| 1. |
- Ades, M., et al.
(författare)
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Global Climate : in State of the climate in 2019
- 2020
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Ingår i: Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society - (BAMS). - : American Meteorological Society. - 0003-0007 .- 1520-0477. ; 101:8, s. S17-S127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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| 2. |
- Ades, M., et al.
(författare)
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GLOBAL CLIMATE
- 2020
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Ingår i: BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY. - 0003-0007 .- 1520-0477. ; 101:8, s. S17-S127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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| 3. |
- Scepanovic, Petar, et al.
(författare)
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Human genetic variants and age are the strongest predictors of humoral immune responses to common pathogens and vaccines
- 2018
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Ingår i: Genome Medicine. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1756-994X. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Humoral immune responses to infectious agents or vaccination vary substantially among individuals, and many of the factors responsible for this variability remain to be defined. Current evidence suggests that human genetic variation influences (i) serum immunoglobulin levels, (ii) seroconversion rates, and (iii) intensity of antigen-specific immune responses. Here, we evaluated the impact of intrinsic (age and sex), environmental, and genetic factors on the variability of humoral response to common pathogens and vaccines. Methods: We characterized the serological response to 15 antigens from common human pathogens or vaccines, in an age- and sex-stratified cohort of 1000 healthy individuals (Milieu Intérieur cohort). Using clinical-grade serological assays, we measured total IgA, IgE, IgG, and IgM levels, as well as qualitative (serostatus) and quantitative IgG responses to cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, herpes simplex virus 1 and 2, varicella zoster virus, Helicobacter pylori, Toxoplasma gondii, influenza A virus, measles, mumps, rubella, and hepatitis B virus. Following genome-wide genotyping of single nucleotide polymorphisms and imputation, we examined associations between ~5 million genetic variants and antibody responses using single marker and gene burden tests. Results: We identified age and sex as important determinants of humoral immunity, with older individuals and women having higher rates of seropositivity for most antigens. Genome-wide association studies revealed significant associations between variants in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II region on chromosome 6 and anti-EBV and anti-rubella IgG levels. We used HLA imputation to fine map these associations to amino acid variants in the peptide-binding groove of HLA-DRβ1 and HLA-DPβ1, respectively. We also observed significant associations for total IgA levels with two loci on chromosome 2 and with specific KIR-HLA combinations. Conclusions: Using extensive serological testing and genome-wide association analyses in a well-characterized cohort of healthy individuals, we demonstrated that age, sex, and specific human genetic variants contribute to inter-individual variability in humoral immunity. By highlighting genes and pathways implicated in the normal antibody response to frequently encountered antigens, these findings provide a basis to better understand disease pathogenesis.
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| 4. |
- Al-Adili, Ali, et al.
(författare)
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Studying fission neutrons with 2E-2v and 2E
- 2018
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Ingår i: SCIENTIFIC WORKSHOP ON NUCLEAR FISSION DYNAMICS AND THE EMISSION OF PROMPT NEUTRONS AND GAMMA RAYS (THEORY-4). - : EDP Sciences. - 9782759890316
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This work aims at measuring prompt-fission neutrons at different excitation energies of the nucleus. Two independent techniques, the 2E-2v and the 2E techniques, are used to map the characteristics of the mass-dependent prompt fission neutron multiplicity, 7(A), when the excitation energy is increased. The VERDI 2E-2v spectrometer is being developed at JRC-GEEL. The Fission Fragment (FF) energies are measured using two arrays of 16 silicon (Si) detectors each. The FFs velocities are obtained by time-of-flight, measured between micro-channel plates (MCP) and Si detectors. With MCPs placed on both sides of the fission source, VERDI allows for independent timing measurements for both fragments. Cf-252(sf) was measured and the present results revealed particular features of the 2E-2v technique. Dedicated simulations were also performed using the GEF code to study important aspects of the 2E-2v technique. Our simulations show that prompt neutron emission has a non-negligible impact on the deduced fragment data and affects also the shape of 17(A). Geometrical constraints lead to a total-kinetic energy-dependent detection efficiency. The 2E technique utilizes an ionization chamber together with two liquid scintillator detectors. Two measurements have been performed, one of Cf-252(sf) and another one of thermal-neutron induced fission in U-235(n,f). Results from Cf-252(sf) are reported here.
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| 5. |
- Arndt, D. S., et al.
(författare)
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State of the Climate in 2016
- 2017
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Ingår i: Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society - (BAMS). - 0003-0007 .- 1520-0477. ; 98:8, s. S1-S280
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 2016, the dominant greenhouse gases released into Earth's atmosphere-carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide-continued to increase and reach new record highs. The 3.5 +/- 0.1 ppm rise in global annual mean carbon dioxide from 2015 to 2016 was the largest annual increase observed in the 58-year measurement record. The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at Earth's surface surpassed 400 ppm (402.9 +/- 0.1 ppm) for the first time in the modern atmospheric measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800000 years. One of the strongest El Nino events since at least 1950 dissipated in spring, and a weak La Nina evolved later in the year. Owing at least in part to the combination of El Nino conditions early in the year and a long-term upward trend, Earth's surface observed record warmth for a third consecutive year, albeit by a much slimmer margin than by which that record was set in 2015. Above Earth's surface, the annual lower troposphere temperature was record high according to all datasets analyzed, while the lower stratospheric temperature was record low according to most of the in situ and satellite datasets. Several countries, including Mexico and India, reported record high annual temperatures while many others observed near-record highs. A week-long heat wave at the end of April over the northern and eastern Indian peninsula, with temperatures surpassing 44 degrees C, contributed to a water crisis for 330 million people and to 300 fatalities. In the Arctic the 2016 land surface temperature was 2.0 degrees C above the 1981-2010 average, breaking the previous record of 2007, 2011, and 2015 by 0.8 degrees C, representing a 3.5 degrees C increase since the record began in 1900. The increasing temperatures have led to decreasing Arctic sea ice extent and thickness. On 24 March, the sea ice extent at the end of the growth season saw its lowest maximum in the 37-year satellite record, tying with 2015 at 7.2% below the 1981-2010 average. The September 2016 Arctic sea ice minimum extent tied with 2007 for the second lowest value on record, 33% lower than the 1981-2010 average. Arctic sea ice cover remains relatively young and thin, making it vulnerable to continued extensive melt. The mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which has the capacity to contribute similar to 7 m to sea level rise, reached a record low value. The onset of its surface melt was the second earliest, after 2012, in the 37-year satellite record. Sea surface temperature was record high at the global scale, surpassing the previous record of 2015 by about 0.01 degrees C. The global sea surface temperature trend for the 21st century-to-date of +0.162 degrees C decade(-1) is much higher than the longer term 1950-2016 trend of +0.100 degrees C decade(-1). Global annual mean sea level also reached a new record high, marking the sixth consecutive year of increase. Global annual ocean heat content saw a slight drop compared to the record high in 2015. Alpine glacier retreat continued around the globe, and preliminary data indicate that 2016 is the 37th consecutive year of negative annual mass balance. Across the Northern Hemisphere, snow cover for each month from February to June was among its four least extensive in the 47-year satellite record. Continuing a pattern below the surface, record high temperatures at 20-m depth were measured at all permafrost observatories on the North Slope of Alaska and at the Canadian observatory on northernmost Ellesmere Island. In the Antarctic, record low monthly surface pressures were broken at many stations, with the southern annular mode setting record high index values in March and June. Monthly high surface pressure records for August and November were set at several stations. During this period, record low daily and monthly sea ice extents were observed, with the November mean sea ice extent more than 5 standard deviations below the 1981-2010 average. These record low sea ice values contrast sharply with the record high values observed during 2012-14. Over the region, springtime Antarctic stratospheric ozone depletion was less severe relative to the 1991-2006 average, but ozone levels were still low compared to pre-1990 levels. Closer to the equator, 93 named tropical storms were observed during 2016, above the 1981-2010 average of 82, but fewer than the 101 storms recorded in 2015. Three basins-the North Atlantic, and eastern and western North Pacific-experienced above-normal activity in 2016. The Australian basin recorded its least active season since the beginning of the satellite era in 1970. Overall, four tropical cyclones reached the Saffir-Simpson category 5 intensity level. The strong El Nino at the beginning of the year that transitioned to a weak La Nina contributed to enhanced precipitation variability around the world. Wet conditions were observed throughout the year across southern South America, causing repeated heavy flooding in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Wetter-than-usual conditions were also observed for eastern Europe and central Asia, alleviating the drought conditions of 2014 and 2015 in southern Russia. In the United States, California had its first wetter-than-average year since 2012, after being plagued by drought for several years. Even so, the area covered by drought in 2016 at the global scale was among the largest in the post-1950 record. For each month, at least 12% of land surfaces experienced severe drought conditions or worse, the longest such stretch in the record. In northeastern Brazil, drought conditions were observed for the fifth consecutive year, making this the longest drought on record in the region. Dry conditions were also observed in western Bolivia and Peru; it was Bolivia's worst drought in the past 25 years. In May, with abnormally warm and dry conditions already prevailing over western Canada for about a year, the human-induced Fort McMurray wildfire burned nearly 590000 hectares and became the costliest disaster in Canadian history, with $3 billion (U.S. dollars) in insured losses.
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| 6. |
- Gao, Zhihao
(författare)
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Isomeric yield ratios in nuclear fission
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Isomeric yield ratios (IYR), referring to the relative yield of the high spin states of a nucleus to the total yield of all observed states, is an observable of nuclear fission that has the potential to improve our understanding of the fission dynamics. Apart from that, systematic observations of IYRs can also contribute to other areas, such as the validation of fission models, modelling of the r-process in stellar nucleosynthesis, studies of the antineutrino mixing angle, the safety of present-day nuclear reactors, and the design of advanced reactor systems.With these motivations in mind, an IYR measurement in proton-induced fission was performed at the IGISOL facility in Jyväskylä, Finland. In the measurement, the Penning trap JYFLTRAP was used to separate the excited state from the ground state and to project those onto a position-sensitive MCP detector. The obtained phase images were used to train a Bayesian Gaussian Mixture model to identify the states. After considering corrections for the detector efficiency and radioactive decay, 19 IYRs were obtained.In this thesis, the measurement of IYRs with the IGISOL technique is described, and a systematic study of IYRs in proton-induced fission is presented. Furthermore, the measured ratios are compared with calculations using three different models: the Madland-England (ME) model, the fission model GEF, and the combination of GEF + TALYS. The experimental results show that, in general, the IYR decreases with the spins of measured states. While this, to some degree, confirms the ME model, variations in the IYR between nuclides with the same spin assignments reveal that the model is too simple to predict individual ratios. Furthermore,discrepancies in the IYRs between the measurement and GEF are observed in most cases, indicating a need to optimize the performance of GEF against nuclear data from proton-induced fission. The combination of GEF + TALYS results in an overall under estimation of the observedIYRs, which could be explained by the different assumptions used in GEF and TALYS.To investigate how the angular momenta of the primary fission fragments relate to the IYRs, a surrogate model of GEF has been developed. By reproducing the measured IYR with the calculated ratios from the model, the average angular momentum Jav, is deduced. The Jav for fission products with a mass number greater than 131 show a mass dependency which fits the parameterisation proposed by J. Wilson et al,. For IYRs in the mass region 119 ≤ A < 132, in which no measurements are presented by Wilson, a decrease in the Jav with increasing mass number is observed for the first time.Besides the study of IYRs, a benchmark of a multi-physics simulation model of the ion guide for neutron-induced fission products has been performed using γ-ray spectroscopy data. The results of the benchmark show that the high-energy part of the neutron flux from the simulation with MCNPX is overestimated by about 40 %, while the ion transportation simulated with GEANT4 agrees well with the experimental data. Based on the benchmark, the ion guide can be optimized to achieve high enough intensities of the collected ions to reach reasonable measurement times. In the next step, the addition of electric fields is considered to direct the ions in and to reduce the ion drifting time. However, this task lies outside the scope of this PhD thesis.
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| 7. |
- Patin, Etienne, et al.
(författare)
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Natural variation in the parameters of innate immune cells is preferentially driven by genetic factors
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nature Immunology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1529-2908 .- 1529-2916. ; 19, s. 302-314
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The quantification and characterization of circulating immune cells provide key indicators of human health and disease. To identify the relative effects of environmental and genetic factors on variation in the parameters of innate and adaptive immune cells in homeostatic conditions, we combined standardized flow cytometry of blood leukocytes and genome-wide DNA genotyping of 1,000 healthy, unrelated people of Western European ancestry. We found that smoking, together with age, sex and latent infection with cytomegalovirus, were the main non-genetic factors that affected variation in parameters of human immune cells. Genome-wide association studies of 166 immunophenotypes identified 15 loci that showed enrichment for disease-associated variants. Finally, we demonstrated that the parameters of innate cells were more strongly controlled by genetic variation than were those of adaptive cells, which were driven by mainly environmental exposure. Our data establish a resource that will generate new hypotheses in immunology and highlight the role of innate immunity in susceptibility to common autoimmune diseases.
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| 8. |
- Scepanovic, Petar, et al.
(författare)
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A comprehensive assessment of demographic, environmental, and host genetic associations with gut microbiome diversity in healthy individuals
- 2019
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Ingår i: Microbiome. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2049-2618. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: The gut microbiome is an important determinant of human health. Its composition has been shown to be influenced by multiple environmental factors and likely by host genetic variation. In the framework of the Milieu Intérieur Consortium, a total of 1000 healthy individuals of western European ancestry, with a 1:1 sex ratio and evenly stratified across five decades of life (age 20-69), were recruited. We generated 16S ribosomal RNA profiles from stool samples for 858 participants. We investigated genetic and non-genetic factors that contribute to individual differences in fecal microbiome composition. RESULTS: Among 110 demographic, clinical, and environmental factors, 11 were identified as significantly correlated with α-diversity, ß-diversity, or abundance of specific microbial communities in multivariable models. Age and blood alanine aminotransferase levels showed the strongest associations with microbiome diversity. In total, all non-genetic factors explained 16.4% of the variance. We then searched for associations between > 5 million single nucleotide polymorphisms and the same indicators of fecal microbiome diversity, including the significant non-genetic factors as covariates. No genome-wide significant associations were identified after correction for multiple testing. A small fraction of previously reported associations between human genetic variants and specific taxa could be replicated in our cohort, while no replication was observed for any of the diversity metrics. CONCLUSION: In a well-characterized cohort of healthy individuals, we identified several non-genetic variables associated with fecal microbiome diversity. In contrast, host genetics only had a negligible influence. Demographic and environmental factors are thus the main contributors to fecal microbiome composition in healthy individuals. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT01699893.
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