| 1. |
- Bowtell, J. L., et al.
(författare)
-
Short Duration Small Sided Football and to a Lesser Extent Whole Body Vibration Exercise Induce Acute Changes in Markers of Bone Turnover
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Biomed Research International. - : Hindawi Limited. - 2314-6133 .- 2314-6141.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We aimed to study whether short-duration vibration exercise or football sessions of two different durations acutely changed plasma markers of bone turnover and muscle strain. Inactive premenopausal women (n = 56) were randomized to complete a single bout of short (FG15) or long duration (FG60) small sided football or low magnitude whole body vibration training (VIB). Procollagen type 1 amino-terminal propeptide (P1NP) was increased during exercise for FG15 (51.6 +/- 23.0 to 56.5 +/- 22.5 mu g.L-1, mean +/- SD, P < 0.05) and FG60 (42.6 +/- 11.8 to 50.2 +/- 12.8 mu g.L-1, P < 0.05) but not for VIB (38.8 +/- 15.1 to 36.6 +/- 14.7 mu g.L-1, P > 0.05). An increase in osteocalcin was observed 48 h after exercise (P < 0.05), which did not differ between exercise groups. C-terminal telopeptide of type 1 collagen was not affected by exercise. Blood lactate concentration increased during exercise for FG15 (0.6 +/- 0.2 to 3.4 +/- 1.2mM) and FG60 (0.6 +/- 0.2 to 3.3 +/- 2.0 mM), but not for VIB (0.6 +/- 0.2 to 0.8 +/- 0.4mM) (P < 0.05). Plasma creatine kinase increased by 55 +/- 63% and 137 +/- 119% 48 h after FG15 and FG60 (P < 0.05), but not after VIB (26 +/- 54%, NS). In contrast to the minor elevation in osteocalcin in response to a single session of vibration exercise, both short and longer durations of small sided football acutely increased plasma P1NP, osteocalcin, and creatine kinase. This may contribute to favorable effects of chronic training on musculoskeletal health.
|
|
| 2. |
- Critchley, William R., et al.
(författare)
-
Non-ischemic Heart Preservation via Hypothermic Cardioplegic Perfusion Induces Immunodepletion of Donor Hearts Resulting in Diminished Graft Infiltration Following Transplantation
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Frontiers in Immunology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-3224. ; 11
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Many donor organs contain significant leukocyte reservoirs which upon transplantation activate recipient leukocytes to initiate acute rejection. We aimed to assess whether non-ischemic heart preservation via ex vivo perfusion promotes immunodepletion and alters the inflammatory status of the donor organ prior to transplantation. Methods: Isolated porcine hearts underwent ex vivo hypothermic, cardioplegic perfusion for 8 h. Leukocyte populations were quantified in left ventricle samples by flow cytometry. Cell-free DNA, cytokines, and chemokines were quantified in the perfusate. Tissue integrity was profiled by targeted proteomics and a histological assessment was performed. Heterotopic transplants comparing ex vivo hypothermic preservation and static cold storage were utilized to assess graft infiltration as a solid clinical endpoint. Results: Ex vivo perfusion significantly immunodepleted myocardial tissue. The perfusate displayed a selective, pro-inflammatory cytokine/chemokine pattern dominated by IFN-γ. The tissue molecular profile was improved following perfusion by diminished expression of nine pro-apoptotic and six ischemia-associated proteins. Histologically, no evidence of tissue damage was observed and cardiac troponin I was low throughout perfusion. Cell-free DNA was detected, the source of which may be necrotic/apoptotic leukocytes. Post-transplant graft infiltration was markedly reduced in terms of both leucocyte distribution and intensity of foci. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that ex vivo perfusion significantly reduced donor heart immunogenicity via loss of resident leukocytes. Despite the pro-inflammatory cytokine pattern observed, a pro-survival and reduced ischemia-related profile was observed, indicating an improvement in graft viability by perfusion. Diminished graft infiltration was observed in perfused hearts compared with those preserved by static cold storage following 48 h of transplantation.
|
|
| 3. |
- Kattge, Jens, et al.
(författare)
-
TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 26:1, s. 119-188
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives.
|
|
| 4. |
- Kuhrmann, Marco, et al.
(författare)
-
What Makes Agile Software Development Agile
- 2022
-
Ingår i: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. - 0098-5589 .- 1939-3520. ; 48:9, s. 3523-3539
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Together with many success stories, promises such as the increase in production speed and the improvement in stakeholders' collaboration have contributed to making agile a transformation in the software industry in which many companies want to take part. However, driven either by a natural and expected evolution or by contextual factors that challenge the adoption of agile methods as prescribed by their creator(s), software processes in practice mutate into hybrids over time. Are these still agile In this article, we investigate the question: what makes a software development method agile We present an empirical study grounded in a large-scale international survey that aims to identify software development methods and practices that improve or tame agility. Based on 556 data points, we analyze the perceived degree of agility in the implementation of standard project disciplines and its relation to used development methods and practices. Our findings suggest that only a small number of participants operate their projects in a purely traditional or agile manner (under 15%). That said, most project disciplines and most practices show a clear trend towards increasing degrees of agility. Compared to the methods used to develop software, the selection of practices has a stronger effect on the degree of agility of a given discipline. Finally, there are no methods or practices that explicitly guarantee or prevent agility. We conclude that agility cannot be defined solely at the process level. Additional factors need to be taken into account when trying to implement or improve agility in a software company. Finally, we discuss the field of software process-related research in the light of our findings and present a roadmap for future research.
|
|
| 5. |
- Lipoma, Lucrecia, et al.
(författare)
-
No general support for functional diversity enhancing resilience across terrestrial plant communities
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Global Ecology and Biogeography. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1466-822X .- 1466-8238.
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aim: Understanding the mechanisms promoting resilience in plant communities is crucial in times of increasing disturbance and global environmental change. Here, we present the first meta-analysis evaluating the relationship between functional diversity and resilience of plant communities. Specifically, we tested whether the resilience of plant communities is positively correlated with interspecific trait variation (following the niche complementarity hypothesis) and the dominance of acquisitive and small-size species (following the mass ratio hypothesis), and for the context-dependent effects of ecological and methodological differences across studies.Location: Global.Time Period: 2004–2021.Major Taxa Studied: Vascular plants.Methods: We compiled a dataset of 69 independent sites from 26 studies that have quantified resilience. For each site, we calculated functional diversity indices based on the floristic composition and functional traits of the plant community (obtained from the TRY database) which we correlated with resilience of biomass and floristic composition. After transforming correlation coefficients to Fisher's Z-scores, we conducted a hierarchical meta-analysis, using a multilevel random-effects model that accounted for the non-independence of multiple effect sizes and the effects of ecological and methodological moderators. Results: In general, we found no positive functional diversity–resilience relationships of grand mean effect sizes. In contrast to our expectations, we encountered a negative relationship between resilience and trait variety, especially in woody ecosystems, whereas there was a positive relationship between resilience and the dominance of acquisitive species in herbaceous ecosystems. Finally, the functional diversity–resilience relationships were strongly affected by both ecological (biome and disturbance properties) and methodological (temporal scale, study design and resilience metric) characteristics. Main Conclusions: We rejected our hypothesis of a general positive functional diversity–resilience relationship. In addition to strong context dependency, we propose that idiosyncratic effects of single resident species present in the communities before the disturbances and biological legacies could play major roles in the resilience of terrestrial plant communities.
|
|
| 6. |
- Olech, Peter-Scott, et al.
(författare)
-
Digital Interactive Public Pinboards for Disaster and Crisis Management : Concept and Prototype Design
- 2012
-
Ingår i: Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Engineering (IKE '12) at the 2012 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing (WorldComp '12). - : CSREA Press. - 1601322038
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent natural disasters, like the earthquakesin Port-au-Prince, Haiti (2010), Christchurch, New Zealand(2011) and the Tohoku earthquake in Japan (2011), whichalso triggered a tsunami resulting in the catastrophic failureof numerous nuclear power plants, pose the question howto support first responders in providing fast and adequatehelp. When first responders arrive on-site it is crucial thatthe flow of information is ensured: important fields arelogistics, communication, personal management and the deploymentof up-to-date information. Unfortunately the eventsin the past showed that there are certain shortcomings,especially in terms of communicating information from localresponders to arriving responders. Our approach proposesthe utilization of large public displays, seizing the ideaof traditional pinboards, referred in our work as DigitalInteractive Public Pinboards (DIPP). DIPPs are set up inhot spot locations and provide fast and reliable informationto first responders as well as citizens in the area of thenatural disaster.
|
|
| 7. |
- Porth, Oliver, et al.
(författare)
-
The Event Horizon General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Code Comparison Project
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series. - : American Astronomical Society. - 1538-4365 .- 0067-0049. ; 243:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent developments in compact object astrophysics, especially the discovery of merging neutron stars by LIGO, the imaging of the black hole in M87 by the Event Horizon Telescope, and high- precision astrometry of the Galactic Center at close to the event horizon scale by the GRAVITY experiment motivate the development of numerical source models that solve the equations of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD). Here we compare GRMHD solutions for the evolution of a magnetized accretion flow where turbulence is promoted by the magnetorotational instability from a set of nine GRMHD codes: Athena++, BHAC, Cosmos++, ECHO, H-AMR, iharm3D, HARM-Noble, IllinoisGRMHD, and KORAL. Agreement among the codes improves as resolution increases, as measured by a consistently applied, specially developed set of code performance metrics. We conclude that the community of GRMHD codes is mature, capable, and consistent on these test problems.
|
|
| 8. |
- Torne, Pablo, et al.
(författare)
-
A Search for Pulsars around Sgr A* in the First Event Horizon Telescope Data Set
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 1538-4357 .- 0004-637X. ; 959:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 2017 the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observed the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), at a frequency of 228.1 GHz (lambda = 1.3 mm). The fundamental physics tests that even a single pulsar orbiting Sgr A* would enable motivate searching for pulsars in EHT data sets. The high observing frequency means that pulsars-which typically exhibit steep emission spectra-are expected to be very faint. However, it also negates pulse scattering, an effect that could hinder pulsar detections in the Galactic center. Additionally, magnetars or a secondary inverse Compton emission could be stronger at millimeter wavelengths than at lower frequencies. We present a search for pulsars close to Sgr A* using the data from the three most sensitive stations in the EHT 2017 campaign: the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, the Large Millimeter Telescope, and the IRAM 30 m Telescope. We apply three detection methods based on Fourier-domain analysis, the fast folding algorithm, and single-pulse searches targeting both pulsars and burst-like transient emission. We use the simultaneity of the observations to confirm potential candidates. No new pulsars or significant bursts were found. Being the first pulsar search ever carried out at such high radio frequencies, we detail our analysis methods and give a detailed estimation of the sensitivity of the search. We conclude that the EHT 2017 observations are only sensitive to a small fraction (less than or similar to 2.2%) of the pulsars that may exist close to Sgr A*, motivating further searches for fainter pulsars in the region.
|
|
