Search results for "collection"
showing 10 items of 784 documents
A Multicentre Pilot Study of a Two-Tier Newborn Sickle Cell Disease Screening Procedure with a First Tier Based on a Fully Automated MALDI-TOF MS Pla…
2019
The reference methods used for sickle cell disease (SCD) screening usually include two analytical steps: a first tier for differentiating haemoglobin S (HbS) heterozygotes, HbS homozygotes and β-thalassemia from other samples, and a confirmatory second tier. Here, we evaluated a first-tier approach based on a fully automated matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) platform with automated sample processing, a laboratory information management system and NeoSickle® software for automatic data interpretation. A total of 6701 samples (with high proportions of phenotypes homozygous (FS) or heterozygous (FAS) for the inherited genes for sickle h…
Choice of second-line disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs after failure of methotrexate therapy for rheumatoid arthritis: A decision tree for clini…
2009
Objective To survey rheumatologists' preferences for the choice of a second-line disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) after inadequate response with methotrexate (MTX) therapy in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods Thirty-six rheumatologists stated their preferences for RA treatment after inadequate response with MTX therapy (optimal dose at least 6 months). From the initial scenario, we derived 54 vignettes varying by rheumatoid factor or anti–cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody presence, swollen joint count, Disease Activity Score in 28 joints, and structural damage. Respondents stated their preference among 5 therapeutic options: MTX continuation, switch to another conventional …
Do bank voles (Myodes glareolus) trapped in live and lethal traps show differences in tick burden?
2020
In studies assessing tick abundance, the use of live traps to capture and euthanize rodent hosts is a commonly used method to determine their burden. However, captive animals can experience debilitating or fatal capture stress as a result prior to collection. An alternative method is the use of lethal traps, but this can potentially lead to tick drop-off between the time of capture and collection. In this study, in order to determine whether subjecting animals to capture stress is inevitable, we tested the difference in sheep tick (Ixodes ricinus) larval burdens between bank voles (Myodes glareolus) captured alive and euthanized, and lethally trapped bank voles. During 2017 and 2018, 1318 b…
DNA methylation in childhood asthma
2018
Background: DNA methylation profiles associated with childhood asthma might provide novel insights into disease pathogenesis. We did an epigenome-wide association study to assess methylation profiles associated with childhood asthma. Methods: We did a large-scale epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) within the Mechanisms of the Development of ALLergy (MeDALL) project. We examined epigenome-wide methylation using Illumina Infinium Human Methylation450 BeadChips (450K) in whole blood in 207 children with asthma and 610 controls at age 4–5 years, and 185 children with asthma and 546 controls at age 8 years using a cross-sectional case-control design. After identification of differentially m…
Design, implementation, and evaluation of the adolescents and surveillance system for the obesity prevention project
2016
Abstract The Adolescents Surveillance System for Obesity prevention (ASSO) Project aimed at developing standardized and web-based tools for collecting data on adolescents’ obesity and its potential determinants. This has been implemented and piloted in the local area of Palermo city, Italy. The aim of the present study is to provide an overview of the Project's design, implementation, and evaluation, highlighting all the aspects for a potential scale-up of the surveillance system on the whole national territory and abroad, as a sustainable and effective source of data. The overall structure and management, the ASSO-toolkit, the ASSO-NutFit software, and all developed and used procedures for…
Statistical power of disease cluster and clustering tests for rare diseases: A simulation study of point sources
2012
Abstract Two recent epidemiological studies on clustering of childhood leukemia showed different results on the statistical power of disease cluster and clustering tests, possibly an effect of spatial data aggregation. Eight different leukemia cluster scenarios were simulated using individual addresses of all 1,009,332 children living in Denmark in 2006. For each scenario, a number of point sources were defined with an increased risk ratio at centroid, decreasing linearly to 1.0 at the edge; aggregation levels were administrative units of Danish municipalities and squares of 5, 12.5 and 25 km 2 . Six statistical methods were compared. Generally, statistical power decreased with increasing s…
Does health literacy explain the link between structural stratifiers and adolescent health?
2019
Abstract Background The concept of health literacy (HL) may help us to better understand the mechanisms leading to health disparities, and to focus on the factors that can be influenced. However, not much is yet known about how HL is related to health disparities, or whether the association exists among adolescents. The aim of the study was to examine the associations between structural stratifiers, HL and health indicators among adolescents. Methods The nationally representative Finnish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey data (n=3833) were collected from 13- and 15-year-old pupils in the spring of 2014. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated, and separate path models…
Examining bi-directionality between Fear of Missing Out and problematic smartphone use. A two-wave panel study among adolescents.
2020
Abstract Background In recent years, the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) construct has been the object of growing attention in digital technology research with previous studies finding support for the relationship between FoMO and problematic smartphone use (PSU) among adolescents and young adults. However, no previous studies clarified the causal link between FoMO and PSU using a longitudinal design. Methods An auto-regressive, cross-lagged panel design was tested by using a longitudinal dataset with two waves of data collection (T0 and T1, one year apart). Participants included two hundred and forty-two adolescents (109 males and 133 females), with a mean age of 14.16 years, who filled out the…
Childhood Verbal Development and Drinking Behaviors from Adolescence to Young Adulthood: A Discordant Twin-Pair Analysis
2012
BACKGROUND: Studies suggest that better cognitive and verbal abilities in childhood predict earlier experimentation with alcohol and higher levels of drinking in adolescence, whereas poorer ability is related to a higher likelihood of remaining abstinent. Whether individual differences in language development in childhood predict differences in adolescent drinking behaviors has not been studied. METHODS: To address that question, we compared co-twins from twin pairs discordant for their childhood language development and studied associations of parental reports of within-pair differences in age at speaking words, age at learning to read, and expressive language skills during school age with…
Resilience and coping as predictors of general well-being in the elderly: A structural equation modeling approach
2012
The aims of this article are: (a) to test for the validity of the three constructs involved in the structural model; (b) to test for the effects of both coping strategies and resilient coping on well-being in a sample of elderly, by means of a structural model with latent variables; (c) to empirically study whether a brief scale of resilient coping could predict well-being over and above that predicted by the coping resources.The research is a survey design. The sample consisted of 225 non-institutionalized elderly people living in the city of Valencia (Spain). The three constructs measured were: well-being, resilient coping, and coping strategies.The analyses consist of a series of alterna…