Detection of extraneous water ingress into the sewer system using tandem methods - a case study in Trondheim city.

Infiltration and inflow (I/I) of extraneous water in separate sewer systems are serious concerns in urban water management for their environmental, social and economic consequences. Effective reduction of I/I requires knowing where excess water ingress and illicit connections are located. The present study focuses on I/I detection in the foul sewer network of a catchment in Trondheim, Norway, during a period without snowmelt or groundwater infiltration. Fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing (DTS) was used for the first time in Norway to detect I/I sources in tandem with closed-circuit television inspection (CCTV) and smoke testing. DTS was an accurate and feasible method for I/I detection, though it cannot identify exact types of failure and sources of I/I. Therefore, other complementary methods must be used, e.g. CCTV or smoke testing. However, CCTV was not completely useful in confirming the DTS results. This study provides practical insights for the rehabilitation and repair of sewer networks that suffer from the undesirable I/I of extraneous water.

A comparison of the result of a three-part study with the rights of cancer patients presented in public reports, laws and regulations.

People diagnosed with cancer often state that they are left to their own resources after receiving their diagnosis and possibly receiving treatment at a hospital. In all likelihood, most of those afflicted with cancer will require follow-up care. The Norwegian Cancer Plan of 1997 proposed that more should be done for people afflicted with cancer. With these factors as the starting point, a three-part study with use of interviews and questionnaires was conducted to identify and evaluate the scope of follow-up care in one Norwegian county with 26 municipalities in a sparsely populated region. This article examines consequences of the sickness for those afflicted. Next, the article discusses who is responsible for organizing follow-up care, and the related official reports, laws and regulations. The article also discusses the results of a three-part study that sought to identify those components of follow-up care that worked effectively and those that did not, with the aim of drafting a follow-up care programme.

Integrated urban water modelling with uncertainty analysis.

In the last twenty years, the scientific world has paid particular care towards the problems that involve the environment. Accordingly, several researches were developed to describe phenomena that take place during both wet and dry periods and to increase the knowledge in this field. In particular, attention was addressed towards the problems linked with receiving water body pollution because of the impact of rain water in the urban environment. In order to obtain a good description of the problem, it is important to analyse both quantity and quality aspects connected with all the transformation phases that characterise the urban water cycle. Today, according to this point, integrated modelling approach is spreading, aiming to find solutions to improve the quality characteristics of the receiving water body. Because several models are connected together for analysing the fate of pollutants from the sources on the urban catchment to the final recipient, classical problems connected with the selection and calibration of parameters are amplified by the complexity of the modelling approach increasing the uncertainty and reducing the reliability connected with a model's application. For this reason, a parsimonious integrated modelling approach has been developed and its uncertainty has been evaluated adopting the well known GLUE framework. For the purpose of the study, the uncertainty analysis has been applied to a "semi-hypothetic" case study obtained connecting Fossolo catchment (Bologna-Italy) to the Oreto river near Palermo (Italy).

Cancer patients' opinions concerning post-treatment follow-up.

Cancer is one of the most serious and widespread diseases known. Statistics show that of about 4 million Norwegians, every third person will be afflicted by some form of cancer during one's lifetime. Around 20,000 Norwegians receive this diagnosis yearly. People who have cancer often indicate that they feel neglected after they have received the diagnosis and perhaps hospital treatment. This article describes a survey in which a questionnaire was employed to map the services and post-treatment care offered by county health services to cancer patients. The form was sent to 199 persons between the age of 18 and 70, all of whom had been diagnosed with cancer from 6 months to 3 years earlier. The questionnaire was addressed directly to the patients, and distributed by mail. Both the Regional Medical Ethics Committee and the Information Protection Agency gave their approval with respect to how the patients and control group were selected, and to the general procedures used in the project. Eighty-six questionnaires were filled out and returned, giving a response rate of 43%. Of those who returned the form, 44 were women and 42 were men. Their average age was 57 years. The majority of those who responded to the questionnaire had been diagnosed for cancer at least 2 years earlier. Of the responding patients, 49 persons said that they had been declared cured, 25 answered that they were still ill and 12 did not reply to this question. The survey results indicate that few services or training programmes had been offered to the patients after their treatment was completed. This conclusion is corroborated by a questionnaire filled out by doctors and administrative leaders in the home-nursing programme as part of the same project. The cancer patients had not been clearly informed whether they should contact the hospital or the health services in their home county if they needed assistance. The patients also expressed a desire for better information and a more systematic post-treatment programme, as well as clear guidelines delineating the specific areas of responsibility assigned to hospitals and the local public health services.

Health, quality of life and cancer.

BACKGROUND: One in every three persons in Norway will be afflicted with some form of cancer during their lifetime. AIM: This article discusses the self-evaluations of health and quality of life by 86 people who were diagnosed with cancer 6 months to 3 years previously. METHOD: The Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form 36 (SF-36), developed to measure health status and outcome for both clinical practice and research, was sent to 199 cancer patients in a rural Norwegian county-municipality. Eighty-six questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 43%. Of the respondents, 44 were women and 42 were men. Their average age was 58 years. The majority had been diagnosed with cancer 2 years earlier, and 49 responded that they had been declared cured. RESULTS: Respondents scored lowest on the scale of 'physical role functions', which indicates the degree to which poor physical health influences daily activities, and on 'vitality', which reflects their perception of energy. CONCLUSIONS: Cancer victims in this study felt drained of energy for a long period after they had received their diagnosis. Those who had not been declared cured scored lower on all scales than those who have been declared healthy. These respondents apparently have poor health and quality of life. When compared with a nationally available study, the persons who have cancer are far more drained of energy than the population as a whole. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Health personnel need to take more responsibility for the follow-up of persons with cancer throughout all stages of illness. More concern should be paid particularly to psychosocial needs.

The hydraulic capacity of deteriorating sewer systems.

Sewer and wastewater systems suffer from insufficient capacity, construction flaws and pipe deterioration. Consequences are structural failures, local floods, surface erosion and pollution of receiving waters bodies. European cities spend in the order of five billion Euro per year for wastewater network rehabilitation. This amount is estimated to increase due to network ageing. The project CARE-S (Computer Aided RE-habilitation of Sewer Networks) deals with sewer and storm water networks. The final project goal is to develop integrated software, which provides the most cost-efficient system of maintenance, repair and rehabilitation of sewer networks. Decisions on investments in rehabilitation often have to be made with uncertain information about the structural condition and the hydraulic performance of a sewer system. Because of this, decision-making involves considerable risks. This paper presents the results of research focused on the study of hydraulic effects caused by failures due to temporal decline of sewer systems. Hydraulic simulations are usually carried out by running commercial models that apply, as input, default values of parameters that strongly influence results. Using CCTV inspections information as dataset to catalogue principal types of failures affecting pipes, a 3D model was used to evaluate their hydraulic consequences. The translation of failures effects in parameters values producing the same hydraulic conditions caused by failures was carried out through the comparison of laboratory experiences and 3D simulations results. Those parameters could be the input of 1D commercial models instead of the default values commonly inserted.

What is it like living with the diagnosis of cancer?

This article discusses in-depth interviews of 12 persons, who had been diagnosed for cancer from 6 months to 3 years earlier, concerning what it is like to live with the diagnosis of cancer. The persons interviewed were aged 43-70 years, and 11 of the 12 had received successful radical treatment; one patient was treated for symptoms, but with an uncertain future development. This investigation shows that the period of waiting from the first suspicion of cancer until diagnosis confirmation of the disease was a period of great stress, and that the following period until the commencement of treatment was also a very difficult one. The investigation also shows that there was no follow-up of individual patients concerning their need to talk about their difficult new life-situation brought about by the disease. Receiving the diagnosis of cancer was remembered as being a very dramatic experience for the informants. The informants were satisfied with the medical treatment they received, but they also feel that there should have been some kind of programme available to care for their psycho-social needs. In the rehabilitation phase, they feel that they were left to their own resources; during this period, they felt physically and mentally drained, and they did not have the knowledge to tackle their new and difficult life-situation. The threat of new cancer cells being discovered is always with patients. Attending the check-ups is also described as a period of stress.

[Frequency and clinical consequences of self-injection among salmon vaccinators]. / Hyppighet og kliniske følger av selvstikk hos laksevaksinatører.

As general practitioners in one of Norways largest fish farming regions, we carried out a prospective study of 12 vaccinators of salmon in order to determine the frequency of self-injection, and the subsequent clinical reactions. The study was carried out in close cooperation with the local responsible veterinarian. We recorded 2,430,615 vaccinations of vaccine in salmon and smolt during the spring of 1992, with 12 accidental self-injections among the vaccinators. Clinical reactions were reported in four cases. There were only moderate local reactions. In our opinion, most of the reactions were of an inflammatory nature and were not caused by microbial infection. We question the first-choice, routine treatment with antibiotics that has been practised by physicians.