Search results

Critical infrastructures provide essential services for the functioning of the society, and disruption of these services can lead to large-scale consequences. Hence, it is of utmost importance to analyze the vulnerability of critical infrastructures and use the results to guide decisions of improving their robustness towards strains. Since real-life critical infrastructures can be regarded as comp

Background: The aim of this longitudinal study was to analyze whether mean Body Mass Index (BMI), assessed at four occasions, changed within different age groups and birth cohorts over time, i.e., between 1980/81 and 2004/05, after adjustment for possible confounders. Methods: A sample of 2728 men and 2770 women aged 16-71 years at study start were randomly drawn from the Swedish Total Population

Biodiesel has recently reemerged as a common fuel. However, emissions from biodiesel combustion have been studied in much less detail than those from traditional petroleum-based diesel. In this experiment, emissions from the combustion of different fuel blends (BOO, B02, B20, B99, where the number after B indicates the percentage, by volume, of biodiesel in the fuel) in a VW TDi engine were analyz

Background: Leptin resistance is considered a primary risk factor for obesity. It has been hypothesized that dietary cereal grain protein could cause leptin resistance by preventing leptin from binding to its receptor. Non-degraded dietary wheat protein has been found in human serum at a mean level of 41 ng/mL. Here, we report our findings from testing whether enzymatically digested gluten from wh

P>Aims Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is an autoimmune disease with potential mechanistic links to immune-related cancers. We aimed at examining the overall and specific cancer risks among hospitalized T1DM patients from the national registers in Sweden. Methods A T1DM research cohort was created by identifying T1DM patients from the Hospital Discharge Register and linking them with the Cancer Re

A comparison between three different types of particle sizing instruments (fast mobility particle sizer, FMPS; electrical low pressure impactor, ELPI; and scanning mobility particle sizer, SMPS) and one condensation particle counter (CPC) was made to compare instrument response in terms of size distributions and number concentration. Spherical oil droplets in 39 different sizes, with geometric mea

The effects of combustion phase and fuel on smoke particle emissions from a wood stove operated with three different wood fuels and from a corn stove were investigated. A single-particle mass spectrometer (aerosol time of flight mass spectrometer (ATOFMS)) was used for time-and size-resolved chemical signatures and a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) was used for online mobility size distrib

Objective: Radiographic damage is an important outcome in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The disease course varies considerably, and there is a need for simple and reliable prognostic markers. The aim of the study was to determine the utility of early signs of extra-articular disease, manifested as rheumatoid nodules (RN), in predicting radiographic outcome. Methods: In a cohort (n = 1589) of consecut

Background: Respiratory tract deposition of air pollution particles is a key to their adverse health effects. This study was aimed to determine the size-resolved deposition fraction (DF) of sooty wood smoke particles in the lungs of healthy subjects. The type of wood smoke investigated is typical for household air pollution from solid fuels, which is among the largest environmental health problems

High achievement in school has been associated with increased risk of eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN), but causality of these relationships is unclear. We sought to examine the association between school achievement and AN or BN in a national cohort and to determine the possible contribution of familial confounding using a co-relative design.

The aim of this study is to analyse longitudinally, the annual effects of age group and birth cohort on smoking in the Swedish population during a 24-year period and to analyse the smoking trends for different levels of education.

Alcohol consumption contributes to many negative health consequences and is a risk factor for death. Some previous studies however suggest a J-shaped relationship between the level of alcohol consumption and all-cause mortality. These findings have in part been suggested to be due to confounders. The aim of our study was to analyze the relationship between self-reported alcohol intake and all-caus

Crisis management exercises sometimes produce weak or vague learning results with very limited applicability. This paper addresses these problems by developing a theoretical framework on learning from crisis management exercises. The framework focuses on necessary requirements and beneficial factors for the conceptual learning of individuals from discussion-based exercises. The variation theory of

Critical infrastructures provide services that are essential for the functioning of our society and extensive disruptions in these can have widespread effects. These effects are not only limited to the directly affected infrastructure but also indirectly through interdependencies to other infrastructures. By only account-ing for the direct consequences when analysing critical infrastructures, the

Background: Many older adults are physically inactive and inactivity increases with age. This knowledge comes from cross-sectional studies. Cross-sectional studies may miss important trajectories within the older adults as a result of retirements, and poor health impact of promotional efforts. The aim of this study was to analyse, longitudinally, the annual effects of age group and birth cohort on

Background: The aim of this study is to analyze longitudinally, based on four measurements at intervals of eight years, the annual effect of age group and birth cohort on regular exercise in the Swedish population from 1980-1981 to 2004-2005. Methods: We followed a randomly drawn subsample of individuals aged 16-63 years, interviewed by professional interviewers, from the Swedish Annual Level of L

Disasters such as the storms that affected Sweden in 2005 and 2007 showed that citizens initially conducted a large part of the disaster response, such as clearing roads, giving psychosocial support to affected neighbours and repairing power lines in collaboration with power companies. As a result of these storms, an Emergent Citizen Group (ECG) was established in a village which continued to work

Two probiotic products containing either live Lactobacillus plantarum strain DSM 15313 or bilberries fermented by the same bacterial strain were tested for their antihypertensive potentials and their impact on the oral and the faecal microbiota in hypertensive adults. The results showed that consumption of the tested products for three months did not reduce the blood pressure in adults with hypert

We developed a simple model to calculate the regional deposited dose of submicron aerosol particles in the respiratory system. This model incorporates measured outdoor and modeled indoor particle number size distributions, detailed activity patterns of three age groups (teens, adults, and the elderly), semi-empirical estimation of the regional deposition fraction, hygroscopic properties of urban a