Popular literacy in Scandinavia about 1600 - 1900

Unter Anwendung des poetischen Bildes des wachsenden Baumes wird in dem Beitrag die alte Tradition des Lesens in Schweden untersucht. Durch die Betonung des religiösen Ursprungs und der religiösen Praxis des Lesens wird die falsche Auffassung korrigiert, daß sich der Alphabetismus nur mit der industriellen Revolution entwickelt hat. Obwohl eine Beziehung zu der reichhaltigen quantitativen Umea-Datenbasis hergestellt wird, wird mit dem Text ein wichtiger Schritt in Richtung auf die Untersuchung der Qualität der Leseerfahrung durch hohe Aufmerksamkeit im Hinblick auf die Volkskultur und den Inhalt der Bücher gemacht. (KWübers.)'Utilizing the poetic image of the growing tree, this essay examines the old reading tradition in Sweden. By stressing the religious origin and practice of reading it corrects the misconcerption that literacy developed only with the industrial revoultion. Although it draws on the rich quantitative Umea database, this paper takes an important step towards exploring the quality of the reading experience through close attention to popular culture and the contentof the books.' (author's abstract

Interior insulation retrofit of a historical brick wall using vacuum insulation panels: Hygrothermal numerical simulations and laboratory investigations

Old listed buildings need to be retrofitted to reduce the energy use for heating. The possible thickness of the insulation layer is limited by the existing construction. Vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) require less thickness than conventional insulation materials to reach the same thermal resistance. Therefore, it could be more appropriate to use VIPs than conventional insulation materials when retrofitting the building envelope of listed buildings. The aim of this study is to investigate the hygrothermal performance of a brick wall with wooden beam ends after it was insulated on the interior with VIPs. One- and two-dimensional hygrothermal numerical simulations were used to design a laboratory study in a large-scale building envelope climate simulator. The wall was exposed to driving rain on the exterior surface and a temperature gradient. The relative humidity in the wall increased substantially when exposed to driving rain. The moisture content in the wooden beams also increased. There was no significant difference between the relative humidity in the wooden beam ends for the cases with and without VIPs. However, it was found that the reduced temperature in the brick after the VIPs were added led to a higher relative humidity in the wooden beams. It was also clear that when VIPs were added to the interior, the drying capacity to that side of the wall was substantially reduced. Finally, calculations of the U-value showed a large potential to reduce the energy use using VIPs on the interior of brick walls

‘The invention of counting: the statistical measurement of literacy in nineteenth-century England’

This article examines the invention of counting literacy on a national basis in nineteenth-century Britain. Through an analysis of Registrar Generals' reports, it describes how the early statisticians wrestled with the implications of their new-found capacity to describe a nation's communications skills in a single table and how they were unable to escape their model of a society of isolated individuals divided into the literate and illiterate. The continuing influence of this approach is traced in the recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIACC)

The Scandinavian Sarcoma Group Central Register : 6,000 patients after 25 years of monitoring of referral and treatment of extremity and trunk wall soft-tissue sarcoma

Purpose - We wanted to examine the potential of the Scandinavian Sarcoma Group (SSG) Central Register, and evaluate referral and treatment practice for soft-tissue sarcomas in the extremities and trunk wall (STS) in the Nordic countries. Background - Based on incidence rates from the literature, 8,150 (7,000-9,300) cases of STS of the extremity and trunk wall should have been diagnosed in Norway, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden from 1987 through 2011. The SSG Register has 6,027 cases registered from this period, with 5,837 having complete registration of key variables. 10 centers have been reporting to the Register. The 5 centers that consistently report treat approximately 90% of the cases in their respective regions. The remaining centers have reported all the patients who were treated during certain time periods, but not for the entire 25-year period. Results - 59% of patients were referred to a sarcoma center untouched, i.e. before any attempt at open biopsy. There was an improvement from 52% during the first 5 years to 70% during the last 5 years. 50% had wide or better margins at surgery. Wide margins are now achieved less often than 20 years ago, in parallel with an increase in the use of radiotherapy. For the centers that consistently report, 97% of surviving patients are followed for more than 4 years. Metastasis-free survival (MFS) increased from 67% to 73% during the 25-year period. Interpretation - The Register is considered to be representative of extremity and trunk wall sarcoma disease in the population of Scandinavia, treated at the reporting centers. There were no clinically significant differences in treatment results at these centers.Peer reviewe

Mendelian Randomization and mediation analysis of leukocyte telomere length and risk of lung and head and neck cancers

L.K. is a fellow in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Strategic Training in Advanced Genetic Epidemiology (STAGE) programme and is supported by the CIHR Doctoral Research Award from the Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships (GSD-137441). Transdisciplinary Research for Cancer in Lung (TRICL) of the International Lung Cancer Consortium (ILCCO) was supported by the National Institutes of Health (U19-CA148127, CA148127S1). Genotyping for the TRICL-ILCCO OncoArray was supported by in-kind genotyping at Centre for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR) (26820120008i-0–6800068-1). Genotyping for the Head and Neck Cancer OncoArray performed at CIDR was funded by the US National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) grant 1X01HG007780–0. CAPUA study was supported by FIS-FEDER/Spain grant numbers FIS-01/310, FIS-PI03–0365 and FIS-07-BI060604, FICYT/Asturias grant numbers FICYT PB02–67 and FICYT IB09–133, and the University Institute of Oncology (IUOPA), of the University of Oviedo and the Ciber de Epidemiologia y Salud Pública. CIBERESP, SPAIN. The work performed in the CARET study was supported by the National Institute of Health (NIH)/National Cancer Institute (NCI): UM1 CA167462 (PI: Goodman), National Institute of Health UO1-CA6367307 (PIs Omen, Goodman); National Institute of Health R01 CA111703 (PI Chen), National Institute of Health 5R01 CA151989 (PI Doherty). The Liverpool Lung Project is supported by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. The Harvard Lung Cancer Study was supported by the NIH (National Cancer Institute) grants CA092824, CA090578 and CA074386. The Multiethnic Cohort Study was partially supported by NIH Grants CA164973, CA033619, CA63464 and CA148127. The work performed in MSH-PMH study was supported by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute (020214), Ontario Institute of Cancer and Cancer Care Ontario Chair Award to R.J.H. and G.L. and the Alan Brown Chair and Lusi Wong Programs at the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation. The Norway study was supported by Norwegian Cancer Society, Norwegian Research Council. The work in TLC study has been supported in part the James & Esther King Biomedical Research Program (09KN-15), National Institutes of Health Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) Grant (P50 CA119997) and by a Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, an NCI designated Comprehensive Cancer Center (grant number P30-CA76292). The dataset(s) used for the analyses described were obtained from Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s BioVU, which is supported by institutional funding and by the Vanderbilt CTSA grant UL1 TR000445 from NCATS/NIH. Dr Melinda Aldrich is supported by the by NIH/National Cancer Institute 5K07CA172294. The Copenhagen General Population Study (CGPS) was supported by the Chief Physician Johan Boserup and Lise Boserup Fund, the Danish Medical Research Council and Herlev Hospital. The NELCS study: Grant Number P20RR018787 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Kentucky Lung Cancer Research Initiative (KLCRI) was supported by the Department of Defense (Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Program) under award number: 10153006 (W81XWH-11–1-0781). Views and opinions of, and endorsements by the author(s) do not reflect those of the US Army or the Department of Defense. This research was also supported by unrestricted infrastructure funds from the UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science, NIH grant UL1TR000117 and Markey Cancer Center NCI Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA177558) Shared Resource Facilities: Cancer Research Informatics, Biospecimen and Tissue Procurement, and Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. The research undertaken by M.D.T., L.V.W. and M.S.A. was partly funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. M.D.T. holds a Medical Research Council Senior Clinical Fellowship (G0902313). The Tampa study was funded by Public Health Service grants P01-CA68384 and R01-DE13158 from the National Institutes of Health. The University of Pittsburgh head and neck cancer case–control study is supported by US National Institutes of Health grants P50 CA097190 and P30 CA047904. The Carolina Head and Neck Cancer Study (CHANCE) was supported by the National Cancer Institute (R01CA90731). The Head and Neck Genome Project (GENCAPO) was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP; grants 04/12054–9 and 10/51168–0). The authors thank all the members of the GENCAPO team. This publication presents data from the Head and Neck 5000 study. The study was a component of independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research scheme (RP-PG-0707–10034). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. Human papillomavirus (HPV) serology was supported by a Cancer Research UK Programme Grant, the Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme (grant number: C18281/A19169). The Alcohol-Related Cancers and Genetic Susceptibility Study in Europe (ARCAGE) was funded by the European Commission’s fifth framework programme (QLK1– 2001-00182), the Italian Association for Cancer Research, Compagnia di San Paolo/FIRMS, Region Piemonte and Padova University (CPDA057222). The Rome Study was supported by the Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC) awards IG 2011 10491 and IG 2013 14220 to S.B. and by Fondazione Veronesi to S.B. The IARC Latin American study was funded by the European Commission INCO-DC programme (IC18-CT97–0222), with additional funding from Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (Argentina) and the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (01/01768–2). The IARC Central Europe study was supported by the European Commission’s INCO-COPERNICUS Program (IC15-CT98–0332), US NIH/National Cancer Institute grant CA92039 and World Cancer Research Foundation grant WCRF 99A28. The IARC Oral Cancer Multicenter study was funded by grant S06 96 202489 05F02 from Europe against Cancer; grants FIS 97/0024, FIS 97/0662 and BAE 01/5013 from Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias, Spain; the UICC Yamagiwa-Yoshida Memorial International Cancer Study; the National Cancer Institute of Canada; Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro; and the Pan-American Health Organization. Coordination of the EPIC study is financially supported by the European Commission (DG SANCO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.Peer reviewedPostprin

A genome-wide meta-analysis yields 46 new loci associating with biomarkers of iron homeostasis

Abstract: Iron is essential for many biological functions and iron deficiency and overload have major health implications. We performed a meta-analysis of three genome-wide association studies from Iceland, the UK and Denmark of blood levels of ferritin (N = 246,139), total iron binding capacity (N = 135,430), iron (N = 163,511) and transferrin saturation (N = 131,471). We found 62 independent sequence variants associating with iron homeostasis parameters at 56 loci, including 46 novel loci. Variants at DUOX2, F5, SLC11A2 and TMPRSS6 associate with iron deficiency anemia, while variants at TF, HFE, TFR2 and TMPRSS6 associate with iron overload. A HBS1L-MYB intergenic region variant associates both with increased risk of iron overload and reduced risk of iron deficiency anemia. The DUOX2 missense variant is present in 14% of the population, associates with all iron homeostasis biomarkers, and increases the risk of iron deficiency anemia by 29%. The associations implicate proteins contributing to the main physiological processes involved in iron homeostasis: iron sensing and storage, inflammation, absorption of iron from the gut, iron recycling, erythropoiesis and bleeding/menstruation