| 1. |
- Lindqvist, Per, et al.
(författare)
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Are suicides by jumping off bridges preventable? An analysis of 50 cases from Sweden.
- 2004
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Ingår i: Accident; analysis and prevention. - 0001-4575. ; 36:4, s. 691-4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This is a community-based sequential case series of 50 individuals who committed suicide by jumping from bridges in two regions of Sweden. Of the 50 subjects, 32 were men and 18 women, with a median age of 35 years. At least 40 had psychiatric problems. The frequency of suicide was highest during the summer months and during the weekends. A total of 27 bridges were used, with a total length of just under 9 km. Three bridges accounted for almost half of all suicides. Limiting the availability of one method of committing suicide is reported to reduce the overall suicide rate; why suicide and injury suicide preventive measures might be considered. Since this study demonstrates that few bridges attract suicide candidates, this injury mechanism needs to be acknowledged by the road system owners and included in the safety work.
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| 2. |
- Teigland, Robin, et al.
(författare)
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Investigating the Uppsala Biotech Cluster : Baseline Results from the 2004 Uppsala Biotech Cluster Survey
- 2004
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Just 65 kilometers to the north of Stockholm, Sweden, the Uppsala region has beenincreasingly receiving worldwide recognition during the past five years as a strongand dynamic cluster in the field of biotechnology. In 2003, Vinnova and theVinnväxt Program awarded Uppsala BIO – the Life Science Initiative a package offinancial support for a period of ten years to further support the region’sdevelopment and competitiveness. Uppsala BIO contracted CIND to facilitate inthis process, and one of CIND’s first activities was to conduct the 2004 UppsalaBiotech Cluster Survey. This survey was designed to gain an understanding of thecurrent “state of affairs” in the Uppsala biotech cluster, and selected survey resultsare presented in this report.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Lindqvist, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of oxygen tension on energetics of cultured vascular smooth muscle.
- 2002
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Ingår i: American Journal of Physiology: Heart and Circulatory Physiology. - : American Physiological Society. - 1522-1539 .- 0363-6135. ; 283:1, s. 110-117
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Chronic hypoxia is a clinically important condition known to cause vascular abnormalities. To investigate the cellular mechanisms involved, we kept rings of a rat tail artery for 4 days in hypoxic culture (HC) or normoxic culture (NC) (PO(2) = 14 vs. 110 mmHg) and then measured contractility, oxygen consumption (JO(2)), and lactate production (J(lac)) in oxygenated medium. Compared with fresh rings, basal ATP turnover (J(ATP)) was decreased in HC, but not in NC, with a shift from oxidative toward glycolytic metabolism. JO(2) during mitochondrial uncoupling was reduced by HC but not by NC. Glycogen stores were increased 40-fold by HC and fourfold by NC. Maximum tension in response to norepinephrine and the JO(2) versus tension relationship (JO(2) vs. high K(+) elicited force) were unaffected by either HC or NC. Force transients in response to caffeine were increased in HC, whereas intracellular Ca(2+) wave activity during adrenergic stimulation was decreased. Protein synthesis rate was reduced by HC. The results show that long-term hypoxia depresses basal energy turnover, impairs mitochondrial capacity, and alters Ca(2+) homeostasis, but does not affect contractile energetics. These alterations may form a basis for vascular damage by chronic hypoxia.
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| 5. |
- Lindqvist, Anders
(författare)
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Phenotypic modulation of vascular smooth muscle in organ culture
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Contraction of blood vessels for the regulation of blood flow and pressure is dependent on vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) located in the medial layer of the vascular wall. Adult, differentiated VSMC have a well developed contractile system and a low rate of proliferation. Under the influence of hormones, growth factors, inflammatory mediators and tissue factors, cells may modulate to a ”synthetic” phenotype, characterized by diminished contractility, a high rate of proliferation, and a tendency to migrate out of the organized tissue. Such cells are believed to form the ”neointima”, a thickening of the innermost layer of the wall characteristic of responses to endothelial injury, and important for the development of atherosclerotic lesions and of restenosis following vascular surgery. To study conditions of importance for maintaining the vessel wall in its contractile state, it is desirable to develop methods to keep blood vessels in organ culture, whereby tissue factors are preserved and experimental conditions can be well controlled. The aim of this thesis work was to study contractile and metabolic properties as well as biochemical composition and receptor expression in an arterial preparation (rat tail artery) kept in organ culture. After 4 days of culture arterial rings the morphology of the tissue was well preserved, but signs of phenotypic modulation were observed, particularly in the areas adjacent to the cut ends of the rings, where PDGF receptors appeared and the differentiation marker calponin was decreased. Culture with fetal calf serum (FCS) as growth promotor caused decreased contractility and ultrastructural signs of tissue damage. Detailed examination of this phenomenon disclosed that it is mainly caused by increased intracellular [Ca 2+ ]i , stimulated by vasoconstrictors present in FCS. Tight control of intracellular [Ca 2+ ]i is thus essential for tissue preservation. Cultured rings showed increased rate of lactate production but decreased O2 consumption, such that ATP production rate was the same as in fresh rings. Culture under hypoxia, however, caused reduced ATP production, suggesting decreased rate of energy consuming processes, such as protein turnover. Cultured rings maintained tension in hypoxic solution, in contrast to fresh rings. Reasons for this might be the increased reliance on glycolysis, and also an altered pattern of intracellular Ca 2+ waves, as revealed by laser scanning confocal microscopy. These results show that organ culture of vascular smooth muscle is useful for studying early events during phenotypic modulation in response to a variety of stimuli.
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| 6. |
- Lindqvist, Gunilla, et al.
(författare)
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Informal home caregiving in a gender perspective : A selected literature review
- 2004
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Ingår i: Vård i Norden. - 0107-4083 .- 1890-4238. ; 24:4, s. 26-30
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An informal home caregiver is a person (family member or friends) who takes care of or participates to some degree in the care of a person in the home. This study provides a selected review of literature published 1982-2003 of the informal home caregiving from a gender perspective. A computer-aided search using MEDLINE and CINAHL was carried out. The final number of articles was 45. The main findings were that there are differences in informal caregiving due to gender. Gender differences were found in categories such as affected lifeworld, health problems, managing ability and caregivers experience from caring for a care receiver with different diseases. It is of importance that the informal caregiver is involved in the planning and that a planning act takes place. If society involves the informal home caregiver we can avoid the caregiver being the hidden victim of illness and disability. It is known that burdensome caregiving can result in encroachment due to exhaustion.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Lindqvist, Niclas
(författare)
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Neurotrophic Factor Receptors in the Normal and Injured Visual System : Focus on Retinal Ganglion Cells
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The focus of this thesis is the life and death of adult retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). RGCs are neurons that convey visual information from the retina to higher centers in the brain. If the optic nerve is transected (ONT), adult RGCs die by a form of cell death called apoptosis, and a general hypothesis is that neurotrophic factors can support the survival of injured neurons.With the intention to gain knowledge about systems that can be used to decrease RGC death after ONT, we have studied growth factor receptors belonging to the tyrosine kinase family of receptors (RTK), known to mediate important cell survival signals. We found that the RTK Ret and its coreceptor GFRα1 were expressed by RGCs, and to test the above-mentioned hypothesis, we intraocularly administered glial cell-line derived factor, which activates a Ret-GFRα1 complex, and found transiently mediated RGC survival after ONT.To identify new, potential neurotrophic factor receptors expressed by RGCs, with the aim to improve RGC survival after ONT, we developed a method for the molecular analysis of acutely isolated RGCs. The method involves retrograde neuronal tracing, mechanical retinal layer-separation, and isolation of individual RGCs under UV-light for RT-PCR analysis. Using this method, in combination with degenerate PCR directed towards the tyrosine kinase domain, several RTKs were identified. Axl, Sky, VEGFR-2, VEGFR-3, CSF-1R, and PDGF-βR are expressed by adult RGCs, and considered to be receptors with potential neurotrophic activity. Other results have shown that RGCs may require depolarization or increase in intracellular cAMP levels in order to fully respond to exogenously added trophic factors. We found that melanocortin receptors (MCRs) were expressed by RGCs, and MCRs can mediate elevation of intracellular AMP. We observed that α-MSH induced neurite outgrowth from embryonic retinal cells, indicating that MCR ligands have direct effects on retinal cells. RTKs and their ligands may be involved in endogenous systems for neuronal repair within the visual system. BDNF, NT-3, FGF2, and HGFR all increased in the retina after ONT and may be a part of an activated system for neuronal repair locally within the retina.Adult axotomized RGCs die by apoptosis, therefore we examined the regulation of apoptotic genes after ONT. Bim and Bax increased in the retina after ONT, and may promote death of axotomized RGCs, whereas the increase in Bcl-2 may contribute to limit RGC apoptosis after ONT.All in all, this thesis provides insights into the expression and regulation of molecules involved in the death and survival of RGCs. The results have revealed a number of potential neurotrophic receptors expressed by RGCs, and both identified RTKs and MCRs will serve as new targets in therapeutic approaches aiming at counteraction of RGC death after injury.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Lindqvist, R, et al.
(författare)
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Smoking during pregnancy: comparison of self-reports and cotinine levels in 496 women
- 2002
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Ingår i: Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica. - : Wiley. - 1600-0412 .- 0001-6349. ; 81:3, s. 240-244
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective. To validate self-reported smoking habits in smoking pregnant women and estimate the prevalence of substantial exposure to passive smoking in non-smoking pregnant women. Design. Retrospective, quantitative study, consecutively collected samples. Setting. One antenatal clinic in Blekinge County, Sweden. Subjects. 509 pregnant women. Method. Information about smoking habits were taken from the antenatal records of 496 women (97%). Serum samples from these women were tested for cotinine, a nicotine metabolite. Main outcome measures. Self-reported smoking habits and cotinine levels in ng/mL. Results. Of 407 women, reporting to be non-smokers, 6% were most likely smokers, and 3% had cotinine levels suggesting exposure to substantial passive smoking. Of 60 women, reporting smoking 1-10 cigarettes per day, 32% were likely to smoke more. Conclusion. If the true facts about exposure to tobacco smoke are not revealed, a number of women who might benefit from information and support at the antenatal clinic will miss the opportunity of such assistance, resulting in increased risks for both the woman and her fetus.
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