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Realistic and accurate reconstructions of past vegetation cover are necessary to study past environmental changes. This is important since the effects of human land-use changes (e.g. agriculture, deforestation and afforestation/reforestation) on biodiversity and climate are still under debate. Over the last decade, development, validation, and application of pollen-vegetation relationship models h
Antibiotic resistance is a major threat for our society and finding novel antibacterial therapies is of greatimportance. In this thesis, we investigate bacterial sialic acid uptake inhibitors as a novel antibacterial approach.Bacteria do not biosynthesise sialic acid and therefore harvest it from the host. Sialic acid plays a crucial role forpathogenic bacteria, since it is used as a source of car
Background: Speech impairments are an early feature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and consequently, analysing speech performance is a promising new digital biomarker for AD screening. Future clinical AD trials on disease modifying drugs will require a shift to very early identification of individuals at risk of dementia. Hence, digital markers of language and speech may offer a method for screening
Moving from a fossil dependent to a fossil free economy requires increased energy production from renewable resources. This thesis discusses the utilization of agricultural waste streams, such as straw and manure, for biogas production. The first part of the research presented focuses on pretreatment of straw with the aim to reduce the handling issues concerning straw and improve the degradation o
Environmental pollution is a significant concern for scientists, practitioners, authorities and the society. Among the various pollutants, chlorinated solvents pose a considerable risk to our groundwater resources. These hazardous chemicals, often used in industrial processes, can contaminate soil and water, posing a threat to both human health and ecosystems. Detecting and tracking the spread of
Background Direct cell reprogramming is characterized by the use of defined factors to rewire the transcriptional and epigenetic network of one cell-type into one of a different lineage. We have recently identified the transcription factors PU.1, IRF8, and BAFT3 (PIB) as sufficient to induce a type 1 conventional dendritic cell (cDC1) fate in both somatic and cancer cells.1,2 cDC1 is a rare dendri
Land remediation is an important part of restoration measures after a radioactive fallout containing long-lived fission products such as 137Cs. In this multidisciplinary study, we focused on three main issues related to remediation of contaminated urban areas. First, we assessed how much decontamination contributes to reducing resident radiation exposure and how much this reduction depends on the
Objectives: The randomized controlled trial comparing digital breast tomosynthesis and synthetic 2D mammograms (DBT + SM) versus digital mammography (DM) (the To-Be 1 trial), 2016–2017, did not result in higher cancer detection for DBT + SM. We aimed to determine if negative cases prior to interval and consecutive screen-detected cancers from DBT + SM were due to interpretive error. Methods: Five
divided the data set temporally, assessing the persistence of identified subgroups over different periods. The reassessment of mortality risk used the targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE) method to achieve more robust causal modeling. Results: We analyzed data from 21,005 children. The mortality risk (6 weeks to 3 years of age) was 5.2% (95% CI 4.8%-5.6%) for children born between 2003 an
The 2015 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change aims to keep global average temperature increases well below 2 °C of preindustrial levels in the Year 2100. Vital to its success is achieving a decrease in the abundance of atmospheric methane (CH4), the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas. If this reduction is to be achieved, individual nations mu
The incorporation of water isotopologues into the hydrology of general circulation models (GCMs) facilitates the comparison between modeled and measured proxy data in paleoclimate archives. However, the variability and drivers of measured and modeled water isotopologues, as well as the diversity of their representation in different models, are not well constrained. Improving our understanding of t
Aims/hypothesis: Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is the leading cause of kidney failure and has a substantial genetic component. Our aim was to identify novel genetic factors and genes contributing to DKD by performing meta-analysis of previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on DKD and by integrating the results with renal transcriptomics datasets. Methods: We performed GWAS meta-analyses us
Radar data at C-band has shown great potential for the monitoring of soil and canopy hydric conditions of wheat crops. In this study, the C-band Sentinel-1 time series including the backscattering coefficients σ0 at VV and VH polarization, the polarization ratio (PR) and the interferometric coherence ρ are first analyzed with the support of experimental data gathered on three plots of irrigated wi
Background: The African continent hosts many industrial mining projects, and many more are planned due to recent prospecting discoveries and increasing demand for various minerals to promote a low-carbon future. The extraction of natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) represents an opportunity for economic development but also poses a threat to population health through rapid urbanisation a
Early detection of Alzheimer's disease is essential to develop preventive treatment strategies. Detectible change in brain volume emerges relatively late in the pathogenic progression of disease, but microstructural changes caused by early neuropathology may cause subtle changes in the MR signal, quantifiable using texture analysis. Texture analysis quantifies spatial patterns in an image, such as
BACKGROUND: Bisphosphonates have profound effects on bone physiology, and could modify the process of metastasis. We undertook collaborative meta-analyses to clarify the risks and benefits of adjuvant bisphosphonate treatment in breast cancer.METHODS: We sought individual patient data from all unconfounded trials in early breast cancer that randomised between bisphosphonate and control. Primary ou
Insect behaviours, such as host and mate selection, are often mediated by chemical cues. The chemical cuesare detected by large and rapidly evolving families of chemoreceptors which include odorant receptors (ORs),gustatory receptors (GRs) and ionotropic receptors (IRs). In this thesis, I used a model system of beetle(Coleoptera) species to study the functional evolution of insect ORs, their ligan
BACKGROUND: Minimally invasive surgery is rapidly expanding globally, yet there is insufficient knowledge of how to scale this technology safely and equitably across diverse health systems. We aimed to identify health-system factors associated with safe implementation of minimally invasive surgery globally, using minimally invasive cholecystectomy as a tracer procedure.METHODS: We conducted a mult
Pulchrol, a natural compound isolated from the roots of the vegetal specie Bourreria pulchra has been shown to possess potential antiparasitic activity toward Trypanosomatids, particularly against Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes the Chagas disease; and moderately against Leishmania species, responsible for Leishmaniasis. In this investigation, several pulchrol analogues were prepared and assayed t
