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- Björkman, Annica, et al.
(author)
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Identified obstacles and prerequisites in telenurses’ work environment : a modified Delphi study
- 2017
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In: BMC Health Services Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1472-6963. ; 17:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Telenursing is an expanding part of healthcare, staffed with registered nurses whose work environment is typical of a call centre. Work-related stress has been shown to be a major problem in nurses’ work environments and of importance to the outcome of care, patient safety, nurse job satisfaction and burnout. Today, however, we have a limited understanding of and knowledge about the work environment for telenurses. The aim of the present study is to explore and reach consensus on perceived important obstacles and prerequisites in telenurses’ work environment.Methods: A modified Delphi design, using qualitative as well as quantitative data sequentially through three phases, was taken. Data were initially collected via semi-structured interviews (Phase I) and later using a web survey (Phase II-III) between March 2015 and March 2016.Results: The findings present a consensus view of telenurses’ experiences of important obstacles and prerequisites in their work environment. Central to the findings are the aspects of telenurses having a demanding work, cognitive fatigue and having no opportunity for recovery during the work shift was ranked as important obstacles. Highly ranked prerequisites for managing were being able to focus on one caller at a time, working in a calm and pleasant environment and having technical support 24/7.Conclusions: Managers need to enable telenurses to experience control in their work, provided with possibilities to control their work and to recover during work; shortening work time could improve their work environment. Limited possibilities to perform work might contribute to feelings of stress and inability to perform work.
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- Cui, Qiao-Yu, et al.
(author)
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A case study of the role of climate, humans, and ecological setting in Holocene fire history of northwestern Europe
- 2015
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In: Science China. Earth Sciences. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1674-7313 .- 1869-1897. ; 58:2, s. 195-210
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present the major results from studies of fire history over the last 11000 years (Holocene) in southern Sweden, on the basis of palaeoecological analyses of peat sequences from three small peat bogs. The main objective is to emphasize the value of multiple, continuous sedimentary records of macroscopic charcoal (macro-C) for the reconstruction of local to regional past changes in fire regimes, the importance of multi-proxy studies, and the advantage of model-based estimates of plant cover from pollen data to assess the role of tree composition and human impact in fire history. The chronologies at the three study sites are based on a large number of C-14 dates from terrestrial plant remains and age-depth models are achieved using Bayesian statistics. Fire history is inferred from continuous records of macro-C and microscopic charcoal counts on pollen slides. The Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (LRA) for pollen-based quantitative reconstruction of local vegetation cover is applied on the three pollen records for plant cover reconstruction over the entire Holocene. The results are as follows: (1) the long-term trends in fire regimes are similar between sites, i.e., frequent fires during the early Holocene until ca. 9 ka BP, low fire frequency during the mid-Holocene, and higher fire frequency from ca. 2.5 ka BP; (2) this broad trend agrees with the overall fire history of northwestern and western Europe north of the Mediterranean area, and is due to climate forcing in the early and mid-Holocene, and to anthropogenic land-use in the late Holocene; (3) the LRA estimates of plant cover at the three sites demonstrate that the relative abundance of pine played a primordial role in the early and mid-Holocene fire history; and (4) the between-site differences in the charcoal records and inferred fire history are due to local factors (i.e., relative abundance of pine, geomorphological setting, and anthropogenic land-use) and taphonomy of charcoal deposition in the small peat bogs. It is shown that continuous macro-C records are most useful to disentangle local from regional-subcontinental fire history, and climate-induced from human-induced fire regimes, and that pollen-based LRA estimates of local plant cover are more adequate than pollen percentages for the assessment of the role of plant composition on fire history.
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| 4. |
- Cui, Qiao-Yu, et al.
(author)
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The role of tree composition in Holocene fire history of the hemiboreal and southern boreal zones of southern Sweden, as revealed by the application of the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm : Implications for biodiversity and climate-change issues
- 2013
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In: The Holocene. - : SAGE Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 23:12, s. 1747-1763
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present a quantitative reconstruction of local forest history at two sites, Stavsåkra (hemiboreal zone) and Storasjö (southern boreal zone), in southern Sweden (province of Småland) to evaluate possible causes of contrasting Holocene fire histories in mid- and late Holocene. The Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (LRA) is applied to evaluate between-site differences in the relative abundance of deciduous trees and Pinus (pine) and landscape/woodland openness during the Holocene. The LRA estimates of local vegetation abundance are compared with other proxies of local vegetation, that is, plant and beetle remains. The LRA results suggest that Pinus was a major tree taxon in the woodlands of Storasjö during mid- and late Holocene, while Tilia(linden) and Betula (birch) were dominant at Stavsåkra. The contrasting fire histories are shown to be strongly related to between-site differences in tree composition during mid-Holocene, 4000–2000 BC in particular. The archaeological/historical and beetle data indicate contrasting land uses from c. 1000BC (late Bronze Age/early Iron Age), grazing in open Calluna heaths at Stavsåkra and woodland grazing at Storasjö. Between-site differences in fire historyduring late Holocene were likely due to different land-use practices. Between-site differences in tree composition in mid-Holocene are best explainedby local climatic and geological/geomorphological differences between the hemiboreal and southern boreal zones of Småland, which might also be the primary cause of between-site differences in land-use histories during late Holocene. Maintenance of biodiversity at the landscape scale in the studyarea requires that existing old pine woodlands and Calluna heath are managed with fire and cattle grazing. Further climate warming might lead to higherprobabilities of climate-induces fire, in particular in pine-dominated woodlands.
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| 5. |
- Dahlqvist, Per, et al.
(author)
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Environmental enrichment reverses learning impairment in the Morris water maze after focal cerebral ischemia in rats
- 2004
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In: European Journal of Neuroscience. - 0953-816X .- 1460-9568. ; 19:8, s. 2288-2298
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Cognitive impairment is common after ischemic stroke. In rodent stroke models using occlusion of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) this is reflected by impaired spatial memory associated with the size of the ischemic lesion. Housing in an enriched environment enhances brain plasticity and improves recovery of sensorimotor functions after experimental stroke in rats. In this study we report that postischemic housing in an enriched environment also attenuates the long-term spatial memory impairment after MCA occlusion and extinguishes the association between spatial memory and infarct volume. An enriched environment did not significantly alter the expression of selected neuronal plasticity-associated genes 1 month after MCA occlusion, indicating that most of the adaptive changes induced by an enriched environment have already occurred at this time point. We conclude that the attenuated memory impairment induced by environmental enrichment after MCA occlusion provides a useful model for further studies on the neurobiological mechanisms of recovery of cognitive functions after ischemic stroke.
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| 6. |
- Gaillard, Marie-José, et al.
(author)
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The role of climate, human impact and fire on forestdynamics, landscape development and biodiversity during the last 10,500 calendar years in southern Sweden : a synthesis ofthe multiproxy study of Stavsåkra bog
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this paper, we discuss the contribution of a multi-proxy approach to the study of long-term forest dynamics and biodiversity (at the species to landscape levels), using the records from a palaeoecological investigation at Stavsåkra, province of Småland, southern Sweden. The results from all the proxies, i.e. beetles, pollen, plant macrofossils, charred plant remains, andmicroscopical and macroscopical charcoal, are compared. The study of all charred material has the advantage of providing valuable information on the local plants that burnt (charred plant remains) and a more robust reconstruction of the local fire history and its regional representativeness. The plant macrofossil analysis allows specifying the origin of pollen from plants that may grow either on the coring site (fen or bog) or in the surrounding vegetation on dry land. This is particularly crucial for the interpretation of pollen types such as Gramineae, Cyperaceae, and Ericaceae (Calluna, Empetrum and Vaccinium species). The origin of Calluna pollen (bog, forest floor or open heaths) is often difficult to establish with certainty. In this study, the total absence of Calluna remains in the plant macrofossil record, and theoccurrence of beetle species dependant on Calluna heath ecosystems from the Late Neolithic (ca. 2000 BC) suggest that Calluna pollen originated from the surrounding vegetation, probably from the under-storey of the pine forests in early Holocene, and from the Calluna heaths during late Holocene. The beetle record further strengthens the inferred fire history by providing findings of species dependant on fire and, therefore, confirms the existence ofrelatively large burnt areas. Moreover, the insect analysis provides information on vegetation characteristics that cannot be inferred from pollen and plant macrofossil with certainty - or cannot be inferred at all - such as the forest structure in terms of openness, sun exposure, occurrence of dead wood and old trees. The results at Stavsåkra demonstrate that disturbances such as fire, forest clearance, and grazing can have both positive and negative impacts onbiodiversity, depending on the character and intensity of the disturbance in both time and space, and on the type of biota concerned, in this case plants and beetles.
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| 8. |
- Jerneck, Anne, et al.
(author)
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Structuring Sustainability Science
- 2011
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In: Sustainability Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1862-4057 .- 1862-4065. ; 6:1, s. 69-82
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It is urgent in science and society to address climate change and other sustainability challenges such as biodiversity loss, deforestation, depletion of marine fish stocks, global ill-health, land degradation, land use change and water scarcity. Sustainability science (SS) is an attempt to bridge the natural and social sciences for seeking creative solutions to these complex challenges. In this article, we propose a research agenda that advances the methodological and theoretical understanding of what SS can be, how it can be pursued and what it can contribute. The key focus is on knowledge structuring. For that purpose, we designed a generic research platform organised as a three-dimensional matrix comprising three components: core themes (scientific understanding, sustainability goals, sustainability pathways); cross-cutting critical and problem- solving approaches; and any combination of the sustainability challenges above. As an example, we insert four sustainability challenges into the matrix (biodiversity loss, climate change, land use changes, water scarcity). Based on the matrix with the four challenges, we discuss three issues for advancing theory and methodology in SS: how new synergies across natural and social sciences can be created; how integrated theories for understanding and responding to complex sustainability issues can be developed; and how theories and concepts in economics, gender studies, geography, political science and sociology can be applied in SS. The generic research platform serves to structure and create new knowledge in SS and is a tool for exploring any set of sustainability challenges. The combined critical and problem- solving approach is essential.
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| 9. |
- Kettunen, Petronella, et al.
(author)
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Genetic Variants of GSK3B are Associated with Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease and Cognitive Function
- 2015
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In: Journal of Alzheimers Disease. - 1387-2877. ; 44:4, s. 1313-1322
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3B) is the major kinase phosphorylating tau protein. Hyperphosphorylated tau is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Despite extensive research, the role of GSK3B in AD pathogenesis is not fully understood.Objective: To evaluate possible associations between gene variants of GSK3B and risk of AD. Methods: Twelve GSK3B tag single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), together with the previously AD-associated rs334558, were analyzed in 583 AD patients and 673 controls. Analyses on single marker and haplotype levels were done to relate to risk of AD, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker levels of total tau (T-tau), hyperphosphorylated tau (P-tau(181)), and amyloid-beta (A beta(42)).Results: After correction for multiple testing, we found a number of associations of gene variants with CSF biomarker levels and cognitive function in the AD patients. Firstly, rs334558 was associated with elevated T-tau levels (p(c) = 0.04). Next, rs1154597 showed association with reducedA beta(42) levels (pc = 0.007). Lastly, rs3107669was associated with lower MMSE scores (p(c) = 0.03). In addition, one more SNP was nominally significantly associated with reduced A beta(42) levels and another was associated with reduced MMSE.Conclusion: We found GSK3B gene variants associated with cognitive function and CSF biomarkers T-tau and A beta(42). To our knowledge, this is the first time GSK3B has been associated with cognitive function or CSF biomarkers reflecting neuronal degeneration (T-tau) and brain amyloid load (A beta(42)). The regulation of GSK3B needs to be investigated further, to fully understand how these GSK3B gene variants are involved in AD pathogenesis.
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