| 1. |
- Maisel, Alan, et al.
(författare)
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State of the art : Using natriuretic peptide levels in clinical practice
- 2008
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Ingår i: European Journal of Heart Failure. - : Wiley. - 1388-9842 .- 1879-0844. ; 10:9, s. 824-839
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Natriuretic peptide (NP) levels (B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal proBNP) are now widely used in clinical practice and cardiovascular research throughout the world and have been incorporated into most national and international cardiovascular guidelines for heart failure. The role of NP levels in state-of-the-art clinical practice is evolving rapidly. This paper reviews and highlights ten key messages to clinicians:•NP levels are quantitative plasma biomarkers of heart failure (HF).•NP levels are accurate in the diagnosis of HF.•NP levels may help risk stratify emergency department (ED) patients with regard to the need for hospital admission or direct ED discharge.•NP levels help improve patient management and reduce total treatment costs in patients with acute dyspnoea.•NP levels at the time of admission are powerful predictors of outcome in predicting death and re-hospitalisation in HF patients.•NP levels at discharge aid in risk stratification of the HF patient.•NP-guided therapy may improve morbidity and/or mortality in chronic HF.•The combination of NP levels together with symptoms, signs and weight gain assists in the assessment of clinical decompensation in HF.•NP levels can accelerate accurate diagnosis of heart failure presenting in primary care.•NP levels may be helpful to screen for asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction in high-risk patients.
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| 2. |
- Tranvik, Lars J., et al.
(författare)
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Lakes and reservoirs as regulators of carbon cycling and climate
- 2009
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Ingår i: Limnology and Oceanography. - : Wiley. - 0024-3590 .- 1939-5590. ; 54:6:2, s. 2298-2314
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- We explore the role of lakes in carbon cycling and global climate, examine the mechanisms influencing carbon pools and transformations in lakes, and discuss how the metabolism of carbon in the inland waters is likely to change in response to climate. Furthermore, we project changes as global climate change in the abundance and spatial distribution of lakes in the biosphere, and we revise the estimate for the global extent of carbon transformation in inland waters. This synthesis demonstrates that the global annual emissions of carbon dioxide from inland waters to the atmosphere are similar in magnitude to the carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans and that the global burial of organic carbon in inland water sediments exceeds organic carbon sequestration on the ocean floor. The role of inland waters in global carbon cycling and climate forcing may be changed by human activities, including construction of impoundments, which accumulate large amounts of carbon in sediments and emit large amounts of methane to the atmosphere. Methane emissions are also expected from lakes on melting permafrost. The synthesis presented here indicates that (1) inland waters constitute a significant component of the global carbon cycle, (2) their contribution to this cycle has significantly changed as a result of human activities, and (3) they will continue to change in response to future climate change causing decreased as well as increased abundance of lakes as well as increases in the number of aquatic impoundments.
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| 3. |
- Beisner, Beatrix E., et al.
(författare)
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The role of environmental and spatial processes in structuring lake communities from bacteria to fish
- 2006
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Ingår i: Ecology. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 87:12, s. 2985-2991
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We assessed the relative roles of local environmental conditions and dispersal on community structure in a landscape of lakes for the major trophic groups. We use taxonomic presence–absence and abundance data for bacteria, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish from 18 lakes in southern Quebec, Canada. The question of interest was whether communities composed of organisms with more limited dispersal abilities, because of size and life history (zooplankton and fish) would show a different effect of lake distribution than communities composed of good dispersers (bacteria and phytoplankton). We examine the variation in structure attributable to local environmental (i.e., lake chemical and physical variables) vs. dispersal predictors (i.e., overland and watercourse distances between lakes) using variation partitioning techniques. Overall, we show that less motile species (crustacean zooplankton and fish) are better predicted by spatial factors than by local environmental ones. Furthermore, we show that for zooplankton abundances, both overland and watercourse dispersal pathways are equally strong, though they may select for different components of the community, while for fish, only watercourses are relevant dispersal pathways. These results suggest that crustacean zooplankton and fish are more constrained by dispersal and therefore more likely to operate as a metacommunity than are bacteria and phytoplankton within this studied landscape.
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| 4. |
- Gonfiantini, Roberto, et al.
(författare)
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Intercomparison of Boron Isotope and Concentration Measurements. Part II: Evaluation of Results
- 2005
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Ingår i: Geostandards Newsletter. - 0150-5505. ; 27:1, s. 41-57
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse (IGG), on behalf and with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), prepared eight geological materials (three natural waters and five rocks and minerals), intended for a blind interlaboratory comparison of measurements of boron isotopic composition and concentration. The materials were distributed to twenty seven laboratories - virtually all those performing geochemical boron isotope analyses in the world - which agreed to participate in the intercomparison exercise. Only fifteen laboratories, however, ultimately submitted the isotopic and/or concentration results they obtained on the intercomparison materials. The results demonstrate that interlaboratory reproducibility is not well reflected by the precision values reported by the individual laboratories and this observation holds true for both boron concentration and isotopic composition. The reasons for the discrepancies include fractionations due to the chemical matrix of materials, relative shift of the zero position on the δ11 B scale and a lack of well characterized materials for calibrating absolute boron content measurements. The intercomparison materials are now available at the IAEA (solid materials) and IGG (waters) for future distribution.
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