| 41. |
- Haycock, Philip C., et al.
(författare)
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Association Between Telomere Length and Risk of Cancer and Non-Neoplastic Diseases A Mendelian Randomization Study
- 2017
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Ingår i: JAMA Oncology. - : American Medical Association. - 2374-2437 .- 2374-2445. ; 3:5, s. 636-651
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- IMPORTANCE: The causal direction and magnitude of the association between telomere length and incidence of cancer and non-neoplastic diseases is uncertain owing to the susceptibility of observational studies to confounding and reverse causation. OBJECTIVE: To conduct a Mendelian randomization study, using germline genetic variants as instrumental variables, to appraise the causal relevance of telomere length for risk of cancer and non-neoplastic diseases. DATA SOURCES: Genomewide association studies (GWAS) published up to January 15, 2015. STUDY SELECTION: GWAS of noncommunicable diseases that assayed germline genetic variation and did not select cohort or control participants on the basis of preexisting diseases. Of 163 GWAS of noncommunicable diseases identified, summary data from 103 were available. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: Summary association statistics for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are strongly associated with telomere length in the general population. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for disease per standard deviation (SD) higher telomere length due to germline genetic variation. RESULTS: Summary data were available for 35 cancers and 48 non-neoplastic diseases, corresponding to 420 081 cases (median cases, 2526 per disease) and 1 093 105 controls (median, 6789 per disease). Increased telomere length due to germline genetic variation was generally associated with increased risk for site-specific cancers. The strongest associations (ORs [ 95% CIs] per 1-SD change in genetically increased telomere length) were observed for glioma, 5.27 (3.15-8.81); serous low-malignant-potential ovarian cancer, 4.35 (2.39-7.94); lung adenocarcinoma, 3.19 (2.40-4.22); neuroblastoma, 2.98 (1.92-4.62); bladder cancer, 2.19 (1.32-3.66); melanoma, 1.87 (1.55-2.26); testicular cancer, 1.76 (1.02-3.04); kidney cancer, 1.55 (1.08-2.23); and endometrial cancer, 1.31 (1.07-1.61). Associations were stronger for rarer cancers and at tissue sites with lower rates of stem cell division. There was generally little evidence of association between genetically increased telomere length and risk of psychiatric, autoimmune, inflammatory, diabetic, and other non-neoplastic diseases, except for coronary heart disease (OR, 0.78 [ 95% CI, 0.67-0.90]), abdominal aortic aneurysm (OR, 0.63 [ 95% CI, 0.49-0.81]), celiac disease (OR, 0.42 [ 95% CI, 0.28-0.61]) and interstitial lung disease (OR, 0.09 [ 95% CI, 0.05-0.15]). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: It is likely that longer telomeres increase risk for several cancers but reduce risk for some non-neoplastic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases.
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| 42. |
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| 43. |
- Nagy, J. M., et al.
(författare)
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A New Limit on CMB Circular Polarization from SPIDER
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 844:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a new upper limit on cosmic microwave background (CMB) circular polarization from the 2015 flight of SPIDER, a balloon-borne telescope designed to search for B-mode linear polarization from cosmic inflation. Although the level of circular polarization in the CMB is predicted to be very small, experimental limits provide a valuable test of the underlying models. By exploiting the nonzero circular-to-linear polarization coupling of the half-wave plate polarization modulators, data from SPIDER's 2015 Antarctic flight provide a constraint on Stokes V at 95 and 150 GHz in the range 33 < l < 307. No other limits exist over this full range of angular scales, and SPIDER improves on the previous limit by several orders of magnitude, providing 95% C.L. constraints on l (l + 1)C-l(VV) /(2 pi) ranging from 141 to 255 mu K-2 at 150 GHz for a thermal CMB spectrum. As linear CMB polarization experiments become increasingly sensitive, the techniques described in this paper can be applied to obtain even stronger constraints on circular polarization.
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| 44. |
- Rosen, Raymond C., et al.
(författare)
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Quality of Life and Sexual Function Benefits of Long-Term Testosterone Treatment : Longitudinal Results From the Registry of Hypogonadism in Men (RHYME)
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Sexual Medicine. - : WILEY. - 1743-6095 .- 1743-6109. ; 14:9, s. 1104-1115
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The benefits and risks of long-term testosterone administration have been a topic of much scientific and regulatory interest in recent years. Aim: To assess long-term quality of life (QOL) and sexual function benefits of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) prospectively in a diverse, multinational cohort of men with hypogonadism. Methods: A multinational patient registry was used to assess long-term changes associated with TRT in middle-age and older men with hypogonadism. Comprehensive evaluations were conducted at 6, 12, 24, and 36 months after enrollment into the registry. Outcomes: QOL and sexual function were evaluated by validated measures, including the Aging Males' Symptom (AMS) Scale and the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF). Results: A total of 999 previously untreated men with hypogonadism were enrolled at 25 European centers, 750 of whom received TRT at at least one visit during the period of observation. Patients on TRT reported rapid and sustained improvements in QOL, with fewer sexual, psychological, and somatic symptoms. Modest improvements in QOL and sexual function, including erectile function, also were noted in RHYME patients not on TRT, although treated patients showed consistently greater benefit over time in all symptom domains compared with untreated patients. AMS total scores for patients on TRT were 32.8 (95% confidence interval = 31.3-34.4) compared with 36.6 (95% confidence interval = 34.8-38.5) for untreated patients (P < .001). Small but significant improvements in IIEF scores over time also were noted with TRT. Approximately 25% of treated and untreated men also used phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors, with notable differences in the frequency of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor prescription use according to physician specialty and geographic site location. Clinical Implications: TRT-related benefits in QOL and sexual function are well maintained for up to 36 months after initiation of treatment. Strengths and Limitations: The major strengths are the large, diverse patient population being treated in multidisciplinary clinical settings. The major limitation is the frequency of switching from one formulation to another. Conclusion: Overall, we confirmed the broad and sustained benefits of TRT across major QOL dimensions, including sexual, somatic, and psychological health, which were sustained over 36 months in our treatment cohort. Copyright (C) 2017, International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 45. |
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| 46. |
- Soranno, Patricia A., et al.
(författare)
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LAGOS-NE : A multi-scaled geospatial and temporal database of lake ecological context and water quality for thousands of U.S. lakes
- 2017
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Ingår i: GigaScience. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 2047-217X. ; 6:12, s. 1-22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding the factors that affect water quality and the ecological services provided by freshwater ecosystems is an urgent global environmental issue. Predicting how water quality will respond to global changes not only requires water quality data, but also information about the ecological context of individual water bodies across broad spatial extents. Because lake water quality is usually sampled in limited geographic regions, often for limited time periods, assessing the environmental controls of water quality requires compilation of many data sets across broad regions and across time into an integrated database. LAGOS-NE accomplishes this goal for lakes in the northeastern-most 17 US states. LAGOS-NE contains data for 51101 lakes and reservoirs larger than 4 ha in 17 lake-rich US states. The database includes 3 datamodules for: lake location and physical characteristics for all lakes; ecological context (i.e., the land use, geologic, climatic, and hydrologic setting of lakes) for all lakes; and in situmeasurements of lake water quality for a subset of the lakes fromthe past 3 decades for approximately 2600–12 000 lakes depending on the variable. The database contains approximately 150000 measures of total phosphorus, 200 000 measures of chlorophyll, and 900 000 measures of Secchi depth. The water quality data were compiled from87 lake water quality data sets fromfederal, state, tribal, and non-profit agencies, university researchers, and citizen scientists. This database is one of the largest andmost comprehensive databases of its type because it includes both in situmeasurements and ecological context data. Because ecological context can be used to study a variety of other questions about lakes, streams, and wetlands, this database can also be used as the foundation for other studies of freshwaters at broad spatial and ecological scales
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| 47. |
- Aghanim, N., et al.
(författare)
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Planck intermediate results L. Evidence of spatial variation of the polarized thermal dust spectral energy distribution and implications for CMB B-mode analysis
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 599
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The characterization of the Galactic foregrounds has been shown to be the main obstacle in the challenging quest to detect primordial B-modes in the polarized microwave sky. We make use of the Planck-HFI 2015 data release at high frequencies to place new constraints on the properties of the polarized thermal dust emission at high Galactic latitudes. Here, we specifically study the spatial variability of the dust polarized spectral energy distribution (SED), and its potential impact on the determination of the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r. We use the correlation ratio of the CBB `angular power spectra between the 217 and 353 GHz channels as a tracer of these potential variations, computed on different high Galactic latitude regions, ranging from 80% to 20% of the sky. The new insight from Planck data is a departure of the correlation ratio from unity that cannot be attributed to a spurious decorrelation due to the cosmic microwave background, instrumental noise, or instrumental systematics. The effect is marginally detected on each region, but the statistical combination of all the regions gives more than 99% confidence for this variation in polarized dust properties. In addition, we show that the decorrelation increases when there is a decrease in the mean column density of the region of the sky being considered, and we propose a simple power-law empirical model for this dependence, which matches what is seen in the Planck data. We explore the effect that this measured decorrelation has on simulations of the BICEP2-Keck Array/Planck analysis and show that the 2015 constraints from these data still allow a decorrelation between the dust at 150 and 353 GHz that is compatible with our measured value. Finally, using simplified models, we show that either spatial variation of the dust SED or of the dust polarization angle are able to produce decorrelations between 217 and 353 GHz data similar to the values we observe in the data.
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| 48. |
- Aghanim, N., et al.
(författare)
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Planck intermediate results LI. Features in the cosmic microwave background temperature power spectrum and shifts in cosmological parameters
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 607
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The six parameters of the standard Lambda CDM model have best-fit values derived from the Planck temperature power spectrum that are shifted somewhat from the best-fit values derived from WMAP data. These shifts are driven by features in the Planck temperature power spectrum at angular scales that had never before been measured to cosmic-variance level precision. We have investigated these shifts to determine whether they are within the range of expectation and to understand their origin in the data. Taking our parameter set to be the optical depth of the reionized intergalactic medium tau, the baryon density omega(b), the matter density omega(m), the angular size of the sound horizon theta(*), the spectral index of the primordial power spectrum, n(s), and A(s)e(-2 pi) (where As is the amplitude of the primordial power spectrum), we have examined the change in best-fit values between a WMAP-like large angular-scale data set (with multipole moment l < 800 in the Planck temperature power spectrum) and an all angular-scale data set (l < 2500 Planck temperature power spectrum), each with a prior on tau of 0.07 +/- 0.02. We find that the shifts, in units of the 1 sigma expected dispersion for each parameter, are {Delta tau, Delta A(s)e(-2 tau), Delta n(s), Delta omega(m), Delta omega(b), Delta theta(*)} = {-1.7, -2.2, 1.2, 2.0, 1.1, 0.9}, with a chi(2) value of 8.0. We find that this chi(2) value is exceeded in 15% of our simulated data sets, and that a parameter deviates by more than 2.2 sigma in 9% of simulated data sets, meaning that the shifts are not unusually large. Comparing l < 800 instead to l > 800, or splitting at a different multipole, yields similar results. We examined the l < 800 model residuals in the l > 800 power spectrum data and find that the features there that drive these shifts are a set of oscillations across a broad range of angular scales. Although they partly appear similar to the effects of enhanced gravitational lensing, the shifts in Lambda CDM parameters that arise in response to these features correspond to model spectrum changes that are predominantly due to non-lensing effects; the only exception is tau, which, at fixed A(s)e(-2 tau), affects the l > 800 temperature power spectrum solely through the associated change in As and the impact of that on the lensing potential power spectrum. We also ask, what is it about the power spectrum at l < 800 that leads to somewhat different best-fit parameters than come from the full l range? We find that if we discard the data at l < 30, where there is a roughly 2 sigma downward fluctuation in power relative to the model that best fits the full l range, the l < 800 best-fit parameters shift significantly towards the l < 2500 best-fit parameters. In contrast, including l < 30, this previously noted low-l deficit drives ns up and impacts parameters correlated with ns, such as omega(m) and H-0. As expected, the l < 30 data have a much greater impact on the l < 800 best fit than on the l < 2500 best fit. So although the shifts are not very significant, we find that they can be understood through the combined effects of an oscillatory-like set of high-l residuals and the deficit in low-l power, excursions consistent with sample variance that happen to map onto changes in cosmological parameters. Finally, we examine agreement between Planck TT data and two other CMB data sets, namely the Planck lensing reconstruction and the TT power spectrum measured by the South Pole Telescope, again finding a lack of convincing evidence of any significant deviations in parameters, suggesting that current CMB data sets give an internally consistent picture of the Lambda CDM model.
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| 49. |
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| 50. |
- Ahmadi, M., et al.
(författare)
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Antihydrogen accumulation for fundamental symmetry tests
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Antihydrogen, a positron bound to an antiproton, is the simplest anti-atom. Its structure and properties are expected to mirror those of the hydrogen atom. Prospects for precision comparisons of the two, as tests of fundamental symmetries, are driving a vibrant programme of research. In this regard, a limiting factor in most experiments is the availability of large numbers of cold ground state antihydrogen atoms. Here, we describe how an improved synthesis process results in a maximum rate of 10.5 +/- 0.6 atoms trapped and detected per cycle, corresponding to more than an order of magnitude improvement over previous work. Additionally, we demonstrate how detailed control of electron, positron and antiproton plasmas enables repeated formation and trapping of antihydrogen atoms, with the simultaneous retention of atoms produced in previous cycles. We report a record of 54 detected annihilation events from a single release of the trapped anti-atoms accumulated from five consecutive cycles.
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