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- Aakre, Kristin M, et al.
(författare)
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Lower Limits for Reporting High-Sensitivity Cardiac Troponin Assays and Impact of Analytical Performance on Patient Misclassification.
- 2024
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Ingår i: Clinical chemistry. - 0009-9147 .- 1530-8561. ; 70:3, s. 497-505
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cardiac troponin measurements are indispensable for the diagnosis of myocardial infarction and provide useful information for long-term risk prediction of cardiovascular disease. Accelerated diagnostic pathways prevent unnecessary hospital admission, but require reporting cardiac troponin concentrations at low concentrations that are sometimes below the limit of quantification. Whether analytical imprecision at these concentrations contributes to misclassification of patients is debated.The International Federation of Clinical Chemistry Committee on Clinical Application of Cardiac Bio-Markers (IFCC C-CB) provides evidence-based educational statements on analytical and clinical aspects of cardiac biomarkers. This mini-review discusses how the reporting of low concentrations of cardiac troponins impacts on whether or not assays are classified as high-sensitivity and how analytical performance at low concentrations influences the utility of troponins in accelerated diagnostic pathways. Practical suggestions are made for laboratories regarding analytical quality assessment of cardiac troponin results at low cutoffs, with a particular focus on accelerated diagnostic pathways. The review also discusses how future use of cardiac troponins for long-term prediction or management of cardiovascular disease may require improvements in analytical quality.Clinical guidelines recommend using cardiac troponin concentrations as low as the limit of detection of the assay to guide patient care. Laboratories, manufacturers, researchers, and external quality assessment providers should extend analytical performance monitoring of cardiac troponin assays to include the concentration ranges applicable in these pathways.
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- Aarnio, Karoliina, et al.
(författare)
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Etiologic subtypes of first and recurrent ischemic stroke in young patients using A-S-C-O and TOAST classification criteria: A retrospective follow-up study
- 2024
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Ingår i: EUROPEAN STROKE JOURNAL. - 2396-9873 .- 2396-9881.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Scarce data exist on the etiology of recurrent ischemic strokes (ISs) among young adults. We analyzed the etiology of first-ever and recurrent events and the differences between them.Patients and methods: Patients aged 15-49 years with a first-ever IS in 1994-2007 were included in the Helsinki Young Stroke Registry. In this retrospective cohort study, data on recurrent ISs were identified from Care Register for Health Care until the end of 2017 and Causes of Death Register and from patient records until the end of 2020. All first-ever and recurrent ISs were classified using Atherosclerosis-Small vessel disease-Cardioembolism-Other Cause (A-S-C-O) and Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment (TOAST) classifications.Results: A total of 970 patients were included (median age at index IS 46 years, interquartile range 43-48, 33% women), of which 155 (16.0%) patients had recurrent IS, with 8 (5.2%) fatal cases and 5 (3.2%) unverifiable cases. The median follow-up was 17.4 (IQR 13.9-21.7) years. Median time from the index event to the first recurrent event was 4.5 (interquartile range [IQR] 1.6-10.2) years. Recurrence was more often due to definite cardioembolism (10.7% vs 18.0%, p = 0.013), while the proportion of other definite A-S-C-O subgroups remained the same. With TOAST classification, the proportion of true cryptogenic ISs decreased (16.7% vs 6.7%, p = 0.003), while those with incomplete evaluation increased (9.3% vs 19.3%, p = 0.015). Other TOAST phenotypes remained the same.Conclusion: The proportion of definite cardioembolism increased at recurrence using the A-S-C-O classification and the number of cryptogenic ISs decreased using the TOAST classification, while cases with incomplete evaluation increased. Most etiologies remained the same.
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- Aaroe, Lene, et al.
(författare)
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The journalistic preference for extreme exemplars: educational socialization, psychological biases, or editorial policy?
- 2024
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Ingår i: JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION. - 0021-9916 .- 1460-2466. ; 74:1, s. 48-62
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Exemplars are central in news reporting. However, extreme negative exemplars can bias citizens' factual perceptions and attributions of political responsibility. Nonetheless, our knowledge of the factors shaping journalistic preferences for including exemplars in news stories is limited. We investigate the extent to which educational socialization, psychological biases, and editorial policy shape journalistic preferences for extreme negative exemplars. We field large-scale survey experiments to a population sample of journalism students, a nationally representative sample of citizens, and a representative sample of "young people" and obtain evaluations of news value, newsworthiness, and behavioral measures of the actual write-up of news articles. We find significant support for the role of editorial policy and limited support for the role of educational socialization and psychological biases. In a time where economic pressures and the proliferation of digital media potentially lead editors to prioritize clickbait, these findings suggest that structural biases in news coverage may be aggravated.
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- Abarenkov, Kessy, et al.
(författare)
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The UNITE database for molecular identification and taxonomic communication of fungi and other eukaryotes: sequences, taxa and classifications reconsidered
- 2024
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Ingår i: Nucleic Acids Research. - 0305-1048 .- 1362-4962. ; 52:D1, s. D791-D797
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- UNITE (https://unite.ut.ee) is a web-based database and sequence management environment for molecular identification of eukaryotes. It targets the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and offers nearly 10 million such sequences for reference. These are clustered into similar to 2.4M species hypotheses (SHs), each assigned a unique digital object identifier (DOI) to promote unambiguous referencing across studies. UNITE users have contributed over 600 000 third-party sequence annotations, which are shared with a range of databases and other community resources. Recent improvements facilitate the detection of cross-kingdom biological associations and the integration of undescribed groups of organisms into everyday biological pursuits. Serving as a digital twin for eukaryotic biodiversity and communities worldwide, the latest release of UNITE offers improved avenues for biodiversity discovery, precise taxonomic communication and integration of biological knowledge across platforms. Graphical Abstract
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5. |
- Abdullahi, Amina K., et al.
(författare)
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Framing Ethnicity in Initial Teacher Education: A Focus Group Study with Student Teachers
- 2024
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Ingår i: IDENTITY-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THEORY AND RESEARCH. - 1528-3488 .- 1532-706X.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study aimed to explore how student teachers experienced the framing of ethnicity in initial teacher education in Sweden. Ten focus group discussions were conducted (N = 42; 21% minoritized ethnic background). An inductive thematic analysis was used. The findings showed that ethnicity was framed as mainly concerning "others" and that it was framed as sensitive. The current framing of ethnicity suggests that initial teacher education does not prepare student teachers to support positive youth ethnic-racial identity development. The findings highlight a need for student teachers, and teacher educators, to explore their own ethnic-racial identities through critical discussions that challenge notions of ethnicity as something that concerns "others". Furthermore, the findings highlight student teachers' and teacher educators' needs for structured support in how to critically engage in "sensitive" discussions. Further, the results illustrate how the framing of ethnicity resonates with aspects of social identity theory and with the postcolonial concept "othering".
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6. |
- Abedin, Raschid, et al.
(författare)
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Topological Lie Bialgebras, Manin Triples and Their Classification Over g[[x]]
- 2024
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Ingår i: Communications in Mathematical Physics. - 1432-0916 .- 0010-3616. ; 405:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The main result of the paper is classification of topological Lie bialgebra structures on the Lie algebra g[[x]] , where g is a finite-dimensional simple Lie algebra over an algebraically closed field F of characteristic 0. We introduce the notion of a topological Manin pair (L,g[[x]]) and present their classification by relating them to trace extensions of F[[x]] . Then we recall the classification of topological doubles of Lie bialgebra structures on g[[x]] and view it as a special case of the classification of Manin pairs. The classification of topological doubles states that up to an appropriate equivalence there are only three non-trivial doubles. It is proven that topological Lie bialgebra structures on g[[x]] are in bijection with certain Lagrangian Lie subalgebras of the corresponding doubles. We then attach algebro-geometric data to such Lagrangian subalgebras and, in this way, obtain a classification of all topological Lie bialgebra structures with non-trivial doubles. For F= C the classification becomes explicit. Furthermore, this result enables us to classify formal solutions of the classical Yang–Baxter equation.
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- Abele, Dace, et al.
(författare)
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Including the liver in the visceral allograft: Impact on donor-specific anti-HLA antibodies and long-term outcomes
- 2024
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Ingår i: HUMAN IMMUNOLOGY. - 0198-8859 .- 1879-1166. ; 85:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Humoral immunity emerges as a risk factor for graft failure after visceral transplantation (VTx) and development of donor-specific anti-HLA antibodies (DSAs) has been linked with poor outcomes. In most cases, a simultaneous liver transplant can be safely performed in sensitized patients with DSA and appears protective against lymphocytotoxic antibodies. We investigated the incidence of acute (AR) and chronic rejection (CR) in 32 VTx without any B cell-depleting pre-treatment (6 isolated intestinal transplants (IT) and 26 liver-containing, multivisceral transplants (MVT) and assessed the presence of donor-specific antibodies (DSA) pre- and posttransplantation. Twenty-one patients (65 %) developed AR, 15 (57 %) of the MVT and 6 (100 %) of the IT (p = 0.05). CR occurred in 4 IT (60 %, p < 0.001). At one month, de novo DSA were present in 71 % of VTx (66 % MVT vs 100 % IT, p = 0.09). At the last available follow-up, 69 % of the MVT and 50 % of the IT patients were DSA-free. De novo DSA seemed more persistent (7/19, 37 %) than pre-Tx DSA (1/6, 17 %; p = n.s.), de novo DSA were more frequently specific for HLA class II than class I, 16/19 (84 %) vs. 7/19 (37 %; p = 0.003), and HLA-DQ was their most frequent target HLA. DQ mismatches appeared to be a risk factor for developing de novo DSA. In conclusion, liver-containing visceral allografts have superior shortand long-term outcomes compared with liver-free allografts. De novo DSA develop early and frequently after VTx performed without B cell-depleting induction therapy, but the exact role of DSA in the pathogenesis of rejection remains unclear.
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8. |
- Abelsson, Tobias, et al.
(författare)
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The dilemma of the split between theory and reality as experienced by primary healthcare professionals: a mixed methods study of evidence-based practice in a primary care context
- 2024
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Ingår i: BMC PRIMARY CARE. - 2731-4553. ; 25:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundPrimary care depends upon a good information flow across professional and structural boundaries to provide the best care for patients. Previous research has mainly focused on Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) within specific professions. Mapping of pan-professional experiences of and attitudes to EBP in publicly funded clinical practice is necessary to deepen the understanding of EBP and its implementation. Thus, this study aimed to investigate healthcare professionals' experiences of and attitudes towards working in accordance with EBP in primary care.MethodsThe study used a convergent mixed methods design divided into two strands: a quantitative enquiry tool (Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale, EBPAS) and a set of qualitative interviews analysed by means of qualitative content analysis. Both strands included all primary care employees with patient interaction in the studied county (n = 625), including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists and assistant nurses. Out of the original 625 healthcare professionals, 191 finished the first strand and 8 volunteered for the second strand (2 nurses, 2 physiotherapists, 1 psychiatrist and 3 doctors).ResultsThe EBPAS value of 2.8 (max 4) indicated a generally positive attitude towards EBP amongst the population, which was also evident in the interviews. However, there were additional experiences of not having the ability or resources to engage in EBP. This was illustrated by the theme that emerged from the qualitative content analysis: "The dilemma of the split between theory and reality". Due to the organisational and managerial focus on efficiency rather than quality of care, there were few or no incentives for promoting individual educational or research development.ConclusionsAlthough the general attitude towards EBP is positive, experiences of practising it differ. There is a need to increase knowledge of EBP concepts, requirements and implementation in the clinical setting. The absence of opportunities to do research and collegial debate about new ways of finding and implementing research-based evidence results might influence the quality of care.
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- Aberšek, Nina, et al.
(författare)
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Characterizing of intra-amniotic inflammatory changes associated with chronic inflammation in the placenta marked by elevated amniotic fluid interferon gamma-induced protein 10 (IP-10) in pregnancies complicated by preterm prelabor rupture of membranes.
- 2024
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Ingår i: European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Biology: X. - 2590-1613 .- 1872-7654. ; 296, s. 292-298
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study aimed to determine the occurrence of intra-amniotic inflammatory changes associated with chronic inflammation in the placenta, marked by elevated levels of interferon gamma-induced protein 10 (IP-10) (≥2200pg/mL) in the amniotic fluid of women with preterm prelabor rupture of membranes (PPROM). Specifically, the study investigated whether these intra-amniotic inflammatory changes were more common in women with microbial invasion of amniotic cavity (MIAC) and intra-amniotic inflammation (IAI), as indicated by increased amniotic fluid interleukin (IL)-6 concentration (≥3000pg/mL).A cohort of 114 women with singleton pregnancies complicated by PPROM between 24+0 and 36+6 weeks of gestation were included. Amniotic fluid samples were obtained via amniocentesis upon admission. MIAC diagnosis involved aerobic and anaerobic cultures, as well as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of the amniotic fluid. Immunoassay tests and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to determine IL-6 and IP-10 concentrations, respectively.Among the participants, 19.3% and 15.8% had MIAC and IAI, respectively. The occurrence of intra-amniotic inflammatory changes associated with chronic inflammation in the placenta was similar between women with and without MIAC (25% vs. 40.9%, p=0.136, adjusted p=0.213). The rate of intra-amniotic inflammatory changes associated with chronic inflammation in the placenta was significantly higher in women with IAI compared to those without, after adjusting for gestational age at sampling (55.6% vs. 22.9%, p=0.005, adjusted p=0.011).This study revealed comparable rates of intra-amniotic inflammatory changes associated with chronic inflammation in the placenta in women with and without MIAC, but a higher prevalence of intra-amniotic inflammatory changes associated with chronic inflammation in the placenta in women with IAI. These findings suggest involvement of chronic inflammation even in women with PPROM with acute intra-amniotic inflammation.
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10. |
- Abraham, Katharina, et al.
(författare)
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Benefits of a digital health technology for older nursing home residents. A de-novo cost-effectiveness model for digital health technologies to aid in the assessment of toileting and containment care needs
- 2024
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - 1932-6203. ; 19:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this study was first, to introduce a comprehensive, de-novo health economic (HE) model incorporating the full range of activities involved in toileting and containment care (T&CC) for people with incontinence, capturing all the potential benefits and costs of existing and future Digital Health Technologies (DHT) aimed at improving continence care, for both residential care and home care. Second, to use this novel model to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the DHT TENA SmartCare Identifi in the implementation of person-centred continence care (PCCC), compared with conventional continence care for Canadian nursing home residents. The de-novo HE model was designed to evaluate technologies across different care settings from the perspective of several stakeholders. Health states were based on six care need profiles with increasing need for toileting assistance, three care stages with varying degrees of toileting success, and five levels of skin health. The main outcomes were incremental costs and quality-adjusted life years. The effectiveness of the TENA SmartCare Identifi was based primarily on trial data combined with literature and expert opinion where necessary. Costs were reported in CAD 2020. After 2 years, 21% of residents in the DHT group received mainly toileting as their continence care strategy compared with 12% in the conventional care group. Conversely, with the DHT 15% of residents rely mainly on absorbent products for incontinence care, compared with 40% with conventional care. On average, residents lived for 2.34 years, during which the DHT resulted in a small gain in quality-adjusted life years of 0.015 and overall cost-savings of $1,467 per resident compared with conventional care. Most cost-savings were achieved through reduced costs for absorbent products. Since most, if not all, stakeholders gain from use of the DHT-assisted PCCC, widespread use in Canadian residential care facilities should be considered, and similar assessments for other countries encouraged.
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