| 21. |
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| 22. |
- Blunden, Jessica, et al.
(författare)
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State of the Climate in 2012
- 2013
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Ingår i: Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society - (BAMS). - 0003-0007 .- 1520-0477. ; 94:8, s. S1-S258
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- For the first time in serveral years, the El Nino-Southern Oscillation did not dominate regional climate conditions around the globe. A weak La Ni a dissipated to ENSOneutral conditions by spring, and while El Nino appeared to be emerging during summer, this phase never fully developed as sea surface temperatures in the eastern conditions. Nevertheless, other large-scale climate patterns and extreme weather events impacted various regions during the year. A negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation from mid-January to early February contributed to frigid conditions in parts of northern Africa, eastern Europe, and western Asia. A lack of rain during the 2012 wet season led to the worst drought in at least the past three decades for northeastern Brazil. Central North America also experienced one of its most severe droughts on record. The Caribbean observed a very wet dry season and it was the Sahel's wettest rainy season in 50 years. Overall, the 2012 average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces ranked among the 10 warmest years on record. The global land surface temperature alone was also among the 10 warmest on record. In the upper atmosphere, the average stratospheric temperature was record or near-record cold, depending on the dataset. After a 30-year warming trend from 1970 to 1999 for global sea surface temperatures, the period 2000-12 had little further trend. This may be linked to the prevalence of La Ni a-like conditions during the 21st century. Heat content in the upper 700 m of the ocean remained near record high levels in 2012. Net increases from 2011 to 2012 were observed at 700-m to 2000-m depth and even in the abyssal ocean below. Following sharp decreases in to the effects of La Ni a, sea levels rebounded to reach records highs in 2012. The increased hydrological cycle seen in recent years continued, with more evaporation in drier locations and more precipitation in rainy areas. In a pattern that has held since 2004, salty areas of the ocean surfaces and subsurfaces were anomalously salty on average, while fresher areas were anomalously fresh. Global tropical cyclone activity during 2012 was near average, with a total of 84 storms compared with the 1981-2010 average of 89. Similar to 2010 and 2011, the North Atlantic was the only hurricane basin that experienced above-normal activity. In this basin, Sandy brought devastation to Cuba and parts of the eastern North American seaboard. All other basins experienced either near-or below-normal tropical cyclone activity. Only three tropical cyclones reached Category 5 intensity-all in Bopha became the only storm in the historical record to produce winds greater than 130 kt south of 7 N. It was also the costliest storm to affect the Philippines and killed more than 1000 residents. Minimum Arctic sea ice extent in September and Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in June both reached new record lows. June snow cover extent is now declining at a faster rate (-17.6% per decade) than September sea ice extent (-13.0% per decade). Permafrost temperatures reached record high values in northernmost Alaska. A new melt extent record occurred on 11-12 July on the Greenland ice sheet; 97% of the ice sheet showed some form of melt, four times greater than the average melt for this time of year. The climate in Antarctica was relatively stable overall. The largest maximum sea ice extent since records begain in 1978 was observed in September 2012. In the stratosphere, warm air led to the second smallest ozone hole in the past two decades. Even so, the springtime ozone layer above Antarctica likely will not return to its early 1980s state until about 2060. Following a slight decline associated with the global 2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production reached a record 9.5 +/- 0.5 Pg C in 2011 and a new record of 9.7 +/- 0.5 Pg C is estimated for 2012. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by 2.1 ppm in 2012, to 392.6 ppm. In spring 2012, 2 concentration exceeded 400 ppm at 7 of the 13 Arctic observation sites. Globally, other greenhouse gases including methane and nitrous oxide also continued to rise in concentration and the combined effect now represents a 32% increase in radiative forcing over a 1990 baseline. Concentrations of most ozone depleting substances continued to fall.
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| 23. |
- Chami, Nathalie, et al.
(författare)
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Exome Genotyping Identifies Pleiotropic Variants Associated with Red Blood Cell Traits
- 2016
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Ingår i: American Journal of Human Genetics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0002-9297 .- 1537-6605. ; 99:1, s. 8-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Red blood cell (RBC) traits are important heritable clinical biomarkers and modifiers of disease severity. To identify coding genetic variants associated with these traits, we conducted meta-analyses of seven RBC phenotypes in 130,273 multi-ethnic individuals from studies genotyped on an exome array. After conditional analyses and replication in 27,480 independent individuals, we identified 16 new RBC variants. We found low-frequency missense variants in MAP1A (rs55707100, minor allele frequency [MAF] = 3.3%, p = 2 x 10(-10) for hemoglobin [HGB]) and HNF4A (rs1800961, MAF = 2.4%, p < 3 x 10(-8) for hematocrit [HCT] and HGB). In African Americans, we identified a nonsense variant in CD36 associated with higher RBC distribution width (rs3211938, MAF = 8.7%, p = 7 x 10(-11)) and showed that it is associated with lower CD36 expression and strong allelic imbalance in ex vivo differentiated human erythroblasts. We also identified a rare missense variant in ALAS2 (rs201062903, MAF = 0.2%) associated with lower mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin (p < 8 x 10(-9)). Mendelian mutations in ALAS2 are a cause of sideroblastic anemia and erythropoietic protoporphyria. Gene-based testing highlighted three rare missense variants in PKLR, a gene mutated in Mendelian non-spherocytic hemolytic anemia, associated with HGB and HCT (SKAT p < 8 x 10(-7)). These rare, low-frequency, and common RBC variants showed pleiotropy, being also associated with platelet, white blood cell, and lipid traits. Our association results and functional annotation suggest the involvement of new genes in human erythropoiesis. We also confirm that rare and low-frequency variants play a role in the architecture of complex human traits, although their phenotypic effect is generally smaller than originally anticipated.
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| 24. |
- Dassie, Justin P., et al.
(författare)
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Targeted inhibition of prostate cancer metastases with an RNA aptamer to prostate-specific membrane antigen
- 2014
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Ingår i: Molecular Therapy. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 1525-0016 .- 1525-0024. ; 22:11, s. 1910-1922
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cell-targeted therapies (smart drugs), which selectively control cancer cell progression with limited toxicity to normal cells, have been developed to effectively treat some cancers. However, many cancers such as metastatic prostate cancer (PC) have yet to be treated with current smart drug technology. Here, we describe the thorough preclinical characterization of an RNA aptamer (A9g) that functions as a smart drug for PC by inhibiting the enzymatic activity of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA). Treatment of PC cells with A9g results in reduced cell migration/invasion in culture and metastatic disease in vivo. Importantly, A9g is safe in vivo and is not immunogenic in human cells. Pharmacokinetic and biodistribution studies in mice confirm target specificity and absence of non-specific on/off-target effects. In conclusion, these studies provide new and important insights into the role of PSMA in driving carcinogenesis and demonstrate critical endpoints for the translation of a novel RNA smart drug for advanced stage PC. © The American Society of Gene amp; Cell Therapy.
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| 25. |
- de Vries, Paul S., et al.
(författare)
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Multiancestry Genome-Wide Association Study of Lipid Levels Incorporating Gene-Alcohol Interactions
- 2019
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Ingår i: American Journal of Epidemiology. - : Oxford University Press. - 0002-9262 .- 1476-6256. ; 188:6, s. 1033-1054
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A person's lipid profile is influenced by genetic variants and alcohol consumption, but the contribution of interactions between these exposures has not been studied. We therefore incorporated gene-alcohol interactions into a multiancestry genome-wide association study of levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides. We included 45 studies in stage 1 (genome-wide discovery) and 66 studies in stage 2 (focused follow-up), for a total of 394,584 individuals from 5 ancestry groups. Analyses covered the period July 2014-November 2017. Genetic main effects and interaction effects were jointly assessed by means of a 2-degrees-of-freedom (df) test, and a 1-df test was used to assess the interaction effects alone. Variants at 495 loci were at least suggestively associated (P < 1 x 10(-6)) with lipid levels in stage 1 and were evaluated in stage 2, followed by combined analyses of stage 1 and stage 2. In the combined analysis of stages 1 and 2, a total of 147 independent loci were associated with lipid levels at P < 5 x 10(-8) using 2-df tests, of which 18 were novel. No genome-wide-significant associations were found testing the interaction effect alone. The novel loci included several genes (proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 5 (PCSK5), vascular endothelial growth factor B (VEGFB), and apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme, catalytic polypeptide 1 (APOBEC1) complementation factor (A1CF)) that have a putative role in lipid metabolism on the basis of existing evidence from cellular and experimental models.
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| 26. |
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| 27. |
- Fredin, Kristofer, et al.
(författare)
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Effect on Cell Efficiency following Thermal Degradation of Dye-Sensitized Mesoporous Electrodes Using N719 and D5 Sensitizers
- 2009
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Ingår i: The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1932-7447 .- 1932-7455. ; 113:43, s. 18902-18906
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This work examines the comparative durability of two common dyes at temperatures that may be experienced during fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) such as through the application of thermoplastics for encapsulation or the use of a molten solid-state hole conductor. Dye-sensitized electrodes were heated in an atmosphere of air or nitrogen and thereafter used as working electrodes in DSCs. Electrodes sensitized with N719 appeared more sensitive to thermal degradation than electrodes sensitized with D5, although absorbance measurements suggest similar first-order degradation rates for the two dyes. Intensity modulated photovoltage spectroscopy and intensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy were used to measure the effect of heating on electron lifetime and transport. It was found that the electron diffusion length may.. be as low as 10% for heated samples, compared to that of the unheated counterpart, and therefore, we assess recombination as an additional efficiency limiting process in our experiments.
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| 28. |
- Grübler, Arnulf, et al.
(författare)
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Policies for the Energy Technology Innovation System (ETIS)
- 2012
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Ingår i: Global Energy Assessment: Toward a Sustainable Future. - 9780521182935 ; , s. 1665-1744
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The development and introduction of heat pumps provides an interesting illustration of policy influence and effectiveness in relation to energy technology innovation. Heat pumps have been supported by several countries since the 1970s as a strategy to improve energy efficiency, support energy security, reduce environmental degradation, and combat climate change. Sweden and Switzerland have been essential to the development and commercialization of heat pumps in Europe. In both countries, numerous policy incentives have lined the path of technology and market development. Early policy initiatives were poorly coordinated but supported technology development, entrepreneurial experimentation, knowledge development, and the involvement of important actors in networks and organisations. The market collapse in the mid 1980s could have resulted in a total failure ‐ but did not. The research programmes continued in the 1980s, and a new set of stakeholders formed ‐ both publicly and privately funded researchers, authorities, and institutions ‐ and provided an important platform for further development. In the 1990s and 2000s, Sweden and Switzerland introduced more coordinated and strategic policy incentives for the development of heat pumps. The approaches were flexible and adjusted over time. The policy interventions in both countries supported learning, successful development and diffusion processes, and cost reductions. This assessment of innovation and diffusion policies for heat pump systems can be used to generalise some insights for energy technology innovation policy.
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| 29. |
- Henzler-Wildman, Katherine A, et al.
(författare)
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Intrinsic motions along an enzymatic reaction trajectory.
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 450, s. 838-44
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The mechanisms by which enzymes achieve extraordinary rate acceleration and specificity have long been of key interest in biochemistry. It is generally recognized that substrate binding coupled to conformational changes of the substrate-enzyme complex aligns the reactive groups in an optimal environment for efficient chemistry. Although chemical mechanisms have been elucidated for many enzymes, the question of how enzymes achieve the catalytically competent state has only recently become approachable by experiment and computation. Here we show crystallographic evidence for conformational substates along the trajectory towards the catalytically competent 'closed' state in the ligand-free form of the enzyme adenylate kinase. Molecular dynamics simulations indicate that these partially closed conformations are sampled in nanoseconds, whereas nuclear magnetic resonance and single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer reveal rare sampling of a fully closed conformation occurring on the microsecond-to-millisecond timescale. Thus, the larger-scale motions in substrate-free adenylate kinase are not random, but preferentially follow the pathways that create the configuration capable of proficient chemistry. Such preferred directionality, encoded in the fold, may contribute to catalysis in many enzymes.
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| 30. |
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