The Influence of Arctic Sea Ice Extent on Polar Cloud Fraction and Vertical Structure and Implications for Regional Climate

Recent satellite lidar measurements of cloud properties spanning a period of five years are used to examine a possible connection between Arctic sea ice amount and polar cloud fraction and vertical distribution. We find an anti-correlation between sea ice extent and cloud fraction with maximum cloudiness occurring over areas with little or no sea ice. We also find that over ice free regions, there is greater low cloud frequency and average optical depth. Most of the optical depth increase is due to the presence of geometrically thicker clouds over water. In addition, our analysis indicates that over the last 5 years, October and March average polar cloud fraction has increased by about 7 and 10 percent, respectively, as year average sea ice extent has decreased by 5 to 7 percent. The observed cloud changes are likely due to a number of effects including, but not limited to, the observed decrease in sea ice extent and thickness. Increasing cloud amount and changes in vertical distribution and optical properties have the potential to affect the radiative balance of the Arctic region by decreasing both the upwelling terrestrial longwave radiation and the downward shortwave solar radiation. Since longwave radiation dominates in the long polar winter, the overall effect of increasing low cloud cover is likely a warming of the Arctic and thus a positive climate feedback, possibly accelerating the melting of Arctic sea ice

Stamsammansättning av lax i kustfisket 2013

Ett fåtal laxälvar runt Östersjön har uppnått dagens förvaltningsmål. För att gynna svaga vildlaxstammar är det önskvärt att kunna styra fisket mer mot starka vilda- och kompensationsodlade bestånd. En förutsättning för detta är ökad kunskap om var och när olika stammar av både vild och odlad lax exploateras. I denna rapport presenteras provtagning och genetisk analys av lax fångad i svenskt kommersiellt kustfiske under 2013. Huvudsyfte har varit att med hjälp av erhållna genetiska data undersöka när och i vilken omfattning olika laxstammar fångats längs olika delar av kusten. Till viss del har även information om fettfeneklippning (klippt/oklippt) använts för att identifiera odlad och vild lax från stammar där de genetiska skillnaderna är allför små för att med endast DNA kunna skilja individerna åt (t.ex. Lule- och Piteälven). Generellt visar resultaten att de flesta fångster dominerades av lax från den närmaste älven (i förhållande till redskapets position). Samtidigt fann vi att redskap belägna i kustområden utan specifik närhet till älvmynningar fångade fler laxstammar i en jämnare fördelning. Vad gäller analyser av de olika laxstammarnas vandringsmönster längs kusten försvårades slutsatserna av det faktum att de flesta fångster dominerades av en eller några få stammar. Likaså försvårades jämförelser av vandringstid mellan stammar (samt vild/odlad lax) av att insamlingstiderna varierade påtagligt mellan olika fångstplatser. Det förelåg dock signifikanta skillnader i fångsttid mellan vild och odlad lax i Bottenviken, där odlade stammar fångades något senare än vilda, medan inga sådana skillnader kunde observeras i fångsterna längre söderut. Överlag visar resultaten från denna studie att det tycks finnas goda förutsättningar att i framtiden i högre grad rikta kustfisket mot de stammar av lax man önskar exploatera, baserat på kunskaper om laxens rumsliga fördelning längs olika kustavsnitt. I vissa områden kan även en reglering i tid gynna vissa givna bestånd. Kompletterande analyser av laxfångster från ytterligare delar av kusten, samt studier av hur de mönster som hittills observerats varierar mellan olika år, behövs dock för att ge mer heltäckande underlag inför en framtida stambaserad laxförvaltning

Decreased renal perfusion during acute kidney injury in critical COVID-19 assessed by magnetic resonance imaging: a prospective case control study

Abstract: Background: Renal hypoperfusion has been suggested to contribute to the development of acute kidney injury (AKI) in critical COVID-19. However, limited data exist to support this. We aim to investigate the differences in renal perfusion, oxygenation and water diffusion using multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging in critically ill COVID-19 patients with and without AKI. Methods: A prospective case–control study where patients without prior kidney disease treated in intensive care for respiratory failure due to COVID-19 were examined. Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes Creatinine criteria were used for group allocation. Main comparisons were tested using Mann–Whitney U test. Results: Nineteen patients were examined, ten with AKI and nine without AKI. Patients with AKI were examined in median 1 [0–2] day after criteria fulfillment. Age and baseline Plasma-Creatinine were similar in both groups. Total renal blood flow was lower in patients with AKI compared with patients without (median 645 quartile range [423–753] vs. 859 [746–920] ml/min, p = 0.037). Regional perfusion was reduced in both cortex (76 [51–112] vs. 146 [123–169] ml/100 g/min, p = 0.015) and medulla (28 [18–47] vs. 47 [38–73] ml/100 g/min, p = 0.03). Renal venous saturation was similar in both groups (72% [64–75] vs. 72% [63–84], ns.), as was regional oxygenation (R2*) in cortex (17 [16–19] vs. 17 [16–18] 1/s, ns.) and medulla (29 [24–39] vs. 27 [23–29] 1/s, ns.). Conclusions: In critically ill COVID-19 patients with AKI, the total, cortical and medullary renal blood flows were reduced compared with similar patients without AKI, whereas no differences in renal oxygenation were demonstrable in this setting. Trial registration ClinicalTrials ID: NCT02765191, registered May 6 2014 and updated May 7 2020. Graphic Abstract

Complement C4 Copy Number Variation is Linked to SSA/Ro and SSB/La Autoantibodies in Systemic Inflammatory Autoimmune Diseases

Objective Copy number variation of the C4 complement components, C4A and C4B, has been associated with systemic inflammatory autoimmune diseases. This study was undertaken to investigate whether C4 copy number variation is connected to the autoimmune repertoire in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS), or myositis. Methods Using targeted DNA sequencing, we determined the copy number and genetic variants of C4 in 2,290 well-characterized Scandinavian patients with SLE, primary SS, or myositis and 1,251 healthy controls. Results A prominent relationship was observed between C4A copy number and the presence of SSA/SSB autoantibodies, which was shared between the 3 diseases. The strongest association was detected in patients with autoantibodies against both SSA and SSB and 0 C4A copies when compared to healthy controls (odds ratio [OR] 18.0 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 10.2–33.3]), whereas a weaker association was seen in patients without SSA/SSB autoantibodies (OR 3.1 [95% CI 1.7–5.5]). The copy number of C4 correlated positively with C4 plasma levels. Further, a common loss-of-function variant in C4A leading to reduced plasma C4 was more prevalent in SLE patients with a low copy number of C4A. Functionally, we showed that absence of C4A reduced the individuals’ capacity to deposit C4b on immune complexes. Conclusion We show that a low C4A copy number is more strongly associated with the autoantibody repertoire than with the clinically defined disease entities. These findings may have implications for understanding the etiopathogenetic mechanisms of systemic inflammatory autoimmune diseases and for patient stratification when taking the genetic profile into account.publishedVersio

Genome-wide association study identifies Sjögren’s risk loci with functional implications in immune and glandular cells

Sjögren’s disease is a complex autoimmune disease with twelve established susceptibility loci. This genome-wide association study (GWAS) identifies ten novel genome-wide significant (GWS) regions in Sjögren’s cases of European ancestry: CD247, NAB1, PTTG1-MIR146A, PRDM1-ATG5, TNFAIP3, XKR6, MAPT-CRHR1, RPTOR-CHMP6-BAIAP6, TYK2, SYNGR1. Polygenic risk scores yield predictability (AUROC = 0.71) and relative risk of 12.08. Interrogation of bioinformatics databases refine the associations, define local regulatory networks of GWS SNPs from the 95% credible set, and expand the implicated gene list to >40. Many GWS SNPs are eQTLs for genes within topologically associated domains in immune cells and/or eQTLs in the main target tissue, salivary glands.Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH): R01AR073855 (C.J.L.), R01AR065953 (C.J.L.), R01AR074310 (A.D.F.), P50AR060804 (K.L.S.), R01AR050782 (K.L.S), R01DE018209 (K.L.S.), R33AR076803 (I.A.), R21AR079089 (I.A.); NIDCR Sjögren’s Syndrome Clinic and Salivary Disorders Unit were supported by NIDCR Division of Intramural Research at the National Institutes of Health funds - Z01-DE000704 (B.W.); Birmingham NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (S.J.B.); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2155 – Projektnummer 390874280 (T.W.); Research Council of Norway (Oslo, Norway) – Grant 240421 (TR.R.), 316120 (M.W-H.); Western Norway Regional Health Authority (Helse Vest) – 911807, 912043 (R.O.); Swedish Research Council for Medicine and Health (L.R., G.N., M.W-H.); Swedish Rheumatism Association (L.R., G.N., M.W-H.); King Gustav V’s 80-year Foundation (G.N.); Swedish Society of Medicine (L.R., G.N., M.W-H.); Swedish Cancer Society (E.B.); Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation (K.L.S.); Phileona Foundation (K.L.S.). The Stockholm County Council (M.W-H.); The Swedish Twin Registry is managed through the Swedish Research Council - Grant 2017-000641. The French ASSESS (Atteinte Systémique et Evolution des patients atteints de Syndrome de Sjögren primitive) was sponsored by Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (Ministry of Health, PHRC 2006 P060228) and the French society of Rheumatology (X.M.).publishedVersio

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Cow’s milk and chronic constipation in children – A systematic review

Sahlgrenska Akademin vid Göteborgs universitet Avdelningen för invärtesmedicin och klinisk nutrition Sammanfattning Titel: Komjölk och kronisk förstoppning hos barn – En systematisk översiktsartikel Författare: Sara Palm & Anna Svensson Handledare: Frode Slinde Examinator: Anna Winkvist Linje: Dietistprogrammet, 180/240 hp Typ av arbete: Självständigt arbete, 15 hp Datum: 2014-05-27 Bakgrund: Funktionell kronisk förstoppning är vanligt hos barn. Upp till en tredjedel av alla som uppsöker barnläkare lider av förstoppning och det är ett utbrett problem för barn i många länder. Komjölk har på senare tid diskuterats som en möjlig orsak till förstoppningen och om det kan anses vara en fördröjd överkänslighetsreaktion. Syfte: Syftet med denna systematiska översiktsartikel är att utforska om det finns vetenskapligt underlag för att rekommendera en komjölksfri kost som en potentiell behandling av kroniskt förstoppade barn. Sökväg: Litteratursökningarna genomfördes i databaserna Pubmed, Scopus och the Cochrane Library med sökorden cow’s milk, constipation, milk proteins, dairy products, milk hypersensitivity, cow milk och cows milk mellan 17 mars och 4 april 2014. Urvalskriterier: Randomiserade kontrollerade studier som mätte avföringsfrekvensen efter uteslutandet av komjölk hos kroniskt förstoppade barn inkluderades. Barnen fick inte ha komjölksallergi eller organisk förstoppning. Artikeln skulle vara på engelska eller svenska. Datainsamling och analys: Fyra relevanta studier granskades enskilt med SBU:s Granskningsmall för randomiserade studier. Evidensen summerades därefter med Göteborgs universitets Sammanfattande evidensformulär. Resultat: Samtliga studier visade på en statistiskt signifikant effekt vid borttagandet av komjölk ur kosten och en ökad avföringsfrekvens. Resultaten visade att 39-80% av barnen i studierna förbättrades och förstoppningen löstes upp. Slutsats: Det finns måttlig evidens (+++) för att uteslutandet av komjölk ur kosten bör vara en del av behandlingen av funktionellt kroniskt förstoppade barn. Om behandlingen ger effekt sker en symtomlindring i form av ökad avföringsfrekvens för individen.Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Nutrition Abstract Title: Cow’s milk and chronic constipation in children – A systematic review Author: Sara Palm & Anna Svensson Supervisor: Frode Slinde Examiner: Anna Winkvist Programme: Dietician study programme, 180/240 ECTS Type of paper: Examination paper, 15 hp Date: May 27, 2014 Background: Chronic functional constipation is common among children. Up to a third of all who seek a paediatrician suffer from constipation and it is a widespread problem for children in many countries. Lately it has been discussed if cow’s milk can be a cause of the constipation and if it should be considered a delayed hypersensitivity. Objective: The aim of this systematic review is to examine whether there is scientific evidence to recommend a cow’s milk-free diet as a potential treatment in chronically constipated children. Search strategy: The literature searches were performed in the databases Pubmed, Scopus and the Cochrane library, using the search terms cow’s milk, constipation, milk proteins, dairy products, milk hypersensitivity, cow milk and cows milk between March 17th and April 4th 2014. Selection criteria: Randomized controlled trials measuring stool frequency in chronically constipated children on a cow’s milk-free diet were included. The children should not have an allergy to cow’s milk or organic constipation. The articles should be written in English or Swedish. Data collection and analysis: Four relevant studies were reviewed individually using the SBU template for randomized controlled trials. The evidence was then summarized using an evidence form developed by the University of Gothenburg. Main results: All studies show a statistically significant effect on the removal of cow's milk from the diet and increased stool frequency. The results showed that 39-80% of the children in the studies improved and the constipation was resolved. Conclusions: There is moderate evidence (+++) that the exclusion of cow's milk from the diet should be part of the treatment of functional chronically constipated children. If there is a response to the treatment it provides relief of symptoms by increasing the stool frequency in the individual

When it was time it was just to jump into the preschool class : A study about the transition between preschool and preschool class

Abstract The purpose of this work is to contribute knowledge about the transition of children from preschool to preschool classes. The experiences of pedagogical staff, parents and children are described, based on four deepening questions. The questions are about what the actors experience as positive and what the difficulties were in the transition process, and they also cover the differences of children and collaboration between actors. The method consists of qualitative interviews with parents, children, and pedagogical staff. The interviews concern the experiences of transition from the different actors. The results show the importance of a solid transition plan, the emphasis on good first contact between pedagogical staff and children, and a good parent-teacher relationship. Meetings concerning the handover between parents and pedagogical staff, and the opportunity for children to visit their new school before the school start, are also important factors for a good transition. What is seen as problematic is the lack of time for teachers to visit the children in preschool and preschool classes, difficulties to find suitable times for teacher meetings between preschool and preschool classes and the responsibility of the meetings concerning the handover. Children are different, and adapting the handover to each individual is important. The teachers responsible for the preschool classes need to get information regarding the children from preschool teachers and parents. The conclusions are that work regarding transition is important for parents and children’s security, and that a close cooperation between parents, children, and pedagogical staff is central. This way, experiences, perspectives, and knowledge of the individual child can be shared. Key words: differences of children, preparative work, collaboration, transition from preschool to preschool class.Sammanfattning Examensarbetets syfte är att bidra med kunskap om processen vid barns övergång från förskola till förskoleklass. Arbetet beskriver erfarenheter hos pedagogisk personal, föräldrar och barn. Fyra frågeställningar har formulerats för att fördjupa syftet. Frågorna handlar om vad aktörerna ser som positivt och problematiskt i övergången, samt barns olikheter och samverkan mellan aktörerna. Metoden i den här studien är kvalitativa intervjuer med föräldrar, barn och pedagogisk personal. Intervjuerna berör de olika aktörernas tankar och erfarenheter av övergången. Resultatet visar att det som är positivt i övergången är en tydlig övergångsplan, bra första kontakt mellan pedagogisk personal och barn samt en trygg föräldra- och lärarrelation. Överlämningssamtal mellan pedagogisk personal och föräldrar och att barnen i förväg får besöka den nya skolan är också viktiga moment i övergången. Det som ses som problematiskt är lärarnas tidsbrist för att besöka barnen i förskola och förskoleklass, mötestider mellan lärare inom förskola och förskoleklass samt ansvaret för överlämningssamtalet. Barn är olika och att anpassa övergången efter individen är viktigt. Lärarna för förskoleklasserna måste få information om barnen från förskola och föräldrar. Slutsatserna är att arbetet i övergången är viktigt för föräldrar och barns trygghet samt att samarbete mellan föräldrar, barn och pedagogisk personal är betydelsefullt. Detta för att lära av varandras verksamheter, erfarenheter, synsätt och framförallt få kunskap om det enskilda barnet. Nyckelord: barns olikheter, förberedande arbete, samverkan, övergången förskola till förskoleklass