Stockholm University

About: Stockholm University is a education organization based out in Stockholm, Sweden. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Supernova. The organization has 21052 authors who have published 62567 publications receiving 2725859 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Stockholm & Stockholms universitet.

Health consequences of shift work and insufficient sleep

Abstract: This review summarises the literature on shift work and its relation to insufficient sleep, chronic diseases, and accidents. It is based on 38 meta-analyses and 24 systematic reviews, with additional narrative reviews and articles used for outlining possible mechanisms by which shift work may cause accidents and adverse health. Evidence shows that the effect of shift work on sleep mainly concerns acute sleep loss in connection with night shifts and early morning shifts. A link also exists between shift work and accidents, type 2 diabetes (relative risk range 1.09-1.40), weight gain, coronary heart disease (relative risk 1.23), stroke (relative risk 1.05), and cancer (relative risk range 1.01-1.32), although the original studies showed mixed results. The relations of shift work to cardiometabolic diseases and accidents mimic those with insufficient sleep. Laboratory studies indicate that cardiometabolic stress and cognitive impairments are increased by shift work, as well as by sleep loss. Given that the health and safety consequences of shift work and insufficient sleep are very similar, they are likely to share common mechanisms. However, additional research is needed to determine whether insufficient sleep is a causal pathway for the adverse health effects associated with shift work.

A short γ-ray burst apparently associated with an elliptical galaxy at redshift z = 0.225

Abstract: Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are either ‘long and soft’, or ‘short and hard’. The long-duration type leave a strong afterglow and have been extensively studied. So we have a good idea of what causes them: explosions of massive stars in distant star-forming galaxies. Short GRBs, with no strong afterglow, were harder to pin down. The Swift satellite, launched last November, is designed to study bursts as soon as they happen. Having shown its worth with long GRBs (reported in the 18 August issue of Nature), Swift has now bagged a short burst, GRB 050509B, precisely measured its location and detected the X-ray afterglow. Four papers this week report on this and another recent short burst. Now, over 20 years after they were first recognized, the likely origin of the short GRBs is revealed as a merger between neutron stars of a binary system and the instantaneous production of a black hole. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) come in two classes1: long (> 2 s), soft-spectrum bursts and short, hard events. Most progress has been made on understanding the long GRBs, which are typically observed at high redshift (z ≈ 1) and found in subluminous star-forming host galaxies. They are likely to be produced in core-collapse explosions of massive stars2. In contrast, no short GRB had been accurately (< 10″) and rapidly (minutes) located. Here we report the detection of the X-ray afterglow from—and the localization of—the short burst GRB 050509B. Its position on the sky is near a luminous, non-star-forming elliptical galaxy at a redshift of 0.225, which is the location one would expect3,4 if the origin of this GRB is through the merger of neutron-star or black-hole binaries. The X-ray afterglow was weak and faded below the detection limit within a few hours; no optical afterglow was detected to stringent limits, explaining the past difficulty in localizing short GRBs.

Cell penetrating PNA constructs regulate galanin receptor levels and modify pain transmission in vivo.

Abstract: Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) form stable and tight complexes with complementary DNA and/or RNA and would be promising antisense reagents if their cellular delivery could be improved. We show that a 21-mer PNA, complementary to the human galanin receptor type 1 mRNA, coupled to the cellular transporter peptides, transportan or pAntennapedia(43–58), is efficiently taken up into Bowes cells where they block the expression of galanin receptors. In rat, the intrathecal administration of the peptide-PNA construct results in a decrease in galanin binding in the dorsal horn. The decrease in binding results in the inability of galanin to inhibit the C fibers stimulation-induced facilitation of the rat flexor reflex, demonstrating that peptide-PNA constructs act in vivo to suppress expression of functional galanin receptors.

A limit on the variation of the speed of light arising from quantum gravity effects

Abstract: A cornerstone of Einstein's special relativity is Lorentz invariance-the postulate that all observers measure exactly the same speed of light in vacuum, independent of photon-energy. While special relativity assumes that there is no fundamental length-scale associated with such invariance, there is a fundamental scale (the Planck scale, l(Planck) approximate to 1.62 x 10(-33) cm or E(Planck) = M(Planck)c(2) approximate to 1.22 x 10(19) GeV), at which quantum effects are expected to strongly affect the nature of space-time. There is great interest in the (not yet validated) idea that Lorentz invariance might break near the Planck scale. A key test of such violation of Lorentz invariance is a possible variation of photon speed with energy(1-7). Even a tiny variation in photon speed, when accumulated over cosmological light-travel times, may be revealed by observing sharp features in gamma-ray burst (GRB) light-curves(2). Here we report the detection of emission up to similar to 31GeV from the distant and short GRB090510. We find no evidence for the violation of Lorentz invariance, and place a lower limit of 1.2E(Planck) on the scale of a linear energy dependence (or an inverse wavelength dependence), subject to reasonable assumptions about the emission (equivalently we have an upper limit of l(Planck)/1.2 on the length scale of the effect). Our results disfavour quantum-gravity theories(3,6,7) in which the quantum nature of space-time on a very small scale linearly alters the speed of light.

The Weak Temperature Gradient Approximation and Balanced Tropical Moisture Waves

Abstract: Horizontal temperature gradients are small in the tropical atmosphere, as a consequence of the smallness of the Coriolis parameter near the equator. This provides a strong constraint on both large-scale fluid dynamics and diabatic processes. This work is a step toward the construction of a balanced dynamical theory for the tropical circulation that is based on this constraint, and in which the diabatic processes are explicit and interactive. The authors first derive the basic fluid-dynamical scaling under the weak temperature gradient (WTG) approximation in a shallow water system with a fixed mass source representing an externally imposed heating. This derivation follows an earlier similar one by Held and Hoskins, but extends the analysis to the nonlinear case (though on an f plane), examines the resulting system in more detail, and presents a solution for an axisymmetric ‘‘top-hat’’ forcing. The system is truly balanced, having no gravity waves, but is different from other balance models in that the heating is included a priori in the scaling. The WTG scaling is then applied to a linear moist model in which the convective heating is controlled by a moisture variable that is advected by the flow. This moist model is derived from the Quasi-equilibrium Tropical Circulation Model (QTCM) equations of Neelin and Zeng but can be viewed as somewhat more general. A number of additional approximations are made in order to consider balanced dynamical modes, apparently not studied previously, which owe their existence to interactions of the moisture and flow fields. A particularly interesting mode arises on an f plane with a constant background moisture gradient. In the limit of low frequency and zero meridional wavenumber this mode has a dispersion relation mathematically identical to that of a barotropic Rossby wave, though the phase speed is eastward (for moisture decreasing poleward in the background state) and the propagation mechanism is quite different. This mode also has significant positive growth rate for low wavenumbers. The addition of the b effect complicates matters. For typical parameters, when b is included the direction of phase propagation is ambiguous, and the growth rate reduced, as the effects of the background gradients in moisture and planetary vorticity appear to cancel to a large degree. Possible relevance to intraseasonal variability and easterly wave dynamics is briefly discussed.