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- Jakic, B, et al.
(author)
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The Effects of Endurance Exercise and Diet on Atherosclerosis in Young and Aged ApoE-/- and Wild-Type Mice
- 2019
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In: Gerontology. - : S. Karger AG. - 1423-0003 .- 0304-324X. ; 65:1, s. 45-56
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- <b><i>Background:</i></b> Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death worldwide. The disease development is by and large driven by old age and lifestyle factors, such as diet, physical activity, and smoking. In the present study, we have investigated the effect of exercise and diet on the development of atherosclerosis in young and aged mice. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> This study aimed at comparing multiple age-dependent factors that may influence atherosclerosis in a transgenic mouse model. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Young (14 weeks) and aged (49–52 weeks) C57BL/6 wild-type (WT) and atherosclerosis-prone ApoE<sup>–/–</sup> mice were subjected to physical endurance exercise on a treadmill, with or without a high-fat diet. Five weeks later, the frequencies of regulatory T cells (T<sub>REGs</sub>) in lymph nodes were assessed by flow cytometry, plasmatic cytokines (interleukin [IL]-1β, IL-6, IL-10, IL-17, interferon-γ, tumor necrosis factor-α, and transforming growth factor [TGF]-β<sub>1</sub>) levels were determined by Luminex assay. Lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides) and anti-heat shock protein 60 (HSP60) autoantibodies were measured by ELISA. Aortic lesion sizes were assessed by <i>en face</i> imaging. Microarray analysis and qPCR of skeletal muscle gene expression were also performed. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Exercise leads to a reduction of aortic lesions in young ApoE<sup>–/–</sup> and aged WT mice independent of diet. In most groups, this reduction was followed by an increased proportion of T<sub>REGs</sub> and TGF-β<sub>1</sub> levels. Moreover, gene expression analysis showed that exercise seems to affect the AMPK signaling pathway. In particular, PGC-1α<sub>1</sub> mRNA was induced in aged WT mice, whereas it was reduced in young ApoE<sup>–/–</sup> mice. In addition, GSEA analysis showed a marked reduction in the insulin signaling pathway in aged ApoE<sup>–/–</sup> mice. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> Practicing endurance exercise seems to be enough for reducing early aortic lesion formation, independent of diet. However, this was only true in mice with smaller aortic lesions, since mice with large, advanced, complicated atherosclerotic plaques did not show any reduction in lesion size with exercise training.
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- Aurell, Erik, et al.
(author)
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Random Pure Gaussian States and Hawking Radiation
- 2024
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In: Physical Review Letters. - : American Physical Society (APS). - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 133:6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A black hole evaporates by Hawking radiation. Each mode of that radiation is thermal. If the total state is nevertheless to be pure, modes must be entangled. Estimating the minimum size of this entanglement has been an important outstanding issue. We develop a new theory of constrained random symplectic transformations, based on the assumptions that the total state is pure and Gaussian with given marginals. In the random constrained symplectic model we then compute the distribution of mode-mode correlations, from which we bound mode-mode entanglement. Modes of frequency much larger than [k(B)T(H)(t)/h] are not populated at time t and drop out of the analysis. Among other relatively thinly populated modes (earlytime high-frequency modes and/or late modes of any frequency), we find correlations and hence entanglement to be strongly suppressed. Relatively highly populated modes (early-time low-frequency modes) can, on the other hand, be strongly correlated, but a detailed analysis reveals that they are nevertheless very unlikely to be entangled. Our analysis hence establishes that restoring unitarity after a complete evaporation of a black hole does not require any significant quantum entanglement between any pair of Hawking modes. Our analysis further gives exact general expressions for the distribution of modemode correlations in random, pure, Gaussian states with given marginals, which may have applications beyond black hole physics.
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- Cassel, Claes M., et al.
(author)
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On measurement of intangible assets: A study of robustness of partial least squares
- 2000
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In: Total quality management. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 1360-0613 .- 0954-4127. ; 11:7, s. 897-907
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The customer asset is an important intangible. Its value depends, for example, on the customer satisfaction level. Thus, it is important to monitor that level, and to identify cost-efficient actions to improve it. The European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) system is based on a structural model for such monitoring, a model that is estimated by partial least squares (PLS). The robustness of PLS applied on an ESCI-like measurement model is studied in the present paper. Monte Carlo simulations show that PLS is reasonably robust against multicollinearity, skew response distributions and various types of model misspecifications. This is true, in particular, when estimating the customer satisfaction index.
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| 7. |
- Hackl, Peter, et al.
(author)
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Structural analysis and measurement of customer perceptions, assuming measurement and specifications errors
- 2001
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In: Total quality management. - : Taylor & Francis Ltd. - 1360-0613 .- 0954-4127. ; 12:7-8, s. 873-881
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In previous research (e.g. Cassel et al., 1999,Journal of Applied Statistics26, pp. 435-446; Cassel et al., 2000, Total Quality Management, 11, pp. 897-907) the bias and precision effects, for various specification problems, on the structural analysis and measurement of customer perceptions have been studied. In this paper the combined effects of some of the most significant problems, misspecifications and skew response distributions, and certain types of measurement errors, are studied. The measurement errors considered reflect the bias due to the inertia of respondents in adapting to changes. In the situation of repeated measurements, the later response tends to be biased towards the former response. This effect can be modelled by implementing certain change filtering assumptions. A simulation study using the European Performance Satisfaction Index (EPSI) structure demonstrates that the EPSI measurement methodology using partial least squares is very robust with respect to the problems introduced in the simulations. This is true, in particular, when estimating the inner structure of the model and when estimating the outer measurement relations of the model. The estimated values of the latent variables (such as the customer satisfaction index) are affected in an expected way.
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| 8. |
- Haschka, J, et al.
(author)
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Identification of circulating microRNA patterns in patients in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis
- 2023
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In: Rheumatology (Oxford, England). - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1462-0332 .- 1462-0324. ; 62:10, s. 3448-3458
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- ObjectivemiRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that control gene expression. Specific intra- and extracellular miRNA signatures have been identified in various diseases. Whether certain miRNA signatures are associated with psoriasis (PsO) and PsA is currently unknown. We aimed to search for circulating miRNA signatures associated with PsO and PsA patients.MethodsExpression of miRNAs was analysed by reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) in the serum of PsA, PsO patients and healthy controls. Demographic and disease-specific characteristics and imaging data from hand MRI were recorded. In the discovery phase, 192 miRNA assays were analysed in 48 samples (PsA, PsO, controls: each N = 16). For validation, 17 selected miRNAs were measured in the total population.ResultsA total of 141 patients and controls were analysed (51 PsA, 40 PsO, 50 controls). In the discovery phase 51 miRNAs in PsO and 64 miRNAs in PsA were down- or upregulated compared with controls, with 33 miRNAs being changed in both (adj. P < 0.05). The 17 top candidates from discovery were assessed in the validation phase, 9 of them discriminated PsA and PsO from controls [area under the curve (AUC) ≥0.70, all P < 0.05]. Four miRNAs (miR-19b-3p, miR-21-5p, miR-92a-3p and let-7b-5p) were significantly differently regulated between PsO and PsA. A combination of these miRNAs increased the AUC to 0.92 in multivariate regression model to discriminate PsO and PsA.ConclusionmiRNA signatures in PsA and PsO patients differ from controls. Nine miRNAs were differentially regulated in PsA and PsO patients, five of them previously reported to be involved in bone and cartilage metabolism, indicating an intimate association of psoriatic inflammation and bone/cartilage changes.
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| 9. |
- Jonsson, Robert H., et al.
(author)
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Entanglement dualities in supersymmetry
- 2021
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In: Physical Review Research. - 2643-1564. ; 3:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We derive a general relation between the bosonic and fermionic entanglement in the ground states of supersymmetric quadratic Hamiltonians. For this, we construct canonical identifications between bosonic and fermionic subsystems. Our derivation relies on a unified framework to describe both bosonic and fermionic Gaussian states in terms of so-called linear complex structures J. The resulting dualities apply to the full entanglement spectrum between the bosonic and the fermionic systems, such that the von Neumann entropy and arbitrary Renyi entropies can be related. We illustrate our findings in one- and two-dimensional systems, including the paradigmatic Kitaev honeycomb model. While typically supersymmetry preserves features like area law scaling of the entanglement entropies on either side, we find a peculiar phenomenon, namely, an amplified scaling of the entanglement entropy (super area law) in bosonic subsystems when the dual fermionic subsystems develop almost maximally entangled modes.
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