Fafo Foundation

Understanding the long-term biological consequences of crude oil exposure on marine fish is essential for the sustainability of ecologically and economically important species such as Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). While the direct effects of crude oil on early life stages are well documented, adult reproductive vulnerability and intergenerational consequences remain poorly understood, despite their pivotal role in spawning stock viability. Paternal contributions to next-generation outcomes are particularly underexplored. This study examined how parental exposure to a water-soluble fraction of crude oil affects transcriptomic profiles and survival outcomes in Atlantic cod offspring. Adult fish were exposed for 20days prior to spawning, and offspring were produced by in vitro cross-fertilization to generate four groups: control (unexposed parents), maternally exposed, paternally exposed and biparentally exposed. Embryos were reared under control conditions, and transcriptome profiles were analyzed from fertilization to hatching, alongside assessments of cardiac function and morphology post-hatch. Offspring from exposed females failed to survive to hatching. Eggs were smaller, and transcriptomic data revealed severe downregulation of genes involved in early developmental processes. Chemical analyses confirmed maternal transfer of a diverse range of petroleum aromatic hydrocarbons to oocytes. Our findings point to disrupted oocyte provisioning, likely linked to endocrine and epigenetic disturbances during oocyte maturation. Paternal exposure had minimal effect on RNA expression, and morphology at hatching. However, reduced survival in early larval stages suggests sublethal effects emerging later, possibly through epigenetic mechanisms, a hypothesis requiring further investigation.

Overgangen til læretid i bedrift er en kritisk fase for elever som tar yrkesfaglig utdanning. Allikevel finnes det svært lite forskning på arbeidsgiveres vurderinger når de skal ansette lærlinger. I denne artikkelen undersøker vi hva arbeidsgivere ser etter når de skal ansette lærlinger, og hvordan de skaffer informasjon om søkernes kompetanse. Artikkelen bygger på intervjuer med arbeidsgivere og opplæringskontorer i Oslo og Akershus innen tre yrkesfag: helsefagarbeid, salgsfaget og elektrikerfaget. I studien tar vi utgangspunkt i forskning omkring ansettelser, og utdyper tidligere forskningsfunn fra kvantitative studier. Vi finner at lærlinger rekrutteres gjennom ansettelsesprosesser som ligner mer på åpne ansettelser av unge enn på ansettelser i et yrkesbasert arbeidsmarked. Arbeidsgivere legger stor vekt på søkerens motivasjon, lærevilje, evne til å følge arbeidslivsnormer, kommunikasjonsferdigheter og samarbeidsevner. Bedriftene stiller ikke store krav til fagspesifikk kompetanse, og karakterer brukes i liten grad til å sjalte bort søkere. I stedet gjør arbeidsgiverne helhetlige vurderinger av søkernes kompetanse og holdninger og hvem de er som person, for å anslå om de passer inn på arbeidsstedet. Ansettelsesprosessene er inkluderende i den forstand at mange får en sjanse til å få læreplass, men det krever at søkerne har lært eller forstår normene i det arbeidslivet de skal ut i, noe som kan ekskludere andre.

ObjectivesTo explore differences in health-related benefit status over 3 years, focusing on patterns of sick leave, work assessment allowance and disability benefits, between people who underwent rehabilitation and a matched control group.DesignProspective longitudinal multicentre cohort study using registry data over three consecutive years.SettingSecondary specialist rehabilitation services at 17 institutions across Norway.ParticipantsPatients (n=2710), 42% with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases, aged 18–65 years referred for multidisciplinary rehabilitation at one of the participating institutions. They were propensity score matched with 37 760 controls from the national sick leave registry, based on sociodemographic factors and health-related benefit status.InterventionMultidisciplinary rehabilitation programmes, commonly lasting 3 weeks (range: 1 week to 6 months), tailored to individual needs.Primary outcome measuresDays on health-related benefits (sick leave, work assessment allowance (WAA) and disability benefits) were quantified as lost workdays per month. Differences between groups were analysed using Generalised Estimating Equations across three consecutive years: the year before rehabilitation, the rehabilitation year and the year after rehabilitation.ResultsThe rehabilitation group had more days on health-related benefits per month than controls throughout the observation period. During the rehabilitation year, they had on average 1.7 more days on sick leave (95 % CI 1.3 to 1.9), 2.3 more WAA days (95% CI 1.9 to 2.7) and 0.2 more days on disability benefits (95% CI 0.1 to 0.3). In the year after rehabilitation, they had 0.6 fewer days on sick leave (95% CI −0.8 to −0.3), but 3.7 more days on WAA (95% CI 3.1 to 4.2) and 0.6 more days on disability benefits (95% CI 0.4 to 0.8). Patterns were similar for the subgroup with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases.ConclusionsPeople undergoing rehabilitation had more days on health-related benefits and a greater increase in long-term benefits, even after matching, indicating a higher disease and support burden than controls. Tailoring interventions and health-related benefits is an essential aspect of rehabilitation for people with complex work participation needs. Future research should include longer observation periods to explore long-term outcomes of rehabilitation.Trail registration numberNCT03764982

I artikkelen studerer vi ansattes erfaringer med to forsøk med ekstra bemanning i barnehager i levekårsutsatte områder i Oslo og undersøker hvordan den økte bemanningen påvirket kvaliteten på barnehagetilbudet. Artikkelen er basert på kvalitative intervjuer med ansatte i elleve barnehager med ekstra bemanning, og med representanter fra bydelsadministrasjonene, samt webbaserte spørreundersøkelser blant styrerne i barnehager som var omfattet av forsøkene i 2022 og 2024. Barnehagene fikk stor grad av autonomi i gjennomføringen av forsøkene, noe som gjorde det mulig å bruke ressursene på måter som ansatte i barnehagene oppfattet som viktige. Flere av barnehagene valgte å ansette fagpedagoger med spisskompetanse på definerte områder som språkopplæring og barnevern for å styrke arbeidet med det de kalte «gråsonebarna» – barn uten spesialpedagogisk vedtak, men med utfordringer. Økt bemanning gjorde at barnehagene fikk mulighet til å dele barna i mindre grupper, noe som kom barna med ulike utfordringer særlig til gode. Det ble videre tettere oppfølging og bedre relasjoner mellom de ansatte og barna og tettere kontakt med foreldrene.

ABSTRACT The presence of AI in everyday life has dramatically increased and intensified in the last few years. From playing a role in teaching and research activities within educational institutions, to becoming a ubiquitous feature in search engines and in all manner of apps, AI is now omnipresent. While geographers have long examined the role of AI in various ways, in this Themed Intervention we highlight often overlooked dimensions of responsibility, care and repair in the mobilisation and impacts of AI. This Themed Intervention questions the genealogy of AI and its creators' duty of care towards the real‐life impacts of its operationalisation, how AI might be (responsibly) governed to reduce these impacts and how responsibility is or should be devolved across different actors (e.g., individualistic or collective responsibilities). We acknowledge that despite its potential for positive ends, AI has already caused damage to people, societies, environments and therefore question whether repair (of the people–AI relation, of AI consequences) is possible, what form this can or should take as well as how the faults of AI can be corrected. By exploring care, the contributors share concern with caring for and of AI, including its current impacts and futures, with each contribution ruminating on how caring relations are configured. We argue that if we focus on dimensions of care and repair when critically evaluating the discursive and material realities of AI, issues relating to responsibility are impossible to ignore.

Ernæringskvaliteten er viktig hos eldre for å opprettholde fysisk og kognitiv funksjon. Utilstrekkelig inntak av mikronæringsstoffer og protein øker risikoen for feilernæring som kan påvirke helse og gi dårligere livskvalitet. Eldre er spesielt utsatt for feilernæring da de trenger færre kalorier mens deres mikronæringsstoff- og proteinbehov er uendret eller i noen tilfeller økt. Eldre førstegenerasjonsinnvandrere er en raskt voksende gruppe i Norge, og det er lite kunnskap om deres kosthold og hvordan dette påvirker næringsinntaket.

In recent years, the food industry has prioritized minimizing food waste and promoting sustainability. Surface whey is a common quality defect in yogurt that can occur during storage, but it does not necessarily indicate that yogurt is unfit for consumption. This study aimed to investigate the impact of package information regarding surface whey, and yogurt appearance on consumers' willingness to consume (WTC) yogurt before and after the best-before date. First, two focus groups ( n = 16) were performed to qualitatively explore consumers purchasing habits, general knowledge of quality defects in yogurts, and their behavior regarding food waste; the results were used to design a quantitative study. Norwegian consumers ( n = 298) participated in an online survey. Consumers assessed their WTC, based on photos and videos of eight yogurt samples, in a conjoint test with a 3 × 2 factorial design. Results revealed that date labels and yogurt appearance significantly influence consumers' WTC yogurts, while package information had no significant effect. Consumers were segmented based on safety and quality concerns; hierarchical clustering showed two clusters. One concerned cluster, characterized by higher safety- and quality concerns, showed lower WTC yogurt past its best-before date compared to a less concerned cluster. The findings suggest that strategies to reduce food waste should prioritize encouraging companies to extend the shelf life of products and to reconsider any dates that might be overly cautious. Educating consumers about product quality beyond date labels rather than relying solely on package instructions, is also vital. • Date labels and appearance influenced consumers' willingness to consume yogurt. • Package instructions had no effect on willingness to consume yogurt (WTC). • Higher safety concerns reduced consumers' WTC yogurt past the best-before date.

Improving feed efficiency (FE) is poised to become a primary focus of future aquaculture breeding programs, with ongoing research aiming to incorporate this trait to increase fish production, reduce feed costs and minimize environmental impact. Selection for improving FE requires a detailed understanding of its genetic parameters and association with growth traits under commercial conditions. However, scientific studies on FE at the individual level are missing in Atlantic salmon, likely due to the absence of accurate and efficient methods for measuring individual feed intake (IFI). Here we have used X-ray imaging on 700 salmon smolts, which have consumed feed containing radio-opaque beads, to phenotype the IFI at multiple time points. The study aims to I) train and validate a deep learning image based “YOLO-XBeads” model for accurate estimation of IFI from X-ray images, II) estimate the genetic parameters of IFI and different FE metrics such as feed conversion ratio (FCR), phenotypic residual feed intake (pRFI), genetic residual feed intake (gRFI), and growth traits such as Body weight (BW), average daily gain (ADG) and whole-body fat (WBF), and III) quantify the phenotypic and genetic relationships among these traits in Atlantic salmon. The YOLO-XBeads model performed well on X-ray images, with a high correlation to the true value (R 2 = 0.99) and mean absolute percentage error of 2.60–5.94 %. The time efficiency (two orders of magnitude faster than available software) of our model significantly reduces the analysis time, labour and cost compared to conventional image software and manual human counting. We found significant heritability estimates for IFI (0.20 ± 0.05–0.50 ± 0.07), ADG (0.44 ± 0.06–0.55 ± 0.06), BW (0.50 ± 0.06–0.55 ± 0.06), pRFI (0.11 ± 0.05–0.16 ± 0.07), gRFI (0.06 ± 0.03–0.18 ± 0.06), FCR (0.09 ± 0.04–0.23 ± 0.06) and WBF (0.62 ± 0.06), indicating potential for genetic improvement. Additionally, the strong genetic correlations (r g = 0.71 ± 0.07–0.96 ± 0.01) between different point estimates of the primary traits (IFI, ADG and BW) over time demonstrated the stability of these traits over the studied growth period. Averaging the FE and related traits over the whole growth period (50–300 g) of salmon showed variable r g between traits. The highest r g values (0.86 ± 0.05–0.99 ± 0.01) were observed among different FE metrics, indicating similar genetic regulation. Following this, a strong r g (0.95 ± 0.02) was found between IFI and ADG, indicating that ADG can explain a significant proportion of the genetic variation in IFI. However, we found low but significant genetic variation for pRFI and gRFI, which shows heritable variation remains after accounting for the relationships of BW and ADG with the IFI. In addition, WBF showed moderate r g (0.52 ± 0.09–0.64 ± 0.07) with IFI, BW and ADG traits. Conversely, FE metrics showed weak r g with ADG (0.00 ± 0.21–0.38 ± 0.17) as well as with WBF (−0.03 ± 0.18–0.21 ± 0.19), indicating little or no indirect genetic improvement in FE through selection for growth or WBF in freshwater smolts. Overall, the FE and related traits were found to be measurable and heritable at the individual level in Atlantic salmon smolts, signifying the potential for improving economic gain and minimizing environmental impact. However, further studies are needed at the sea phase. • X-ray imaging combined with the YOLO-XBeads model can serve as a scalable, fast, accurate and non-invasive method for assessing individual-level feed intake. • There is significant variability and heritability associated with feed efficiency in Atlantic salmon. • Little to no indirect genetic improvement in feed efficiency through selection for growth or body fat levels in freshwater smolts.