| 1. |
- Koch, Markus, et al.
(författare)
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Frequency of breaks, amount of muscular rest, and sustained muscle activity related to neck pain in a pooled dataset
- 2024
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Ingår i: PLoS ONE. - 1932-6203. ; 19:6, s. 1-22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Neck pain remains a persistent challenge in modern society and is frequently encountered across a wide range of occupations, particularly those involving repetitive and monotonous tasks. It might be expected that patterns of trapezius muscle activity at work, characterized by few breaks and prolonged periods of sustained muscle activity, are linked to neck pain. However, previous cross-sectional studies have generally failed to establish a definitive association. While some longitudinal studies have suggested that extended periods of heightened muscle activity could be a risk factor for neck pain, these findings often relied on limited participant numbers or specific professional groups. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between trapezius muscle activity and neck pain by pooling data from seven Scandinavian research institutes encompassing a diverse range of occupational backgrounds.METHODS: Electromyographic (EMG) data for the upper trapezius muscle, collected during working hours, were coupled with questionnaire responses pertaining to neck pain, individual characteristics, and potential confounding variables for a total of 731 subjects. Additionally, longitudinal data from 258 subjects were available. The various EMG datasets were consolidated into a standardized format, and efforts were made to harmonize inquiries about neck pain. Regression analyses, adjusting for sex and height, were conducted to explore the associations between muscle activity variables and neck pain. An exposure index was devised to quantify the cumulative neck load experienced during working hours and to differentiate between various occupational categories.RESULTS: The cross-sectional data displayed a distinct pattern characterized by positive associations for brief periods of sustained muscle activity (SUMA) and negative associations for prolonged SUMA-periods and neck pain. The longitudinal data exhibited a contrasting trend, although it was not as pronounced as the cross-sectional findings. When employing the exposure index, notable differences in cumulative muscle load emerged among occupational groups, and positive associations with longitudinal neck pain were identified.DISCUSSION: The results suggest that individuals with neck pain experience higher cumulative workloads and extended periods of muscle activity over the long term. In the short term, they appear to compensate by taking frequent short breaks, resulting in a lower cumulative workload. Regardless of their occupation, it is crucial to distribute work breaks throughout the workday to ensure that the cumulative load remains manageable.
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| 2. |
- Bonde, Jens Peter Ellekilde, et al.
(författare)
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Occupational risk of COVID-19 related hospital admission in Denmark 2020–2021 : a follow-up study
- 2023
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health. - : Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health. - 0355-3140 .- 1795-990X. ; 49:1, s. 84-94
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective: Mounting evidence indicates increased risk of COVID-19 among healthcare personnel, but the evidence on risks in other occupations is limited. In this study, we quantify the occupational risk of COVID-19-related hospital admission in Denmark during 2020-2021.Methods: The source population included 2.4 million employees age 20-69 years. All information was retrieved from public registers. The risk of COVID-19 related hospital admission was examined in 155 occupations with at least 2000 employees (at-risk, N=1 620 231) referenced to a group of mainly office workers defined by a COVID-19 job exposure matrix (N=369 341). Incidence rate ratios (IRR) were computed by Poisson regression.Results: During 186 million person-weeks of follow-up, we observed 2944 COVID-19 related hospital admissions in at-risk occupations and 559 in referents. Adjusted risk of such admission was elevated in several occupations within healthcare (including health care assistants, nurses, medical practitioners and laboratory technicians but not physiotherapists or midwives), social care (daycare assistants for children aged 4-7, and nursing aides in institutions and private homes, but not family daycare workers) and transportation (bus drivers, but not lorry drivers). Most IRR in these at-risk occupations were in the range of 1.5-3. Employees in education, retail sales and various service occupations seemed not to be at risk.Conclusion: Employees in several occupations within and outside healthcare are at substantially increased risk of COVID-19. There is a need to revisit safety measures and precautions to mitigate viral transmission in the workplace during the current and forthcoming pandemics.
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| 3. |
- Elberling, Bo, et al.
(författare)
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High Arctic soil CO2 and CH4 production controlled by temperature, water, freezing and snow
- 2008
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Ingår i: High-arctic ecosystem dynamics in a changing climate - Ten years of monitoring and research at Zackenberg Research Station, Northeast Greenland (Advances in Ecological Research). - 0065-2504. - 9780123736659 ; 40, s. 441-472
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Soil gas production processes, mainly anaerobic or aerobic soil respiration, drive major gas fluxes across the soil-atmosphere interface. Carbon dioxide (CO2) effluxes, an efflux which in most ecosystems is a result of both autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration, in particular have received international attention. The importance of both CO2 and methane (CH4) fluxes are emphasised in the Arctic because of the large amount of soil organic carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems and changes in uptake and release due to climate changes. This chapter focuses on controls on spatial and temporal trends in subsurface CO2 and CH4 production as well as on transport and release of gases from the soil observed in the valley Zackenbergdalen. A dominance of near-surface temperatures controlling both spatial and seasonal trends is shown based on data obtained using closed chamber and eddy-correlation techniques as well as in manipulated field plots and in controlled incubation experiments. Despite variable temperature sensitivities reported, most data can be fairly well fitted to exponential temperature-dependent equations. The water content (at wet sites linked to the depth to the water table) is a second major factor regulating soil respiration processes, but the effect is quite different in contrasting vegetation types. Dry heath sites are shown to be periodically water limited during the growing season and respond therefore with high respiration rates when watered. In contrast, water saturated conditions during most of the growing season in the fen areas hinder the availability of oxygen, resulting in both CO2 and CH4 production. Thus, water table drawdown results in decreasing CH4 effluxes but increasing CO2 effluxes. Additional controls on gas production are shown to be related to the availability of substrate and plant productivity. Subsurface gas production will produce partial and total pressure gradient causing gas transport, which in well-drained soils is mainly controlled by diffusion, whereas gas advection, bubbles and transport through roots and stems may be important in more saturated soils. Bursts of CO2 gas have been observed during spring thaw and confirmed in controlled soil thawing experiments. Field observations as well as experimental work suggest that such bursts represent partly on-going soil respiration and a physical release of gas produced during the winter. The importance of winter soil respiration is emphasised because of the fact that microbial respiration in Zackenberg samples is noted down to a least -18 degrees C. Hence, the importance of winter respiration and burst events in relation to seasonal and future climate trends requires more than just summer measurements. For example, the autumn period seems important as snowfall prior to low air temperature may insulate the soil, keeping soil temperatures high. This will extend the period of high soil respiration rates and thereby increase the importance of the winter period for the annual carbon balance. Because of the complexity of factors controlling subsurface gas production, we conclude that different parts of the landscape will respond quite differently to the same climate changes as well as that short-term effects are likely to be different from long-term effects.
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| 4. |
- Grøndahl, Louise, et al.
(författare)
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Spatial and interannual variability of trace gas fluxes in a heterogeneous High Arctic landscape
- 2008
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Ingår i: High-arctic ecosystem dynamics in a changing climate - Ten years of monitoring and research at Zackenberg Research Station, Northeast Greenland (Advances in Ecological Research). - 0065-2504. - 9780123736659 ; 40, s. 473-498
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Summertime measurements of CO2 and CH4 fluxes were carried out over a range of high-arctic ecosystem types in the valley Zackenbergdalen since 1996 using both chamber and eddy covariance methodology. The net ecosystem CO2 exchange and CH4 flux data presented reveal a high degree of inter-annual variability within the dominant vegetation types in the valley, but also show distinct differences between them. In particular, the wet and dry parts of the valley show distinct differences. In general, the wet parts of the valley, the fens dominated by white cotton grass Eriophorum scheuchzeri, show high productivity, also in comparison with other sites, whereas CO2 uptake rates in the white arctic bell heather Cassiope tetragona and mountain avens Dryas spp.-dominated heaths are much smaller. Also within the different ecosystem types, a high degree of spatial variability can be documented. The spatial variability both within and between ecosystem types is especially pronounced for the CH4 flux and can, at least partly, be related to differences in vegetation composition and water table level. The importance of the CH4 emission from the various ecosystem types is evaluated both in relation to carbon and greenhouse gas budgets. In both wet and drier ecosystem components, inter-annual variability seems best explained through differences in the amount and distribution of snow in spring and the length of the growing season. A large number of replicate chamber measurements carried out over various vegetation types in the valley are used to produce a synthesis of 10 years of flux data available on growing season carbon dynamics and CH4 emission patterns in the individual parts of this high-arctic ecosystem and relates the differences between the ecosystems found in Zackenbergdalen to comparable sites in the circumpolar North.
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| 5. |
- Holtermann, Andreas, et al.
(författare)
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Selective activation of neuromuscular compartments within the human trapezius muscle.
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of electromyography and kinesiology : official journal of the International Society of Electrophysiological Kinesiology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-5711. ; 19:5, s. 896-902
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Task-dependent differences in relative activity between "functional" subdivisions within human muscles are well documented. Contrary, independent voluntary control of anatomical subdivisions, termed neuromuscular compartments is not observed in human muscles. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate whether subdivisions within the human trapezius can be independently activated by voluntary command using biofeedback guidance. Bipolar electromyographical electrodes were situated on four subdivisions of the trapezius muscle. The threshold for "active" and "rest" for each subdivision was set to >12% and <1.5% of the maximal electromyographical amplitude recorded during a maximal voluntary contraction. After 1h with biofeedback from each of the four trapezius subdivisions, 11 of 15 subjects learned selective activation of at least one of the four anatomical subdivisions of the trapezius muscle. All subjects managed to voluntarily activate the lower subdivisions independently from the upper subdivisions. Half of the subjects succeeded to voluntarily activate both upper subdivisions independently from the two lower subdivisions. These findings show that anatomical subdivisions of the human trapezius muscle can be independently activated by voluntary command, indicating neuromuscular compartmentalization of the trapezius muscle. The independent activation of the upper and lower subdivisions of the trapezius is in accordance with the selective innervation by the fine cranial and main branch of the accessory nerve to the upper and lower subdivisions. These findings provide new insight into motor control characteristics, learning possibilities, and function of the clinically relevant human trapezius muscle.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Olsen, Henrik Palmer, et al.
(författare)
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Re-framing case law citation prediction from a paragraph perspective
- 2023
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Ingår i: Legal knowledge and information systems. - : IOS Press. - 9781643684727 - 9781643684734 ; , s. 323-328
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Case law citation prediction, i.e., predicting what historical cases are relevant for your current case, can assist legal discovery and decision-making, but legal documents are long, and often only parts of them are relevant for a particular use case. We therefore reframe case law citation prediction as a paragraph-to-paragraph citation task, introduce a new dataset, and train and evaluate new models. We also evaluate our models qualitatively. Our resources provide a first step toward discovering citation patterns and modeling legal rules in EU law from precedent documents.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Søgaard Jørgensen, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Evolution of the polycrisis : Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability
- 2023
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Ingår i: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - 0962-8436 .- 1471-2970. ; 379:1893
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Anthropocene is characterized by accelerating change and global challenges of increasing complexity. Inspired by what some have called a polycrisis, we explore whether the human trajectory of increasing complexity and influence on the Earth system could become a form of trap for humanity. Based on an adaptation of the evolutionary traps concept to a global human context, we present results from a participatory mapping. We identify 14 traps and categorize them as either global, technology or structural traps. An assessment reveals that 12 traps (86%) could be in an advanced phase of trapping with high risk of hard-to-reverse lock-ins and growing risks of negative impacts on human well-being. Ten traps (71%) currently see growing trends in their indicators. Revealing the systemic nature of the polycrisis, we assess that Anthropocene traps often interact reinforcingly (45% of pairwise interactions), and rarely in a dampening fashion (3%). We end by discussing capacities that will be important for navigating these systemic challenges in pursuit of global sustainability. Doing so, we introduce evolvability as a unifying concept for such research between the sustainability and evolutionary sciences.
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| 10. |
- Österblom, Henrik, et al.
(författare)
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Scientific mobilization of keystone actors for biosphere stewardship
- 2022
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The biosphere crisis requires changes to existing business practices. We ask how corporations can become sustainability leaders, when constrained by multiple barriers to collaboration for biosphere stewardship. We describe how scientists motivated, inspired and engaged with ten of the world’s largest seafood companies, in a collaborative process aimed to enable science-based and systemic transformations (2015–2021). CEOs faced multiple industry crises in 2015 that incentivized novel approaches. New scientific insights, an invitation to collaborate, and a bold vision of transformative change towards ocean stewardship, created new opportunities and direction. Co-creation of solutions resulted in new knowledge and trust, a joint agenda for action, new capacities, international recognition, formalization of an organization, increased policy influence, time-bound goals, and convergence of corporate change. Independently funded scientists helped remove barriers to cooperation, provided means for reflection, and guided corporate strategies and actions toward ocean stewardship. By 2021, multiple individuals exercised leadership and the initiative had transitioned from preliminary and uncomfortable conversations, to a dynamic, operational organization, with capacity to perform global leadership in the seafood industry. Mobilizing transformational agency through learning, collaboration, and innovation represents a cultural evolution with potential to redirect and accelerate corporate action, to the benefit of business, people and the planet.
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