Green Play Environments : how can green area index and play value cooperate on courtyards?

Bostadgården ska i den allt mer täta staden rymma flera olika funktioner. I den pågående förtätningen blir utrymmen som kan tillgodose barns behov mindre. Därför är det viktigt att leken kan få rymmas på ytor som inte i första hand är avsedda för lek, exempelvis bostadsgården. Förutom lekvärden bör en bostadsgård kunna tillgodose ekologiska värden som bidrar till biologisk mångfald och ekosystemtjänster. När ytan är begränsad är det viktigt att flera nödvändiga aspekter kan samsas om samma utrymme. Detta kandidatarbete har genom litteratur undersökt gemensamma nämnare för ekologiska värden och lekvärden. Studier som tagit fram lekvärderingsverktyg för förskole- och skolgårdar samt lekplatser har använts för att undersöka olika sätt att värdera lek. Detta mynnade ut i ett eget verktyg, EkoLek, som är anpassat för att ta hänsyn till både ekologiska värden och lekvärden. Verktyget testades på bostadsgården Kajplats 01 i Västra hamnen, Malmö, där gården förväntades vara en potentiellt god lekmiljö på grund av sin höga grönytefaktor. Kajplats 01 utvärderades genom ett platsbesök där EkoLek användes som underlag. Utifrån verktyget bedömdes bostadsgården i sin helhet ha relativt få lekvärden. Avsaknad av lekbar vegetation identifierades som en av anledningarna till detta. Samtidigt uppskattades gården ha en rumslig potential för lek. Baserat på dessa förutsättningar ges förslag på hur gården med enkla medel skulle kunna rymma både lek och ekologi.In the increasingly dense city, the courtyard should accommodate several functions. Due to the ongoing urban densification, spaces made to cater for children’s needs decreases. It is therefore important to accommodate for play in spaces not specifically designed for this purpose, such as courtyards. Moreover, courtyards should also be able to accommodate ecological aspects such as biodiversity and ecosystem services. When space is limited, it becomes increasingly important that several necessary functions can exist within the same space. In this bachelor’s thesis, literature has been used to investigate common denominators between ecological values and play values. Studies that have developed play evaluation tools for playgrounds in public spaces and childcare centres has been used to examine different ways of evaluating play spaces. This resulted in the development of an evaluation tool, EkoLek, customized to take both play value and ecological value into account. The evaluation tool was tested on the courtyard Kajplats 01 in Västra hamnen, Malmö, Sweden, which was estimated to be a potentially good play space due to its high score on the green area index. Kajplats 01 was evaluated through a site visit where EkoLek was used as a guide. The tool indicated that the courtyard accommodated for relatively few play opportunities. The lack of playable vegetation was identified as one of the main reasons for this. However, the design of the courtyard showed for potential play spaces. Based on these circumstances, simple suggestions are made on how the courtyard could be altered to accommodate for play values in a greater sense, while still maintaining its ecological values

A content validated questionnaire for assessment of self reported venous blood sampling practices

BACKGROUND: Venous blood sampling is a common procedure in health care. It is strictly regulated by national and international guidelines. Deviations from guidelines due to human mistakes can cause patient harm. Validated questionnaires for health care personnel can be used to assess preventable "near misses"--i.e. potential errors and nonconformities during venous blood sampling practices that could transform into adverse events. However, no validated questionnaire that assesses nonconformities in venous blood sampling has previously been presented. The aim was to test a recently developed questionnaire in self reported venous blood sampling practices for validity and reliability. FINDINGS: We developed a questionnaire to assess deviations from best practices during venous blood sampling. The questionnaire contained questions about patient identification, test request management, test tube labeling, test tube handling, information search procedures and frequencies of error reporting. For content validity, the questionnaire was confirmed by experts on questionnaires and venous blood sampling. For reliability, test-retest statistics were used on the questionnaire answered twice. The final venous blood sampling questionnaire included 19 questions out of which 9 had in total 34 underlying items. It was found to have content validity. The test-retest analysis demonstrated that the items were generally stable. In total, 82% of the items fulfilled the reliability acceptance criteria. CONCLUSIONS: The questionnaire could be used for assessment of "near miss" practices that could jeopardize patient safety and gives several benefits instead of assessing rare adverse events only. The higher frequencies of "near miss" practices allows for quantitative analysis of the effect of corrective interventions and to benchmark preanalytical quality not only at the laboratory/hospital level but also at the health care unit/hospital ward

ESS Control System Data Lab - Executive Summary

Driven by the idea to use alarm data to explore machine learning across Industry 4.0 applications, the goal of this pilot study was to explore how to collect, store, manage and share data from the ESS Control System. Generally, we seek to make any control system data available for research and innovation but started with alarms as a feasible domain in which to explore machine learning. The goals were threefold, each explored in a work package:1. How to govern a data ecosystem, and which tools are needed to support it?2. How can alarm data be interpreted across industrial contexts, i.e., which meta dataand reference models are needed?3. How can data sharing be practically and legally handled at ESS?In summary, we identify a set of potential alleys for continued work to foster industrial innovation and collaboration in a control system data ecosystem with ESS as a catalyst

CDKN2A/p16INK4a expression is associated with vascular progeria in chronic kidney disease

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) display a progeric vascular phenotype linked to apoptosis, cellular senescence and osteogenic transformation. This has proven intractable to modelling appropriately in model organisms. We have therefore investigated this directly in man, using for the first time validated cellular biomarkers of ageing (CDKN2A/p16INK4a, SA-β-Gal) in arterial biopsies from 61 CKD patients undergoing living donor renal transplantation. We demonstrate that in the uremic milieu, increased arterial expression of CDKN2A/p16INK4a associated with vascular progeria in CKD, independently of chronological age. The arterial expression of CDKN2A/p16INK4a was significantly higher in patients with coronary calcification (p=0.01) and associated cardiovascular disease (CVD) (p=0.004). The correlation between CDKN2A/p16INK4a and media calcification was statistically significant (p=0.0003) after correction for chronological age. We further employed correlate expression of matrix Gla protein (MGP) and runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2) as additional pathognomonic markers. Higher expression of CDKN2A/p16INK4a, RUNX2 and MGP were observed in arteries with severe media calcification. The number of p16INK4a and SA-β-Gal positive cells was higher in biopsies with severe media calcification. A strong inverse correlation was observed between CDKN2A/p16INK4a expression and carboxylated osteocalcin levels. Thus, impaired vitamin K mediated carboxylation may contribute to premature vascular senescence

IL-22 affects smooth muscle cell phenotype and plaque formation in apolipoprotein E knockout mice.

IL-22 is a recently discovered cytokine that belongs to the family of IL-10 related cytokines. It is produced by activated T-cells and innate lymphoid cells and has been suggested to be involved in tissue repair. As both inflammation and repair play important roles in atherosclerosis we investigated if IL-22 deficiency influences the disease process in Apoe(-/-) mice

CDKN2A/p16INK4a expression is associated with vascular progeria in chronic kidney disease

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) display a progeric vascular phenotype linked to apoptosis, cellular senescence and osteogenic transformation. This has proven intractable to modelling appropriately in model organisms. We have therefore investigated this directly in man, using for the first time validated cellular biomarkers of ageing (CDKN2A/p16INK4a, SA-β-Gal) in arterial biopsies from 61 CKD patients undergoing living donor renal transplantation. We demonstrate that in the uremic milieu, increased arterial expression of CDKN2A/p16INK4a associated with vascular progeria in CKD, independently of chronological age. The arterial expression of CDKN2A/p16INK4a was significantly higher in patients with coronary calcification (p=0.01) and associated cardiovascular disease (CVD) (p=0.004). The correlation between CDKN2A/p16INK4a and media calcification was statistically significant (p=0.0003) after correction for chronological age. We further employed correlate expression of matrix Gla protein (MGP) and runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2) as additional pathognomonic markers. Higher expression of CDKN2A/p16INK4a, RUNX2 and MGP were observed in arteries with severe media calcification. The number of p16INK4a and SA-β-Gal positive cells was higher in biopsies with severe media calcification. A strong inverse correlation was observed between CDKN2A/p16INK4a expression and carboxylated osteocalcin levels. Thus, impaired vitamin K mediated carboxylation may contribute to premature vascular senescence

Greenhouse in Vaksala Eke

This project has been carried out on the behalf of IHUS and the aim was to find a solution to a greenhouse with an associated café on Vaksala Eke just north of Uppsala. This complex is intended to be self-sufficient on heat, electric power and crops. In the project we have created a greenhouse that fully supplies the café with crops during the summer, while during the winter the greenhouse only provides 8-16% of the café’s demand of crops. Six different scenarios were created to cover the heat demand of the greenhouse and the café. The following scenarios for the heat supply were considered: ground heat; solar thermal energy and ground heat; geothermal energy; solar thermal energy and geothermal energy; bioenergy; solar thermal energy and bioenergy. These six scenarios were compared to one another to obtain the most profitable system. The results showed that the scenario with the shortest payback period for heat generation, is the ground heat scenario. Photovoltaic solar panels is the only source of electric power examined for the small-scale operation on Vaksala Eke. All the scenarios, except for the scenarios with bioenergy, were fully self-sufficient on heat, on the other hand all the scenarios were self-sufficient on electricity over a year.Detta arbete har genomförts på uppdrag av IHUS och har gått ut på att ta fram en lösning för ett växthus med tillhörande café på Vaksala Eke, norr om Uppsala. Anläggningen avsågs att vara självförsörjande på energi och grödor. I projektet har det skapats ett växthus som förser caféet till 100% med grödor under sommaren och på vintern med 8-16%. Sex olika scenarier skapades vilka alla skulle täcka värmebehovet till växthuset och caféet. Följande scenarier för värmeförsörjningen undersöktes: jordvärme; solvärme och jordvärme; bergvärme; solvärme och bergvärme; bioenergi; solvärme och bioenergi. Dessa sex scenarier jämfördes för att ta fram det mest lönsamma systemet. Resultatet visar att scenariot med kortast återbetalningstid är det när värmetillförseln enbart kommer från jordvärme. Solceller bedömdes som det enda rimliga alternativet för den småskaliga verksamheten på Vaksala Eke varför endast denna elkraftkälla undersöktes. De scenarier som ej innehöll bioenergi blev helt självförsörjande på värme, och över ett år blev alla scenarier självförsörjande på elkraft

Parental Autoimmune Diseases Associated With Autism Spectrum Disorders in Offspring

Autism spectrum disorders are often idiopathic. Studies have suggested associations between immune response and these disorders. We explored associations between parental autoimmune disorders and children’s diagnosis of autism by linking Swedish registries

Functional loss of IKBE leads to NF-KB deregulation in aggressive chronic lymphocytic leukemia

NF-?B is constitutively activated in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL); however, the implicated molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. Thus, we performed targeted deep sequencing of 18 core complex genes within the NF-?B pathway in a discovery and validation CLL cohort totaling 315 cases. The most frequently mutated gene was NFKBIE (21/315 cases; 7%), which encodes I?B?, a negative regulator of NF-?B in normal B cells. Strikingly, 13 of these cases carried an identical 4-bp frameshift deletion, resulting in a truncated protein. Screening of an additional 377 CLL cases revealed that NFKBIE aberrations predominated in poor-prognostic patients and were associated with inferior outcome. Minor subclones and/or clonal evolution were also observed, thus potentially linking this recurrent event to disease progression. Compared with wild-type patients, NFKBIE-deleted cases showed reduced I?B? protein levels and decreased p65 inhibition, along with increased phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of p65. Considering the central role of B cell receptor (BcR) signaling in CLL pathobiology, it is notable that I?B? loss was enriched in aggressive cases with distinctive stereotyped BcR, likely contributing to their poor prognosis, and leading to an altered response to BcR inhibitors. Because NFKBIE deletions were observed in several other B cell lymphomas, our findings suggest a novel common mechanism of NF-?B deregulation during lymphomagenesis. <br/

Allergic conditions and risk of hematological malignancies in adults: a cohort study

BACKGROUND: Two contradictory hypotheses have been proposed to explain the relationship between allergic conditions and malignancies, the immune surveillance hypothesis and the antigenic stimulation hypothesis. The former advocates that allergic conditions may be protective against development of cancer, whereas the latter proposes an increased risk. This relationship has been studied in several case-control studies, but only in a few cohort studies. METHODS: The association between allergic conditions and risk of developing leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and myeloma was investigated in a cohort of 16,539 Swedish twins born 1886–1925. Prospectively collected, self-reported information about allergic conditions such as asthma, hay fever or eczema was obtained through questionnaires administered in 1967. The cohort was followed 1969–99 and cancer incidence was ascertained from the Swedish Cancer Registry. RESULTS: Hives and asthma tended to increase the risk of leukemia (relative risk [RR] = 2.1, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.0–4.5 and RR = 1.6, 95% CI 0.8–3.5, respectively). There was also an indication of an increased risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma associated with eczema during childhood (RR = 2.3, 95% CI 1.0–5.3). CONCLUSION: In contrast to most previous studies, our results do not indicate a protective effect of allergic conditions on the risk of developing hematological malignancies. Rather, they suggest that allergic conditions might increase the risk of some hematological malignancies