| 11. |
- Murphy, A., et al.
(author)
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The household economic burden of non-communicable diseases in 18 countries
- 2020
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In: BMJ Global Health. - : BMJ. - 2059-7908. ; 5:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of death globally. In 2014, the United Nations committed to reducing premature mortality from NCDs, including by reducing the burden of healthcare costs. Since 2014, the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiology (PURE) Study has been collecting health expenditure data from households with NCDs in 18 countries. Methods Using data from the PURE Study, we estimated risk of catastrophic health spending and impoverishment among households with at least one person with NCDs (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease, cancer and respiratory diseases; n=17 435), with hypertension only (a leading risk factor for NCDs; n=11 831) or with neither (n=22 654) by country income group: high-income countries (Canada and Sweden), upper middle income countries (UMICs: Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, Poland, South Africa and Turkey), lower middle income countries (LMICs: the Philippines, Colombia, India, Iran and the Occupied Palestinian Territory) and low-income countries (LICs: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Tanzania) and China. Results The prevalence of catastrophic spending and impoverishment is highest among households with NCDs in LMICs and China. After adjusting for covariates that might drive health expenditure, the absolute risk of catastrophic spending is higher in households with NCDs compared with no NCDs in LMICs (risk difference=1.71%; 95% CI 0.75 to 2.67), UMICs (0.82%; 95% CI 0.37 to 1.27) and China (7.52%; 95% CI 5.88 to 9.16). A similar pattern is observed in UMICs and China for impoverishment. A high proportion of those with NCDs in LICs, especially women (38.7% compared with 12.6% in men), reported not taking medication due to costs. Conclusions Our findings show that financial protection from healthcare costs for people with NCDs is inadequate, particularly in LMICs and China. While the burden of NCD care may appear greatest in LMICs and China, the burden in LICs may be masked by care foregone due to costs. The high proportion of women reporting foregone care due to cost may in part explain gender inequality in treatment of NCDs. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.
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| 12. |
- Tse, L. A., et al.
(author)
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Timing and Length of Nocturnal Sleep and Daytime Napping and Associations With Obesity Types in High-, Middle-, and Low-Income Countries
- 2021
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In: Jama Network Open. - : American Medical Association (AMA). - 2574-3805. ; 4:6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- IMPORTANCE Obesity is a growing public health threat leading to serious health consequences. Late bedtime and sleep loss are common in modern society, but their associations with specific obesity types are not well characterized. OBJECTIVE To assess whether sleep timing and napping behavior are associated with increased obesity, independent of nocturnal sleep length. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This large, multinational, population-based cross-sectional study used data of participants from 60 study centers in 26 countries with varying income levels as part of the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology study. Participants were aged 35 to 70 years and were mainly recruited during 2005 and 2009. Data analysis occurred from October 2020 through March 2021. EXPOSURES Sleep timing (ie, bedtime and wake-up time), nocturnal sleep duration, daytime napping. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcomes were prevalence of obesity, specified as general obesity, defined as body mass index (BMI; calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) of 30 or greater, and abdominal obesity, defined as waist circumference greater than 102 cmfor men or greater than 88 cm for women. Multilevel logistic regression models with random effects for study centerswere performed to calculate adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% CIs. RESULTS Overall, 136 652 participants (81 652 [59.8%] women; mean [SD] age, 51.0 [9.8] years) were included in analysis. A total of 27 195 participants (19.9%) had general obesity, and 37 024 participants (27.1%) had abdominal obesity. The mean (SD) nocturnal sleep duration was 7.8 (1.4) hours, and the median (interquartile range) midsleep time was 2:15 AM (1:30 AM-3:00 AM). A total of 19 660 participants (14.4%) had late bedtime behavior (ie, midnight or later). Compared with bedtime between 8 PM and 10 PM, late bedtime was associated with general obesity (AOR, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.12-1.29) and abdominal obesity (AOR, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.12-1.28), particularly among participants who went to bed between 2 AM and 6 AM (general obesity: AOR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.18-1.54; abdominal obesity: AOR, 1.38; 95% CI, 1.21-1.58). Short nocturnal sleep of less than 6 hours was associated with general obesity (eg, <5 hours: AOR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.13-1.43), but longer napping was associated with higher abdominal obesity prevalence (eg, >= 1 hours: AOR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.31-1.47). Neither going to bed during the day (ie, before 8PM) nor wake-up time was associated with obesity. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE This cross-sectional study found that late nocturnal bedtime and short nocturnal sleep were associated with increased risk of obesity prevalence, while longer daytime napping did not reduce the risk but was associated with higher risk of abdominal obesity. Strategic weight control programs should also encourage earlier bedtime and avoid short nocturnal sleep to mitigate obesity epidemic.
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| 13. |
- Wang, Anqi, et al.
(author)
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Characterizing prostate cancer risk through multi-ancestry genome-wide discovery of 187 novel risk variants
- 2023
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Nature. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 55:12, s. 2065-2074
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The transferability and clinical value of genetic risk scores (GRSs) across populations remain limited due to an imbalance in genetic studies across ancestrally diverse populations. Here we conducted a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 156,319 prostate cancer cases and 788,443 controls of European, African, Asian and Hispanic men, reflecting a 57% increase in the number of non-European cases over previous prostate cancer genome-wide association studies. We identified 187 novel risk variants for prostate cancer, increasing the total number of risk variants to 451. An externally replicated multi-ancestry GRS was associated with risk that ranged from 1.8 (per standard deviation) in African ancestry men to 2.2 in European ancestry men. The GRS was associated with a greater risk of aggressive versus non-aggressive disease in men of African ancestry (P = 0.03). Our study presents novel prostate cancer susceptibility loci and a GRS with effective risk stratification across ancestry groups.
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| 14. |
- Chen, Gan, et al.
(author)
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Valence-Dependent Electrical Conductivity in a 3D Tetrahydroxyquinone-Based Metal-Organic Framework
- 2020
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In: Journal of the American Chemical Society. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0002-7863 .- 1520-5126. ; 142:51, s. 21243-21248
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Electrically conductive metal-organic frameworks (cMOFs) have become a topic of intense interest in recent years because of their great potential in electrochemical energy storage, electrocatalysis, and sensing applications. Most of the cMOFs reported hitherto are 2D structures, and 3D cMOFs remain rare. Herein we report FeTHQ a 3D cMOF synthesized from tetrahydroxy-1,4-quinone (THQ) and iron(II) sulfate salt. FeTHQexhibited a conductivity of 3.3 +/- 0.55 mS cm(-1) at 300 K, which is high for 3D cMOFs. The conductivity of FeTHQis valence-dependent. A higher conductivity was measured with the as-prepared FeTHQ than with the air-oxidized and sodium naphthalenide-reduced samples.
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| 15. |
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| 16. |
- Fazey, Ioan, et al.
(author)
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Transforming knowledge systems for life on Earth : Visions of future systems and how to get there
- 2020
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In: Energy Research & Social Science. - : Elsevier. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 70
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent.
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| 17. |
- Ghara, Raghunath, et al.
(author)
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Bayesian approach to constraining the properties of ionized bubbles during reionization
- 2020
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In: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 496:1, s. 739-753
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A possible way to study the reionization of cosmic hydrogen is by observing the large ionized regions (bubbles) around bright individual sources, e.g. quasars, using the redshifted 21 cm signal. It has already been shown that matched filter-based methods are not only able to detect the weak 21 cm signal from these bubbles but also aid in constraining their properties. In this work, we extend the previous studies to develop a rigorous Bayesian framework to explore the possibility of constraining the parameters that characterize the bubbles. To check the accuracy with which we can recover the bubble parameters, we apply our method on mock observations appropriate for the upcoming SKA1-low. For a region of size greater than or similar to 50 cMpc around a typical quasar at redshift 7, we find that approximate to 20 h of integration with SICA1-low will be able to constrain the size and location of the bubbles, as well as the difference in the neutral hydrogen fraction inside and outside the bubble, with < less than or similar to 10 per cent precision. The recovery of the parameters are more precise and the signal-to-noise ratio of the detected signal is higher when the bubble sizes are larger and their shapes are close to spherical. Our method can be useful in identifying regions in the observed field that contain large ionized regions and hence are interesting for following up with deeper integration times.
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| 18. |
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| 19. |
- Zhang, YD, et al.
(author)
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Assessment of polygenic architecture and risk prediction based on common variants across fourteen cancers
- 2020
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In: Nature communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 11:1, s. 3353-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have led to the identification of hundreds of susceptibility loci across cancers, but the impact of further studies remains uncertain. Here we analyse summary-level data from GWAS of European ancestry across fourteen cancer sites to estimate the number of common susceptibility variants (polygenicity) and underlying effect-size distribution. All cancers show a high degree of polygenicity, involving at a minimum of thousands of loci. We project that sample sizes required to explain 80% of GWAS heritability vary from 60,000 cases for testicular to over 1,000,000 cases for lung cancer. The maximum relative risk achievable for subjects at the 99th risk percentile of underlying polygenic risk scores (PRS), compared to average risk, ranges from 12 for testicular to 2.5 for ovarian cancer. We show that PRS have potential for risk stratification for cancers of breast, colon and prostate, but less so for others because of modest heritability and lower incidence.
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