| 1. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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A mammalian blood odor component serves as an approach-avoidance cue across phylum border - from flies to humans
- 2017
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Chemosignals are used by predators to localize prey and by prey to avoid predators. These cues vary between species, but the odor of blood seems to be an exception and suggests the presence of an evolutionarily conserved chemosensory cue within the blood odor mixture. A blood odor component, E2D, has been shown to trigger approach responses identical to those triggered by the full blood odor in mammalian carnivores and as such, is a key candidate as a food/alarm cue in blood. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we demonstrate that E2D holds the dual function of affecting both approach and avoidance behavior in a predator-prey predicted manner. E2D evokes approach responses in two taxonomically distant blood-seeking predators, Stable fly and Wolf, while evoking avoidance responses in the prey species Mouse. We extend this by demonstrating that this chemical cue is preserved in humans as well; E2D induces postural avoidance, increases physiological arousal, and enhances visual perception of affective stimuli. This is the first demonstration of a single chemical cue with the dual function of guiding both approach and avoidance in a predator-prey predicted manner across taxonomically distant species, as well as the first known chemosignal that affects both human and non-human animals alike.
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| 2. |
- Nilsson, Anders K., 1982, et al.
(författare)
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Acylated monogalactosyl diacylglycerol : prevalence in the plant kingdom and identification of an enzyme catalyzing galactolipid head group acylation in Arabidopsis thaliana
- 2015
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Ingår i: The Plant Journal. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0960-7412 .- 1365-313X. ; 84:6, s. 1152-1166
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The lipid phase of the thylakoid membrane is mainly composed of the galactolipids mono-and digalactosyl diacylglycerol (MGDG and DGDG, respectively). It has been known since the late 1960s that MGDG can be acylated with a third fatty acid to the galactose head group (acyl-MGDG) in plant leaf homogenates. In certain brassicaceous plants like Arabidopsis thaliana, the acyl-MGDG frequently incorporates oxidized fatty acids in the form of the jasmonic acid precursor 12-oxo-phytodienoic acid (OPDA). In the present study we further investigated the distribution of acylated and OPDA-containing galactolipids in the plant kingdom. While acyl-MGDG was found to be ubiquitous in green tissue of plants ranging from non-vascular plants to angiosperms, OPDA-containing galactolipids were only present in plants from a few genera. A candidate protein responsible for the acyl transfer was identified in Avena sativa (oat) leaf tissue using biochemical fractionation and proteomics. Knockout of the orthologous gene in A. thaliana resulted in an almost total elimination of the ability to form both non-oxidized and OPDA-containing acyl-MGDG. In addition, heterologous expression of the A. thaliana gene in E. coli demonstrated that the protein catalyzed acylation of MGDG. We thus demonstrate that a phylogenetically conserved enzyme is responsible for the accumulation of acyl-MGDG in A. thaliana. The activity of this enzyme in vivo is strongly enhanced by freezing damage and the hypersensitive response.
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| 3. |
- Lundstedt-Enkel, Katrin, et al.
(författare)
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A Statistical Resampling Method To Calculate Biomagnification Factors Exemplified with Organochlorine Data from Herring (Clupea harengus) Muscle and Guillemot (Uria aalge) Egg from the Baltic Sea
- 2005
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Ingår i: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0013-936X .- 1520-5851. ; 39:21, s. 8395-8402
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A novel method for calculating biomagnification factors is presented and demonstrated using contaminant concentration data from the Swedish national monitoring program regarding organochlorine contaminants (OCs) in herring (Clupea harengus) muscle and guillemot (Uria aalge) egg, sampled from 1996 to 1999 from the Baltic Sea. With this randomly sampled ratios (RSR) method, biomagnification factors (BMFRSR) were generated and denoted with standard deviation (0) as a measure of the variation. The BMFRSR were calculated by randomly selecting one guillemot egg out of a total of 29 and one herring out of a total of 74, and the ratio was determined between the concentration of a given OC in that egg and the concentration of the same OC in that herring. With the resampling technique, this was performed 50 000 times for any given OC, and from this new distribution of ratios, BMFRSR for each OC were calculated and given as geometric mean (GM) with GM standard deviation (GMSD) range, arithmetic mean (AM) with AMSD range, and minimum (BMFMIN) as well as maximum (BMFMAX) biomagnification factors. The 14 analyzed OCs were p,p'DDT and its metabolites p,p'DDE and p,p'DDD, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB congeners: CB28, CB52, CB101, CB118, CB138, CB153, and CB180), hexachlorocyclohexane isomers (alpha-, beta-, and gamma HCH), and hexachlorobenzene (HCB). Multivariate data analysis (MVDA) methods, including principal components analysis (PCA), partial least squares regression (PLS), and PLS discriminant analyses (PLS-DA), were first used to extract information from the complex biological and chemical data generated from each individual animal. MVDA were used to model similarities/dissimilarities regarding species (PCA, PLS-DA), sample years (PLS), and sample location (PLS-DA) to give a deeper understanding of the data that the BMF modeling was based upon. Contaminants that biomagnify, that had BMFRSR significantly higher than one, were p,p'DDE, CB118, HCB, CB138, CB180, CB153, beta HCH, and CB28. The contaminants that did not biomagnify were p,p'DDT, p,p'DDD, alpha HCH, CB101, and CB52. Eventual biomagnification for gamma HCH could not be determined. The BMFRSR for OCs present in herring muscle and guillemot egg showed a broad span with large variations for each contaminant. To be able to make reliable calculations of BMFs for different contaminants, we emphasize the importance of using data based upon large numbers of, as well as well-defined, individuals.
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| 4. |
- Xu, Xiaofeng, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Pyrrolo[3,4-g]quinoxaline-6,8-dione-based conjugated copolymers for bulk heterojunction solar cells with high photovoltages
- 2015
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Ingår i: Polymer Chemistry. - : ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY. - 1759-9954 .- 1759-9962. ; 6:25, s. 4624-4633
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A new electron-deficient building block 5,9-di(thiophen-2-yl)-6H-pyrrolo[3,4-g]quinoxaline-6,8(7H)-dione (PQD) was synthesized via functionalizing the 6- and 7-positions of quinoxaline (Qx) with a dicarboxylic imide moiety. Side chain substitution on the PQD unit leads to good solubility which enables very high molecular weight copolymers to be attained. The fusion of two strong electron-withdrawing groups (Qx and dicarboxylic imide) makes the PQD unit a stronger electron-deficient moiety than if the unit had just one electron-withdrawing group, thus enhancing the intramolecular charge transfer between electron-rich and deficient units of the copolymer. Four PQD-based polymers were synthesized which feature deep-lying highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) levels and bathochromic absorption spectra when compared to PBDT-Qx and PBDT-TPD analogues. The copolymers incorporated with benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b]dithiophene (BDT) units show that the 1D and 2D structural variations of the side groups on the BDT unit are correlated with the device performance. As a result, the corresponding solar cells (ITO/PEDOT:PSS/polymer: PC71BM/LiF/Al) based on the four copolymers feature very high open-circuit voltages (V-oc) of around 1.0 V. The copolymer PBDT-PQD1 attains the best power conversion efficiency of 4.9%, owing to its relatively high absorption intensity and suitable film morphology. The structure-property correlation demonstrates that the new PQD unit is a promising electron-deficient building block for efficient photovoltaic materials with high V-oc.
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| 5. |
- Adiels, Emil, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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The use of virtual work for the formfinding of fabric, shell and gridshell structures
- 2018
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Advances in Architectural Geometry conference 2018. - 9783903015135 ; , s. 286-315
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The use of the virtual work theorem enables one to derive the equations of static equilibrium of fabric, shell and gridshell structures from the compatibility equations linking the rate of deformation of a surface to variations in its velocity. If the structure is treated as a continuum there is no need to consider its micro-structure provided that the grid is fine compared to the overall geometry. Thus we can include fabrics, ribbed shells, corrugated shells and gridshells with a fine grid, such as the Mannheim Multihalle. The equilibrium equations are almost identical to those obtained by assuming that a shell is thin and of uniform thickness, but are more general in their application. Our formulation introduces the concept of geodesic bending moments which are relevant to gridshell structures with continuous laths. The virtual work theorem is more general than the energy theorems, which it in- cludes as a special case. Hence it can be applied to surfaces which admit some form of potential, including minimal surfaces and hanging fabrics. We can then use the calculus of variations for the minimization of a surface integral to define the form of a structure. Many existing formfinding techniques can be rewritten in this way, but we concen- trate on surfaces which minimize the surface integral of the mean curvature subject to a constraint on the enclosed volume, producing a surface of constant Gaussian curvature. This naturally leads to the more general study of conjugate stress and curvature directions, and hence to quadrilateral mesh gridshells with flat cladding panels and no bending moments in the structural members under own weight.
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| 6. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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Human sickness detection is not dependent on cultural experience
- 2021
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8452 .- 1471-2954. ; 288:1954
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Animals across phyla can detect early cues of infection in conspecifics, thereby reducing the risk of contamination. It is unknown, however, if humans can detect cues of sickness in people belonging to communities with whom they have limited or no experience. To test this, we presented Western faces photographed 2 h after the experimental induction of an acute immune response to one Western and five non-Western communities, including small-scale hunter-gatherer and large urban-dwelling communities. All communities could detect sick individuals. There were group differences in performance but Western participants, who observed faces from their own community, were not systematically better than all non-Western participants. At odds with the common belief that sickness detection of an out-group member should be biased to err on the side of caution, the majority of non-Western communities were unbiased. Our results show that subtle cues of a general immune response are recognized across cultures and may aid in detecting infectious threats.
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| 7. |
- Lundstedt-Enkel, Katrin, et al.
(författare)
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Multivariate Data Analyses of Chlorinated and Brominated Contaminants and Biological Characteristics in Adult Guillemot (Uria aalge) from the Baltic Sea
- 2005
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Ingår i: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0013-936X .- 1520-5851. ; 39:22, s. 8630-7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Adult guillemot (Uria aalge) birds, 10 females and 10 males, drowned in trawl nets near Stora Karlso in the Baltic Sea, were collected in 2000. Several of the animals' biological characteristics were recorded. The birds' pectoral muscles were individually analyzed for their concentrations of organochlorines (M) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hexachlorocyclohexanes, trans-nonachlor, hexachlorobenzene, hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). The dominating contaminant was p,p'-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (p,p'-DDE) with a geometric mean concentration of 12 900 ng/g lipid weight (Iw). The concentration of Sigma PBDE (80 ng/g Iw) was similar to that of HBCD (65 ng/g Iw). The total concentration of all OCs was approximately 150 times higher than that of all BFRs. For the statistical evaluation of the data, we used multivariate analysis techniques such as principal components analysis, partial least-squares (PLS) regression, and PLS discriminant analyses. No differences between the two sexes were found, either in contaminant concentrations or in biological characteristics. We found that some biological characteristics covaried with the concentrations of several Us and BFRs, e.g., a negative correlation between liver weight and concentration of contaminants. The concentrations of most Us but not of BFRs showed a decrease with increasing lipid content. Further, a PLS model with M as X and BFRs as Y showed that the contaminants formed two groups, each with distinctive correlation patterns. The PLS model could be used to predict with varying accuracy the concentration of BFRs in the individual muscles from their concentration of OCs.
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| 8. |
- Lundstedt-Enkel, Katrin, et al.
(författare)
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Multivariate data analysis of organochlorines and brominated flame retardants in Baltic Sea guillemot (Uria aalge) egg and muscle.
- 2006
-
Ingår i: Chemosphere. - : Elsevier BV. - 0045-6535 .- 1879-1298. ; 65, s. 1591-1599
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Concentrations of organochlorines (OCs) and brominated flame-retardants (BFRs) were determined in guillemot (Uria aalge) eggs from the island of Stora Karlso in the Baltic Sea where 10 eggs/year were collected in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002. The dominating contaminant in egg was p,p'-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (p,p'-DDE) with a geometric mean (GM) concentration of 18200 ng/g lipid weight (lw). The GM concentration in egg of hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) of 140 ng/glw, was significantly higher than that of polybrominated diphenyl ether (summation operatorPBDE) of 77 ng/glw. For the evaluation of the data multivariate data analysis techniques namely principal components analysis (PCA), partial least squares regression (PLS), soft independent modelling of class analogy (SIMCA classification), and PLS discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), were used. We investigated whether the eggs' biological characteristics co-varied with egg concentrations of OCs and BFRs, and found e.g., significant negative correlations between egg weight and concentrations of HCB and p,p'-DDE. A PLS model with analyzed BFRs as the Y matrix and OCs as the X matrix could, with varying accuracy, calculate the concentrations of BFRs in the individual egg from their concentrations of OCs (e.g., R(2)Y of 0.89 for BDE47, and of 0.50 for HBCD). Lastly, we compared the contaminant concentrations in the eggs to those in previously analyzed pectoral muscles from adult guillemots from Stora Karlso, from the year 2000. A PLS-DA model, showed that some of the contaminants (e.g., HBCD and CB28) had significantly higher concentrations in egg than in muscle, although 7 of the 14 contaminants showed no difference in concentrations between the two matrices.
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| 9. |
- Regenbogen, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Behavioral and neural correlates to multisensory detection of sick humans
- 2017
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 114:24, s. 6400-6405
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout human evolution, infectious diseases have been a primary cause of death. Detection of subtle cues indicating sickness and avoidance of sick conspecifics would therefore be an adaptive way of coping with an environment fraught with pathogens. This study determines how humans perceive and integrate early cues of sickness in conspecifics sampled just hours after the induction of immune system activation, and the underlying neural mechanisms for this detection. In a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover design, the immune system in 22 sample donors was transiently activated with an endotoxin injection [lipopolysaccharide (LPS)]. Facial photographs and body odor samples were taken from the same donors when sick (LPS-injected) and when healthy (saline-injected) and subsequently were presented to a separate group of participants (n = 30) who rated their liking of the presented person during fMRI scanning. Faces were less socially desirable when sick, and sick body odors tended to lower liking of the faces. Sickness status presented by odor and facial photograph resulted in increased neural activation of odor-and faceperception networks, respectively. A superadditive effect of olfactory-visual integration of sickness cues was found in the intraparietal sulcus, which was functionally connected to core areas of multisensory integration in the superior temporal sulcus and orbitofrontal cortex. Taken together, the results outline a disease-avoidance model in which neural mechanisms involved in the detection of disease cues and multisensory integration are vital parts.
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| 10. |
- Sarolidou, Georgia, et al.
(författare)
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People expressing olfactory and visual cues of disease are less liked
- 2020
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Ingår i: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8436 .- 1471-2970. ; 375:1800
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- For humans, like other social animals, behaviour acts as a first line of defence against pathogens. A key component is the ability to detect subtle perceptual cues of sick conspecifics. The present study assessed the effects of endotoxin-induced olfactory and visual sickness cues on liking, as well as potential involved mechanisms. Seventy-seven participants were exposed to sick and healthy facial pictures and body odours from the same individual in a 2 x 2 factorial design while disgust-related facial electromyography (EMG) was recorded. Following exposure, participants rated their liking of the person presented. In another session, participants also answered questionnaires on perceived vulnerability to disease, disgust sensitivity and health anxiety. Lower ratings of liking were linked to both facial and body odour disease cues as main effects. Disgust, as measured by EMG, did not seem to be the mediating mechanism, but participants who perceived themselves as more prone to disgust, and as more vulnerable to disease, liked presented persons less irrespectively of their health status. Concluding, olfactory and visual sickness cues that appear already a few hours after the experimental induction of systemic inflammation have implications for human sociality and may as such be a part of a behavioural defence against disease. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Olfactory communication in humans'.
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