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- Blunden, Jessica, et al.
(författare)
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State of the Climate in 2012
- 2013
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Ingår i: Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society - (BAMS). - 0003-0007 .- 1520-0477. ; 94:8, s. S1-S258
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- For the first time in serveral years, the El Nino-Southern Oscillation did not dominate regional climate conditions around the globe. A weak La Ni a dissipated to ENSOneutral conditions by spring, and while El Nino appeared to be emerging during summer, this phase never fully developed as sea surface temperatures in the eastern conditions. Nevertheless, other large-scale climate patterns and extreme weather events impacted various regions during the year. A negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation from mid-January to early February contributed to frigid conditions in parts of northern Africa, eastern Europe, and western Asia. A lack of rain during the 2012 wet season led to the worst drought in at least the past three decades for northeastern Brazil. Central North America also experienced one of its most severe droughts on record. The Caribbean observed a very wet dry season and it was the Sahel's wettest rainy season in 50 years. Overall, the 2012 average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces ranked among the 10 warmest years on record. The global land surface temperature alone was also among the 10 warmest on record. In the upper atmosphere, the average stratospheric temperature was record or near-record cold, depending on the dataset. After a 30-year warming trend from 1970 to 1999 for global sea surface temperatures, the period 2000-12 had little further trend. This may be linked to the prevalence of La Ni a-like conditions during the 21st century. Heat content in the upper 700 m of the ocean remained near record high levels in 2012. Net increases from 2011 to 2012 were observed at 700-m to 2000-m depth and even in the abyssal ocean below. Following sharp decreases in to the effects of La Ni a, sea levels rebounded to reach records highs in 2012. The increased hydrological cycle seen in recent years continued, with more evaporation in drier locations and more precipitation in rainy areas. In a pattern that has held since 2004, salty areas of the ocean surfaces and subsurfaces were anomalously salty on average, while fresher areas were anomalously fresh. Global tropical cyclone activity during 2012 was near average, with a total of 84 storms compared with the 1981-2010 average of 89. Similar to 2010 and 2011, the North Atlantic was the only hurricane basin that experienced above-normal activity. In this basin, Sandy brought devastation to Cuba and parts of the eastern North American seaboard. All other basins experienced either near-or below-normal tropical cyclone activity. Only three tropical cyclones reached Category 5 intensity-all in Bopha became the only storm in the historical record to produce winds greater than 130 kt south of 7 N. It was also the costliest storm to affect the Philippines and killed more than 1000 residents. Minimum Arctic sea ice extent in September and Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in June both reached new record lows. June snow cover extent is now declining at a faster rate (-17.6% per decade) than September sea ice extent (-13.0% per decade). Permafrost temperatures reached record high values in northernmost Alaska. A new melt extent record occurred on 11-12 July on the Greenland ice sheet; 97% of the ice sheet showed some form of melt, four times greater than the average melt for this time of year. The climate in Antarctica was relatively stable overall. The largest maximum sea ice extent since records begain in 1978 was observed in September 2012. In the stratosphere, warm air led to the second smallest ozone hole in the past two decades. Even so, the springtime ozone layer above Antarctica likely will not return to its early 1980s state until about 2060. Following a slight decline associated with the global 2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production reached a record 9.5 +/- 0.5 Pg C in 2011 and a new record of 9.7 +/- 0.5 Pg C is estimated for 2012. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by 2.1 ppm in 2012, to 392.6 ppm. In spring 2012, 2 concentration exceeded 400 ppm at 7 of the 13 Arctic observation sites. Globally, other greenhouse gases including methane and nitrous oxide also continued to rise in concentration and the combined effect now represents a 32% increase in radiative forcing over a 1990 baseline. Concentrations of most ozone depleting substances continued to fall.
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- Hazan, J., et al.
(författare)
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Acceptability and feasibility of plasma phosphorylated-tau181 in two memory services
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. - : Wiley. - 0885-6230 .- 1099-1166. ; 38:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Plasma phosphorylated-tau181 (p-tau181) represents a novel blood-based biomarker of Alzheimer's disease pathology. We explored clinicians' experience of the utility of plasma p-tau181 in Camden and Islington Memory Services.Methods: Patients were identified by their clinician as appropriate for p-tau181. Their p-tau181 result was plotted on a reference range graph provided to clinicians. This was discussed with the patient at diagnostic feedback appointment.Results: Twenty-nine participants' plasma p-tau181 samples were included (mean age 74 SD 8.5, 65% female). Nine clinicians participated in the study. Eighty-six percent of clinicians found the p-tau181 result to be helpful and in 93% of cases it was clearly understandable. The p-tau181 result was useful in making the diagnosis in 44% of cases.Conclusions: Plasma p-tau181 is a feasible test for use in memory services and acceptable to clinicians. Clinician feedback on utility in dementia diagnoses was mixed. Further work is required to provide education and training in understanding and interpreting ambiguity in biomarker results.
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- Mok, T. H., et al.
(författare)
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Seed amplification and neurodegeneration marker trajectories in individuals at risk of prion disease
- 2023
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Ingår i: Brain. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0006-8950 .- 1460-2156. ; 146:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Human prion diseases are remarkable for long incubation times followed typically by rapid clinical decline. Seed amplification assays and neurodegeneration biofluid biomarkers are remarkably useful in the clinical phase, but their potential to predict clinical onset in healthy people remains unclear. This is relevant not only to the design of preventive strategies in those at-risk of prion diseases, but more broadly, because prion-like mechanisms are thought to underpin many neurodegenerative disorders. Here, we report the accrual of a longitudinal biofluid resource in patients, controls and healthy people at risk of prion diseases, to which ultrasensitive techniques such as real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) and single molecule array (Simoa) digital immunoassays were applied for preclinical biomarker discovery. We studied 648 CSF and plasma samples, including 16 people who had samples taken when healthy but later developed inherited prion disease (IPD) ('converters'; range from 9.9 prior to, and 7.4 years after onset). Symptomatic IPD CSF samples were screened by RT-QuIC assay variations, before testing the entire collection of at-risk samples using the most sensitive assay. Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light (NfL), tau and UCH-L1 levels were measured in plasma and CSF. Second generation (IQ-CSF) RT-QuIC proved 100% sensitive and specific for sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), iatrogenic and familial CJD phenotypes, and subsequently detected seeding activity in four presymptomatic CSF samples from three E200K carriers; one converted in under 2 months while two remain asymptomatic after at least 3 years' follow-up. A bespoke HuPrP P102L RT-QuIC showed partial sensitivity for P102L disease. No compatible RT-QuIC assay was discovered for classical 6-OPRI, A117V and D178N, and these at-risk samples tested negative with bank vole RT-QuIC. Plasma GFAP and NfL, and CSF NfL levels emerged as proximity markers of neurodegeneration in the typically slow IPDs (e.g. P102L), with significant differences in mean values segregating healthy control from IPD carriers (within 2 years to onset) and symptomatic IPD cohorts; plasma GFAP appears to change before NfL, and before clinical conversion. In conclusion, we show distinct biomarker trajectories in fast and slow IPDs. Specifically, we identify several years of presymptomatic seeding positivity in E200K, a new proximity marker (plasma GFAP) and sequential neurodegenerative marker evolution (plasma GFAP followed by NfL) in slow IPDs. We suggest a new preclinical staging system featuring clinical, seeding and neurodegeneration aspects, for validation with larger prion at-risk cohorts, and with potential application to other neurodegenerative proteopathies.
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- Nkurunziza, Theoneste, et al.
(författare)
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mHealth-community health worker telemedicine intervention for surgical site infection diagnosis : a prospective study among women delivering via caesarean section in rural Rwanda
- 2022
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Ingår i: BMJ Global Health. - : BMJ Publishing Group. - 2059-7908. ; 7:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Surgical site infections (SSIs) cause a significant global public health burden in low and middle-income countries. Most SSIs develop after patient discharge and may go undetected. We assessed the feasibility and diagnostic accuracy of an mHealth-community health worker (CHW) home-based telemedicine intervention to diagnose SSIs in women who delivered via caesarean section in rural Rwanda. Methods This prospective cohort study included women who underwent a caesarean section at Kirehe District Hospital between September 2019 and March 2020. At postoperative day 10 (+/- 3 days), a trained CHW visited the woman at home, provided wound care and transmitted a photo of the wound to a remote general practitioner (GP) via WhatsApp. The GP reviewed the photo and made an SSI diagnosis. The next day, the woman returned to the hospital for physical examination by an independent GP, whose SSI diagnosis was considered the gold standard for our analysis. We describe the intervention process indicators and report the sensitivity and specificity of the telemedicine-based diagnosis. Results Of 787 women included in the study, 91.4% (n=719) were located at their home by the CHW and all of them (n=719, 100%) accepted the intervention. The full intervention was completed, including receipt of GP telemedicine diagnosis within 1 hour, for 79.0% (n=623). The GPs diagnosed 30 SSIs (4.2%) through telemedicine and 38 SSIs (5.4%) through physical examination. The telemedicine sensitivity was 36.8% and specificity was 97.6%. The negative predictive value was 96.4%. Conclusions Implementation of an mHealth-CHW home-based intervention in rural Rwanda and similar settings is feasible. Patients acceptance of the intervention was key to its success. The telemedicine-based SSI diagnosis had a high negative predictive value but a low sensitivity. Further studies must explore strategies to improve accuracy, such as accompanying wound images with clinical data or developing algorithms using machine learning.
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- Zarkali, Angeliki, et al.
(författare)
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Neuroimaging and plasma evidence of early white matter loss in Parkinson's disease with poor outcomes.
- 2024
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Ingår i: Brain communications. - 2632-1297. ; 6:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Parkinson's disease is a common and debilitating neurodegenerative disorder, with over half of patients progressing to postural instability, dementia or death within 10 years of diagnosis. However, the onset and rate of progression to poor outcomes is highly variable, underpinned by heterogeneity in underlying pathological processes. Quantitative and sensitive measures predicting poor outcomes will be critical for targeted treatment, but most studies to date have been limited to a single modality or assessed patients with established cognitive impairment. Here, we used multimodal neuroimaging and plasma measures in 98 patients with Parkinson's disease and 28 age-matched controls followed up over 3 years. We examined: grey matter (cortical thickness and subcortical volume), white matter (fibre cross-section, a measure of macrostructure; and fibre density, a measure of microstructure) at whole-brain and tract level; structural and functional connectivity; and plasma levels of neurofilament light chain and phosphorylated tau 181. We evaluated relationships with subsequent poor outcomes, defined as development of mild cognitive impairment, dementia, frailty or death at any time during follow-up, in people with Parkinson's disease. We show that extensive white matter macrostructural changes are already evident at baseline assessment in people with Parkinson's disease who progress to poor outcomes (n = 31): with up to 19% reduction in fibre cross-section in multiple tracts, and a subnetwork of reduced structural connectivity strength, particularly involving connections between right frontoparietal and left frontal, right frontoparietal and left parietal and right temporo-occipital and left parietal modules. In contrast, grey matter volumes and functional connectivity were preserved in people with Parkinson's disease with poor outcomes. Neurofilament light chain, but not phosphorylated tau 181 levels were increased in people with Parkinson's disease with poor outcomes, and correlated with white matter loss. These findings suggest that imaging sensitive to white matter macrostructure and plasma neurofilament light chain may be useful early markers of poor outcomes in Parkinson's disease. As new targeted treatments for neurodegenerative disease are emerging, these measures show important potential to aid patient selection for treatment and improve stratification for clinical trials.
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