementation was initiated after the recognition of pregnancy and its application in a dose of lower than 5 mg/day neither decreased the incidence of NTDs nor did it have an effect on the neuroblastoma incidence. It is implicated that proper folic acid supplementation, which is started front the conception. can be achieved only with the enrichment of cereal grain flours
Drømmen om en grønn fremtid. En lesning av Øystein Stenes Alm-trilogi (2020 - 2022)
No full textDenne avhandlingen analyserer Øystein Stenes sci-fi-trilogi om Alm bestående av Pustens lov (2020), Drømmenes orden (2021) og Tankenes rett (2022), og argumenterer for at sjanger-merkelappen «ungdomsdystopi» kan overskygge verkets intellektuelle dybde.
Gjennom dekonstruksjon av dets sjangerform og fremtidsbilde – en postapokalyptisk verden styrt av en miljøbevisst KI – utforsker avhandlingen trilogiens utopiske horisonter og spørsmålet om håp. Ved bruk av en hermeneutisk metode og intertekstuell lesning, tar analysen for seg verkets forhold til sjangerkonvensjoner, spenningen mellom dystopi og utopi, miljøtematikk og posthumanistiske implikasjoner. Denne tilnærmingen vil underbygge forståelsen av verket som et tankeeksperiment, der forfatteren utforsker ideer og konsepter fra ulike filosofiske perspektiver som berører menneskets plass i verden, fra eksistensielle og politiske spørsmål til etiske betraktninger rundt dyr og miljø. Avhandlingen har som mål å bidra til økokritiske og posthumanistiske studier av barne- og ungdomslitteratur i Norge, hvor det stadig er behov for nye perspektiver og ny forskning.This thesis analyzes Øystein Stene's science fiction trilogy about Alm, consisting of Pustens lov (2020), Drømmenes orden (2021), and Tankenes rett (2022), and argues that the label "young adult dystopia" can overshadow the work's intellectual depth. Through a deconstruction of its genre form and future setting – a post-apocalyptic world governed by an environmentally conscious AI – the thesis explores the trilogy's utopian horizons and the question of hope. Employing a hermeneutic method and intertextual reading, the analysis examines the work's relationship to genre conventions, the tension between dystopia and utopia, environmental themes, and posthumanist implications. This approach will underpin the understanding of the work as a thought experiment, in which the author explores ideas and concepts from various philosophical perspectives concerning humanity's place in the world, from existential and political questions to ethical considerations regarding animals and the environment. The thesis aims to contribute to ecocritical and posthumanist studies of children's and young adult literature in Norway, where there is a constant need for new perspectives and new scientific material
Maneuvering and Platooning of Automated Vehicles via Comprehensive Predictive Control: A Numerical Analysis
No full textOngoing research in autonomous driving currently focuses on creating new applications for autonomous vehicles (AV) and connected autonomous vehicles (CAV). Specifically, motion planning and control solutions are being developed based on the combination of Artificial Potential Functions (APF) with economic Model Predictive Control (eMPC). These two methods are integrated into a new Comprehensive Predictive Control (CPC) strategy. Although preliminary research shows promising results, a performance analysis of this approach, both for AV and CAV, has not yet been published. Therefore this thesis studies the capabilities of this novel APF-eMPC framework by carrying out numerical simulations. Multiple manoeuvres and varying amounts of white noise are utilized to test the controller's limitations. For the AV part, multiple basic driving manoeuvres are simulated: lane-keeping, car-following and lane-changing. The results show that an AV based on this framework can execute these different manoeuvres without precise measurements. The CAV concept is simulated using a platoon scenario. The gap-closing behaviour of the multiple CAVs in a platoon is examined. The state-of-the-art gap-closing APF is compared with an APF based on inter-molecular dynamics and fitted on actual traffic. Various experiments are carried out using a constant time-headway in combination with different time gaps between the vehicles. The results show that the resulting behaviour by the inter-molecular APF better matches human driving behaviour and results in less dangerous gap-closing behaviour than the quadratic platoon APF. The latter has a more considerable change of lateral instability occurring. Therefore the APF based on inter-molecular dynamics and fitted on actual traffic data outperforms the APF based on a quadratic function. Lastly, it was found that the coupling between the longitudinal and lateral dynamics, often neglected in literature, cannot be ignored during platoon stability analysis.Mechanical Engineering | Systems and Contro
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