| 1. |
- van Laere, Joeri, et al.
(author)
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Implications of a Weickian perspective on decision-making for information fusion research and practice
- 2007
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In: 10th International Conference on Information Fusion, 2007. - : IEEE conference proceedings. - 9780662458043 ; , s. 1-8
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The purpose of information fusion is to support and improve decision making. However, theories of decision making differ significantly on their view of what a good decision actually is. Hence, depending on which decision making theory one (un)consciously adopts there are different requirements for information fusion as decision support Information fusion researchers and practitioners should therefore be more explicit about their assumptions regarding decision making by carefully describing their theoretical frameworks. To illustrate this point the 'theory of sensemaking' by Karl Weick is presented as one example of a decision making theory. Major differences between decision making assumptions in that theory and assumptions common in much information fusion research are highlighted. Implications and challenges for information fusion are discussed.
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| 2. |
- Gyllander Torkildsen, Lisbeth, 1971
(author)
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Bedömning som gemensam angelägenhet - enkelt i retoriken, svårare i praktiken. Elevers och lärares förståelse och erfarenheter
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The thesis focuses on students’ understanding of assessment and their agency in assessment practices. It discusses assessment in relation to arrangements that shape students’ and teachers’ mutual assessment practices. The study is based on a development project in a secondary school, involving 25 students and 9 teachers. It uses an action research approach and was carried out between 2010 and 2014. The aims of the study were to generate knowledge (1) on students’ understanding of assessment and assessment practices, (2) on how arrangements shape students’ understanding and agency, and (3) on how arrangements shape students’ and teachers’ opportunities to develop assessment practices. The theoretical and analytical framework consists of validity theories and practice theories. Construct validity refers to empirically observable behavior that can be associated with theoretically explicable attributes. The construct is used to validate the relevance, use and consequences of assessment; here: accessibility and reciprocity of assessment practices (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955; Messick, 1989; Stobart, 2012). The theory of practice architectures (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy, Grootenboer & Bristol, 2014) explains how practices are shaped by cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social- political arrangements. Practices in a site are interrelated and interdependent. The study shows that students understand assessment on three hierarchically qualitative levels: performance, understanding and learning. Their understanding is linked to clarified goals, diagnosis, feedback and pre- conditions in the site. Students’ agency is shaped by the way teachers: clarify goals; arrange teaching, learning and assessment activities; enable the use of feedback to enhance learning; and by the way relationships, roles and responsibilities are negotiated. Communicative spaces may enhance students’ agency in assessment practices. Arrangements – like policy documents, assessment literature, local assessment policies and tools – shape teachers’ practices, thus enabling and constraining students’ and teachers’ development of reciprocal assessment practices. Assessment is a reflection of both students’ and teachers’ current practices. As a reciprocal concern, assessment requires collaboration between students and teachers. Furthermore, the reciprocal concern involves school leaders, officials in local school boards, politicians, policy writers and researchers. Reasonable consensus on assessment ought to be reached – based on students’ perspectives and rights – in order to strengthen students’ agency, learning and knowing. The thesis aims to contribute to knowledge on students’ understanding of assessment and on arrangements that affect students’ and teachers’ agency and opportunities to develop reciprocal assessment practices. It also shows how meta-practices and discourses affect local practices.
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| 3. |
- Jiang, Bin, et al.
(author)
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The Evolution of Natural Cities from the Perspective of Location-Based Social Media
- 2015
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In: Professional Geographer. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0033-0124 .- 1467-9272. ; 67:2, s. 295-306
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article examines the former location-based social medium Brightkite, over its three-year life span, based on the concept of natural cities. The term natural cities refers to spatially clustered geographic events, such as the agglomerated patches aggregated from individual social media users' locations. We applied the head/tail division rule to derive natural cities, based on the fact that there are far more low-density areas than high-density areas on the Earth's surface. More specifically, we generated a triangulated irregular network, made up of individual unique user locations, and then categorized small triangles (smaller than an average) as natural cities for the United States (mainland) on a monthly basis. The concept of natural cities provides a powerful means to develop new insights into the evolution of real cities, because there are virtually no data available to track the history of cities across their entire life spans and at very fine spatial and temporal scales. Therefore, natural cities can act as a good proxy of real cities, in the sense of understanding underlying interactions, at a global level, rather than of predicting cities, at an individual level. Apart from the data produced and the contributed methods, we established new insights into the structure and dynamics of natural cities; for example, the idea that natural cities evolve in nonlinear manners at both spatial and temporal dimensions.
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| 4. |
- Shimanda, Panduleni Penipawa, 1989-, et al.
(author)
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Health-related quality of life and healthcare consultations among adult patients before and after diagnosis with rheumatic heart disease in Namibia
- 2023
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In: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1471-2261 .- 1471-2261. ; 23:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) causes high morbidity and mortality rates among children and young adults, impacting negatively on their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This study aimed to evaluate the HRQoL and healthcare consultations of adult patients with RHD in Namibia.Methods: From June 2019 to March 2020, a questionnaire was administered to 83 RHD patients during routine follow-ups. The EQ-5D-5L instrument was used to assess the health-related quality of life before diagnosis and at the time of the survey. The Ethiopian value set for EQ-5D-5L was used to calculate Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY).Results: Most respondents were women (77%), young adults below the age of 30 years (42%), and individuals who grew up in rural areas (87%). The mean QALY statistically significantly improved from 0.773 pre-diagnosis to 0.942 in the last 12 months (p < 0.001). Sixty-six patients who had surgery reported a better QALY. Healthcare visits statistically significantly increased from on average 1.6 pre-diagnosis to 2.7 days in the last 12 months (p < 0.001). The mean distance to the nearest facility was 55 km, mean cost of transport was N$65, and mean time spent at the clinic was 3.6 h. The median time from diagnosis to the survey was 7 years (quartiles 4 and 14 years).Conclusion: Treatment and surgery can improve HRQoL substantially among RHD patients. Being diagnosed with RHD affects patients living in socioeconomically disadvantaged rural areas through cost and time for healthcare visits. It would be valuable with further research to understand differences between disease severities.
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| 5. |
- Cardozo, AK, et al.
(author)
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Cytokines downregulate the sarcoendoplasmic reticulum pump Ca2+ ATPase 2b and deplete endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+, leading to induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress in pancreatic beta-cells
- 2005
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In: Diabetes. - : American Diabetes Association. - 0012-1797 .- 1939-327X. ; 54:2, s. 452-461
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Cytokines and free radicals are mediators of β-cell death in type 1 diabetes. Under in vitro conditions, interleukin-1β (IL-1β) + γ-interferon (IFN-γ) induce nitric oxide (NO) production and apoptosis in rodent and human pancreatic β-cells. We have previously shown, by microarray analysis of primary β-cells, that IL-1β + IFN-γ decrease expression of the mRNA encoding for the sarcoendoplasmic reticulum pump Ca2+ ATPase 2b (SERCA2b) while inducing expression of the endoplasmic reticulum stress–related and proapoptotic gene CHOP (C/EBP [CCAAT/enhancer binding protein] homologous protein). In the present study we show that cytokine-induced apoptosis and necrosis in primary rat β-cells and INS-1E cells largely depends on NO production. IL-1β + IFN-γ, via NO synthesis, markedly decreased SERCA2b protein expression and depleted ER Ca2+ stores. Of note, β-cells showed marked sensitivity to apoptosis induced by SERCA blockers, as compared with fibroblasts. Cytokine-induced ER Ca2+ depletion was paralleled by an NO-dependent induction of CHOP protein and activation of diverse components of the ER stress response, including activation of inositol-requiring ER-to-nucleus signal kinase 1α (IRE1α) and PRK (RNA-dependent protein kinase)-like ER kinase (PERK)/activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), but not ATF6. In contrast, the ER stress–inducing agent thapsigargin triggered these four pathways in parallel. In conclusion, our results suggest that the IL-1β + IFN-γ–induced decrease in SERCA2b expression, with subsequent depletion of ER Ca2+ and activation of the ER stress pathway, is a potential contributory mechanism to β-cell death.
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| 6. |
- Axelman, K, et al.
(author)
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Life situation, coping and quality of life in people with high and low risk of developing Alzheimer's disease
- 2003
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In: Dementia and geriatric cognitive disorders. - : S. Karger AG. - 1420-8008 .- 1421-9824. ; 16:4, s. 220-228
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The psychosocial consequences of being at different risk for inheriting Alzheimer’s disease (AD) were investigated in a high-risk group (n = 106) and a low-risk group (n = 37). Non-affected individuals from families with AD in two or more generations answered questions about their life situation, quality of life and coping. Their answers were compared with a population sample (n = 408). The high-risk group assessed the quality of their personal relationships and everyday life higher than did the population sample. They also used less emotive and supportive coping strategies compared with the population sample. Nearly 90% in the high-risk group felt anxiety concerning their own risk or the risk of their children and grandchildren of developing AD. About 50% of the respondents complained about a lack of information. The pieces of information they asked for were early signs of the disease, treatment, and practical information on how to handle everyday life with an affected relative.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Kermansaravi, Mohammad, et al.
(author)
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Current recommendations for procedure selection in class I and II obesity developed by an expert modified Delphi consensus
- 2024
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In: Scientific Reports. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2045-2322. ; 14:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Metabolic and bariatric surgery (MBS) is widely considered the most effective option for treating obesity, a chronic, relapsing, and progressive disease. Recently, the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) and the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders (IFSO) issued new guidelines on the indications for MBS, which have superseded the previous 1991 National Institutes of Health guidelines. The aim of this study is to establish the first set of consensus guidelines for selecting procedures in Class I and II obesity, using an Expert Modified Delphi Method. In this study, 78 experienced bariatric surgeons from 32 countries participated in a two-round Modified Delphi consensus voting process. The threshold for consensus was set at an agreement or disagreement of ≥ 70.0% among the experts. The experts reached a consensus on 54 statements. The committee of experts reached a consensus that MBS is a cost-effective treatment option for Class II obesity and for patients with Class I obesity who have not achieved significant weight loss through non-surgical methods. MBS was also considered suitable for patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m2 or higher. The committee identified intra-gastric balloon (IGB) as a treatment option for patients with class I obesity and endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) as an option for patients with class I and II obesity, as well as for patients with T2DM and a BMI of ≥ 30 kg/m2. Sleeve gastrectomy (1) and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) were also recognized as viable treatment options for these patient groups. The committee also agreed that one anastomosis gastric bypass (OAGB) is a suitable option for patients with Class II obesity and T2DM, regardless of the presence or severity of obesity-related medical problems. The recommendations for selecting procedures in Class I and II obesity, developed through an Expert Modified Delphi Consensus, suggest that the use of standard primary bariatric endoscopic (IGB, ESG) and surgical procedures (SG, RYGB, OAGB) are acceptable in these patient groups, as consensus was reached regarding these procedures. However, randomized controlled trials are still needed in Class I and II Obesity to identify the best treatment approach for these patients in the future.
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| 9. |
- Kerminen, V-M, et al.
(author)
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Cloud condensation nuclei production associated with atmospheric nucleation : a synthesis based on existing literature and new results
- 2012
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In: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 12:24, s. 12037-12059
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper synthesizes the available scientific information connecting atmospheric nucleation with subsequent cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) formation. We review both observations and model studies related to this topic, and discuss the potential climatic implications. We conclude that CCN production associated with atmospheric nucleation is both frequent and widespread phenomenon in many types of continental boundary layers, and probably also over a large fraction of the free troposphere. The contribution of nucleation to the global CCN budget spans a relatively large uncertainty range, which, together with our poor understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions, results in major uncertainties in the radiative forcing by atmospheric aerosols. In order to better quantify the role of atmospheric nucleation in CCN formation and Earth System behavior, more information is needed on (i) the factors controlling atmospheric CCN production and (ii) the properties of both primary and secondary CCN and their interconnections. In future investigations, more emphasis should be put on combining field measurements with regional and large-scale model studies.
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| 10. |
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