Background: Improved neonatal care has resulted in an increasing population of surviving infants. Neonatal morbidity in preterm infants is, however, high, and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is one of the major neonatal morbidities. Observations have suggested that ROP might have a different course in extremely preterm compared to more mature infants. Aims: To study the incidence, natural history and treatment of the disease, and the implications regarding screening recommendations for the population of extremely preterm infants. Methods: A national, population-based study of neonatal morbidity in infants born before 27 gestational weeks was performed in Sweden during 2004 to 2007. ROP screening started in the 5th postnatal week and continued until the retina was completely vascularized. Results: Of the 506 infants surviving until the first ROP examination, 73% developed ROP; 38% mild ROP and 35% severe ROP. Ninety-nine infants (20%) were treated. A log-linear relationship was found between severe ROP and gestational age (GA) at birth, and the risk of ROP was reduced by 50% for each week of increase in GA at birth (Paper I). Postmenstrual age (PMA) at onset of ROP was significantly related to GA at birth, as was the site of onset of ROP. ROP had a predilection to start in the nasal retina in the most immature infants. There were significant relations between PMA at onset of ROP and severity of ROP as well as between the site of onset of ROP and severe ROP (Paper III). The most immature infants had a higher risk of reaching treatment criteria for ROP, a higher risk of progression from ROP 3 to treatment criteria, and they reached these criteria at an earlier PMA than the less immature infants (Paper II). According to our results, the first examination can be postponed until a PMA of 31 weeks in infants born before 27 weeks of gestation, since onset of ROP 3 did not occur before this age, and criteria for treatment were not reached before 32 weeks. The majority of infants (75%) were treated during a limited period, i.e. before a PMA of 39 weeks (Paper IV).

Uppsatsens syfte var att undersöka hur gymnasielärare vill använda Göteborgs Naturhistoriska Museum (GNM) i sin undervisning om evolution samt att ta reda på vilka didaktiska inslag som behövs för att motivera och inspirera fler lärare att använda museet i sin evolutionsundervisning. Uppsatsen tar sin utgångspunkt i läroplanens styrdokument och fem begrepp som Ann Zetterqvist i sin forskning utpekar som centrala och viktiga för att kunna förstå evolutionsteorin. Forskningen visar att undervisningen om evolutionsteori är en utmaning för lärarna och slår fast att det kan behövas stöd från skolan och även från institutioner utanför. Min utgångspunkt är att GNM kan bidra till och är värdefullt för lärandet i ämnet evolution. Undersökningens urvalskriterium är gymnasielärare som har använt museet under de senaste två åren i samband med en lektion om evolution. Undersökningen bygger i huvudsak på semistrukturerade intervjuer kompletterade med ett mindre antal enkätsvar. Forskning visar att förekomsten av en väl grundad pedagogisk policy är viktigt för museerna för att det pedagogiska budskapet skall nå fram till besökaren. Forskningen visar vidare att det är mycket viktigt att museibesöket kopplas till läroplanen. Vidare pekar forskningen på att eleverna ofta inte uppnår kunskapsmålen gällande evolutionsteorin Resultaten visar att lärarna inte medvetet planerar sitt museibesök utifrån skolans styrdokument, men deras önskemål om ämnesområden visar på en tydlig koppling till styrdokumenten. Resultaten visar även att lärarna värdesätter GNM för dess undervisning av evolutionsteorin, men för att lärarna skall känna sig motiverade att på egen hand undervisa på museet behöver de vissa didaktiska inslag och handledning. Detta arbete resulterar i ett antal didaktiska förslag baserade på lärarnas och museipedagogens önskemål. / The main objective with this paper was to investigate how college teachers wish to use The Natural History Museum of Gothenburg (GNM) when teaching evolution, and also to determine which didactic elements are required to motivate other teachers to use the museum when teaching evolution. The foundation of this study is built on the school curriculum and five concepts which Ann Zetterqvist identifies in her research as central and necessary for understanding evolution. Research indicates that teaching the theory of evolution is a challenge for teachers and also emphasizes the importance of internal and external support. I propose that GNM is valuable for teaching evolution. The criteria for the selection of candidates are college teachers who have used the museum during the last two years to teach evolution. The study is based on semi-structured interviews completed with questionnaires. Research reveals that without a conscious educational policy the museums pedagogic message may not reach the visitor. Research also shows that it is very important that museums school programme is based on the national curriculum. Results from previous research reveal that students have difficulty in reaching the curricular goals concerning evolution.The results from this study show that teachers had not consciously followed the curriculum when planning their visit, their subject request is however clearly applicable to the curriculum. The teachers interviewed clearly value GNM as a place to teach the theory of evolution, but request certain didactic elements and teacher guides to motivate teaching without the aid of a museum teacher. This study results in a number of didactic elements based upon the teachers and museum teachers' requests.

Pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) is a rare disease characterized by mucinous peritoneal metastasis (PM). Different loco-regional treatment strategies, i.e. debulking surgery and cytoreductive surgery (CRS) in combination with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), have changed the prognosis for these patients. CRS is an aggressive surgical procedure with a long learning curve. PMP exists in different types; how many depends on which classification is used. The aims of this thesis were to investigate the time-frame of PMP development from an isolated appendiceal neoplasm, examine the learning process for CRS, evaluate the differences in treatment outcome between debulking surgery and CRS in combination with HIPEC, to evaluate a more detailed PMP classification and to investigate particularly interesting new cysteine-histidine (PINCH) protein as a prognostic factor for PMP. Retrospectively 26 PMP patients were identified as having had an appendectomy with a neoplasm in the appendix but with no evidence of PM at the appendectomy. They were treated for PMP within a median of 13.1 months (3.8-95.3) after the appendectomy. No difference was seen between the types of PMP regarding the time to a clinically significant development of PMP and how much tumour was found at treatment. CRS is a highly invasive treatment and stabilization in the learning curve was seen after 220±10 procedures. Patients treated with CRS+HIPEC had a better 5-year overall survival (OS) than patients treated with debulking surgery, 74% vs. 40%. CRS increased the rate of complete cytoreduction from 25% in patients treated with debulking surgery to 72%. The new four-grade PMP classification showed very good inter-rater agreement between two independent pathologists and a difference in survival rates was observed between the different grades. A positive PINCH staining was recorded in 83% of the tumours and that was associated with poorer survival.

Thesis (MS)--University of Montana, 2009. / Contents viewed on January 15, 2010. Title from author supplied metadata.

This dissertation tracks a series of literary interventions into scientific debates of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, showing how the realist novel generated new techniques of description in response to pressing philosophical problems about agency, materiality, and embodiment. In close conversation with developments in the sciences, writers such as George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Olive Schreiner portrayed human agency as contiguous with rather than opposed to the pulsations of the physical world. The human, for these authors, was not a privileged or even an autonomous entity but a node in a web of interactive and co-constitutive materialities. Focused on works of English fiction published between 1870-1920, I argue that the historical convergence of a British materialist science and a vitalistic Continental natural philosophy led to the rise of a dynamic realism attentive to material forces productive of “character.” Through the literary figure of character and the novelistic practice of description, I show, turn-of-the-century realists explored what it meant to be an embodied subject, how qualities in organisms emerge and develop, and the relationship between nature and culture more broadly.

This dissertation examines how the modern dinosaur—fully mounted, freestanding assemblages of vertebrate fossils such as we are accustomed to seeing at the natural history museum—came into being during the late 19th and early 20th century, focusing especially on the United States. But it is not just, or even primarily a history of vertebrate paleontology. Rather, I use dinosaurs as an opportunity to explore how science was embedded in broader changes that were happening at the time. In particular, I am interested in tracing how the culture of modern capitalism—the ideals, norms, and practices that governed matters of value and exchange—manifested itself in the way fossils were collected, studied, and put on display. During the second half of the 19th century, America experienced an extended period of remarkable economic growth. By the eve of WWI, it had emerged as the world’s largest producer of goods and services. At the same time, paleontologists were unearthing the fossil remains of marvelous creatures the likes of which no one had ever dreamed in the American west. The discovery of dinosaurs like Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and Triceratops prompted the nation’s wealthy elite to begin cultivating an intense interest in vertebrate paleontology. In part, this is because dinosaurs meshed well with a conventional narrative that celebrated American exceptionalism. Dinosaurs from the United States were widely heralded as having been larger, fiercer, and more abundant than their European counterparts. Not only that, but their origins in the deep past meant that dinosaurs were associated with evolutionary theory, including the conventional notion that struggle was at the root of progress. Finally, it did not hurt that America’s best fossils hailed from places like Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. This is precisely where most of the raw materials consumed by factories could also be found. As they coalesced into a coherent social class, American capitalists began to patronize a number of elite cultural institutions. Just as Gilded Age entrepreneurs invested considerable resources in the acquisition of artworks, so too did they invest in natural history. However, whereas the acquisition of artworks functioned as a display of refined aesthetic sensibilities, the collection of natural history specimens primarily represented another form of social distinction, one that combined epistemic virtues like objectivity with older notions of good stewardship and civic munificence. Capitalists who had grown rich off of the exploitation of America’s natural resources turned to dinosaur paleontology as a form of cultural resource extraction. / History of Science

This dissertation builds upon the relatively young fields of visual and environmental rhetoric and analyzes the rhetoric of natural history filmmaking, focusing on the ways in which the genre illustrates the complex relationship between contemporary culture and the environment. Each text demonstrates how the constructs of “nature” and “wilderness” perform necessary cultural work by representing particular ideals that change to meet the public’s shifting needs. Nature performs various roles, serving as a source of knowledge, solace, wonder, mystery, anxiety, truth, identity, and affirmation. The dominance and immediacy of visual culture make the natural history film, along with advertising, one of the most significant sources of meaning regarding the natural world. These films employ familiar syntactic and semantic cues such as sentimental parent/offspring interactions, authoritative narration that limits the ability of the audience to interpret freely, and a musical score that influences the viewer’s emotional response to certain scenes. The net result of these rhetorical practices is a distancing of the viewer from the natural world that destabilizes the attempts of many eco-political programs to emphasize the interconnectedness of ecological systems and their components. The emergent genre of big-budget nature films (BBNFs) is a distinctly modern and extremely popular take on natural history filmmaking that has more in common with summer blockbusters and wildlife theme parks than its predecessors with an unprecedented ability to influence public perception of the natural world. Even as environmental concerns become increasingly dire, the BBNF tends to commodify death and extinction, avoid political engagement, reduce engagement with nature to its most sentimental and violent moments, perpetuate the perceived separation between humans and their environment, and provide a soothing escape to a virtual environment that too often seems unaffected by climate change and habitat destruction. The BBNF has the potential to undermine environmental and conservation efforts. It also exemplifies what some ecocritics have termed “ecopornography,” an exploitative representation that objectifies its subjects, encourages viewers to develop identifications with unrealistic images rather than their real-world analogs, and helps enable unethical behavior toward the environment and nonhuman animals. At stake in this dissertation is a deeper understanding of how natural history filmmaking affects the public’s awareness of (and role in) the environment.

Early nineteenth-century Eurocentric perceptions of natural history led to the flora and fauna of Australia being thought of as deficient and inferior compared with those of other lands. By the 1820s, Australia had become known as ???the land of contrarieties???. This, and Eurocentric attitudes to nature in general, influenced the expectations and perceptions of immigrants throughout the century. Yet at the same time there was developing an aesthetic appreciation of the natural history of Australia. This thesis examines the tension between these two perceptions in the popular natural history writing of the nineteenth century, mainly through the writing of five authors ??? George Bennett (1804-1893), Louisa Anne Meredith (1812-1895), Samuel Hannaford (1937-1874), Horace Wheelwright (1815-1865) and Donald Macdonald (1859?-1932). George Bennett was a scientist, who saw Australian plants and animals more as scientific specimens than objects of beauty. Louisa Meredith perceived them in the familiar language of English romantic poetry. Samuel Hannaford used another language, that of popular British natural history writers of the mid-nineteenth century. To Horace Wheelwright, Australian animals were equally valuable to the sportsman???s gun as to the naturalist???s pen. Donald Macdonald was the only one of these major writers to have been born in Australia. Although proud of his British heritage, he rejoiced in the beauty of his native land. His writing demonstrates his joy, and his novel attitude to Australian natural history continued and developed in the present century.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-142). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Mémoire (M.A.)--Université de Québec à Chicoutimi, 1990. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU