| 1. |
- Dratva, Julia, et al.
(författare)
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Early Life Origins of Lung Ageing : Early Life Exposures and Lung Function Decline in Adulthood in Two European Cohorts Aged 28-73 Years
- 2016
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 11:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives Early life environment is essential for lung growth and maximally attained lung function. Whether early life exposures impact on lung function decline in adulthood, an indicator of lung ageing, has scarcely been studied. Methods Spirometry data from two time points (follow-up time 9-11 years) and information on early life exposures, health and life-style were available from 12862 persons aged 28-73 years participating in the European population-based cohorts SAPALDIA (n = 5705) and ECRHS (n = 7157). The associations of early life exposures with lung function (FEV1) decline were analysed using mixed-effects linear regression. Results Early life exposures were significantly associated with FEV1 decline, with estimates almost as large as personal smoking. FEV1 declined more rapidly among subjects born during the winter season (adjusted difference in FEV1/year of follow-up [95% CI] -2.04ml [-3.29;-0.80]), of older mothers, (-1.82 ml [-3.14;-0.49]) of smoking mothers (-1.82ml [-3.30;-0.34] or with younger siblings (-2.61ml [-3.85;-1.38]). Less rapid FEV1-decline was found in subjects who had attended daycare (3.98ml [2.78; 5.18]), and indicated in subjects with pets in childhood (0.97ml [-0.16; 2.09]). High maternal age and maternal smoking appeared to potentiate effects of personal smoking. The effects were independent of asthma at any age. Conclusion Early life factors predicted lung function decline decades later, suggesting that some mechanisms related lung ageing may be established early in life. Early life programming of susceptibility to adult insults could be a possible pathway that should be explored further.
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| 2. |
- Corsico, Angelo G, et al.
(författare)
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Factors affecting adherence to asthma treatment in an international cohort of young and middle-aged adults
- 2007
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Ingår i: Respiratory Medicine. - : Elsevier BV. - 0954-6111 .- 1532-3064. ; 101:6, s. 1363-1367
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background A major reason of the poor control of asthma is that patients fail to adhere to their treatment. The aim of the study was to identify factors affecting changes in asthma treatment adherence in an international cohort. Methods A follow-up study was carried out by means of a structured clinical interview in 971 subjects with asthma from 12 countries who participated in both the European Community Respiratory Health Survey: ECRHS-I (1990–94) and ECRHS-II (1998–2002). Subjects were considered adherent if they reported they normally took all the prescribed drugs. A logistic model was used to study the adjusted effect of the determinants. Results The net change in adherence to anti-asthmatic treatment per 10 years of follow-up was −2% (95% CI: −9.5, 5.5), 7.5% (−2.6, 17.6), 15.0% (6.6, 23.5) and 19.8% (4.1, 35.5), respectively, in Nordic, Mediterranean, Continental and extra-European areas. Among the 428 non-adherent subjects in ECRHS-I, having regular consultations with health care professionals was the strongest predictor of increased adherence (OR 3.32; 95% CI: 1.08–10.17). Among the 543 adherent subjects in ECRHS-I, using inhaled corticosteroids significantly predicted a persistence of adherence (OR 2.04; 95% CI: 1.11–3.75). No effect of gender, age, duration of the disease, smoking habit and educational level was observed. Conclusions Our findings highlight the key role of doctors and nurses in educating and regularly reviewing the patients and support the efforts for an improvement of clinical communication.
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| 3. |
- Diez, S., et al.
(författare)
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A double-sided, shield-less stave prototype for the ATLAS Upgrade strip tracker for the High Luminosity LHC
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Instrumentation. - 1748-0221. ; 9, s. P03012-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A detailed description of the integration structures for the barrel region of the silicon strips tracker of the ATLAS Phase-II upgrade for the upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider, the so-called High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), is presented. This paper focuses on one of the latest demonstrator prototypes recently assembled, with numerous unique features. It consists of a shortened, shield-less, and double sided stave, with two candidate power distributions implemented. Thermal and electrical performances of the prototype are presented, as well as a description of the assembly procedures and tools.
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| 4. |
- Gallo, Valentina, et al.
(författare)
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Proteomic Analysis Identifies Markers of Exposure to Cadmium Sulphide Quantum Dots (CdS QDs)
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nanomaterials. - : MDPI. - 2079-4991. ; 10:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The use of cadmium sulphide quantum dot (CdS QD)-enabled products has become increasingly widespread. The prospect of their release in the environment is raising concerns. Here we have used the yeast modelSaccharomyces cerevisiaeto determine the potential impact of CdS QD nanoparticles on living organisms. Proteomic analyses and cell viability assays performed after 9 h exposure revealed expression of proteins involved in oxidative stress and reduced lethality, respectively, whereas oxidative stress declined, and lethality increased after 24 h incubation in the presence of CdS QDs. Quantitative proteomics using the iTRAQ approach (isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation) revealed that key proteins involved in essential biological pathways were differentially regulated over the time course of the experiment. At 9 h, most of the glycolytic functions increased, and the abundance of the number of heat shock proteins increased. This contrasts with the situation at 24 h where glycolytic functions, some heat shock proteins as well as oxidative phosphorylation and ATP synthesis were down-regulated. It can be concluded from our data that cell exposure to CdS QDs provokes a metabolic shift from respiration to fermentation, comparable to the situation reported in some cancer cell lines.
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| 5. |
- Gonzalez-Sevilla, S., et al.
(författare)
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A double-sided silicon micro-strip Super-Module for the ATLAS Inner Detector upgrade in the High-Luminosity LHC
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Instrumentation. - 1748-0221. ; 9, s. P02003-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ATLAS experiment is a general purpose detector aiming to fully exploit the discovery potential of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. It is foreseen that after several years of successful data-taking, the LHC physics programme will be extended in the so-called High-Luminosity LHC, where the instantaneous luminosity will be increased up to 5 x 10(34) cm(-2) s(-1). For ATLAS, an upgrade scenario will imply the complete replacement of its internal tracker, as the existing detector will not provide the required performance due to the cumulated radiation damage and the increase in the detector occupancy. The current baseline layout for the new ATLAS tracker is an all-silicon-based detector, with pixel sensors in the inner layers and silicon micro-strip detectors at intermediate and outer radii. The super-module is an integration concept proposed for the strip region of the future ATLAS tracker, where double-sided stereo silicon micro-strip modules are assembled into a low-mass local support structure. An electrical super-module prototype for eight double-sided strip modules has been constructed. The aim is to exercise the multi-module readout chain and to investigate the noise performance of such a system. In this paper, the main components of the current super-module prototype are described and its electrical performance is presented in detail.
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| 6. |
- Götschi, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Air pollution and lung function in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey.
- 2008
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Ingår i: International journal of epidemiology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1464-3685 .- 0300-5771. ; 37:6, s. 1349-58
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: The association of long-term air pollution and lung function has not been studied across adult European multi-national populations before. The aim of this study was to determine the association between long-term urban background air pollution and lung function levels, as well as change in lung function among European adults. METHODS: Forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) and the ratio thereof (FEV1/FVC) were assessed at baseline and after 9 years of follow-up in adults from 21 European centres (followed-up sample 5610). Fine particles (PM(2.5)) were measured in 2000/2001 using central monitors. RESULTS: Despite sufficient statistical power no significant associations were found between city-specific annual mean PM(2.5) and average lung function levels. The findings also do not support an effect on change in lung function, albeit statistical power was insufficient to significantly detect such an association. CONCLUSIONS: The inability to refuse the null hypothesis may reflect (i) no effect of urban air pollution on lung function or (ii) inherent biases due to the study design. Examples of the latter are lack of individual-level air quality assignment, not quantified within-city contrasts in traffic-related pollution, or the heterogeneity of the studied populations and their urban environments. Future studies on long-term effects of air pollution on lung function could increase statistical power and reduce potential misclassification and confounding by characterizing exposure on the level of individuals, capturing contrasts due to local sources, in particular traffic.
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| 7. |
- Hazenkamp-Von Arx, M.E., et al.
(författare)
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PM2.5 and NO2 assessment in 21 European study centres of ECRHS II : annual means and seasonal differences
- 2004
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Environment. - : Elsevier. - 1352-2310 .- 1873-2844. ; 38:13, s. 1943-1953
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The follow-up of cohorts of adults from more than 20 European centres of the former ECRHS I (1989-1992) investigates long-term effects of exposure to ambient air pollution on respiratory health, in particular asthma and change of pulmonary function. Since PM2.5 is not routinely monitored in Europe, we measured PM2.5 concentrations in 21 participating centres to estimate 'background' exposure in these cities. Winter (November-February), summer (May-August) and annual mean (all months) values of PM2.5 were determined from measuring periods between June 2000 and November 2001. Sampling was conducted for 7 days per month for a year. Annual and winter mean concentrations of PM2.5 vary substantially being lowest in Iceland and highest in centres in Northern Italy. Annual mean concentrations ranged from 3.7 to 44.9 mug m(-3), winter mean concentrations from 4.8 to 69.2 mug m(-3), and summer mean concentrations from 3.3 to 23.1 mugm(-3). Seasonal variability occurred but did not follow the same pattern across all centres. Therefore, ranking of centres varied from summer to winter. Simultaneously, NO2 concentrations were measured using passive sampling tubes. Annual mean NO2 concentrations range from 4.9 to 72.1 mug m(-3) with similar seasonal variations across centres and constant ranking of centres between seasons. The correlation between annual NO2 and PM2.5 concentrations is fair (Spearman correlation coefficient r(s) = 0.75), but when considered as monthly means the correlation is far less consistent and varies substantially between centres. The range of PM2.5 mass concentrations obtained in ECRHS II is larger than in other current cohort studies on long-term effects of air pollution. This substantial variation in PM2.5 exposure will improve statistical power in future multilevel health analyses and to some degree may compensate for the lack of information on within-city variability. Seasonal means may be used to indicate potential differences in the toxicity across the year. Across ECRHS cities annual NO2 might serve as a surrogate for PM2.5, especially for past exposure assessment, when PM2.5 is not available.
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| 8. |
- Laj, Paolo, et al.
(författare)
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A global analysis of climate-relevant aerosol properties retrieved from the network of Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) near-surface observatories
- 2020
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1867-1381 .- 1867-8548. ; 13:8, s. 4353-4392
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aerosol particles are essential constituents of the Earth's atmosphere, impacting the earth radiation balance directly by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, and indirectly by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. In contrast to most greenhouse gases, aerosol particles have short atmospheric residence times, resulting in a highly heterogeneous distribution in space and time. There is a clear need to document this variability at regional scale through observations involving, in particular, the in situ near-surface segment of the atmospheric observation system. This paper will provide the widest effort so far to document variability of climate-relevant in situ aerosol properties (namely wavelength dependent particle light scattering and absorption coefficients, particle number concentration and particle number size distribution) from all sites connected to the Global Atmosphere Watch network. High-quality data from almost 90 stations worldwide have been collected and controlled for quality and are reported for a reference year in 2017, providing a very extended and robust view of the variability of these variables worldwide. The range of variability observed worldwide for light scattering and absorption coefficients, single-scattering albedo, and particle number concentration are presented together with preliminary information on their long-term trends and comparison with model simulation for the different stations. The scope of the present paper is also to provide the necessary suite of information, including data provision procedures, quality control and analysis, data policy, and usage of the ground-based aerosol measurement network. It delivers to users of the World Data Centre on Aerosol, the required confidence in data products in the form of a fully characterized value chain, including uncertainty estimation and requirements for contributing to the global climate monitoring system.
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| 9. |
- Magnusson, Måns, 1981-
(författare)
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Scalable and Efficient Probabilistic Topic Model Inference for Textual Data
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Probabilistic topic models have proven to be an extremely versatile class of mixed-membership models for discovering the thematic structure of text collections. There are many possible applications, covering a broad range of areas of study: technology, natural science, social science and the humanities.In this thesis, a new efficient parallel Markov Chain Monte Carlo inference algorithm is proposed for Bayesian inference in large topic models. The proposed methods scale well with the corpus size and can be used for other probabilistic topic models and other natural language processing applications. The proposed methods are fast, efficient, scalable, and will converge to the true posterior distribution.In addition, in this thesis a supervised topic model for high-dimensional text classification is also proposed, with emphasis on interpretable document prediction using the horseshoe shrinkage prior in supervised topic models.Finally, we develop a model and inference algorithm that can model agenda and framing of political speeches over time with a priori defined topics. We apply the approach to analyze the evolution of immigration discourse in the Swedish parliament by combining theory from political science and communication science with a probabilistic topic model.
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| 10. |
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