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- Serge, M. A., et al.
(författare)
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Testing the Effect of Relative Pollen Productivity on the REVEALS Model : A Validated Reconstruction of Europe-Wide Holocene Vegetation
- 2023
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Ingår i: Land. - : MDPI. - 2073-445X. ; 12:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reliable quantitative vegetation reconstructions for Europe during the Holocene are crucial to improving our understanding of landscape dynamics, making it possible to assess the past effects of environmental variables and land-use change on ecosystems and biodiversity, and mitigating their effects in the future. We present here the most spatially extensive and temporally continuous pollen-based reconstructions of plant cover in Europe (at a spatial resolution of 1 degrees x 1 degrees) over the Holocene (last 11.7 ka BP) using the 'Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites' (REVEALS) model. This study has three main aims. First, to present the most accurate and reliable generation of REVEALS reconstructions across Europe so far. This has been achieved by including a larger number of pollen records compared to former analyses, in particular from the Mediterranean area. Second, to discuss methodological issues in the quantification of past land cover by using alternative datasets of relative pollen productivities (RPPs), one of the key input parameters of REVEALS, to test model sensitivity. Finally, to validate our reconstructions with the global forest change dataset. The results suggest that the RPPs.st1 (31 taxa) dataset is best suited to producing regional vegetation cover estimates for Europe. These reconstructions offer a long-term perspective providing unique possibilities to explore spatial-temporal changes in past land cover and biodiversity.
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- Gaillard, Marie-José, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Holocene land-cover reconstructions for studies on land cover-climate feedbacks
- 2010
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Ingår i: Climate of the Past. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1814-9324 .- 1814-9332. ; 6, s. 483-499
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The major objectives of this paper are: (1) to review the pros and cons of the scenarios of past anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) developed during the last ten years, (2) to discuss issues related to pollen-based reconstruction of the past land-cover and introduce a new method, REVEALS (Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites), to infer long-term records of past land-cover from pollen data, (3) to present a new project (LANDCLIM: LAND cover – CLIMate interactions in NW Europe during the Holocene) currently underway, and show preliminary results of REVEALS reconstructions of the regional land-cover in the Czech Republic for five selected time windows of the Holocene, and (4) to discuss the implications and future directions in climate and vegetation/land-cover modeling, and in the assessment of the effects of human-induced changes in land-cover on the regional climate through altered feedbacks. The existing ALCC scenarios show large discrepancies between them, and few cover time periods older than AD 800. When these scenarios are used to assess the impact of human land-use on climate, contrasting results are obtained. It emphasizes the need for methods such as the REVEALS model-based land-cover reconstructions. They might help to fine-tune descriptions of past land-cover and lead to a better understanding of how long-term changes in ALCC might have influenced climate. The REVEALS model is demonstrated to provide better estimates of the regional vegetation/landcover changes than the traditional use of pollen percentages. This will achieve a robust assessment of land cover at regional- to continental-spatial scale throughout the Holocene. We present maps of REVEALS estimates for the percentage cover of 10 plant functional types (PFTs) at 200 BP and 6000 BP, and of the two open-land PFTs “grassland” and “agricultural land” at five time-windows from 6000 BP to recent time. The LANDCLIM results are expected to provide crucial data to reassess ALCC estimates for a better understanding of the land suface-atmosphere interactions.
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- Bragstad, Line Kildal, et al.
(författare)
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Psychometric properties of a short version of Lee Fatigue Scale used as a generic PROM in persons with stroke or osteoarthritis : assessment using a Rasch analysis approach
- 2020
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Ingår i: Health and Quality of Life Outcomes. - : BioMed Central. - 1477-7525. ; 18:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Fatigue is a common symptom associated with a wide range of diseases and needs to be more thoroughly studied. To minimise patient burden and to enhance response rates in research studies, patient-reported outcome measures (PROM) need to be as short as possible, without sacrificing reliability and validity. It is also important to have a generic measure that can be used for comparisons across different patient populations. Thus, the aim of this secondary analysis was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Norwegian 5-item version of the Lee Fatigue Scale (LFS) in two distinct patient populations.METHODS: The sample was obtained from two different Norwegian studies and included patients 4-6 weeks after stroke (n = 322) and patients with osteoarthritis on a waiting list for total knee arthroplasty (n = 203). Fatigue severity was rated by five items from the Norwegian version of the LFS, rating each item on a numeric rating scale from 1 to 10. Rasch analysis was used to evaluate the psychometric properties of the 5-item scale across the two patient samples.RESULTS: Three of the five LFS items ("tired", "fatigued" and "worn out") showed acceptable internal scale validity as they met the set criterion for goodness-of-fit after removal of two items with unacceptable goodness-of-fit to the Rasch model. The 3-item LFS explained 81.6% of the variance, demonstrated acceptable unidimensionality, could separate the fatigue responses into three distinct severity groups and had no differential functioning with regard to disease group. The 3-item version of the LFS had a higher separation index and better internal consistency reliability than the 5-item version.CONCLUSIONS: A 3-item version of the LFS demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties in two distinct samples of patients, suggesting it may be useful as a brief generic measure of fatigue severity.TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT02338869; registered 10/04/2014 (stroke study).
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- Chu, Y K, et al.
(författare)
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Cross-neutralization of hantaviruses with immune sera from experimentally infected animals and from hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome patients.
- 1995
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Ingår i: Journal of Infectious Diseases. - 0022-1899 .- 1537-6613. ; 172:6, s. 1581-4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plaque-reduction neutralization tests were done with eight of nine known representative hantaviruses and immune sera from experimentally infected animals and from patients with hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) or hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). Results obtained with animal sera demonstrated each virus to be antigenically unique. Neutralization with the HPS patient sera was highest with Sin Nombre (SN) virus and to a lesser extent with Black Creek Canal (BCC) virus. Sera from Korean HFRS patients reacted best with Hantaan virus, but cross-reactivity with all other viruses except Thottapalayam (TPM) virus was also observed. Sera from Swedish HFRS patients reacted best with Puumala virus but cross-reacted with Prospect Hill, SN, and BCC viruses and to a lesser extent with all of the other viruses except TPM virus.
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- Elgh, Fredrik, 1957-, et al.
(författare)
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Serological diagnosis of hantavirus infections by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay based on detection of immunoglobulin G and M responses to recombinant nucleocapsid proteins of five viral serotypes
- 1997
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Ingår i: Journal of clinical microbiology. - : American Society for Microbiology. - 0095-1137 .- 1098-660X. ; 35:5, s. 1122-1130
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Worldwide, hantaviruses cause more than 100,000 human infections annually. Rapid and accurate methods are important both in monitoring acute infections and for epidemiological studies. We and others have shown that the amino termini of hantavirus nucleocapsid proteins (Ns) are sensitive tools for the detection of specific antibodies in hantavirus disease. Accordingly, we expressed truncated Ns (amino acids 1 to 117) in Escherichia coli from the five hantaviruses known to be pathogenic to man; Hantaan (HTN), Seoul (SEO), Dobrava (DOB), Sin Nombre (SN), and Puumala (PUU) viruses. In order to obtain pure antigens for use in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), the recombinant proteins were purified by polyhistidine-metal chelate affinity chromatography. Polyclonal animal antisera and a panel of serum specimens from hantavirus-infected individuals from Scandinavia, Slovenia, Russia, Korea, China, and the United States were used to evaluate the usefulness of the method. With both human and animal sera, it was possible to designate the antibody response into two groups: those with HTN, SEO, and DOB virus reactivity on the one hand and those with SN and PUU virus reactivity on the other. In sera from Scandinavia, European Russia, and the United States, the antibody response was directed mainly to the PUU and SN virus group. The sera from Asia reacted almost exclusively with the HTN, SEO, and DOB types of viruses. This was true for both the immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG antibody responses, indicating that this type of discrimination can be done during the acute phase of hantavirus infections. Both the HTN, SEO, and DOB virus and the PUU and SN virus types of antibody response patterns were found in patients from the Balkan region (Solvenia).
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- Hjelle, B, et al.
(författare)
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Rapid and specific detection of Sin Nombre virus antibodies in patients with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome by a strip immunoblot assay suitable for field diagnosis.
- 1997
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Ingår i: Journal of Clinical Microbiology. - 0095-1137 .- 1098-660X. ; 35:3, s. 600-8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To develop a rapid antibody test for Sin Nombre hantavirus (SNV) infection for diagnosis of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in field settings where advanced instrumentation is not available, a strip immunoblot assay bearing four immobilized antigens for SNV and a recombinant nucleocapsid protein antigen of Seoul hantavirus (SEOV) was prepared. The SNV antigens included a full-length recombinant-expressed nucleocapsid (N) protein (rN), a recombinant-expressed G1 protein (residues 35 to 117), and synthetic peptides derived from N (residues 17 to 59) and G1 (residues 55 to 88). On the basis of the observed reactivities of hantavirus-infected patient and control sera, we determined that a positive assay requires reactivity with SNV or SEOV rN antigen and at least one other antigen. Isolated reactivity to either viral rN antigen is indeterminate, and any pattern of reactivity that does not include reactivity to an rN antigen is considered indeterminate but is unlikely to represent hantavirus infection. Fifty-eight of 59 samples from patients with acute SNV-associated HPS were positive according to these criteria, and one was initially indeterminate. Four of four samples from patients with HPS due to other hantaviruses were positive, as were most samples from patients with SEOV and Puumala virus infections. Of 192 control serum samples, 2 (1%) were positive and 2 were indeterminate. Acute SNV infection was distinguishable from remote SNV infection or infection with hantaviruses other than SNV by the presence of G1 peptide antigen reactivities in the former. The strip immunoblot assay shows promise for the detection of SNV antibodies early in the course of HPS.
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- Schmidt, J, et al.
(författare)
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Serological assays for the detection of human andes hantavirus infections based on its yeast-expressed nucleocapsid protein
- 2006
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Ingår i: Intervirology. - : S. Karger AG. - 0300-5526 .- 1423-0100. ; 49:3, s. 173-184
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- <i>Background:</i> The objective of the study was to develop and evaluate IgM and IgG ELISAs and an IgG Western blot test for the serological detection of human infections with Andes virus (ANDV), the major cause of hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS) in South America. <i>Methods:</i> The entire nucleocapsid (N) protein-encoding sequence of ANDV (strain AH-1) was cloned and expressed in the yeast <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae.</i> The polyhistidine-tagged recombinant N (rN) protein of ANDV was purified by nickel-chelation chromatography and characterized by its reactivity with different N-specific monoclonal antibodies. To detect an antibody response directed against ANDV in humans, indirect IgM and IgG ELISAs and an IgG Western blot test based on ANDV rN antigen were developed. The evaluation of the tests was performed using a negative serum panel and 63 blinded sera from Argentina and Chile, containing acute-phase and convalescent sera from HCPS patients. <i>Results:</i> The specificities and sensitivities for the IgM and IgG ELISAs were demonstrated to be very high. The IgG ELISA data were confirmed by the IgG Western blot assay based on the same rN antigen. Almost all anti-ANDV-positive sera reacted to higher endpoint titers with N protein of ANDV than with those of Sin Nombre, Laguna Negra or Puumala virus. The cross-reactivity of anti-ANDV-N IgG-positive sera to rN proteins of other hantaviruses was found to be increased with time after the onset of HCPS. <i>Conclusion:</i> The high sensitivity of the novel assays should facilitate early diagnosis of ANDV infections and might contribute to a successful treatment of HCPS patients.
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