| 1. |
- Kurth, F, et al.
(författare)
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Large-scale analysis of structural brain asymmetries during neurodevelopment : Associations with age and sex in 4265 children and adolescents.
- 2024
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Ingår i: Human Brain Mapping. - 1065-9471 .- 1097-0193. ; 45:11, s. e26754-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Only a small number of studies have assessed structural differences between the two hemispheres during childhood and adolescence. However, the existing findings lack consistency or are restricted to a particular brain region, a specific brain feature, or a relatively narrow age range. Here, we investigated associations between brain asymmetry and age as well as sex in one of the largest pediatric samples to date (n = 4265), aged 1-18 years, scanned at 69 sites participating in the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis) consortium. Our study revealed that significant brain asymmetries already exist in childhood, but their magnitude and direction depend on the brain region examined and the morphometric measurement used (cortical volume or thickness, regional surface area, or subcortical volume). With respect to effects of age, some asymmetries became weaker over time while others became stronger; sometimes they even reversed direction. With respect to sex differences, the total number of regions exhibiting significant asymmetries was larger in females than in males, while the total number of measurements indicating significant asymmetries was larger in males (as we obtained more than one measurement per cortical region). The magnitude of the significant asymmetries was also greater in males. However, effect sizes for both age effects and sex differences were small. Taken together, these findings suggest that cerebral asymmetries are an inherent organizational pattern of the brain that manifests early in life. Overall, brain asymmetry appears to be relatively stable throughout childhood and adolescence, with some differential effects in males and females.
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| 2. |
- Thorgeirsson, T. E., et al.
(författare)
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A rare missense mutation in CHRNA4 associates with smoking behavior and its consequences
- 2016
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Ingår i: Molecular Psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1359-4184 .- 1476-5578. ; 21:5, s. 594-600
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using Icelandic whole-genome sequence data and an imputation approach we searched for rare sequence variants in CHRNA4 and tested them for association with nicotine dependence. We show that carriers of a rare missense variant (allele frequency = 0.24%) within CHRNA4, encoding an R336C substitution, have greater risk of nicotine addiction than non-carriers as assessed by the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (P = 1.2 x 10(-4)). The variant also confers risk of several serious smoking-related diseases previously shown to be associated with the D398N substitution in CHRNA5. We observed odds ratios (ORs) of 1.7-2.3 for lung cancer (LC; P = 4.0 x 10(-4)), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD; P = 9.3 x 10(-4)), peripheral artery disease (PAD; P = 0.090) and abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs; P = 0.12), and the variant associates strongly with the early-onset forms of LC (OR = 4.49, P = 2.2 x 10(-4)), COPD (OR = 3.22, P = 2.9 x 10(-4)), PAD (OR = 3.47, P = 9.2 x 10(-3)) and AAA (OR = 6.44, P = 6.3 x 10(-3)). Joint analysis of the four smoking-related diseases reveals significant association (P = 6.8 x 10(-5)), particularly for early-onset cases (P = 2.1 x 10(-7)). Our results are in agreement with functional studies showing that the human alpha 4 beta 2 isoform of the channel containing R336C has less sensitivity for its agonists than the wild-type form following nicotine incubation.
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| 3. |
- Di Benedetto, M. D., et al.
(författare)
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Wireless ventilation control for large-scale systems : The mining industrial case
- 2009
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Ingår i: 2009 6th IEEE Annual Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks Workshops. - 9781424439386
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mining ventilation is an interesting example of a large scale system with high environmental impact where advanced control strategies can bring major improvements. Indeed, one of the first objectives of modern mining industry is to fulfill environmental specifications [1] during the ore extraction and crushing, by optimizing the energy consumption or the production of polluting agents. The mine electric consumption was 4 % of total industrial electric demand in the US in 1994 (6 % in 2007 in South Africa) and 90 % of it was related to motor system energy [2]. Another interesting figure is given in [3] where it is estimated that the savings associated with global control strategies for fluid systems (pumps, fans and compressors) represent approximately 20 % of the total manufacturing motor system energy savings. This motivates the development of new control strategies for large scale aerodynamic processes based on appropriate automation and a global consideration of the system. More specifically, the challenge in this work is focused on the mining ventilation since as much as 50 % or more of the energy consumed by the mining process may go into the ventilation (including heating the air). It is clear that investigating automatic control solutions and minimizing the amount of pumped air to save energy consumption (proportional to the cube of airflow quantity [4]) is of great environmental and industrial interest.
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| 4. |
- D'Innocenzo, A., et al.
(författare)
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Scalable scheduling algorithms for wireless networked control systems
- 2009
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Ingår i: 2009 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. - : IEEE. - 9781424445783 ; , s. 409-414
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we address the problem of designing scalable scheduling and routing policies over a time-triggered multi-hop control network, when closing a considerable number of control loops on the same network. The key idea is to formally define by means of regular languages the set of schedules for each control loop that satisfy a given control specification, and to exploit operators on regular languages to compute the set of schedules for the whole system. In order to test our methodology, we address a mineral floatation control problem derived from the Boliden (a swedish mining company) mine in Garpenberg, and propose a scheduling solution that can be implemented on systems compliant with communication protocols for wireless networks (e.g. the WirelessHART specification).
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Thorgeirsson, Thorgeir E, et al.
(författare)
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A variant associated with nicotine dependence, lung cancer and peripheral arterial disease
- 2008
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 452:7187, s. 9-638
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Smoking is a leading cause of preventable death, causing about 5 million premature deaths worldwide each year(1,2). Evidence for genetic influence on smoking behaviour and nicotine dependence (ND)(3-8) has prompted a search for susceptibility genes. Furthermore, assessing the impact of sequence variants on smoking-related diseases is important to public health(9,10). Smoking is the major risk factor for lung cancer (LC)(11-14) and is one of the main risk factors for peripheral arterial disease (PAD)(15-17). Here we identify a common variant in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor gene cluster on chromosome 15q24 with an effect on smoking quantity, ND and the risk of two smoking- related diseases in populations of European descent. The variant has an effect on the number of cigarettes smoked per day in our sample of smokers. The same variant was associated with ND in a previous genomewide association study that used low- quantity smokers as controls(18,19), and with a similar approach we observe a highly significant association with ND. A comparison of cases of LC and PAD with population controls each showed that the variant confers risk of LC and PAD. The findings provide a case study of a gene - environment interaction(20), highlighting the role of nicotine addiction in the pathology of other serious diseases.
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| 7. |
- Witrant, E., et al.
(författare)
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Mining ventilation control : a new industrial case for wireless automation
- 2008
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper describes a new industrial case on wireless automation, for a large scale system with high environmental impact: the mining ventilation. We do not pretend to solve the global control problem but rather propose a novel approach based on distributed sensing/actuation capabilities, which can be allowed by the installation of an heterogeneous network in the underground process. Several key issues, such as the centralized vs. decentralized control, the macroscopic physical models for the main components and the network structure, are introduced to motivate future research along this line. We particularly highlight new grounds for the development of global control strategies that would allow for the energy consumption optimization of this large-scale system.
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| 8. |
- Witrant, E., et al.
(författare)
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Wireless ventilation control for large-scale systems : The mining industrial case
- 2010
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Ingår i: International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. - : Wiley. - 1049-8923 .- 1099-1239. ; 20:2, s. 226-251
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper describes a new industrial case on automation, for large-scale systems with high environmental impact: the mining ventilation control systems. Ventilation control is essential for the operation of a mine in terms of safety (CO and NO, regulation) and energy optimization. We first discuss a novel regulation architecture, highlighting the interest for a model-based control approach and the use of distributed sensing capabilities thanks to a wireless sensor network (WSN). We propose a new model for underground ventilation. The main components of the system dynamics are described with time-delays, transmission errors, energy losses and concentration profiles. Two different model-based control approaches, which can embody the complex dynamics of the system, are proposed. The first one resorts to a nonlinear model predictive control strategy (receding horizon) and aims to energy minimization, thanks to a continuous operation of the fans. The second one, based on a hybrid description of the model and fans operation, provides automatic verification of the wireless control thanks to abstraction techniques. These control strategies are compared with simulations, in terms of regulation efficiency, energy consumption and the need for computational capabilities. The industrial case description and control strategies open new vistas for the development of global system approaches that allow for the optimization of energy consumption of complex large-scale systems.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Horch, A., et al.
(författare)
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Detection of valve stiction in integrating processes
- 2001
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Ingår i: 2001 European Control Conference, ECC 2001. - : IEEE conference proceedings. - 9783952417362 ; , s. 1327-1332
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A simple method for detection of static friction (stiction) in control valves was presented in [6]. However, that method cannot be used for control loops with integrating processes. This paper presents a new method to handle these cases. The main idea is to detect abrupt changes (which are typical in the case of stiction) in the loop output. This is done by considering the probability distribution of the second derivative. In the stiction case the distribution is close to Gaussian, otherwise it will have two peaks.
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