| 1. |
- Devos, David, et al.
(författare)
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Trial of Deferiprone in Parkinson’s Disease
- 2022
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Ingår i: New England Journal of Medicine. - : Massachusetts Medical Society. - 0028-4793 .- 1533-4406. ; 387:22, s. 2045-2055
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUNDIron content is increased in the substantia nigra of persons with Parkinson's disease and may contribute to the pathophysiology of the disorder. Early research suggests that the iron chelator deferiprone can reduce nigrostriatal iron content in persons with Parkinson's disease, but its effects on disease progression are unclear.METHODSWe conducted a multicenter, phase 2, randomized, double-blind trial involving participants with newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease who had never received levodopa. Participants were assigned (in a 1:1 ratio) to receive oral deferiprone at a dose of 15 mg per kilogram of body weight twice daily or matched placebo for 36 weeks. Dopaminergic therapy was withheld unless deemed necessary for symptom control. The primary outcome was the change in the total score on the Movement Disorder Society-sponsored revision of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS; range, 0 to 260, with higher scores indicating more severe impairment) at 36 weeks. Secondary and exploratory clinical outcomes at up to 40 weeks included measures of motor and nonmotor disability. Brain iron content measured with the use of magnetic resonance imaging was also an exploratory outcome.RESULTSA total of 372 participants were enrolled; 186 were assigned to receive deferiprone and 186 to receive placebo. Progression of symptoms led to the initiation of dopaminergic therapy in 22.0% of the participants in the deferiprone group and 2.7% of those in the placebo group. The mean MDS-UPDRS total score at baseline was 34.3 in the deferiprone group and 33.2 in the placebo group and increased (worsened) by 15.6 points and 6.3 points, respectively (difference, 9.3 points; 95% confidence interval, 6.3 to 12.2; P<0.001). Nigrostriatal iron content decreased more in the deferiprone group than in the placebo group. The main serious adverse events with deferiprone were agranulocytosis in 2 participants and neutropenia in 3 participants.CONCLUSIONSIn participants with early Parkinson's disease who had never received levodopa and in whom treatment with dopaminergic medications was not planned, deferiprone was associated with worse scores in measures of parkinsonism than those with placebo over a period of 36 weeks.
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| 2. |
- Berg, Axel, et al.
(författare)
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Keyword Transformer: A Self-Attention Model for Keyword Spotting
- 2021
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Ingår i: Proc. Interspeech 2021. ; , s. 4249-4253
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Transformer architecture has been successful across many domains, including natural language processing, computer vision and speech recognition. In keyword spotting, self-attention has primarily been used on top of convolutional or recurrent encoders. We investigate a range of ways to adapt the Transformer architecture to keyword spotting and introduce the Keyword Transformer (KWT), a fully self-attentional architecture that exceeds state-of-the-art performance across multiple tasks without any pre-training or additional data. Surprisingly, this simple architecture outperforms more complex models that mix convolutional, recurrent and attentive layers. KWT can be used as a drop-in replacement for these models, setting two new benchmark records on the Google Speech Commands dataset with 98.6% and 97.7% accuracy on the 12 and 35-command tasks respectively.
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| 3. |
- Berg, Christoffer, 1986-
(författare)
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Public Planning, Neoliberal Hybridity and Local Activism in Sundbyberg : Epochal Reconfiguration of Urban Development in Greater Stockholm
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Which urban policy responses are deployed when a small social democratic municipality in a greater city region aims to be competitive for private investments in housing and the built environment? Which new institutional development arrangements are implemented for this purpose, in the wake of a decades-long hegemonic position of the municipal public housing company? This thesis draws on a qualitative case study design to approach such questions, and investigates recent urban development in Sundbybergs stad in Greater Stockholm to answer them. Theoretically, the thesis draws on a theory of neoliberal localization in combination with Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the social production of space. The thesis is thereby able to explain how the municipality consolidated political power, institutional infrastructures, and administrative capacities with a view to introducing a market-based paradigm of urban development. It argues that this paradigm became characterized by a neoliberal hybridity. It supports this argument by analyzing three major development projects targeting three areas with very different sociospatial characteristics. The thesis thereby demonstrates how market-based developments integrated a number of regulatory features and public planning interventions in accordance with certain objectives, concerns, and conditions. E.g., it reveals how the development of a 1970s Million Homes Programme area, Hallonbergen, relied both on an extended sale of public assets to support private developers’ investments with the objective of comprehensively transforming the area, and on extraordinary measures for ‘social sustainability’. It also reveals how the development of the original municipal town, Central Sundbyberg, was arranged in a municipal development company. This established a business-like format for political control and external expertise, while undermining public planning and clouding democratic accountability. This point is further emphasized by analyzing local inhabitants’ methods for contesting certain development features and land use proposals in this project, enforcing a re-politicization of a largely depoliticized development project. Ultimately, the thesis contributes new knowledge on the variegating forms of neoliberal urbanism through an atypical case of a subordinate city region municipality that historically has been characterized by social democracy, a large public rental housing structure, a public housing company with control of spatial planning, and working-class populations and industries.
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| 4. |
- Christoffer, Berg, et al.
(författare)
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Renoviction, Class, and Contested Urban Redevelopment in a Swedish Neighborhood
- 2022
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The generalised renovation of rental housing estates built in the 1960s and 1970s in Sweden has recently led to high rent increases and the socio-spatial displacement of those tenants unable to afford them. This process has been designated as ‘renoviction’ (a compound of renovation and eviction). Previous research has shown that working-class tenants, intersecting with gender and migrant-background, have been most vulnerable to renoviction processes. Furthermore, renoviction processes have been questioned by tenants and housing organisations such as the Tenants’ Union, but to legally challenge renovation decisions in the Rent Tribunal has proved to be a dead end for tenants. In this paper we add a new angle to understand how renovictions are crucially implemented and contested given the local class structure. In doing so, we examine the Swedish neighbourhood of Eriksberg (Uppsala municipality). Firstly, because renovictions have predominantly occurred in ethnic and economic segregated areas, our focus on the socially mixed Eriksberg provides new insights. Thus, we investigate the municipal strategy of framing renovations of rental housing within a broader process of urban redevelopment. Secondly, we analyse the class character of grassroots’ contestations to urban redevelopment and renovictions, involving both city-owned and privately-owned properties. In particular, we aim at problematising to what extent certain urban conditions under threat such as low-density urbanisation and green areas, triggered more protests than affordable renovations for the working-class. Thirdly, we discuss the limitations of institutional channels of citizen participation and their sustainability rhetoric as a response to the residents’ say and will to stay put according to their conditions of class reproduction.
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| 5. |
- Edström, Kristina, Professor, 1958-
(författare)
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Battery 2030+ Roadmap
- 2020
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Climate change is the biggest challenge facing the world today. Europe is committed to achieving a climate-neutral society by 2050, as stated in the European Green Deal.1 The transition towards a climate-neutral Europe requires fundamental changes in the way we generate and use energy. If batteries can be made simultaneously more sustainable, safe, ultrahigh performing, and affordable, they will be true enablers, “accelerating the shift towards sustainable and smart mobility; supplying clean, affordable and secure energy; and mobilizing industry for a clean and circular economy” - all of which are important elements of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.In other words, batteries are a key technology for battling carbon dioxide emissions from the transport, power, and industry sectors. However, to reach our sustainability goals, batteries must exhibit ultra-high performance beyond their capabilities today. Ultra-high performance includes energy and power performance approaching theoretical limits, outstanding lifetime and reliability, and enhanced safety and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, to be commercially successful, these batteries must support scalability that enables cost-effective large-scale production.BATTERY 2030+, is the large-scale, long-term European research initiative with the vision of inventing the sustainable batteries of the future, to enable Europe to reach the goals envisaged in the European Green Deal. BATTERY 2030+ is at the heart of a green and connected society.BATTERY 2030+ will contribute to create a vibrant battery research and development (R&D) community in Europe, focusing on long-term research that will continuously feed new knowledge and technologies throughout the value chain, resulting in new products and innovations. In addition, the initiative will attract talent from across Europe and contribute to ensure access to competences needed for ongoing societal transformation.The BATTERY 2030+ aims are:• to invent ultra-high performance batteries that are safe, affordable, and sustainable, witha long lifetime.• to provide new tools and breakthrough technologies to the European battery industrythroughout the value chain.• to enable long-term European leadership in both existing markets (e.g., transport andstationary storage) and future emerging sectors (e.g., robotics, aerospace, medical devices, and Internet of things)With this roadmap, BATTERY 2030+ advocates research directions based on a chemistry-neutral approach that will allow Europe to reach or even surpass its ambitious battery performance targets set in the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan)3 and foster innovation throughout the battery value chain.
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| 6. |
- Hop, Paul J., et al.
(författare)
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Genome-wide study of DNA methylation shows alterations in metabolic, inflammatory, and cholesterol pathways in ALS
- 2022
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Ingår i: Science Translational Medicine. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science. - 1946-6234 .- 1946-6242. ; 14:633
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease with an estimated heritability between 40 and 50%. DNA methylation patterns can serve as proxies of (past) exposures and disease progression, as well as providing a potential mechanism that mediates genetic or environmental risk. Here, we present a blood-based epigenome-wide association study meta-analysis in 9706 samples passing stringent quality control (6763 patients, 2943 controls). We identified a total of 45 differentially methylated positions (DMPs) annotated to 42 genes, which are enriched for pathways and traits related to metabolism, cholesterol biosynthesis, and immunity. We then tested 39 DNA methylation-based proxies of putative ALS risk factors and found that high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, body mass index, white blood cell proportions, and alcohol intake were independently associated with ALS. Integration of these results with our latest genome-wide association study showed that cholesterol biosynthesis was potentially causally related to ALS. Last, DNA methylation at several DMPs and blood cell proportion estimates derived from DNA methylation data were associated with survival rate in patients, suggesting that they might represent indicators of underlying disease processes potentially amenable to therapeutic interventions.
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| 7. |
- Kliest, Tessa, et al.
(författare)
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Clinical trials in pediatric ALS: a TRICALS feasibility study
- 2022
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Ingår i: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 2167-8421 .- 2167-9223. ; 23:7-8, s. 481-488
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Pediatric investigation plans (PIPs) describe how adult drugs can be studied in children. In 2015, PIPs for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) became mandatory for European marketing-authorization of adult treatments, unless a waiver is granted by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).Objective: To assess the feasibility of clinical studies on the effect of therapy in children (<18 years) with ALS in Europe.Methods: The EMA database was searched for submitted PIPs in ALS. A questionnaire was sent to 58 European ALS centers to collect the prevalence of pediatric ALS during the past ten years, the recruitment potential for future pediatric trials, and opinions of ALS experts concerning a waiver for ALS.Results: Four PIPs were identified; two were waived and two are planned for the future. In total, 49 (84.5%) centers responded to the questionnaire. The diagnosis of 44,858 patients with ALS was reported by 46 sites; 39 of the patients had an onset < 18 years (prevalence of 0.008 cases per 100,000 or 0.087% of all diagnosed patients). The estimated recruitment potential (47 sites) was 26 pediatric patients within five years. A majority of ALS experts (75.5%) recommend a waiver should apply for ALS due to the low prevalence of pediatric ALS.Conclusions: ALS with an onset before 18 years is extremely rare and may be a distinct entity from adult ALS. Conducting studies on the effect of disease-modifying therapy in pediatric ALS may involve lengthy recruitment periods, high costs, ethical/legal implications, challenges in trial design and limited information.
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| 8. |
- Razavi, Homie A., et al.
(författare)
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Hepatitis D double reflex testing of all hepatitis B carriers in low-HBV- and high-HBV/HDV-prevalence countries
- 2023
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Ingår i: JOURNAL OF HEPATOLOGY. - : Elsevier. - 0168-8278 .- 1600-0641. ; 79:2, s. 576-580
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hepatitis D virus (HDV) infection occurs as a coinfection with hepatitis B and increases the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma, decompensated cirrhosis, and mortality compared to hepatitis B virus (HBV) monoinfection. Reliable estimates of the prevalence of HDV infection and disease burden are essential to formulate strategies to find coinfected individuals more effectively and efficiently. The global prevalence of HBV infections was estimated to be 262,240,000 in 2021. Only 1,994,000 of the HBV in-fections were newly diagnosed in 2021, with more than half of the new diagnoses made in China. Our initial estimates indicated a much lower prevalence of HDV antibody (anti-HDV) and HDV RNA positivity than previously reported in published studies. Ac-curate estimates of HDV prevalence are needed. The most effective method to generate estimates of the prevalence of anti-HDV and HDV RNA positivity and to find undiagnosed individuals at the national level is to implement double reflex testing. This re-quires anti-HDV testing of all hepatitis B surface antigen-positive individuals and HDV RNA testing of all anti-HDV-positive in-dividuals. This strategy is manageable for healthcare systems since the number of newly diagnosed HBV cases is low. At the global level, a comprehensive HDV screening strategy would require only 1,994,000 HDV antibody tests and less than 89,000 HDV PCR tests. Double reflex testing is the preferred strategy in countries with a low prevalence of HBV and those with a high prevalence of both HBV and HDV. For example, in the European Union and North America only 35,000 and 22,000 cases, respectively, will require anti-HDV testing annually.
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| 9. |
- Razavi-Shearer, Devin M., et al.
(författare)
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Adjusted estimate of the prevalence of hepatitis delta virus in 25 countries and territories
- 2024
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Ingår i: JOURNAL OF HEPATOLOGY. - 0168-8278 .- 1600-0641. ; 80:2, s. 232-242
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background & Aims: Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) is a satellite RNA virus that requires the hepatitis B virus (HBV) for assembly and propagation. Individuals infected with HDV progress to advanced liver disease faster than HBV-monoinfected individuals. Recent studies have estimated the global prevalence of anti-HDV antibodies among the HBV-infected population to be 5-15%. This study aimed to better understand HDV prevalence at the population level in 25 countries/territories. Methods: We conducted a literature review to determine the prevalence of anti-HDV and HDV RNA in hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive individuals in 25 countries/territories. Virtual meetings were held with experts from each setting to discuss the findings and collect unpublished data. Data were weighted for patient segments and regional heterogeneity to estimate the prevalence in the HBV-infected population. The findings were then combined with The Polaris Observatory HBV data to estimate the anti-HDV and HDV RNA prevalence in each country/territory at the population level. Results: After adjusting for geographical distribution, disease stage and special populations, the anti-HDV prevalence among the HBsAg+ population changed from the literature estimate in 19 countries. The highest anti-HDV prevalence was 60.1% in Mongolia. Once adjusted for the size of the HBsAg+ population and HDV RNA positivity rate, China had the highest absolute number of HDV RNA+ cases. Conclusions: We found substantially lower HDV prevalence than previously reported, as prior meta-analyses primarily focused on studies conducted in groups/regions that have a higher probability of HBV infection: tertiary care centers, specific risk groups or geographical regions. There is large uncertainty in HDV prevalence estimates. The implementation of reflex testing would improve estimates, while also allowing earlier linkage to care for HDV RNA+ individuals. The logistical and economic burden of reflex testing on the health system would be limited, as only HBsAg+ cases would be screened.
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