Innovations are needed to meet increasing challenges in public healthcare, and type of motivation has been identified as a pivotal factor for the success of an innovation. New public management crowd out the intrinsic motivation of employees which has resulted in a quest for more self-reliant service providers. This paper takes the opposite point of departure asking if intrinsic motivation can ...

Rapidly rising temperatures are having great effects on the high arctic ecosystem, historically characterized by long, cold winter periods, and cold dry summers. Due to the length of the winter season, arctic soils have been an important carbon sink, but may now be facing increased microbial activity due to increasing temperatures. Temperature, moisture, and litter quality play important roles in ...

Utforskande arbeidsmåtar er eit resultat av naturvitskapleg tradisjon, og synleggjer naturfaget sin prosessdimensjon. Føremålet med studien var utvikling og pilotering av ei fagprøve i naturfag på 8.trinn. Dette gav opphav til problemstillinga: "På kva måte gjennomfører og opplever elevar på ungdomstrinnet utforskande oppgåver som stiller krav til naturvitskapleg prosess?" Studien ønska samt å ...

Apicomplexa parasites, including Toxoplasma gondii and Plasmodium falciparum, contain a secondary endosymbiosis-derived plastid like organ, called apicoplast, which is an anabolic hub. This apicoplast is fueled by phosphate translocator (APT), which transport phosphorylated sugar molecules in exchange of inorganic phosphate. Disruption of APT in T. gondii was found to be lethal for parasite. Beside ...

The diet of 99 coastal-feeding ringed seals (Pusa hispida), collected in western Spitsbergen, Svalbard (Norway), was analysed via identification of hard-parts in the contents of their gastrointestinal tracts (GITs). The study animals where shot either in spring (n = 30; April-July) or autumn (n = 69; August-October) during four consecutive years (2014-2017). Thirty different prey types were identified ...

Diving species can cope with acute and repeated hypoxia through adaptations that are absent in non-diving animals. One of the greatest challenges to deal with during diving is the lowering of the arterial oxygen pressure (PaO2), which causes a decrease in the driving force for the oxygen diffusion from the capillaries to the cells. My hypothesis is that the marine mammalian brain shows improved brain ...

Methylmercury (MeHg) is of concern because it has the capacity to readily bioaccumulate and biomagnify along trophic levels until humans, exhibiting toxic effects such as neurotoxicity. Increased permafrost melt (that stores large amounts of carbon and mercury (Hg)) and river inputs, are expected to increase the exposure to Hg through uptake and transfer of contaminants through the food web. The ...

Parasitic plants including Cuscuta develop specialized structures called haustoria during infection. These specialized organs give the parasite the capacity of host attachment, invasion, vasculature connection and material transfer between the host and the parasite. Successful invasion allows organic substances, nutrients and water to flow into the parasite through the host phloem and xylem cells. ...

The Arctic is a sink for pollutants that accumulate there via long-range transport and biomagnification of persistent organic pollutant (POPs). The main objectives of this study were to identify the pollutants in the Svalbard Atlantic puffin and to compare their levels with southern puffin colonies and Svalbard seabird species to assess risk to the puffin. Svalbard Samples were analysed for contaminants ...

<i>Background</i>: Fishers exposed to unfavourable environmental conditions may suffer negative health ef- fects. This study aimed to identify musculoskeletal symptoms in professional fishers in Norway using data from several sources; register data, telephone survey and questionnaire.<p> <p><i>Materials and methods</i>: Professional fishers (n = 25,971) registered in the period 2008-2013 were ...