| 31. |
- Backman, Helena, et al.
(author)
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FEV1 decline in relation to blood eosinophils and neutrophils in a population-based asthma cohort
- 2020
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In: World Allergy Organization Journal. - : Elsevier. - 1939-4551. ; 13:3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: The relationship between lung function decline and eosinophils and neutrophils has important therapeutic implications among asthmatics, but it has rarely been studied in large cohort studies.Objective: The aim is to study the relationship between blood eosinophils and neutrophils and FEV1 decline in a long-term follow-up of a population-based adult asthma cohort.Methods: In 2012-2014, an adult asthma cohort was invited to a follow-up including spirometry, blood sampling, and structured interviews, and n = 892 participated (55% women, mean age 59 y, 32-92 y). Blood eosinophils, neutrophils and FEV 1 decline were analyzed both as continuous variables and divided into categories with different cut-offs. Regression models adjusted for smoking, exposure to vapors, gas, dust, or fumes (VGDF), use of inhaled and oral corticosteroids, and other possible confounders were utilized to analyze the relationship between eosinophils and neutrophils at follow-up and FEV1 decline.Results: The mean follow-up time was 18 years, and the mean FEV 1 decline was 27 ml/year. The annual FEV1 decline was related to higher levels of both blood eosinophils and neutrophils at follow-up, but only the association with eosinophils remained when adjusted for confounders. Further, the association between FEV1 decline and eosinophils was stronger among those using ICS. With EOS <0.3 × 109/L as reference, a more rapid decline in FEV1 was independently related to EOS ≥0.4 × 109/L in adjusted analyses.Conclusions and clinical relevance: Besides emphasizing the importance of smoking cessation and reduction of other harmful exposures, our real-world results indicate that there is an independent relationship between blood eosinophils and FEV1 decline among adults with asthma.
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| 32. |
- Backman, Helena, et al.
(author)
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Severe asthma : A population study perspective
- 2019
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In: Clinical and Experimental Allergy. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0954-7894 .- 1365-2222. ; 49:6, s. 819-828
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BackgroundSevere asthma is a considerable challenge for patients, health care professionals and society. Few studies have estimated the prevalence of severe asthma according to modern definitions of which none based on a population study.ObjectiveTo describe characteristics and estimate the prevalence of severe asthma in a large adult population‐based asthma cohort followed for 10‐28 years.MethodsN=1006 subjects with asthma participated in a follow‐up during 2012‐14, when 830 (mean age 59y, 56% women) still had current asthma. Severe asthma was defined according to three internationally well‐known criteria: the ATS workshop definition from 2000 used in the US Severe Asthma Research Program (SARP), the 2014 ATS/ERS Task force definition and the GINA 2017. All subjects with severe asthma according to any of these criteria were undergoing respiratory specialist care, and were also contacted by telephone to verify treatment adherence.ResultsThe prevalence of severe asthma according to the three definitions was 3.6% (US SARP), 4.8% (ERS/ATS Taskforce), and 6.1% (GINA) among subjects with current asthma. Although all were using high ICS doses and other maintenance treatment, >40% had uncontrolled asthma according to the asthma control test. Severe asthma was related to age >50 years, nasal polyposis, impaired lung function, sensitization to aspergillus, and tended to be more common in women. Further, neutrophils in blood significantly discriminated severe asthma from other asthma.Conclusions and clinical relevanceSevere asthma differed significantly from other asthma in terms of demographic, clinical and inflammatory characteristics, results suggesting possibilities for improved treatment regimens of severe asthma. The prevalence of severe asthma in this asthma cohort was 4‐6%, corresponding to approximately 0.5% of the general population.
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| 33. |
- Backman, Helena, et al.
(author)
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Severe asthma among adults : Prevalence and clinical characteristics
- 2018
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In: European Respiratory Journal. - : European Respiratory Society. - 0903-1936 .- 1399-3003. ; 52
-
Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: Severe asthma is a considerable challenge for patients, health care professionals and society. Few studies have estimated the prevalence of severe asthma according to modern definitions of which none based on a population study.Methods: We estimated the prevalence and studied characteristics of severe asthma in a large adult population-based asthma cohort followed for 10-28 years in northern Sweden: 1006 subjects participated in a follow-up during 2012-14, when 830 (82.5%) still had current asthma (mean age 59y, 32-92y, 56% women). Severe asthma was defined according to three internationally well-known criteria: the US SARP, ATS/ERS and GINA. All subjects with severe asthma were undergoing respiratory specialist care, and were also contacted by telephone to verify adherence to treatment.Results: The prevalence of severe asthma according to the three definitions was 3.6% (US SARP), 4.8% (ERS/ATS), and 6.1% (GINA) among subjects with current asthma. Although all were using high ICS doses and other maintenance treatment, >40% had uncontrolled asthma and <10% had controlled asthma according to the ACT. Severe asthma was related to age >50 years, nasal polyposis, decreased FEV1, not fully reversible airway obstruction, sensitization to aspergillus, elevated neutrophils and partly to eosinophils, and tended to be more common in women.Conclusion: The prevalence of severe asthma in this asthma cohort was 4-6%, corresponding to approximately 0.5% of the population in northern Sweden. A substantial proportion of those with severe asthma had uncontrolled disease, and severe asthma differed significantly from other asthma in terms of both clinical and inflammatory characteristics.
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| 34. |
- Barath, Stefan, et al.
(author)
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Impaired vascular function after exposure to diesel exhaust generated at urban transient running conditions
- 2010
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In: Particle and Fibre Toxicology. - : BioMed Central. - 1743-8977. ; 7:1, s. 19-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Traffic emissions including diesel engine exhaust are associated with increased respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Controlled human exposure studies have demonstrated impaired vascular function after inhalation of exhaust generated by a diesel engine under idling conditions.OBJECTIVES: To assess the vascular and fibrinolytic effects of exposure to diesel exhaust generated during urban-cycle running conditions that mimic ambient 'real-world' exposures.METHODS: In a randomised double-blind crossover study, eighteen healthy male volunteers were exposed to diesel exhaust (approximately 250 mug/m3) or filtered air for one hour during intermittent exercise. Diesel exhaust was generated during the urban part of the standardized European Transient Cycle. Six hours post-exposure, vascular vasomotor and fibrinolytic function was assessed during venous occlusion plethysmography with intra-arterial agonist infusions.MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Forearm blood flow increased in a dose-dependent manner with both endothelial-dependent (acetylcholine and bradykinin) and endothelial-independent (sodium nitroprusside and verapamil) vasodilators. Diesel exhaust exposure attenuated the vasodilatation to acetylcholine (P < 0.001), bradykinin (P < 0.05), sodium nitroprusside (P < 0.05) and verapamil (P < 0.001). In addition, the net release of tissue plasminogen activator during bradykinin infusion was impaired following diesel exhaust exposure (P < 0.05).CONCLUSION: Exposure to diesel exhaust generated under transient running conditions, as a relevant model of urban air pollution, impairs vasomotor function and endogenous fibrinolysis in a similar way as exposure to diesel exhaust generated at idling. This indicates that adverse vascular effects of diesel exhaust inhalation occur over different running conditions with varying exhaust composition and concentrations as well as physicochemical particle properties. Importantly, exposure to diesel exhaust under ETC conditions was also associated with a novel finding of impaired of calcium channel-dependent vasomotor function. This implies that certain cardiovascular endpoints seem to be related to general diesel exhaust properties, whereas the novel calcium flux-related effect may be associated with exhaust properties more specific for the ETC condition, for example a higher content of diesel soot particles along with their adsorbed organic compounds.
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| 35. |
- Barath, Stefan, 1963-, et al.
(author)
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Short-Term Exposure to Ozone Does Not Impair Vascular Function or Affect Heart Rate Variability in Healthy Young Men
- 2013
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In: Toxicological Sciences. - : Oxford University Press. - 1096-6080 .- 1096-0929. ; 135:2, s. 292-299
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Air pollution exposure is associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, yet the role of individual pollutants remains unclear. In particular, there is uncertainty regarding the acute effect of ozone exposure on cardiovascular disease. In these studies, we aimed to determine the effect of ozone exposure on vascular function, fibrinolysis, and the autonomic regulation of the heart. Thirty-six healthy men were exposed to ozone (300 ppb) and filtered air for 75min on two occasions in randomized double-blind crossover studies. Bilateral forearm blood flow (FBF) was measured using forearm venous occlusion plethysmography before and during intra-arterial infusions of vasodilators 2–4 and 6–8h after each exposure. Heart rhythm and heart rate variability (HRV) were monitored during and 24h after exposure. Compared with filtered air, ozone exposure did not alter heart rate, blood pressure, or resting FBF at either 2 or 6h. There was a dose-dependent increase in FBF with all vasodilators that was similar after both exposures at 2–4h. Ozone exposure did not impair vasomotor or fibrinolytic function at 6–8h but rather increased vasodilatation to acetylcholine (p = .015) and sodium nitroprusside (p = .005). Ozone did not affect measures of HRV during or after the exposure. Our findings do not support a direct rapid effect of ozone on vascular function or cardiac autonomic control although we cannot exclude an effect of chronic exposure or an interaction between ozone and alternative air pollutants that may be responsible for the adverse cardiovascular health effects attributed to ozone.
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| 36. |
- Becker, Matthias, 1986-, et al.
(author)
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A Many-Core based Execution Framework for IEC 61131-3
- 2015
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In: IECON 2015 - 41st Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. ; , s. 4525-4530
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Programmable logic controllers are widely used for the control of automationsystems. The standard IEC 61131-3 defines the execution model as well as theprogramming languages for such systems. Nowadays, actuators and sensorsconnect to the programmable logic controller via automation buses. While suchbuses, as well as the sensors and actuators, become more and more powerful, ashift away from the current distributed operation of automation systems, closeto the field level, becomes possible. Instead, execution of complex controlfunctions can be relocated to more powerful hardware, and technologies. Thispaper presents an execution framework for IEC 61131-3, based on a many-coreprocessors. The presented execution model exploits the characteristics of theIEC 61131-3 applications as well as the characteristics of the many-core processor,yielding a predictable execution. We present the platform architectureand an algorithm to allocate a number of IEC 61131-3 conform applications.Experimental as well as simulation based evaluation is provided.
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| 37. |
- Becker, Matthias, et al.
(author)
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Dynamic Power Management for Thermal Control of Many-Core Real-Time Systems
- 2014
-
In: Sigbed Review. - : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). - 1551-3688. ; 11:3, s. 26-29
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Many-Core systems, processors incorporating numerous cores interconnected by a Network on Chip (NoC), provide the computing power needed by future applications. High power density caused by the steadily shrinking transistor size, which is still following Moore's law, leads to a number of problems such as overheating cores, affecting processor reliability and lifetime. Embedded real-time systems are exposed to a changing ambient temperature and thus need to adapt their configuration in order to keep the individual core temperature below critical values. %Targeting embedded real-time systems, systems need to adapt to changing environments. In our approach a hysteresis controller is implemented on each core, triggering a redistribution of the cores and the transition into idle state allowing the core to cool down. We propose two approaches, one global and one local approach, to redistribute the tasks and relive overheating cores during runtime. We evaluate the two proposed approaches by comparing them against each other based on simulations.
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| 38. |
- Becker, Matthias, 1986-
(author)
-
Efficient Resource Management for Many-Core based Industrial Real-Time Systems
- 2015
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The increased complexity of today’s industrial embedded systems stands inneed for more computational power while most systems must adhere to a restrictedenergy consumption, either to prolong the battery lifetime or to reduceoperational costs. The many-core processor is therefore a natural fit. Due tothe simple architecture of the compute cores, and therefore their good analyzability,such processors are additionally well suited for real-time applications.In our research, we focus on two particular problems which need to be addressedin order to pave the way into the many-core era. The first area is powerand thermal aware execution frameworks, where we present different energyaware extensions to well known load balancing algorithms, allowing them todynamically scale the number of active cores depending on their workload.In contrast, an additional framework is presented which balances workloadsto minimize temperature gradients on the die. The second line of works focuseson industrial standards in the face of massively parallel platforms, wherewe address the automotive and automation domain. We present an executionframework for IEC 61131-3 applications, allowing the consolidation of severalIEC 61131-3 applications on the same platform. Additionally, we discussseveral architectural options for the AUTOSAR software architecture on suchmassively parallel platforms.
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| 39. |
- Becker, Matthias, et al.
(author)
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Increased Reliability of Many-Core Platforms through Thermal Feedback Control
- 2014
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In: Performance, Power and Predictability of Many-Core Embedded Systems 3PMCES'14. - Dresden, Germany.
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper we present a low overhead thermal management approach to increase reliability of many-core embedded real-time systems. Each core is controlled by a feedback controller. We adapt the utilization of the core in order to decrease the dynamic power consumption and thus the corresponding heat development. Sophisticated control mechanisms allow us to migrate the load in advance, before reaching critical temperature values and thus we can migrate in a safe way with a guarantee to meet all deadlines.
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| 40. |
- Becker, Matthias, et al.
(author)
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Limiting temperature gradients on many-cores by adaptive reallocation of real-time workloads
- 2014
-
In: 19th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, ETFA 2014. - 9781479948468 ; , s. Article number 7005241-
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The advent of many-core processors came with the increase in computational power needed for future applications. However new challenges arrived at the same time, especially for the real-time community. Each core on such a processor is a heat source and uneven usage can lead to hot spots on the processor, affecting its lifetime and reliability. For real-time systems, it is therefore of paramount importance to keep the temperature differences between the individual cores below critical values, in order to prevent premature failure of the system. We argue that this problem can not be solved by traditional approaches, since the growing number of cores makes them intractable. We rather argue to split the problem in the spacial domain and control the temperature on core level. The cores control their temperature by rearranging the load in a predictable manner during runtime. To achieve this, a feedback controller is implemented on each core. We conclude our work with a simulation based evaluation of the proposed approach comparing its performance against a previously presented algorithm.
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