Kidney transplant patients at Ullevål Hospital 1963-83. / Pasienter nyretransplantert ved Ullevål sykehus 1963­83.

BACKGROUND: In the period November 1963 to July 1983, 118 patients received a kidney transplant at Ullevål Hospital. All future kidney transplants were subsequently performed at Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet. The purpose of our study is to present demographic data and show patient and graft survival from the first patient cohort of kidney transplant recipients in Norway. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The patients were identified in surgical protocols from Ullevål Hospital and the Norwegian Renal Registry using follow-up data up to December 2016. We recorded the patients' age and sex, cause of renal failure, donor characteristics, patient and graft survival, number of retransplants and cause of death. RESULTS: 118 patients: 38 women and 80 men, aged 14-67 years, received a transplant during the reference period. The most common indicators for transplantation were chronic glomerulonephritis (n = 61), chronic pyelonephritis (n = 20) and polycystic kidney disease (n = 14). Seventy-two patients (61 %) received a kidney from a deceased donor. After one year, 94 of the patients were still living (80 %), after five years, 66 of the patients (56 %) were still living, and after twenty years, the figure was 34 (29 %). Cardiovascular disease was the most common cause of death. The median graft survival was 3.8 years (quartile range 14.4 years). Thirty-two patients underwent retransplantation. INTERPRETATION: Even in this pioneering era, patient survival rates and the functional life of donated kidneys were acceptable.

A model for global diversity in response to temperature change over geological time scales, with reference to planktic organisms.

There are strong propositions in the literature that abiotic factors override biotic drivers of diversity on time scales of the fossil record. In order to study the interaction of biotic and abiotic forces on long term changes, we devise a spatio-temporal discrete-time Markov process model of macroevolution featuring population formation, speciation, migration and extinction, where populations are free to migrate. In our model, the extinction probability of these populations is controlled by latitudinally and temporally varying environment (temperature) and competition. Although our model is general enough to be applicable to disparate taxa, we explicitly address planktic organisms, which are assumed to disperse freely without barriers over the Earth's oceans. While rapid and drastic environmental changes tend to eliminate many species, generalists preferentially survive and hence leave generalist descendants. In other words, environmental fluctuations result in generalist descendants which are resilient to future environmental changes. Periods of stable or slow environmental changes lead to more specialist species and higher population numbers. Simulating Cenozoic diversity dynamics with both competition and the environmental component of our model produces diversity curves that reflect current empirical knowledge, which cannot be obtained with just one component. Our model predicts that the average temperature optimum at which planktic species thrive best has declined over the Neogene, following the trend of global average temperatures.

Fractional parentage analysis and a scale-free reproductive network of brown trout.

In this study, we developed a method of fractional parentage analysis using microsatellite markers. We propose a method for calculating parentage probability, which considers missing data and genotyping errors due to null alleles and other causes, by regarding observed alleles as realizations of random variables which take values in the set of alleles at the locus and developing a method for simultaneously estimating the true and null allele frequencies of all alleles at each locus. We then applied our proposed method to a large sample collected from a wild population of brown trout (Salmo trutta). On analyzing the data using our method, we found that the reproductive success of brown trout obeyed a power law, indicating that when the parent-offspring relationship is regarded as a link, the reproductive system of brown trout is a scale-free network. Characteristics of the reproductive network of brown trout include individuals with large bodies as hubs in the network and different power exponents of degree distributions between males and females.

In utero and lactational exposure to PCB 118 and PCB 153 alter ovarian follicular dynamics and GnRH-induced luteinizing hormone secretion in female lambs.

The effects of in utero and lactational exposure to two structurally different polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners on follicular dynamics and the pituitary-gonadal axis in female lambs were investigated. Pregnant ewes received corn oil, PCB 118, or PCB 153, and offspring was maintained until 60 days postpartum. Ovarian follicles were quantified using stereology. Plasma luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) were measured using radioimmunoassay before and after administration of a gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) analog. PCB 118 exposure increased numbers of transitional, secondary, and the sum of secondary, early antral, and antral (Σsecondary-antral) follicles, PCB 153 exposure only increased the number of primary follicles. GnRH-induced LH levels were significantly elevated in the PCB 153 exposure group. We conclude that PCB 153 and PCB 118 alter follicular dynamics in lambs and modulate the responsiveness of the pituitary gland to GnRH.

Comment on Cowling's "Spatial methods for line transect surveys".

We consider the problem of estimating the parameters of a two-dimensional Neyman-Scott process, from data collected through a line transect survey. Cowling (1998, Biometrics 54, 828-839) suggested an estimation method based on a one-dimensional K-function along the transect line. However, her expression for the theoretical K-function is wrong. In this article, we correct her K-function.

Abundance estimation from multiple photo surveys: confidence distributions and reduced likelihoods for bowhead whales off Alaska.

Maximum likelihood estimates of abundance are obtained from repeated photographic surveys of a closed stratified population with naturally marked and unmarked individuals. Capture intensities are assumed log-linear in stratum, year, and season. In the chosen model, an approximate confidence distribution for total abundance of bowhead whales, with an accompanying likelihood reduced of nuisance parameters, is found from a parametric bootstrap experiment. The confidence distribution depends on the assumed study protocol. A confidence distribution that is exact (except for the effect of discreteness) is found by conditioning in the unstratified case without unmarked individuals.