| 1. |
- Johansson, Maurits, et al.
(författare)
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Development of Apathy, Anxiety, and Depression in Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults : Effects of Alzheimer's Disease Pathology and Cognitive Decline
- 2022
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Ingår i: Biological Psychiatry. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-3223 .- 1873-2402. ; 92:1, s. 34-43
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The impact of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology and cognitive deficits on longitudinal neuropsychiatric symptoms is unclear, especially in early disease stages. Methods: Cognitively unimpaired older adults (N = 356) enrolled in the prospective Swedish BioFINDER study were examined. Neuropsychiatric assessments encompassed the Apathy Evaluation Scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, performed biennially (together with tests of global cognition) for up to 8 years. Biomarkers were measured in cerebrospinal fluid or plasma at baseline. Magnetic resonance imaging quantified white matter lesions. We used linear mixed-effect models to test associations between baseline AD biomarkers (for amyloid-β [Aβ], tau, and neurodegeneration) and white matter lesions with longitudinal neuropsychiatric symptoms (apathy, anxiety, and depressive symptoms). We also tested associations between changes in cognition and changes in neuropsychiatric symptoms. Finally, we tested if change in cognition mediated the effects of different brain pathologies on neuropsychiatric symptoms. Results: Aβ pathology at baseline was associated with increasing levels of apathy (β = −0.284, p =.005) and anxiety (β = −0.060, p =.011) longitudinally. More rapid decline of cognition over time was related to increasing levels of apathy. The effects of baseline Aβ pathology on longitudinal apathy were partly mediated by changes in cognitive performance (proportion mediated 23%). Conclusions: Aβ pathology may drive the development of both apathy and anxiety in very early stages of AD, largely independent of cognitive change. The effect of Aβ on apathy is only partially conveyed by worse cognition. Together, these findings highlight certain neuropsychiatric symptoms as early manifestations of AD.
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| 2. |
- Johansson, Maurits, et al.
(författare)
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Mild behavioral impairment and its relation to tau pathology in preclinical Alzheimer's disease
- 2021
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Ingår i: Translational Psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2158-3188. ; 11:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) is suggested as risk marker for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recently, pathologic tau deposition in the brain has been shown closely related to clinical manifestations, such as cognitive deficits. Yet, associations between tau pathology and MBI have rarely been investigated. It is further debated if MBI precedes cognitive deficits in AD. Here, we explored potential mechanisms by which MBI is related to AD, this by studying associations between MBI and tau in preclinical AD. In all, 50 amyloid-beta -positive cognitively unimpaired subjects (part of the BioFINDER-2 study) underwent MBI-checklist (MBI-C) to assess MBI, and the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale - Cognitive subscale (ADAS-Cog) delayed word recall (ADAS-DR) to assess episodic memory. Early tau pathology was determined using tau-PET ([F-18]RO948 retention in entorhinal cortex/hippocampus) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) P-tau(181). Regression models were used to test for associations. We found that higher tau-PET signal in the entorhinal cortex/hippocampus and CSF P-tau(181) levels were associated with higher MBI-C scores (beta =0.010, SE=0.003, p=0.003 and beta =1.263, SE=0.446, p=0.007, respectively). When MBI-C and ADAS-DR were entered together in the regression models, tau-PET (beta =0.009, p=0.009) and CSF P-tau(181) (beta =0.408, p=0.006) were predicted by MBI-C, but not ADAS-DR. We conclude that in preclinical AD, MBI is associated with tau independently from memory deficits. This denotes MBI as an important early clinical manifestation related to tau pathology in AD.
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| 3. |
- Pitaro, Matteo, et al.
(författare)
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A carbazole-based self-assembled monolayer as the hole transport layer for efficient and stable Cs(0.25)FA(0.75)Sn(0.5)Pb(0.5)I(3) solar cells
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Materials Chemistry A. - : Royal Society of Chemistry. - 2050-7488 .- 2050-7496. ; 11:22, s. 11755-11766
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mixed tin/lead (Sn/Pb) perovskites have the potential to achieve higher performances in single junction solar cells compared to Pb-based compounds. The best Sn/Pb based devices are fabricated in a p-i-n structure, and PEDOT:PSS is frequently utilized as the hole transport layer, even if there are many doubts on a possible detrimental role of this conductive polymer. Here, we propose the use of [2-(9H-carbazol-9-yl)ethyl]phosphonic acid (2PACz) and [2-(3, 6-dibromo-9H-carbazol-9-yl) ethyl] phosphonic acid (Br-2PACz) as substitutes for PEDOT:PSS. By using Cs(0.25)FA(0.75)Sn(0.5)Pb(0.5)I(3) as the active layer, we obtained record efficiencies as high as 19.51% on Br-2PACz, while 18.44% and 16.33% efficiencies were obtained using 2PACz and PEDOT:PSS, respectively. In addition, the implemented monolayers enhance both the shelf lifetime of the device as well as the operational stability. Finally, the Br-2PACz-based devices maintained 80% of their initial efficiency under continuous illumination for 230 h, and after being stored in a N-2 atmosphere for 4224 h (176 days).
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Reyes Molina, Sebastián, 1987-
(författare)
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Legal Interpretation and Standards of Proof : Essays in Philosophy of Law and Evidence Law Theory
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation addresses the issues of the indeterminacy of law and judicial discretion in the decision of the quaestio facti. It is composed of four papers:In the first paper, I develop an account of legal indeterminacy called the ‘systemic indeterminacy’ thesis. This thesis claims that legal indeterminacy and judicial discretion are the results of features of the structure of typical rational legal systems such as interpretative codes with a plurality of interpretative directives, the non-redundancy clause, and the non-liquet rule. In the second paper, I criticise two approaches that support the thesis that law ought to ascertain the truth of the quaestio facti: the motivation approach and the legal approach. First, I advance two objections to a version of the motivation approach that I call the ‘behaviour-guidance’ theory. The first objection claims that the appearance of ascertaining the truth is enough to produce the psychological state of compliance. The second objection claims that the indeterminacy of law brings about the impossibility of an ex ante knowledge of the content of the law, thus, the governed cannot gain knowledge of the law’s efforts to ascertain the truth. Second, I explore if the legal approach is plausible. I provide five different legal reasons to support the claim that the law ought to ascertain the truth of the quaestio facti. However, I show that none of these reasons are particularly convincing.In the third paper, I advance three objections to the idea of reducing the indeterminacy of the standard of proof rules by adding new legal rules for their interpretation. The first objection claims that these interpretative rules, do not provide any guidance to the trier of fact to set the quantum of evidence. The second objection claims that insofar as these interpretative rules are posited in a natural language they are also indeterminate. The third objection claims that these interpretative rules are redundant legal rules.In the fourth paper, I develop the thesis that standards of proof are competence norms that grant competence to triers of fact to set the quantum of evidence in a case-by-case manner.
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| 6. |
- Sloboda, Tamara, et al.
(författare)
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A method for studying pico to microsecond time-resolved core-level spectroscopy used to investigate electron dynamics in quantum dots
- 2020
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Nature. - 2045-2322. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy can give insights into carrier dynamics and offers the possibility of element and site-specific information through the measurements of core levels. In this paper, we demonstrate that this method can access electrons dynamics in PbS quantum dots over a wide time window spanning from pico- to microseconds in a single experiment carried out at the synchrotron facility BESSY II. The method is sensitive to small changes in core level positions. Fast measurements at low pump fluences are enabled by the use of a pump laser at a lower repetition frequency than the repetition frequency of the X-ray pulses used to probe the core level electrons: Through the use of a time-resolved spectrometer, time-dependent analysis of data from all synchrotron pulses is possible. Furthermore, by picosecond control of the pump laser arrival at the sample relative to the X-ray pulses, a time-resolution limited only by the length of the X-ray pulses is achieved. Using this method, we studied the charge dynamics in thin film samples of PbS quantum dots on n-type MgZnO substrates through time-resolved measurements of the Pb 5d core level. We found a time-resolved core level shift, which we could assign to electron injection and charge accumulation at the MgZnO/PbS quantum dots interface. This assignment was confirmed through the measurement of PbS films with different thicknesses. Our results therefore give insight into the magnitude of the photovoltage generated specifically at the MgZnO/PbS interface and into the timescale of charge transport and electron injection, as well as into the timescale of charge recombination at this interface. It is a unique feature of our method that the timescale of both these processes can be accessed in a single experiment and investigated for a specific interface.
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| 7. |
- Vicente, Veronica, et al.
(författare)
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Experience of using video support by prehospital emergency care physician in ambulance care - an interview study with prehospital emergency nurses in Sweden
- 2021
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Ingår i: BMC Emergency Medicine. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-227X. ; 21:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: When in need of emergency care and ambulance services, the ambulance nurse is often the first point of contact for the patient with healthcare. This role requires comprehensive knowledge of the ambulance nurse to be able to assign the right level of care and, if necessary, to provide self-care advice for patients with no further conveyance to hospital. Recently, an application was developed for transmitting real-time video to facilitate consultation between ambulance nurses and prehospital physicians in the role of regional medical support (RMS) for ambulance care. The use of video communication as a complement of medical support when referring to self-care is still an unexplored method in a prehospital setting. Our study aimed to elucidate ambulance nurses’ experience of video consultation with RMS physician during the assessment of patients considered to be triaged to self-care. Method: We conducted a qualitative design study using semi-structured interviews with open questions. Twelve ambulance nurses were included in the study. To explore the ambulance nurses’ experience of performing video consultation with RMS physician, in cases when a patient was assessed and triaged to self-care, a content analysis was performed. Results: A main category emerged from the results: “ Video consultation as decision support in the ambulance care promotes increased patient participation and for the ambulance nurses, it creates a feeling of increased patient safety “. The main category was based and formed on the following categories: “ Simultaneous presence of ambulance nurse and a physician increases patient participation during the assessment resulting in a confident care decision “. “Interprofessional collaboration strengthens the medical assessment”. “Video technology promotes accessibility for patients needs in the ambulance care regardless of emergency level”. Conclusions: Ambulance nurses experienced that the use of video consultation increases patient involvement and confidence in healthcare when both the ambulance nurse and the physician were present when deciding on self-care advice. The live imaging allowed the ambulance nurse and prehospital physician to reach a consensus on the patient’s current medical care needs, which in turn led to a feeling of increased patient safety for the ambulance nurses.
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| 8. |
- Adl-Zarrabi, Bijan, 1959, et al.
(författare)
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Annex 65, Long-Term Performance of Super-Insulating-Materials in Building Components and Systems. Report of Subtask III: Practical Applications – Retrofitting at the Building Scale – Field scale
- 2020
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- More than 80% of the energy consumption will be influenced by the existing building stock. Accordingly, building renovation has a high priority in many countries. Furthermore, several studies have shown that the most efficient way to curb the energy consumption in the building sector (new & existing) remain the reduction of the heat loss by improving the insulation of the building envelope (roof, floor, wall & windows). All since the first oil crisis in 1973-1974, the national building regulations require improvement of the thermal performance of the building envelope to significantly reduce the energy use for space heating. Following the regulations, the energy efficiency of new buildings has improved. In Europe, targeting to an average U-value close to 0.2 W/m2·K is optimal. Using traditional insulation materials this means an insulation thickness of about 20 cm. Thus, the thickness of internal and/or external insulation layers becomes a major issue of concern for retrofitting projects and even for new building projects in cities. Therefore, there is a growing interest in the so-called super-insulating materials (SIM). The scope of the present work covers two different types of SIMs: • Advanced Porous Materials (APM), where the gaseous heat transfer is hindered significantly by the fine structure in the sub-micrometre range, and • Vacuum Insulation Panels (VIP), where the contribution of gaseous conductivity to the total heat transfer is suppressed by evacuation. For Advanced Porous Materials (APM) one might distinguish between • porous silica e.g. based on fumed silica, and • aerogels. For Vacuum Insulation Panels (VIP) one might distinguish between: • different core materials: fumed silica, glass fibre, PU, EPS, others; • different envelopes: metalized film, aluminium laminate, stainless steel, glass, or combinations; • with or without a getter and/or a desiccant. The objective of this Annex 65 Subtask 3 report is to define the application areas of SIM and to describe the conditions of the intended use of the products. Indeed, it’s clear that the requested performance of the SIM will strongly depend on the temperature, humidity and load conditions. For building applications, storage, handling and implementation requirements are also described. Common and specific numerical calculations will be performed at the building scale to assess the impact of SIM on the performance of the building envelope. SIM was used in almost all building components with different environmental condition (boundary condition) and in different climate zone. The moisture and temperature conditions in building components can cause moisture/temperature induced stresses and the stresses can cause damage in sensitive super insulation material e.g. VIPs. Thus, to convince the conservative market of construction, it needs, in addition to laboratory measurements, real condition/environmental measurements of commercially realized objects (new buildings as well as refurbishments) under several years of operation. The long-term performance of super insulation materials has to be determined based on case studies in field and laboratory. Full scale experiments provide knowledge of practical and technical difficulties as well as data for service life estimation. For certain conclusions to be drawn from the case studies, monitoring is essential. Unfortunately, monitoring is only performed in few case studies. In this report these experiences are gathered and evaluated from a long-term performance perspective. APMs have been commercially successful in the building industry in niche applications typically with space restrictions since the early 2000s. Therefore, over the last years, a number of state-of-the-art reviews have focused on applications of advanced porous materials, such as aerogels, used as thermal insulation in buildings. VIPs, on the other hand, have also been used in other applications than buildings, such as refrigerators and transport boxes. The different applications areas have been identified by numerous researchers. However, in most studies of VIPs available in the literature, it was only the thermal performance of the assembly that was investigated. However, also the moisture performance is important to consider since changes to existing structures will influence the risk for moisture damages. In the Annex, the gathered case studies cover a wider range of SIM i.e. aerogel blankets, AB, (7 case studies), silica-based boards, SB, (3 case studies) and VIP (22 case studies). The aim was to gather information from projects where SIMs were used in different assemblies. Some of the projects have been monitored, i.e. sensors were installed to monitor the temperature, relative humidity or heat flux through the assemblies, while only three have been followed up, i.e. where a third party have analysed the results of the monitoring. The case studies are presented and specific and general conclusions from each application are made. The case studies showed that aerogel blankets are possible to install in up to five layers (50 mm) without too much difficulty. The evaluations showed that the performance of the aerogel blankets was maintained over the evaluation period. For VIPs, it is difficult to evaluate the performance when installed in the wall. In one of the case studies in the report, the external air space made it impossible to identify the different panels by thermography. Only indirect methods, like evaluation of the measured temperatures in the wall, can be used to follow the long-term performance of the panels. In another case study, hybrid insulated district heating pipes were installed at two locations in a district heating system with temperatures up to 90°C. Measurements during the period 2012 to 2015 showed no sign of deterioration of the VIPs and the temperature profile over the pipes was constant. An existing masonry wall was insulated with VIP-foam sandwich (XPS-VIP-XPS). It showed satisfactory and promising performance for a period of six years (2011-present). The analysis of the data obtained from continuous temperature monitoring across each insulation layer indicated the aging of VIP remains insignificant. In the framework of IEA EBC Annex 65 a common simulation-based procedure was introduced with the scope to identify potential critical hygrothermal working conditions of the SIM, which were identified as main drivers of the ageing effect. The study highlights that some physical phenomena (such as thermal bridging effects, the influence of temperature on the thermal conductivity and the decay of performance over time depending on the severity of the boundaryconditions) should be carefully evaluated during the design phase in order to prevent the mismatch between expected/predicted and the actual thermal performance. As general guidelines to mitigate the severity of the operating conditions of VIP, a list of recommendation are in the following summarised: • For the external wall insulation with VIP in solar exposed façade, the adoption of ventilated air layer could dramatically reduce the severity of the VIP operating conditions. Alternatively, light finishing colour are warmly encouraged to mitigate the surface temperature. • The protection of VIP with thin traditional insulation layer is always encouraged. • The application of VIP behind heater determines high value of surface temperature field which could potentially lead to a fast degradation of the panel. A possible solution to mitigate the severity of the boundary conditions could be the coupling of VIP with a radiant barrier, or the protection of VIP with thin insulation layer when it is possible. • In roof application, light colour (cool roof), performant water proof membrane, ventilated airspace and gravel covering layer (flat roof) represent effective solutions to mitigate the severe exposure. • In presence of wall subjected to high driving rain, it is preferable to adopt ventilated façade working as rain-screen to prevent the water absorption. Furthermore, to provide designers, engineers, contractors and builders with guidelines for the applications of vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) and Advanced Porous Materials (APMs) examples are given of methods that may be used to verify the quality and thermal performance of SIMs after installation. A comprehensive account of transport, handling, installation and quality check precures are presented. The main purpose of the descriptions is to promote safe transport, handling and installation. In the case of VIPs the primary issue is that of protecting the panels whereas the main concern for APMs is the safety in handling of the material. During the work of the Annex several questions regarding the long-term performance of SIMs on the building scale have been identified and discussed. Four main challenges were identified: • Knowledge and awareness among designers concerning using SIM • Conservative construction market • Cost versus performance • Long-term performance of SIMs Finally, SIMs for building applications have been developed in the recent decades. Theoretical considerations and first practical tests showed that VIP, especially those with fumed silica core, are expected to fulfil the requirements on durability in building applications for more than 25 years. Both VIPs and APMs have been successfully installed over the past 15 years in buildings. However, real experience from practical applications exceeding 15 years is still lacking, especially when considering third-party monitoring and follow up of demonstrations.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Baumann, Dominik
(författare)
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Learning and Control Strategies for Cyber-physical Systems: From Wireless Control over Deep Reinforcement Learning to Causal Identification
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cyber-physical systems (CPS) integrate physical processes with computing and communication to autonomously interact with the environment. This enables emerging applications such as autonomous driving or smart factories. However, current technology does not provide the dependability and adaptability to realize those applications. CPS are systems with complex dynamics that need to be adaptive, communicate with each other over wireless channels, and provide theoretical guarantees on proper functioning. In this thesis, we take on the challenges imposed by wireless CPS by developing appropriate learning and control strategies.In the first part of the thesis, we present a holistic approach that enables provably stable feedback control over wireless networks. At design time (i.e., prior to execution), we tame typical imperfections inherent in wireless networks, such as communication delays and message loss. The remaining imperfections are then accounted for through feedback control. At run time (i.e., during execution), we let systems reason about communication demands and allocate communication resources accordingly. We provide theoretical stability guarantees and evaluate the approach on a cyber-physical testbed, featuring a multi-hop wireless network supporting multiple cart-pole systems.In the second part, we enhance the flexibility of our designs through learning. We first propose a framework based on deep reinforcement learning to jointly learn control and communication strategies for wireless CPS by integrating both objectives, control performance and saving communication resources, in the reward function. This enables learning of resource-aware controllers for nonlinear and high-dimensional systems. Second, we propose an approach for evaluating the performance of models of wireless CPS through online statistical analysis. We trigger learning in case performance drops, that way limiting the number of learning experiments and reducing computational complexity. Third, we propose an algorithm for identifying the causal structure of control systems. We provide theoretical guarantees on learning the true causal structure and demonstrate enhanced generalization capabilities inherited through causal structure identification on a real robotic system.
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