Local public health projectification in practice: a qualitative study of facilitators and barriers to a public health plan implementation.

AIMS: To identify factors perceived by local government employees to affect the implementation of a municipal public health plan. METHODS: Qualitative individual interviews (n=13) were carried out. Participants were sampled from three districts in Oslo municipality, Norway, and asked about their experiences with an ongoing implementation of the Oslo Public Health Plan (2017-2020). The conceptual framework of public sector projectification - a growing reliance on project organisation of policies - informed the study. The consolidated framework for implementation research was used to aid data coding and subsequent thematic analysis. RESULTS: Implementation facilitators included factors perceived to support flexibility, including plan adaptability to the local setting, and factors perceived to enable structure and control during the implementation process, such as the articulation of specific goals and a shared understanding of public health work. Barriers were mainly related to complex aspects of the plan, such as the need to involve multiple stakeholders and levels of governance, and to tensions between the time-limited implementation process and the permanent organisational structures. CONCLUSIONS: This study has demonstrated how research-based methods can be used for the evaluation of a local community implementation process. It has identified implementation determinants using a predetermined taxonomy of operationally defined factors that are likely to influence implementation. However, while implementing a time-limited public health plan can be seen as 'taking action' in relation to multidimensional and complex problems, further research is needed to investigate whether plan implementation has a long-term impact on the surrounding organisation and, eventually, on public health outcomes.

Fraud in Animal Origin Food Products: Advances in Emerging Spectroscopic Detection Methods over the Past Five Years.

Animal origin food products, including fish and seafood, meat and poultry, milk and dairy foods, and other related products play significant roles in human nutrition. However, fraud in this food sector frequently occurs, leading to negative economic impacts on consumers and potential risks to public health and the environment. Therefore, the development of analytical techniques that can rapidly detect fraud and verify the authenticity of such products is of paramount importance. Traditionally, a wide variety of targeted approaches, such as chemical, chromatographic, molecular, and protein-based techniques, among others, have been frequently used to identify animal species, production methods, provenance, and processing of food products. Although these conventional methods are accurate and reliable, they are destructive, time-consuming, and can only be employed at the laboratory scale. On the contrary, alternative methods based mainly on spectroscopy have emerged in recent years as invaluable tools to overcome most of the limitations associated with traditional measurements. The number of scientific studies reporting on various authenticity issues investigated by vibrational spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and fluorescence spectroscopy has increased substantially over the past few years, indicating the tremendous potential of these techniques in the fight against food fraud. It is the aim of the present manuscript to review the state-of-the-art research advances since 2015 regarding the use of analytical methods applied to detect fraud in food products of animal origin, with particular attention paid to spectroscopic measurements coupled with chemometric analysis. The opportunities and challenges surrounding the use of spectroscopic techniques and possible future directions will also be discussed.

Spectroscopic Techniques for Monitoring Thermal Treatments in Fish and Other Seafood: A Review of Recent Developments and Applications.

Cooking is an important processing method, that has been used since ancient times in order to both ensure microbiological safety and give desired organoleptic properties to the cooked food. Fish and other seafood products are highly sensitive to thermal treatments and the application of severe heat can result in negative consequences on sensory and nutritional parameters, as well as other quality attributes of the thermally processed products. To avoid such undesired effects and to extend the shelf life of these perishable products, both the heat processing methods and the assessment techniques used to monitor the process should be optimized. In this review paper, the most common cooking methods and some innovative ones will first be presented with a brief discussion of their impact on seafood quality. The main methods used for monitoring heat treatments will then be reviewed with a special focus on spectroscopic techniques, which are known to be rapid and non-destructive methods compared to traditional approaches. Finally, viewpoints of the current challenges will be discussed and possible directions for future applications and research will be suggested. The literature presented in this review clearly demonstrates the potential of spectroscopic techniques, coupled with chemometric tools, for online monitoring of heat-induced changes resulting from the application of thermal treatments of seafood. The use of fluorescence hyperspectral imaging is especially promising, as the technique combines the merits of both fluorescence spectroscopy (high sensitivity and selectivity) and hyperspectral imaging (spatial dimension). With further research and investigation, the few current limitations of monitoring thermal treatments by spectroscopy can be addressed, thus enabling the use of spectroscopic techniques as a routine tool in the seafood industry.

Use of Spectroscopic Techniques for a Rapid and Non-Destructive Monitoring of Thermal Treatments and Storage Time of Sous-Vide Cooked Cod Fillets.

In this work, the potential of spectroscopic techniques was studied to investigate heat-induced changes occurring during the application of thermal treatments on cod (Gadus morhua L.) fillets. Vacuum-packed samples were thermally treated in a water bath at 50, 60, 70 and 80 °C for 5 and 10 min, and further stored for one, four, and eight days at 4 ± 1 °C before analysis. Several traditional (including cooking loss, drip loss, texture, protein solubility, protein oxidation, and color) and spectroscopic (fluorescence and diffuse reflectance hyperspectral imaging) measurements were conducted on the same samples. The results showed a decrease in fluorescence intensity with increasing cooking temperature and storage time, while the impact of cooking time was only noticeable at low temperatures. Diffuse reflectance data exhibited a decrease in absorbance, possibly as a result of protein denaturation and increased scattering at higher cooking temperatures. Both fluorescence and diffuse reflectance data were highly correlated with color parameters, whereas moderate correlations were observed with most other traditional parameters. Support vector machine models performed better than partial least square ones for both classification of cod samples cooked at different temperatures and in prediction of the cooking temperature. The best classification result was obtained on fluorescence data, achieving an accuracy of 92.5%, while the prediction models resulted in a root mean square error of prediction of cooking temperature lower than 5 °C. Overall, the classification and prediction models showed good results, indicating that spectroscopic techniques, especially fluorescence hyperspectral imaging, have a high potential for monitoring thermal treatments in cod fillets.

Performance of Fluorescence and Diffuse Reflectance Hyperspectral Imaging for Characterization of Lutefisk: A Traditional Norwegian Fish Dish.

Lutefisk is a traditional Norwegian fish dish made from dried fish, such as cod or other whitefish. In Norway and other Nordic countries, lutefisk is considered among the most popular dishes served during Christmas or other festive occasions. However, to date, little attention has been paid to this product, and available research on the quality, processing, and chemistry of lutefisk is still limited. The quality of this very delicate product, with a high pH value, depends on many factors, such as the initial quality of raw materials (stockfish), the quantity of lye used during the preparation process of lutefisk, and time during soaking in the lye and water, among others, making it challenging to both optimize processing and monitor the quality of lutefisk. In this study, four commercially available lutefisk brands (labelled as A, B, C, and D) were characterized using two online spectroscopic techniques, namely fluorescence and diffuse reflectance hyperspectral imaging, implemented on conveyor belts to mimic industrial applications. The samples were also analyzed by the use of an offline laboratory instrument based on visible/near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Three traditional measurements, including texture, water content, and pH, were also conducted on the same samples. Supervised classification PLS-DA models were built with each dataset and relationships between the spectroscopic measurements and the traditional data were investigated using canonical correlations. The spectroscopic methods, especially fluorescence spectroscopy, demonstrated high performance for the discrimination between samples of the different brands, with high correlations between the spectral and traditional measurements. Although more validations of the results of this study are still required, these preliminary findings suggest that the destructive, laborious, and time-consuming traditional techniques can be replaced by rapid and nondestructive online measurements based on hyperspectral imaging used in fluorescence or diffuse reflectance mode.

Postprandial regulation of prouroguanylin in humans of a healthy weight and those who are overweight or with obesity.

Uroguanylin is a peptide gut hormone proposed to have a role in signalling post meal satiety. Uroguanylin circulates as its pro-hormone, prouroguanylin. There has been limited investigation of the regulation of prouroguanylin by food; therefore we investigated prouroguanylin regulation following meals. In separate experiments we investigated the effects of high calorie (1451 kcal) and medium calorie (725 kcal), high fat meals, on plasma prouroguanylin concentrations. We then examined the effect of a 722.5 kcal high carbohydrate breakfast on prouroguanylin concentrations, comparing the response in healthy weight adults versus those who are overweight/ with obesity. The 1451 kcal meal increased prouroguanylin concentrations, versus fasting at 60 (P < 0.05), 90 (P < 0.01) and 120 (P < 0.001) minutes. After the 725 kcal meal hormone concentrations rose more slowly and were significant versus fasting concentrations at 120 min (P < 0.01). The high carbohydrate breakfast 722.5 kcal, led to an initial suppression of hormone concentrations at 30 min. post meal (P < 0.05) followed by an increase in concentrations until they were significant versus fasting at 120 min. (P < 0.01). Participants overweight/ with obesity had lower fasting prouroguanylin concentrations (P < 0.05), but post meal concentrations did not differ between the groups. Our results suggest there is a delayed increase in prouroguanylin concentrations following, large and regular sized mixed macronutrient meals rich in fat or carbohydrate. Fasting levels are suppressed in people who are overweight/ with obesity, but the post meal response remains intact. There may be potential to target post meal release of prouroguanylin in obesity.

Patient trajectories in a Norwegian unit of municipal emergency beds.

OBJECTIVE: The Coordination reform was implemented in Norway from 2012, aiming at seamless patient trajectories. All municipalities are required to establish emergency care beds (MEBs) to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions. We aimed to examine occupancy rate, patient characteristics, diagnoses and discharge level of municipal care in a small MEB unit. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, observational study. SETTING: A two-bed emergency care unit. SUBJECTS: All patients admitted to the unit during one year. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Patients' age and gender, comorbidity, main diagnoses and municipal care level on admission and discharge, diagnostic and therapeutic initiatives, occupancy rate. RESULTS: Sixty admissions were registered, with total bed occupancy 194 days, and an occupancy rate of 0.27. The patients (median age 83 years, 57% women) had mostly infections, musculoskeletal symptoms or undefined conditions. Some 48% of the stays exceeded three days and 43% of the patients were subsequently transferred to nursing homes or hospitals. CONCLUSION: Occupancy rate was low. Patient selection was not according to national standards, and stays were longer. Many patients were transferred to nursing homes, indicating that the unit was an intermediate pathway or a short cut to institutional care. It is unclear whether the unit avoided hospital admissions.

Automatic nematode detection in cod fillets (Gadus morhua) by transillumination hyperspectral imaging.

Traditional quality control of cod fillets is currently made by manual inspection on candling tables. This is a time consuming and expensive operation, contributing to a significant share of the cost with cod fillet production. In this study, transillumination hyperspectral imaging was implemented as a method for automatic nematode detection in cod fillets moving on a conveyer belt, and evaluated on industrially processed cod fillets. An overall detection rate of 58% of all nematodes (N= 922), with detection rate of 71% and 46% for dark and pale nematodes, respectively, is reported. This is comparable, or better, than what is reported for manual inspection under industrial conditions. The false alarm rate was high, with 60% of the fillets reported with one or more false alarms. These results show that the method is promising, but needs further refinements to reduce the false alarm rate and increase the imaging speed from 25 to 400 mm/s. Practical Application: Manual inspection of cod fillets is a huge bottleneck for the industry, accounting for half the production cost with cod fillet processing and reducing the processing speed. Transillumination hyperspectral imaging has the potential to reduce the manual labor required for cod fillet inspection and hence reduce the cost and increase the end product quality.

Casein haplotypes and their association with milk production traits in Norwegian Red cattle.

A high resolution SNP map was constructed for the bovine casein region to identify haplotype structures and study associations with milk traits in Norwegian Red cattle. Our analyses suggest separation of the casein cluster into two haplotype blocks, one consisting of the CSN1S1, CSN2 and CSN1S2 genes and another one consisting of the CSN3 gene. Highly significant associations with both protein and milk yield were found for both single SNPs and haplotypes within the CSN1S1-CSN2-CSN1S2 haplotype block. In contrast, no significant association was found for single SNPs or haplotypes within the CSN3 block. Our results point towards CSN2 and CSN1S2 as the most likely loci harbouring the underlying causative DNA variation. In our study, the most significant results were found for the SNP CSN2_67 with the C allele consistently associated with both higher protein and milk yields. CSN2_67 calls a C to an A substitution at codon 67 in beta-casein gene resulting in histidine replacing proline in the amino acid sequence. This polymorphism determines the protein variants A1/B (CSN2_67 A allele) versus A2/A3 (CSN2_67 C allele). Other studies have suggested that a high consumption of A1/B milk may affect human health by increasing the risk of diabetes and heart diseases. Altogether these results argue for an increase in the frequency of the CSN2_67 C allele or haplotypes containing this allele in the Norwegian Red cattle population by selective breeding.

Quantitative trait locus-by-environment interaction for milk yield traits on Bos taurus autosome 6.

Genotype-by-environment interactions for production traits in dairy cattle have often been observed, while QTL analyses have focused on detecting genes with general effects on production traits. In this study, a QTL search for genes with environmental interaction for the traits milk yield, protein yield, and fat yield were performed on Bos taurus autosome 6 (BTA6), also including information about the previously investigated candidate genes ABCG2 and OPN. The animals in the study were Norwegian Red. Eighteen grandsires and 716 sires were genotyped for 362 markers on BTA6. Every marker bracket was regarded as a putative QTL position. The effects of the candidate genes and the putative QTL were modeled as a regression on an environmental parameter (herd year), which is based on the predicted herd-year effect for the trait. Two QTL were found to have environmentally dependent effects on milk yield. These QTL were located 3.6 cM upstream and 9.1 cM downstream from ABCG2. No environmentally dependent QTL was found to significantly affect protein or fat yield.

Detection of nematodes in cod (Gadus morhua) fillets by imaging spectroscopy.

A promising method for detection of parasites in whitefish fillets has been developed. By use of imaging spectroscopy it is possible to record both spectral and spatial information from an object. In this work it is shown that by applying a white light transmission setup and imaging spectroscopy to cod (Gadus morhua) fillets, it is possible to make spectral images containing information to differentiate between fish muscle and parasites. The spectral images are analyzed by discriminant partial least square regression as well as image-filtering techniques. The method identifies parasites on the surface of the fillets as well as embedded parasites. One parasite was detected at 0.8 cm below the fillet surface, which is 2 to 3 mm deeper than what can be found by manual inspection of fish fillets. The method is nonintrusive and should thus be feasible for industrial purposes.

Effects of single wavelength selection for Anisakid roundworm larvae detection through multispectral imaging.

The occurrence of parasites in fillets of commercially important fish species affects both food quality and safety. Presently, the detection and removal of nematode parasites is done by inspection on a light table (candling) and manual trimming of the fillets. This operation is costly and time-consuming and is not effective for detecting and removing all the nematodes in the fillets. In the last decades, several alternative methods have been proposed, but these methods have failed to replace the candling method. A newly described method called imaging spectroscopy has produced promising results because the operator can record both spectral and spatial information from an object. In this work, we studied single-wavelength bands from a spectral image. Discrimination between nematodes and other objects in the fillets is dependent on the level of contrast. Quantification of the contrast in such images revealed that the level of contrast varied when different wavelengths were selected, and these variations are correlated with the absorption properties of the nematode. Visible light scatters greatly in fish muscle, generally complicating the detection of nematodes. In this study, light scattering was used in a way that reduces the background complexity in spectral images. When light scattering properties were used in a wavelength range different from the bulk of the nematode light absorption, spectral images with significantly higher contrast were produced.

Genetic support for a quantitative trait nucleotide in the ABCG2 gene affecting milk composition of dairy cattle.

BACKGROUND: Our group has previously identified a quantitative trait locus (QTL) affecting fat and protein percentages on bovine chromosome 6, and refined the QTL position to a 420-kb interval containing six genes. Studies performed in other cattle populations have proposed polymorphisms in two different genes (ABCG2 and OPN) as the underlying functional QTL nucleotide. Due to these conflicting results, we have included these QTNs, together with a large collection of new SNPs produced from PCR sequencing, in a dense marker map spanning the QTL region, and reanalyzed the data using a combined linkage and linkage disequilibrium approach. RESULTS: Our results clearly exclude the OPN SNP (OPN_3907) as causal site for the QTL. Among 91 SNPs included in the study, the ABCG2 SNP (ABCG2_49) is clearly the best QTN candidate. The analyses revealed the presence of only one QTL for the percentage traits in the tested region. This QTL was completely removed by correcting the analysis for ABCG2_49. Concordance between the sires' marker genotypes and segregation status for the QTL was found for ABCG2_49 only. The C allele of ABCG2_49 is found in a marker haplotype that has an extremely negative effect on fat and protein percentages and positive effect on milk yield. Of the 91 SNPs, ABCG2_49 was the only marker in perfect linkage disequilibrium with the QTL. CONCLUSION: Based on our results, OPN_3907 can be excluded as the polymorphism underlying the QTL. The results of this and other papers strongly suggest the [A/C] mutation in ABCG2_49 as the causal mutation, although the possibility that ABCG2_49 is only a marker in perfect LD with the true mutation can not be completely ruled out.

Mapping of a milk production quantitative trait locus to a 420-kb region on bovine chromosome 6.

A QTL affecting milk production traits was previously mapped to an interval of 7.5 cM on chromosome 6 in Norwegian dairy cattle. This article aimed to refine this position by increasing the map density in the region by a set of single-nucleotide polymorphisms and analyzing the data with a combined linkage and linkage disequilibrium approach. Through a series of single- and multitrait and single- and multipoint analyses, the QTL was positioned to an interval surrounded by the genes ABCG2 and LAP3. As no recombinations were detected in this interval, physical mapping was required for further refining. By using radiation hybrid mapping as well as BAC clones, the bovine and human comparative maps in the region are resolved, and the QTL is mapped within a distance of 420 kb.

Compounds of parasitic roundworm absorbing in the visible region: target molecules for detection of roundworm in Atlantic cod.

The objective of this study was to contribute to the development of technology that will be able to replace manual operations in processing of fish fillets. Removal of parasites, black lining, remnants of skin, and bloodstains are costly and time-consuming operations to the fish processing industry. The presence of parasites in fish products tends to spoil consumers' appetites. Recent reports questioning the safety of eating cod infected with parasites might lower consumer acceptance of seafood. Presently, parasites are detected and removed manually. An average efficiency of about 75% under commercial conditions has been reported. In this study, we focused on biochemical differences between cod muscle and the prevalent anisakine nematode species (Anisakis simplex and Pseudoterranova decipiens) infecting Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). Using reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography equipped with a photodiode array detector, substances absorbing in the range 300 to 600 nm were identified in extracts from parasite material. These substances were not detected in extracts from cod tissue. Significant biochemical differences between cod muscle and parasite material have thus been demonstrated.