Moving beyond traditional measures – lessons from evaluating collaborative initiatives at Lund University

Over the last decade, universities and other institutions of higher education (HEIs) worldwide have witnessed an evolution to their role relative to society – with increasing attention to external engagement and expectations on societal impact. This has fostered an upswing in activity as research and innovation funding bodies and universities alike explore new approaches to working with external engagement, and led to questions regarding how to evaluate the societal impact of these efforts. Although there are examples of national frameworks to evaluate research impact, the large majority of countries and HEIs around theworld are still experimenting with approaches to evidence and assess their pathway to societal impact. This paper aims to contribute to evolving practice in this field by presenting lessons from the evaluation of a new strategic instrument (thematic collaboration initiatives) at Lund University (LU), Sweden.The evaluation of the strategic instrument “thematic collaboration initiatives” encompassed both initiative/operational and LU leadership/strategic levels. The approach to the evaluation combined traditional measures and processes, together with new indicators and evaluation approaches. The evaluation hasresulted in a better understanding of the range of activities and outputs that one can expect from such collaborative initiatives – informing the selection of measures to include in evaluation efforts. The evaluation also provided new insights on how universities can work with and use evaluation to guide thefurther development of the university’s approach to fostering external engagement. Participatory processes and facilitated reflection were very beneficial to draw out multiple perspectives and possible implicationsfor future development of the instrument

Tematiska samverkansinitiativ vid Lunds universitet - Resultat och reflektioner

Rapport som sammanfattar utvärderingen av den första generationen av tematiska samverkansinitiativ vid Lunds universitet 2017-2019

A mouse model of the 15q13.3 microdeletion syndrome shows prefrontal neurophysiological dysfunctions and attentional impairment.

RATIONALE: A microdeletion at locus 15q13.3 is associated with high incidence rates of psychopathology, including schizophrenia. A mouse model of the 15q13.3 microdeletion syndrome has been generated (Df[h15q13]/+) with translational utility for modelling schizophrenia-like pathology. Among other deficits, schizophrenia is characterised by dysfunctions in prefrontal cortical (PFC) inhibitory circuitry and attention. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to assess PFC-dependent functioning in the Df(h15q13)/+ mouse using electrophysiological, pharmacological, and behavioural assays. METHOD: Experiments 1-2 investigated baseline firing and auditory-evoked responses of PFC interneurons and pyramidal neurons. Experiment 3 measured pyramidal firing in response to intra-PFC GABAA receptor antagonism. Experiments 4-6 assessed PFC-dependent attentional functioning through the touchscreen 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT). Experiments 7-12 assessed reversal learning, paired-associate learning, extinction learning, progressive ratio, trial-unique non-match to sample, and object recognition. RESULTS: In experiments 1-3, the Df(h15q13)/+ mouse showed reduced baseline firing rate of fast-spiking interneurons and in the ability of the GABAA receptor antagonist gabazine to increase the firing rate of pyramidal neurons. In assays of auditory-evoked responses, PFC interneurons in the Df(h15q13)/+ mouse had reduced detection amplitudes and increased detection latencies, while pyramidal neurons showed increased detection latencies. In experiments 4-6, the Df(h15q13)/+ mouse showed a stimulus duration-dependent decrease in percent accuracy in the 5-CSRTT. The impairment was insensitive to treatment with the partial α7nAChR agonist EVP-6124. The Df(h15q13)/+ mouse showed no cognitive impairments in experiments 7-12. CONCLUSION: The Df(h15q13)/+ mouse has multiple dysfunctions converging on disrupted PFC processing as measured by several independent assays of inhibitory transmission and attentional function.The research leading to these results has received support from the Innovative Medicine Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement n° 115008 of which resources are composed of EFPIA in-kind contribution and financial contribution from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013). The Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute is co-funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. This study was also supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM). The authors would like to thank Mercedes Nuñez, Noemí Jurado, Edita Bulovaitė, Sueda Tunçak, Lewis Buss, and Diab Ali for skillful technical assistance.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-016-4265-

Människors upplevelser av att leva med stroke : en litteraturstudie

Validerat; 20101217 (root

Diverging functions among calreticulin isoforms in higher plants

The ER chaperone calreticulin plays vital roles in numerous cellular processes, including Ca2+-homeostasis, apoptosis and cell adhesion, in animal cells. Although calreticulin has been systematically characterized in animal cells, the focus has been on one of the isoforms. However, recent advances in the plant calreticulin field have revealed functional divergence of calreticulin isoforms. While two of the plant isoforms appear to work within a general ER chaperone framework, the third isoform is associated with folding of receptors for brassinosteroids and bacterial peptides. Hence, the discovery of functional specialization of plant calreticulins opens up new vistas for calreticulins also in the animal field

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ash: Determination of total and leachable concentrations

Before wood ash can be used as a soil fertilizer, concentrations of environmentally hazardous compounds must be investigated. In this study, total and leachable concentrations of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were determined in four ash samples and one green liquor sludge. The ash sample with the highest carbon content also contained high levels of PAHs; three of the ash samples had total concentrations exceeding the limit permitted by the Swedish Forest Agency for recycling to forest soils. The leachable concentrations were higher for the nonstabilized samples; this was probably due to colloid-facilitated transport of the contaminants in these samples. However, the leachable concentrations were overall relatively low in all the samples studied. The amounts of PAHs introduced to forest soils by additions of stabilized, recyclable ash products will be determined primarily by the rate of weathering of the ash particles and the total concentration of contaminants

No-touch saphenous vein grafts in coronary artery surgery (SWEDEGRAFT) : Rationale and design of a multicenter, prospective, registry-based randomized clinical trial

The SWEDEGRAFT study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03501303) tests the hypothesis that saphenous vein grafts (SVGs) harvested with the “no-touch” technique improves patency of coronary artery bypass grafts compared with the conventional open skeletonized technique. This article describes the rationale and design of the randomized trial and baseline characteristics of the population enrolled during the first 9 months of enrollment. The SWEDEGRAFT study is a prospective, binational multicenter, open-label, registry-based trial in patients undergoing first isolated nonemergent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), randomized 1:1 to no-touch or conventional open skeletonized vein harvesting technique, with a planned enrollment of 900 patients. The primary end point is the proportion of patients with graft failure defined as SVGs occluded or stenosed >50% on coronary computed tomography angiography at 2 years after CABG, earlier clinically driven coronary angiography demonstrating an occluded or stenosed >50% vein graft, or death within 2 years. High-quality health registries and coronary computed tomography angiography are used to assess the primary end point. The secondary end points include wound healing in the vein graft sites and the composite outcome of major adverse cardiac events during the first 2 years based on registry data. Demographics of the first 200 patients enrolled in the trial and other CABG patients operated in Sweden during the same time period are comparable when the exclusion criteria are taken into consideration. RCT# NCT0350130