| 21. |
- Jones, Geraint H., et al.
(författare)
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The Comet Interceptor Mission
- 2024
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Ingår i: Space Science Reviews. - : Springer Nature. - 0038-6308 .- 1572-9672. ; 220:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Here we describe the novel, multi-point Comet Interceptor mission. It is dedicated to the exploration of a little-processed long-period comet, possibly entering the inner Solar System for the first time, or to encounter an interstellar object originating at another star. The objectives of the mission are to address the following questions: What are the surface composition, shape, morphology, and structure of the target object? What is the composition of the gas and dust in the coma, its connection to the nucleus, and the nature of its interaction with the solar wind? The mission was proposed to the European Space Agency in 2018, and formally adopted by the agency in June 2022, for launch in 2029 together with the Ariel mission. Comet Interceptor will take advantage of the opportunity presented by ESA’s F-Class call for fast, flexible, low-cost missions to which it was proposed. The call required a launch to a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point. The mission can take advantage of this placement to wait for the discovery of a suitable comet reachable with its minimum Δ V capability of 600 ms − 1 . Comet Interceptor will be unique in encountering and studying, at a nominal closest approach distance of 1000 km, a comet that represents a near-pristine sample of material from the formation of the Solar System. It will also add a capability that no previous cometary mission has had, which is to deploy two sub-probes – B1, provided by the Japanese space agency, JAXA, and B2 – that will follow different trajectories through the coma. While the main probe passes at a nominal 1000 km distance, probes B1 and B2 will follow different chords through the coma at distances of 850 km and 400 km, respectively. The result will be unique, simultaneous, spatially resolved information of the 3-dimensional properties of the target comet and its interaction with the space environment. We present the mission’s science background leading to these objectives, as well as an overview of the scientific instruments, mission design, and schedule.
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| 22. |
- Kehoe, Laura, et al.
(författare)
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Make EU trade with Brazil sustainable
- 2019
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Ingår i: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 364:6438, s. 341-
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 23. |
- Shu, Xiang, et al.
(författare)
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Associations of obesity and circulating insulin and glucose with breast cancer risk : a Mendelian randomization analysis
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Journal of Epidemiology. - : OXFORD UNIV PRESS. - 0300-5771 .- 1464-3685. ; 48:3, s. 795-806
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: In addition to the established association between general obesity and breast cancer risk, central obesity and circulating fasting insulin and glucose have been linked to the development of this common malignancy. Findings from previous studies, however, have been inconsistent, and the nature of the associations is unclear. Methods: We conducted Mendelian randomization analyses to evaluate the association of breast cancer risk, using genetic instruments, with fasting insulin, fasting glucose, 2-h glucose, body mass index (BMI) and BMI-adjusted waist-hip-ratio (WHRadj BMI). We first confirmed the association of these instruments with type 2 diabetes risk in a large diabetes genome-wide association study consortium. We then investigated their associations with breast cancer risk using individual-level data obtained from 98 842 cases and 83 464 controls of European descent in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. Results: All sets of instruments were associated with risk of type 2 diabetes. Associations with breast cancer risk were found for genetically predicted fasting insulin [odds ratio (OR) = 1.71 per standard deviation (SD) increase, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.26-2.31, p = 5.09 x 10(-4)], 2-h glucose (OR = 1.80 per SD increase, 95% CI = 1.3 0-2.49, p = 4.02 x 10(-4)), BMI (OR = 0.70 per 5-unit increase, 95% CI = 0.65-0.76, p = 5.05 x 10(-19)) and WHRadj BMI (OR = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.79-0.91, p = 9.22 x 10(-6)). Stratified analyses showed that genetically predicted fasting insulin was more closely related to risk of estrogen-receptor [ER]-positive cancer, whereas the associations with instruments of 2h glucose, BMI and WHRadj BMI were consistent regardless of age, menopausal status, estrogen receptor status and family history of breast cancer. Conclusions: We confirmed the previously reported inverse association of genetically predicted BMI with breast cancer risk, and showed a positive association of genetically predicted fasting insulin and 2-h glucose and an inverse association of WHRadj BMI with breast cancer risk. Our study suggests that genetically determined obesity and glucose/insulin-related traits have an important role in the aetiology of breast cancer.
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| 24. |
- Beelen, Rob, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of long-term exposure to air pollution on natural-cause mortality : an analysis of 22 European cohorts within the multicentre ESCAPE project
- 2014
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Ingår i: The Lancet. - : Elsevier. - 0140-6736 .- 1474-547X. ; 383:9919, s. 785-795
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Few studies on long-term exposure to air pollution and mortality have been reported from Europe. Within the multicentre European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE), we aimed to investigate the association between natural-cause mortality and long-term exposure to several air pollutants. Methods We used data from 22 European cohort studies, which created a total study population of 367 251 participants. All cohorts were general population samples, although some were restricted to one sex only. With a strictly standardised protocol, we assessed residential exposure to air pollutants as annual average concentrations of particulate matter (PM) with diameters of less than 2.5 mu m (PM2.5), less than 10 mu m (PM10), and between 10 mu m and 2.5 mu m (PMcoarse), PM2.5 absorbance, and annual average concentrations of nitrogen oxides (NO2 and NOx), with land use regression models. We also investigated two traffic intensity variables-traffic intensity on the nearest road (vehicles per day) and total traffic load on all major roads within a 100 m buff er. We did cohort-specific statistical analyses using confounder models with increasing adjustment for confounder variables, and Cox proportional hazards models with a common protocol. We obtained pooled effect estimates through a random-effects meta-analysis. Findings The total study population consisted of 367 251 participants who contributed 5 118 039 person-years at risk (average follow-up 13.9 years), of whom 29 076 died from a natural cause during follow-up. A significantly increased hazard ratio (HR) for PM2.5 of 1.07 (95% CI 1.02-1.13) per 5 mu g/m(3) was recorded. No heterogeneity was noted between individual cohort effect estimates (I-2 p value=0.95). HRs for PM2.5 remained significantly raised even when we included only participants exposed to pollutant concentrations lower than the European annual mean limit value of 25 mu g/m(3) (HR 1.06, 95% CI 1.00-1.12) or below 20 mu g/m(3) (1.07, 1.01-1.13). Interpretation Long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution was associated with natural-cause mortality, even within concentration ranges well below the present European annual mean limit value.
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| 25. |
- Birney, Ewan, et al.
(författare)
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Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 447:7146, s. 799-816
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report the generation and analysis of functional data from multiple, diverse experiments performed on a targeted 1% of the human genome as part of the pilot phase of the ENCODE Project. These data have been further integrated and augmented by a number of evolutionary and computational analyses. Together, our results advance the collective knowledge about human genome function in several major areas. First, our studies provide convincing evidence that the genome is pervasively transcribed, such that the majority of its bases can be found in primary transcripts, including non-protein-coding transcripts, and those that extensively overlap one another. Second, systematic examination of transcriptional regulation has yielded new understanding about transcription start sites, including their relationship to specific regulatory sequences and features of chromatin accessibility and histone modification. Third, a more sophisticated view of chromatin structure has emerged, including its inter-relationship with DNA replication and transcriptional regulation. Finally, integration of these new sources of information, in particular with respect to mammalian evolution based on inter- and intra-species sequence comparisons, has yielded new mechanistic and evolutionary insights concerning the functional landscape of the human genome. Together, these studies are defining a path for pursuit of a more comprehensive characterization of human genome function.
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| 26. |
- Cox, Angela, et al.
(författare)
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A common coding variant in CASP8 is associated with breast cancer risk
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 39:3, s. 352-358
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) has been established to conduct combined case-control analyses with augmented statistical power to try to confirm putative genetic associations with breast cancer. We genotyped nine SNPs for which there was some prior evidence of an association with breast cancer: CASP8 D302H (rs1045485), IGFBP3 -202 C --> A (rs2854744), SOD2 V16A (rs1799725), TGFB1 L10P (rs1982073), ATM S49C (rs1800054), ADH1B 3' UTR A --> G (rs1042026), CDKN1A S31R (rs1801270), ICAM5 V301I (rs1056538) and NUMA1 A794G (rs3750913). We included data from 9-15 studies, comprising 11,391-18,290 cases and 14,753-22,670 controls. We found evidence of an association with breast cancer for CASP8 D302H (with odds ratios (OR) of 0.89 (95% confidence interval (c.i.): 0.85-0.94) and 0.74 (95% c.i.: 0.62-0.87) for heterozygotes and rare homozygotes, respectively, compared with common homozygotes; P(trend) = 1.1 x 10(-7)) and weaker evidence for TGFB1 L10P (OR = 1.07 (95% c.i.: 1.02-1.13) and 1.16 (95% c.i.: 1.08-1.25), respectively; P(trend) = 2.8 x 10(-5)). These results demonstrate that common breast cancer susceptibility alleles with small effects on risk can be identified, given sufficiently powerful studies.
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| 27. |
- Dimakopoulou, Konstantina, et al.
(författare)
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Air Pollution and Nonmalignant Respiratory Mortality in 16 Cohorts within the ESCAPE Project
- 2014
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Ingår i: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. - : American Thoracic Society. - 1073-449X .- 1535-4970. ; 189:6, s. 684-696
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rationale: Prospective cohort studies have shown that chronic exposure to particulate matter and traffic-related air pollution is associated with reduced survival. However, the effects on nonmalignant respiratory mortality are less studied, and the data reported are less consistent. Objectives: We have investigated the relationship of long-term exposure to air pollution and nonmalignant respiratory mortality in 16 cohorts with individual level data within the multicenter European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE). Methods: Data from 16 ongoing cohort studies from Europe were used. The total number of subjects was 307,553. There were 1,559 respiratory deaths during follow-up. Measurements and Main Results: Air pollution exposure was estimated by land use regression models at the baseline residential addresses of study participants and traffic-proximity variables were derived from geographical databases following a standardized procedure within, the ESCAPE study. Cohort-specific hazard ratios obtained by Cox proportional hazard models from standardized individual cohort analyses were combined using metaanalyses. We found no significant associations between air pollution exposure and nonmalignant respiratory mortality. Most hazard ratios were slightly below unity, with the exception of the traffic-proximity indicators. Conclusions: In this study of 16 cohorts, there was no-association between air pollution exposure and nonmalignant respiratory mortality.
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| 28. |
- Lorenzo, Francesco, et al.
(författare)
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Use All Your Skills, Not Only The Most Popular Ones
- 2020
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Ingår i: 2020 IEEE Conference on Games, CoG 2020. - : IEEE. ; , s. 682-685
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reinforcement Learning (RL) has shown promising results across various domains. However, applying it to develop gameplaying agents is challenging due to sparsity of extrinsic rewards, where agents get rewards from the environments only at the end of game levels. Previous works have shown that using intrinsic rewards is an effective way to deal with such cases. Intrinsic rewards allow to incorporate basic skills in agent policies to better generalize over various game levels. In a gameplay, it is common that certain actions (skills) are observed more often than others, which leads to a biased selection of actions. This problem boils down to a normalization issue in formulating the skill-based reward function. In this paper, we propose a novel solution to this problem by taking into account the frequency of all skills in the reward function. We show that our method improves the performance of agents by enabling them to select effective skills up to 2.5 times more frequently than that of the state-of-the-art in the context of the match-3 game Candy Crush Friends Saga.
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| 29. |
- Raaschou-Nielsen, Ole, et al.
(författare)
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Air pollution and lung cancer incidence in 17 European cohorts : prospective analyses from the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE)
- 2013
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Ingår i: The Lancet Oncology. - 1470-2045 .- 1474-5488. ; 14:9, s. 813-822
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Ambient air pollution is suspected to cause lung cancer. We aimed to assess the association between long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and lung cancer incidence in European populations.METHODS: This prospective analysis of data obtained by the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects used data from 17 cohort studies based in nine European countries. Baseline addresses were geocoded and we assessed air pollution by land-use regression models for particulate matter (PM) with diameter of less than 10 μm (PM10), less than 2·5 μm (PM2·5), and between 2·5 and 10 μm (PMcoarse), soot (PM2·5absorbance), nitrogen oxides, and two traffic indicators. We used Cox regression models with adjustment for potential confounders for cohort-specific analyses and random effects models for meta-analyses.FINDINGS: The 312 944 cohort members contributed 4 013 131 person-years at risk. During follow-up (mean 12·8 years), 2095 incident lung cancer cases were diagnosed. The meta-analyses showed a statistically significant association between risk for lung cancer and PM10 (hazard ratio [HR] 1·22 [95% CI 1·03-1·45] per 10 μg/m(3)). For PM2·5 the HR was 1·18 (0·96-1·46) per 5 μg/m(3). The same increments of PM10 and PM2·5 were associated with HRs for adenocarcinomas of the lung of 1·51 (1·10-2·08) and 1·55 (1·05-2·29), respectively. An increase in road traffic of 4000 vehicle-km per day within 100 m of the residence was associated with an HR for lung cancer of 1·09 (0·99-1·21). The results showed no association between lung cancer and nitrogen oxides concentration (HR 1·01 [0·95-1·07] per 20 μg/m(3)) or traffic intensity on the nearest street (HR 1·00 [0·97-1·04] per 5000 vehicles per day).INTERPRETATION: Particulate matter air pollution contributes to lung cancer incidence in Europe.FUNDING: European Community's Seventh Framework Programme.
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| 30. |
- Sim, Thomas G., et al.
(författare)
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Regional variability in peatland burning at mid-to high-latitudes during the Holocene
- 2023
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Ingår i: Quaternary Science Reviews. - : Elsevier. - 0277-3791 .- 1873-457X. ; 305
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon in the form of partly decomposed plant detritus. Drying associated with climate and land-use change may lead to increased fire frequency and severity in peatlands and the rapid loss of carbon to the atmosphere. However, our understanding of the patterns and drivers of peatland burning on an appropriate decadal to millennial timescale relies heavily on individual site-based reconstructions. For the first time, we synthesise peatland macrocharcoal re-cords from across North America, Europe, and Patagonia to reveal regional variation in peatland burning during the Holocene. We used an existing database of proximal sedimentary charcoal to represent regional burning trends in the wider landscape for each region. Long-term trends in peatland burning appear to be largely climate driven, with human activities likely having an increasing influence in the late Holocene. Warmer conditions during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (similar to 9e6 cal. ka BP) were associated with greater peatland burning in North America's Atlantic coast, southern Scandinavia and the Baltics, and Patagonia. Since the Little Ice Age, peatland burning has declined across North America and in some areas of Europe. This decline is mirrored by a decrease in wider landscape burning in some, but not all sub-regions, linked to fire-suppression policies, and landscape fragmentation caused by agricultural expansion. Peatlands demonstrate lower susceptibility to burning than the wider landscape in several instances, probably because of autogenic processes that maintain high levels of near-surface wetness even during drought. Nonetheless, widespread drying and degradation of peatlands, particularly in Europe, has likely increased their vulnerability to burning in recent centuries. Consequently, peatland restoration efforts are important to mitigate the risk of peatland fire under a changing climate. Finally, we make recommendations for future research to improve our understanding of the controls on peatland fires.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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