| 1. |
- Berg, Sofia, et al.
(författare)
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Using sensitivity analysis to identify keystone species and keystone links in size-based food webs
- 2011
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Ingår i: Oikos. - : Wiley. - 0030-1299 .- 1600-0706. ; 120:4, s. 510-519
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Human-induced alterations in the birth and mortality rates of species and in the strength of interactions within and between species can lead to changes in the structure and resilience of ecological communities. Recent research points to the importance of considering the distribution of body sizes of species when exploring the response of communities to such perturbations. Here, we present a new size-based approach for assessing the sensitivity and elasticity of community structure (species equilibrium abundances) and resilience (rate of return to equilibrium) to changes in the intrinsic growth rate of species and in the strengths of species interactions. We apply this approach on two natural systems, the pelagic communities of the Baltic Sea and Lake Vättern, to illustrate how it can be used to identify potential keystone species and keystone links. We find that the keystone status of a species is closely linked to its body size. The analysis also suggests that communities are structurally and dynamically more sensitive to changes in the effects of prey on their consumers than in the effects of consumers on their prey. Moreover, we discuss how community sensitivity analysis can be used to study and compare the fragility of communities with different body size distributions by measuring the mean sensitivity or elasticity over all species or all interaction links in a community. We believe that the community sensitivity analysis developed here holds some promise for identifying species and links that are critical for the structural and dynamic robustness of ecological communities.
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| 2. |
- Eriksson, Katarina, et al.
(författare)
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Vaginal retention of locally administered clindamycin
- 2011
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Ingår i: Acta Pathologica, Microbiologica et Immunologica Scandinavica (APMIS). - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0903-4641 .- 1600-0463. ; 119:6, s. 373-376
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Since bacterial vaginosis (BV) is characterized by a lack of, or very few, lactobacilli and high numbers of small, mostly anaerobic bacteria, an obvious treatment modality would be eradication of the BV-associated bacterial flora followed by reintroduction of lactobacilli vaginally. As probiotic treatment with lactobacilli is one tool for improving the cure rate when treating BV, it is necessary to know the length of time after treatment that clindamycin can be found in the vagina and if this could interfere with the growth of the probiotic lactobacilli. We evaluated the vaginal concentration of clindamycin in 12 women for 8 days to obtain data on the concentration of clindamycin in the vagina after intravaginal treatment with the drug. The participants were examined five times between two menstrual periods: before treatment, the day after treatment was finished, and 3, 5 and 8 days post-treatment. The first day post-treatment clindamycin 0.46 x 10-3 to 8.4 x 10-3 g/g vaginal fluid (median 2.87 x 10-3) was found. Thereafter, the concentration of clindamycin decreased rapidly. In 10 patients clindamycin was found after 3 days. A very low concentration was still present 5 days after treatment in four patients. After 8 days no clindamycin was found. Clindamycin is rapidly eliminated from the vagina, within 3-8 days, after local administration. Our results indicate that treatment with probiotic lactobacilli could be problematic if carried out within 5 days after cessation of clindamycin treatment.
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| 3. |
- Johansson, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Sleep, arousal and health-related quality of life in men and women with coronary artery disease.
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Clinical Nursing. - : Blackwell. - 0962-1067 .- 1365-2702. ; 20:19-20, s. 2787-2801
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aim. To evaluate whether there are gender differences in insomnia, sleep quality, sleep efficiency (%), general arousal, disease-specific and health-related quality of life in patients with coronary artery disease, compared with an age- and gender-matched randomly selected group from the general population. Background. There are gender difference effects of sleep disturbances in the general population, but this perspective among patients with coronary artery disease has been poorly analysed. Design. In this prospective study, comparative, descriptive and model testing designs were used. Method. The patients with coronary artery disease, 556 men and 324 women aged 25–86, were compared with a matched population-based group. Data were collected by validated and reliability-tested questionnaires. Results. The prevalence of severe insomnia varied between 17–44% in all four groups. The severe insomniac coronary artery disease patients displayed a two- or threefold higher presleep arousal, had two hours shorter nocturnal sleep duration/night and were more limited in their physical exercise level than the population-based group. Gender differences in sleep quality, sleep efficiency (%) and general arousal disappeared with increased insomnia severity. Conclusions. Independent of gender, age and comorbidity, physical exercise, general arousal behaviour and delayed poststress recovery after mental stress were found to have a negative impact on the coronary artery disease patients’ sleep quality and sleep efficiency (%), interfering with their health-related quality of life. The variables significantly explained 41% of the sleep quality outcome and 29% of the sleep efficiency (%). Relevance to clinical practice. Insomnia because of hyperarousal behaviour can be an important factor in the development of an individual self-care management programme supported by a healthcare team.
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| 4. |
- Larsson, Per-Göran, et al.
(författare)
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Extended antimicrobial treatment of bacterial vaginosis combined with human lactobacilli to find the best treatment and minimize the risk of relapses
- 2011
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Ingår i: BMC Infectious Diseases. - : BioMed Central. - 1471-2334. ; 11:223
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The primary objective of this study was to investigate if extended antibiotic treatment against bacterial vaginosis (BV) together with adjuvant lactobacilli treatment could cure BV and, furthermore, to investigate factors that could cause relapse. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanMethods: In all, 63 consecutive women with bacterial vaginosis diagnosed by Amsel criteria were offered a much more aggressive treatment of BV than used in normal clinical practice with repeated antibiotic treatment with clindamycin and metronidazole together with vaginal gelatine capsules containing different strains of lactobacilli both newly characterised and a commercial one (10(9) freeze-dried bacteria per capsule). Oral clindamycin treatment was also given to the patients sexual partner. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanResults: The cure rate was 74.6% after 6 months. The patients were then followed as long as possible or until a relapse. The cure rate was 65.1% at 12 months and 55.6% after 24 months. There was no significant difference in cure rate depending on which Lactobacillus strains were given to the women or if the women were colonised by lactobacilli. The most striking factor was a new sex partner during the follow up period where the Odds Ratio of having a relapse was 9.3 (2.8-31.2) if the patients had a new sex partner during the observation period. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanConclusions: The study shows that aggressive treatment of the patient with antibiotics combined with specific Lactobacillus strain administration and partner treatment can provide long lasting cure. A striking result of our study is that change of partner is strongly associated with relapse of BV.
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| 5. |
- Lee, Gauss, et al.
(författare)
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Modelling Early Infant Walking : Testing a Generic CPG Architecture on the NAO Humanoid
- 2011
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Ingår i: IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL), 2011. - : IEEE conference proceedings. - 9781612849898 ; , s. 1-6
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, a simple CPG network is shown to model early infant walking, in particular the onset of independent walking. The difference between early infant walking and early adult walking is addressed with respect to the underlying neurophysiology and evaluated according to gait attributes. Based on this, we successfully model the early infant walking gait on the NAO robot and compare its motion dynamics and performance to those of infants. Our model is able to capture the core properties of early infant walking. We identify differences in the morphologies between the robot and infant and the effect of this on their respective performance. In conclusion, early infant walking can be seen to develop as a function of the CPG network and morphological characteristics.
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| 6. |
- Lewander, Andreas, et al.
(författare)
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Expression of NF-kappa B p65 phosphorylated at serine-536 in rectal cancer with or without preoperative radiotherapy
- 2011
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Ingår i: Radiology and Oncology. - : Walter de Gruyter. - 1318-2099 .- 1581-3207. ; 45:4, s. 279-284
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background. In the present study, we investigated NF-kappa B p65 phosphorylated at Serine-536 (phosphor-Ser536-p65) in rectal cancer and its relationship to preoperative radiotherapy (RT), clinicopathological variables and biological factors. Patients and methods. Expression of phosphor-Ser536-p65 was examined by using immunohistochemistry in 141 primary rectal cancers, 149 normal mucosa specimens and 48 metastases in the lymph nodes, from rectal cancer patients who participated in a Swedish clinical trial of preoperative RT. Results. The expression of phosphor-Ser536-p65 in the cytoplasm increased from normal mucosa to primary tumour (p<0.0001, for both the group that did and the group that did not received RT). The expression did not further increase from primary tumour to metastasis in either group (p>0.05). Expression of phosphor-Ser536-p65 was positively related to, or tended to be related to, the expression of tumour endothelium marker 1 (TEM1, p=0.02), FXYD-3 (p=0.001), phosphatase of regenerating liver (PRL, p=0.02), p73 (p=0.048) and meningioma associated protein (MAC30, p=0.05) in the group that received RT but there were no such relationships in the group that did not received RT (p>0.05). The expression of phosphor-Ser536-p65 was not related to clinicopathological factors including survival (p>0.05). Conclusions. The increased expression of phosphor-Ser536-p65 may be involved in rectal cancer development. After RT, phosphor-Ser536-p65 seems to be positively related to the biological factors, which associated with more malignant features of tumours. However, phosphor-Ser536-p65 was not directly related to the response of RT based on recurrence and survival.
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| 7. |
- Li, Cai, et al.
(författare)
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Humanoids that crawl : Comparing gait performance of iCub and NAO using a CPG architecture
- 2011
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Ingår i: Proceedings - 2011 IEEE International Conference on Computer Science and Automation Engineering, CSAE 2011. - : IEEE conference proceedings. - 9781424487271 - 9781424487288 - 9781424487264 - 9781424487257 ; , s. 577-582
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, a generic CPG architecture is used to model infant crawling gaits and is implemented on the NAO robot platform. The CPG architecture is chosen via a systematic approach to designing CPG networks on the basis of group theory and dynamic systems theory. The NAO robot performance is compared to the iCub robot which has a different anatomical structure. Finally, the comparison of performance and NAO whole-body stability are assessed to show the adaptive property of the CPG architecture and the extent of its ability to transfer to different robot morphologies. © 2011 IEEE.
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| 8. |
- Lindström, Tom, et al.
(författare)
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The shape of the spatial kernel and its implications for biological invasions in patchy environments
- 2011
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : Royal Society. - 0962-8452 .- 1471-2954. ; 278:1711, s. 1564-1571
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ecological and epidemiological invasions occur in a spatial context. In the study presented we tested how these processes relate to the distance dependence of spread or dispersal between spatial entities such as habitat patches or infective units. The distance dependence was described by a spatial kernel which can be characterized by its shape, quantified by kurtosis, and width, quantified by the kernel variance. We also introduced a method to analyze or generate non randomly distributed infective units or patches as point pattern landscapes. The method is based on Fourier transform and consists of two measures in the spectral representation; Continuity that relates to autocorrelation and Contrast that refers to difference in density of patches, or infective units, in different areas of the landscape. The method was also used to analyze some relevant empirical data where our results are expected to have implications for ecological or epidemiological studies. We analyzed distributions of large old trees (Quercus and Ulmus) as well as the distributions of farms (both cattle and pig) in Sweden. We tested the invasion speed in generated landscapes with different amount of Continuity and Contrast. The results showed that kurtosis, i.e. the kernel shape, was not important for predicting the invasion speed in randomly distributed patches or infective units. However, depending on the assumptions of dispersal, it may be highly important when the distribution of patches or infective units deviates from randomness, in particular when the Contrast is high. We conclude that speed of invasions and spread of diseases depends on its spatial context through the spatial kernel intertwined to the spatial structure. This implies high demands on the empirical data; it requires knowledge of both shape and width of the spatial kernel as well as spatial structure of patches or infective units.
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| 9. |
- Lööf, Jasmine, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Impact of PINCH expression on survival in colorectal cancer patients
- 2011
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Ingår i: BMC CANCER. - : BioMed Central. - 1471-2407. ; 11:103
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The adaptor protein PINCH is overexpressed in the stroma of several types of cancer, and is an independent prognostic marker in colorectal cancer. In this study we further investigate the relationship of PINCH and survival regarding the response to chemotherapy in colorectal cancer. Results: Paraffin-embedded tissue sections from 251 primary adenocarcinomas, 149 samples of adjacent normal mucosa, 57 samples of distant normal mucosa and 75 lymph node metastases were used for immunohistochemical staining. Stromal staining for PINCH increased from normal mucosa to primary tumour to metastasis. Strong staining in adjacent normal mucosa was related to worse survival independently of sex, age, tumour location, differentiation and stage (p = 0.044, HR, 1.60, 95% Cl, 1.01-2.52). PINCH staining at the invasive margin tended to be related to survival (p = 0.051). In poorly differentiated tumours PINCH staining at the invasive margin was related to survival independently of sex, age and stage (p = 0.013, HR, 1.90, 95% Cl, 1.14-3.16), while in better differentiated tumours it was not. In patients with weak staining, adjuvant chemotherapy was related to survival (p = 0.010, 0.013 and 0.013 in entire tumour area, invasive margin and inner tumour area, respectively), but not in patients with strong staining. However, in the multivariate analysis no such relationship was seen. Conclusions: PINCH staining in normal adjacent mucosa was related to survival. Further, PINCH staining at the tumour invasive margin was related to survival in poorly differentiated tumours but not in better differentiated tumours, indicating that the impact of PINCH on prognosis was dependent on differentiation status.
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| 10. |
- Nöremark, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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Network analysis of cattle and pig movements in Sweden : Measures relevant for disease control and risk based surveillance
- 2011
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Ingår i: Preventive Veterinary Medicine. - : Elsevier. - 0167-5877 .- 1873-1716. ; 99:2-4, s. 78-90
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Registration ofcattle and pigmovements is mandatory in Sweden and all registered movements between farms in the years 2006–2008 were investigated using network analysis. The networks were analysed as monthly and yearly networks, separately per species and with the two species together. Measures that have been previously discussed in relation to outbreaks and disease control were calculated; moreover a measure of the ingoing infection chain was constructed.The ingoing infection chain captures in going contacts through other holdings, taking the temporal aspect and sequence of the movements into account. The distribution of the contacts among the holdings was skewed.Many farms had few or no contacts, while others had many, a pattern which has also been described from other countries. The cattle network and the combined network showed a recurring seasonal pattern, while this was not seen in the pig network.The in-degree was not equivalent to the ingoing infection chain; there were holdings with limited direct contacts, but a large number of indirect contacts.The ingoing infection chain could be a useful measure when setting up strategies for disease control and for risk based surveillance as it identifies holdings with many contacts through live animal movements and thus at potentially higher risk for introduction of contagious diseases.
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