| 1. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(author)
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A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
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In: eLIFE. - : eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. - 2050-084X. ; 5
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5–22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3– 19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8– 144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Aguilar, J., et al.
(author)
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Decoherence in neutrino oscillation at the ESSnuSB experiment
- 2024
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In: Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP). - : Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH. - 1126-6708 .- 1029-8479. ; 2024:8
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Neutrino oscillation experiments provide a unique window in exploring several new physics scenarios beyond the standard three flavour. One such scenario is quantum decoherence in neutrino oscillation which tends to destroy the interference pattern of neutrinos reaching the far detector from the source. In this work, we study the decoherence in neutrino oscillation in the context of the ESSnuSB experiment. We consider the energy-independent decoherence parameter and derive the analytical expressions for Pμe and Pμμ probabilities in vacuum. We have computed the capability of ESSnuSB to put bounds on the decoherence parameters namely, Γ21 and Γ32 and found that the constraints on Γ21 are competitive compared to the DUNE bounds and better than the most stringent LBL ones from MINOS/MINOS+. We have also investigated the impact of decoherence on the ESSnuSB measurement of the Dirac CP phase δCP and concluded that it remains robust in the presence of new physics.
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| 4. |
- Aguilar, J., et al.
(author)
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Search for Leptonic CP Violation with the ESSnuSBplus Project
- 2024
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In: Letters in High Energy Physics. - : Andromeda Publishing And Academic Services LTD. - 2632-2714.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- ESSνSB is a design study for a next-generation long-baseline neutrino experiment that aims at the precise measurement of the CP-violating phase, δCP, in the leptonic sector at the second oscillation maximum. The conceptual design report published from the first phase of the project showed that after 10 years of data taking, more than 70% of the possible δCP range will be covered with 5σ C.L. to reject the no-CP-violation hypothesis. The expected value of δCP precision is smaller than 8◦ for all δCP values. The next phase of the project, the ESSνSB+, aims at using the intense muon flux produced together with neutrinos to measure the neutrino-nucleus cross-section, the dominant term of the systematic uncertainty, in the energy range of 0.2–0.6 GeV, using a Low Energy neutrinos from STORed Muons (LEnuSTORM) and a Low Energy Monitored Neutrino Beam (LEMNB) facilities.
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| 5. |
- Aguilar, J., et al.
(author)
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Study of nonstandard interactions mediated by a scalar field at the ESSnuSB experiment
- 2024
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In: Physical Review D. - : American Physical Society. - 2470-0010 .- 2470-0029. ; 109:11
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper, we study scalar mediator induced nonstandard interactions (SNSIs) in the context of the ESSnuSB experiment. In particular, we study the capability of ESSnuSB to put bounds on the SNSI parameters and also study the impact of SNSIs in the measurement of the leptonic CP phase δCP. Existence of SNSIs modifies the neutrino mass matrix and this modification can be expressed in terms of three diagonal real parameters (ηee, ημμ, and ηττ) and three off-diagonal complex parameters (ηeμ, ηeτ, and ημτ). Our study shows that the upper bounds on the parameters ημμ and ηττ depend upon how Δm312 is minimized in the theory. However, this is not the case when one tries to measure the impact of SNSIs on δCP. Further, we show that the CP sensitivity of ESSnuSB can be completely lost for certain values of ηee and ημτ for which the appearance channel probability becomes independent of δCP.
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| 6. |
- Zhou, Bin, et al.
(author)
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Worldwide trends in diabetes since 1980: A pooled analysis of 751 population-based studies with 4.4 million participants
- 2016
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In: The Lancet. - : Elsevier B.V.. - 0140-6736 .- 1474-547X. ; 387:10027, s. 1513-1530
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: One of the global targets for non-communicable diseases is to halt, by 2025, the rise in the age standardised adult prevalence of diabetes at its 2010 levels. We aimed to estimate worldwide trends in diabetes, how likely it is for countries to achieve the global target, and how changes in prevalence, together with population growth and ageing, are aff ecting the number of adults with diabetes.Methods: We pooled data from population-based studies that had collected data on diabetes through measurement of its biomarkers. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in diabetes prevalence-defined as fasting plasma glucose of 7.0 mmol/L or higher, or history of diagnosis with diabetes, or use of insulin or oral hypoglycaemic drugs-in 200 countries and territories in 21 regions, by sex and from 1980 to 2014. We also calculated the posterior probability of meeting the global diabetes target if post-2000 trends continue.Findings: We used data from 751 studies including 4372000 adults from 146 of the 200 countries we make estimates for. Global age-standardised diabetes prevalence increased from 4.3% (95% credible interval 2.4-17.0) in 1980 to 9.0% (7.2-11.1) in 2014 in men, and from 5.0% (2.9-7.9) to 7.9% (6.4-9.7) in women. The number of adults with diabetes in the world increased from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014 (28.5% due to the rise in prevalence, 39.7% due to population growth and ageing, and 31.8% due to interaction of these two factors). Age-standardised adult diabetes prevalence in 2014 was lowest in northwestern Europe, and highest in Polynesia and Micronesia, at nearly 25%, followed by Melanesia and the Middle East and north Africa. Between 1980 and 2014 there was little change in age-standardised diabetes prevalence in adult women in continental western Europe, although crude prevalence rose because of ageing of the population. By contrast, age-standardised adult prevalence rose by 15 percentage points in men and women in Polynesia and Micronesia. In 2014, American Samoa had the highest national prevalence of diabetes (>30% in both sexes), with age-standardised adult prevalence also higher than 25% in some other islands in Polynesia and Micronesia. If post-2000 trends continue, the probability of meeting the global target of halting the rise in the prevalence of diabetes by 2025 at the 2010 level worldwide is lower than 1% for men and is 1% for women. Only nine countries for men and 29 countries for women, mostly in western Europe, have a 50% or higher probability of meeting the global target.Interpretation: Since 1980, age-standardised diabetes prevalence in adults has increased, or at best remained unchanged, in every country. Together with population growth and ageing, this rise has led to a near quadrupling of the number of adults with diabetes worldwide. The burden of diabetes, both in terms of prevalence and number of adults aff ected, has increased faster in low-income and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.
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| 7. |
- Yaghootkar, Hanieh, et al.
(author)
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Genetic Studies of Leptin Concentrations Implicate Leptin in the Regulation of Early Adiposity
- 2020
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In: Diabetes. - : American Diabetes Association. - 0012-1797 .- 1939-327X. ; 69:12, s. 2806-2818
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Leptin influences food intake by informing the brain about the status of body fat stores. Rare LEP mutations associated with congenital leptin deficiency cause severe early-onset obesity that can be mitigated by administering leptin. However, the role of genetic regulation of leptin in polygenic obesity remains poorly understood. We performed an exome-based analysis in up to 57,232 individuals of diverse ancestries to identify genetic variants that influence adiposity-adjusted leptin concentrations. We identify five novel variants, including four missense variants, in LEP, ZNF800, KLHL31, and ACTL9, and one intergenic variant near KLF14. The missense variant Val94Met (rs17151919) in LEP was common in individuals of African ancestry only, and its association with lower leptin concentrations was specific to this ancestry (P = 2 × 10-16, n = 3,901). Using in vitro analyses, we show that the Met94 allele decreases leptin secretion. We also show that the Met94 allele is associated with higher BMI in young African-ancestry children but not in adults, suggesting that leptin regulates early adiposity.
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| 8. |
- Arridge, Christopher S., et al.
(author)
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Uranus Pathfinder : exploring the origins and evolution of Ice Giant planets
- 2012
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In: Experimental astronomy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0922-6435 .- 1572-9508. ; 33:2-3, s. 753-791
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The "Ice Giants" Uranus and Neptune are a different class of planet compared to Jupiter and Saturn. Studying these objects is important for furthering our understanding of the formation and evolution of the planets, and unravelling the fundamental physical and chemical processes in the Solar System. The importance of filling these gaps in our knowledge of the Solar System is particularly acute when trying to apply our understanding to the numerous planetary systems that have been discovered around other stars. The Uranus Pathfinder (UP) mission thus represents the quintessential aspects of the objectives of the European planetary community as expressed in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. UP was proposed to the European Space Agency's M3 call for medium-class missions in 2010 and proposed to be the first orbiter of an Ice Giant planet. As the most accessible Ice Giant within the M-class mission envelope Uranus was identified as the mission target. Although not selected for this call the UP mission concept provides a baseline framework for the exploration of Uranus with existing low-cost platforms and underlines the need to develop power sources suitable for the outer Solar System. The UP science case is based around exploring the origins, evolution, and processes at work in Ice Giant planetary systems. Three broad themes were identified: (1) Uranus as an Ice Giant, (2) An Ice Giant planetary system, and (3) An asymmetric magnetosphere. Due to the long interplanetary transfer from Earth to Uranus a significant cruise-phase science theme was also developed. The UP mission concept calls for the use of a Mars Express/Rosetta-type platform to launch on a Soyuz-Fregat in 2021 and entering into an eccentric polar orbit around Uranus in the 2036-2037 timeframe. The science payload has a strong heritage in Europe and beyond and requires no significant technology developments.
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| 9. |
- Wennerström, Lovisa, et al.
(author)
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Genetic biodiversity in the Baltic Sea: Species-specific patterns challenge management
- 2013
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In: Biodiversity and Conservation. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0960-3115 .- 1572-9710. ; 22:13-14, s. 3045-3065
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Information on spatial and temporal patterns of genetic diversity is a prerequisite to understanding the demography of populations, and is fundamental to successful management and conservation of species. In the sea, it has been observed that oceanographic and other physical forces can constitute barriers to gene flow that may result in similar population genetic structures in different species. Such similarities among species would greatly simplify management of genetic biodiversity. Here, we tested for shared genetic patterns in a complex marine area, the Baltic Sea. We assessed spatial patterns of intraspecific genetic diversity and differentiation in seven ecologically important species of the Baltic ecosystem-Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), northern pike (Esox lucius), European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus), three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius), blue mussel (Mytilus spp.), and bladderwrack (Fucus vesiculosus). We used nuclear genetic data of putatively neutral microsatellite and SNP loci from samples collected from seven regions throughout the Baltic Sea, and reference samples from North Atlantic areas. Overall, patterns of genetic diversity and differentiation among sampling regions were unique for each species, although all six species with Atlantic samples indicated strong resistence to Atlantic-Baltic gene-flow. Major genetic barriers were not shared among species within the Baltic Sea; most species show genetic heterogeneity, but significant isolation by distance was only detected in pike and whitefish. These species-specific patterns of genetic structure preclude generalizations and emphasize the need to undertake genetic surveys for species separately, and to design management plans taking into consideration the specific structures of each species. © 2013 The Author(s).
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| 10. |
- Adelani, David Ifeoluwa, et al.
(author)
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MasakhaNER: Named Entity Recognition for African Languages
- 2021
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In: Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics. - : MIT Press. - 2307-387X. ; 9, s. 1116-1131
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We take a step towards addressing the under-representation of the African continent in NLP research by bringing together different stakeholders to create the first large, publicly available, high-quality dataset for named entity recognition (NER) in ten African languages. We detail the characteristics of these languages to help researchers and practitioners better understand the challenges they pose for NER tasks. We analyze our datasets and conduct an extensive empirical evaluation of state-of-the-art methods across both supervised and transfer learning settings. Finally, we release the data, code, and models to inspire future research on African NLP.
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