Heidi Sivertsen

BACKGROUND: Depression is a prevalent and disabling condition in older persons (≥ 60 years) that increases the risk of mortality and negatively influences quality of life (QOL). The relationship between depression, or depressive symptoms, and QOL has been increasingly addressed by research in recent years, but a review that can contribute to a better understanding of this relationship in older persons is lacking. Against this background, we undertook a literature review to assess the relationship between depression and QOL in older persons. SUMMARY: Extensive electronic database searches revealed 953 studies. Of these, 74 studies fulfilled our criteria for inclusion, of which 52 were cross-sectional studies and 22 were longitudinal studies. Thirty-five studies were conducted in a clinical setting, while 39 were community-based epidemiological studies. A clear definition of the QOL concept was described in 25 studies, and 24 different assessment instruments were employed to assess QOL. Depressed older persons had poorer global and generic health-related QOL than nondepressed individuals. An increase in depression severity was associated with a poorer global and generic health-related QOL. The associations appeared to be stable over time and independent of how QOL was assessed. KEY MESSAGES: This review found a significant association between severity of depression and poorer QOL in older persons, and the association was found to be stable over time, regardless which assessment instruments for QOL were applied. The lack of a definition of the multidimensional and multilevel concept QOL was common, and the large variety of QOL instruments in various studies make a direct comparison between the studies difficult.

BACKGROUND: Norway introduced routine rotavirus immunization for all children born on or after September 1, 2014. We estimated the healthcare burden of all-cause gastroenteritis and rotavirus disease in children <5 years old to establish the prevaccine baseline and support the ongoing immunization program. METHODS: We examined national registry data on gastroenteritis-associated primary care consultations and hospitalizations for 2009-2013 and data on all deaths in children <5 years old reported during 2000-2013. We also established rotavirus hospital surveillance from February 2014 through January 2015. RESULTS: Before vaccine introduction, 114.5 cases per 1000 children <5 years old were treated in primary care and 11.8 children per 1000 were hospitalized with gastroenteritis annually. During hospital surveillance, rotavirus was detected in 65% (95% confidence interval: 60-70) of inpatient gastroenteritis cases. We estimated that 4.0 inpatient and 2.3 outpatient cases per 1000 children were seen in hospital with rotavirus disease annually, suggesting that 1 in 32 children was hospitalized by age 5. Additional 30.6 rotavirus cases per 1000 children consulted primary care annually or 1 in every 7 children by the age of 5 years. Rotavirus-associated mortality was estimated at 0.17 deaths per 100,000 children <5 years old, corresponding to 1 death every second year. CONCLUSIONS: Rotavirus remains the primary cause of severe gastroenteritis in children in Norway. The unique population-based registers, in combination with an established rotavirus surveillance platform, provide a well-suited setting to evaluate the impact of rotavirus vaccination.

Summary This is the second of two papers describing control experiments on a medium-scale slug rig. The first paper (Sivertsen et al. 2009) describes experiments performed on a small-scale laboratory rig built at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Department of Chemical Engineering. These experiments showed that, despite noisy measurements, it is possible, with feedback control, to "stabilize the flow" (i.e., to achieve reasonably smooth flow in the normally riser-induced severe slug-flow region) using only topside measurements. The question to be answered is whether these results also apply for larger riser systems. In the present paper, we look at some results obtained from a 10-m-high, 3-in.-diameter medium-scale test rig located at the Statoil Research Centre in Porsgrunn, Norway. Several cascade control structures are tested and compared, both with each other and with the results obtained from the small-scale NTNU loop. The rig was also modeled and analyzed using a simple three-state dynamic model. The new experiments were successful and confirm the results of Sivertsen et al. (2009) from the small-scale rig. The valve opening with nonslug flow operation could be increased from approximately 12% with no control to almost 24% with control using topside measurements only. This makes it possible to produce with a larger production rate and increase the total recovery from the producing oil field. The valve opening with control could be further increased to approximately 28% using measurements from the bottom of the riser, but such measurements may not be available in many cases.