| 1. |
- Kanai, M, et al.
(author)
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- 2023
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swepub:Mat__t
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| 2. |
- Delabrouille, J., et al.
(author)
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Exploring cosmic origins with CORE : Survey requirements and mission design
- 2018
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In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1475-7516. ; :4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Future observations of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarisation have the potential to answer some of the most fundamental questions of modern physics and cosmology, including: what physical process gave birth to the Universe we see today? What are the dark matter and dark energy that seem to constitute 95% of the energy density of the Universe? Do we need extensions to the standard model of particle physics and fundamental interactions? Is the ACDM cosmological scenario correct, or are we missing an essential piece of the puzzle? In this paper, we list the requirements for a future CMB polarisation survey addressing these scientific objectives, and discuss the design drivers of the CORE space mission proposed to ESA in answer to the M5 call for a medium-sized mission. The rationale and options, and the methodologies used to assess the mission's performance, are of interest to other future CMB mission design studies. CORE has 19 frequency channels, distributed over a broad frequency range, spanning the 60-600 GHz interval, to control astrophysical foreground emission. The angular resolution ranges from 2' to 18', and the aggregate CMB sensitivity is about 2 mu K.arcmin. The observations are made with a single integrated focal-plane instrument, consisting of an array of 2100 cryogenically-cooled, linearly-polarised detectors at the focus of a 1.2-m aperture cross-Dragone telescope. The mission is designed to minimise all sources of systematic effects, which must be controlled so that no more than 10(-4) of the intensity leaks into polarisation maps, and no more than about 1% of E-type polarisation leaks into B-type modes. CORE observes the sky from a large Lissajous orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point on an orbit that offers stable observing conditions and avoids contamination from sidelobe pick-up of stray radiation originating from the Sun, Earth, and Moon. The entire sky is observed repeatedly during four years of continuous scanning, with a combination of three rotations of the spacecraft over different timescales. With about 50% of the sky covered every few days, this scan strategy provides the mitigation of systematic effects and the internal redundancy that are needed to convincingly extract the primordial B-mode signal on large angular scales, and check with adequate sensitivity the consistency of the observations in several independent data subsets. CORE is designed as a near-ultimate CMB polarisation mission which, for optimal complementarity with ground-based observations, will perform the observations that are known to be essential to CMB polarisation science and cannot be obtained by any other means than a dedicated space mission. It will provide well-characterised, highly-redundant multi-frequency observations of polarisation at all the scales where foreground emission and cosmic variance dominate the final uncertainty for obtaining precision CMB science, as well as 2' angular resolution maps of high-frequency foreground emission in the 300-600 GHz frequency range, essential for complementarity with future ground-based observations with large telescopes that can observe the CMB with the same beamsize.
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| 3. |
- Bastard, P, et al.
(author)
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Vaccine breakthrough hypoxemic COVID-19 pneumonia in patients with auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs
- 2022
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In: Science immunology. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 2470-9468. ; 78:7490, s. eabp8966-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Life-threatening ‘breakthrough’ cases of critical COVID-19 are attributed to poor or waning antibody response to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in individuals already at risk. Pre-existing autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing type I IFNs underlie at least 15% of critical COVID-19 pneumonia cases in unvaccinated individuals; however, their contribution to hypoxemic breakthrough cases in vaccinated people remains unknown. Here, we studied a cohort of 48 individuals (age 20-86 years) who received 2 doses of an mRNA vaccine and developed a breakthrough infection with hypoxemic COVID-19 pneumonia 2 weeks to 4 months later. Antibody levels to the vaccine, neutralization of the virus, and auto-Abs to type I IFNs were measured in the plasma. Forty-two individuals had no known deficiency of B cell immunity and a normal antibody response to the vaccine. Among them, ten (24%) had auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs (aged 43-86 years). Eight of these ten patients had auto-Abs neutralizing both IFN-α2 and IFN-ω, while two neutralized IFN-ω only. No patient neutralized IFN-β. Seven neutralized 10 ng/mL of type I IFNs, and three 100 pg/mL only. Seven patients neutralized SARS-CoV-2 D614G and the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) efficiently, while one patient neutralized Delta slightly less efficiently. Two of the three patients neutralizing only 100 pg/mL of type I IFNs neutralized both D61G and Delta less efficiently. Despite two mRNA vaccine inoculations and the presence of circulating antibodies capable of neutralizing SARS-CoV-2, auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs may underlie a significant proportion of hypoxemic COVID-19 pneumonia cases, highlighting the importance of this particularly vulnerable population.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Christakoudi, Sofia, et al.
(author)
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Development and validation of the first consensus gene-expression signature of operational tolerance in kidney transplantation, incorporating adjustment for immunosuppressive drug therapy
- 2020
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In: EBioMedicine. - : Elsevier BV. - 2352-3964. ; 58
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) with "operational tolerance" (OT) maintain a functioning graft without immunosuppressive (IS) drugs, thus avoiding treatment complications. Nevertheless, IS drugs can influence gene-expression signatures aiming to identify OT among treated KTRs. Methods: We compared five published signatures of OT in peripheral blood samples from 18 tolerant, 183 stable, and 34 chronic rejector KTRs, using gene-expression levels with and without adjustment for IS drugs and regularised logistic regression. Findings: IS drugs explained up to 50% of the variability in gene-expression and 20-30% of the variability in the probability of OT predicted by signatures without drug adjustment. We present a parsimonious consensus gene-set to identify OT, derived from joint analysis of IS-drug-adjusted expression of five published signature gene-sets. This signature, including CD40, CTLA4, HSD11B1, IGKV4-1, MZB1, NR3C2, and RAB40C genes, showed an area under the curve 0.92 (95% confidence interval 0.88-0.94) in cross-validation and 0.97 (0.93-1.00) in six months follow-up samples. Interpretation: We advocate including adjustment for IS drug therapy in the development stage of gene-expression signatures of OT to reduce the risk of capturing features of treatment, which could be lost following IS drug minimisation or withdrawal. Our signature, however, would require further validation in an independent dataset and a biomarker-led trial. (c) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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| 6. |
- Cruz, Raquel, et al.
(author)
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Novel genes and sex differences in COVID-19 severity
- 2022
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In: Human Molecular Genetics. - : Oxford University Press. - 0964-6906 .- 1460-2083. ; 31:22, s. 3789-3806
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Here, we describe the results of a genome-wide study conducted in 11 939 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) positive cases with an extensive clinical information that were recruited from 34 hospitals across Spain (SCOURGE consortium). In sex-disaggregated genome-wide association studies for COVID-19 hospitalization, genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10−8) was crossed for variants in 3p21.31 and 21q22.11 loci only among males (P = 1.3 × 10−22 and P = 8.1 × 10−12, respectively), and for variants in 9q21.32 near TLE1 only among females (P = 4.4 × 10−8). In a second phase, results were combined with an independent Spanish cohort (1598 COVID-19 cases and 1068 population controls), revealing in the overall analysis two novel risk loci in 9p13.3 and 19q13.12, with fine-mapping prioritized variants functionally associated with AQP3 (P = 2.7 × 10−8) and ARHGAP33 (P = 1.3 × 10−8), respectively. The meta-analysis of both phases with four European studies stratified by sex from the Host Genetics Initiative (HGI) confirmed the association of the 3p21.31 and 21q22.11 loci predominantly in males and replicated a recently reported variant in 11p13 (ELF5, P = 4.1 × 10−8). Six of the COVID-19 HGI discovered loci were replicated and an HGI-based genetic risk score predicted the severity strata in SCOURGE. We also found more SNP-heritability and larger heritability differences by age (<60 or ≥60 years) among males than among females. Parallel genome-wide screening of inbreeding depression in SCOURGE also showed an effect of homozygosity in COVID-19 hospitalization and severity and this effect was stronger among older males. In summary, new candidate genes for COVID-19 severity and evidence supporting genetic disparities among sexes are provided.
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| 7. |
- Lundström, Linda, et al.
(author)
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Symmetries in peripheral ocular aberrations
- 2011
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In: Journal of Modern Optics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0950-0340 .- 1362-3044. ; 58:19-20, s. 1690-1695
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A mirror symmetry in the aberrations between the left and right eyes has previously been found foveally, but while a similar symmetry for the peripheral visual field is likely, it has not been investigated. Nevertheless, the peripheral optical quality is often evaluated in only one eye, because it is more time efficient than analyzing the whole visual field of both eyes. This study investigates the correctness of such an approach by measuring the peripheral wavefront aberrations in both eyes of 22 subjects out to +/- 40 degrees horizontally. The largest aberrations (defocus, astigmatism, and coma) were found to be significantly correlated between the left and right eyes when comparing the same temporal or nasal angle. The slope of the regression line was close to +/- 1 (within 0.05) for these aberrations, with a negative slope for the horizontally odd aberrations, i.e. the left and right eyes are mirror symmetric. These findings justify that the average result, sampled in one of the two eyes of many subjects, can be generalized to the other eye as well.
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| 8. |
- Marcos, S., et al.
(author)
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Vision science and adaptive optics, the state of the field
- 2017
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In: Vision Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0042-6989 .- 1878-5646. ; 132, s. 3-33
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Adaptive optics is a relatively new field, yet it is spreading rapidly and allows new questions to be asked about how the visual system is organized. The editors of this feature issue have posed a series of question to scientists involved in using adaptive optics in vision science. The questions are focused on three main areas. In the first we investigate the use of adaptive optics for psychophysical measurements of visual system function and for improving the optics of the eye. In the second, we look at the applications and impact of adaptive optics on retinal imaging and its promise for basic and applied research. In the third, we explore how adaptive optics is being used to improve our understanding of the neurophysiology of the visual system.
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| 9. |
- Rosén, Robert, et al.
(author)
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Evaluating the peripheral optical effect of multifocal contact lenses
- 2012
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In: Ophthalmic & physiological optics. - : Wiley. - 0275-5408 .- 1475-1313. ; 32:6, s. 527-534
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Purpose: Multifocal soft contact lenses have been used to decrease the progression of myopia, presumably by inducing relative peripheral myopia at the same time as the central image is focused on the fovea. The aim of this study was to investigate how the peripheral optical effect of commercially available multifocal soft contact lenses can be evaluated from objective wavefront measurements. Methods: Two multifocal lenses with high and low add and one monofocal design were measured over the ±40° horizontal field, using a scanning Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor on four subjects. The effect on the refractive shift, the peripheral image quality, and the depth of field of the lenses was evaluated using the area under the modulation transfer function as the image quality metric. Results: The multifocal lenses with a centre distance design and 2 dioptres of add induced about 0.50 dioptre of relative peripheral myopia at 30° in the nasal visual field. For larger off-axis angles the border of the optical zone of the lenses severely degraded image quality. Moreover, these multifocal lenses also significantly reduced the image quality and increased the depth of field for angles as small as 10°-15° Conclusions: The proposed methodology showed that the tested multifocal soft contact lenses gave a very small peripheral myopic shift in these four subjects and that they would need a larger optical zone and a more controlled depth of field to explain a possible treatment effect on myopia progression.
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