Health service use and costs associated with fluoroquinolone-related tendon injuries

Y The aim of this study was to assess costs and health service use associated with tendon injuries after the use of fluoroquinolone antimicrobialsin Finland during 2002-2012. This retrospective observational study included data from the Finnish Pharmaceutical Insurance Pool's pharmaceutical injury claims. In total, 145 compensated claimants aged >= 18 years presenting tendon injuries after the use of fluoroquinolones (FQs) were included in the study. Outcomes of interest were the number of outpatient visits to primary, secondary, tertiary, and private healthcare services, hospital days, rehabilitation and their costs. Regression models were used to analyze the impact of patient characteristics on hospital days, as well as the relationship between patient characteristics and tendon ruptures. Direct costs of a tendon injury averaged 14,800euro and indirect costs were estimated to be 9,077euro for employed claimants. Fifty-one percent of the claimants were hospitalized, with an average duration of 21 days. Hospitalization was the costliest form of health service use with an average of 9,915euro per hospital episode. Hospital days and direct costs increased with the severity of the injury. Tendon ruptures, in particular bilateral ruptures, required substantially more hospital days and their direct costs were significantly higher than those of uncomplicated tendinitis. Concurrent use of oral corticosteroids and increasing age were associated with a higher likelihood of tendon ruptures. Although rare, FQ-related tendon injuries can result in considerable costs and health service use. Medical staff should remain vigilant when prescribing FQs, especially in groups at increased risk for tendon injuries.Peer reviewe

Social relationships, child poverty, and children's life satisfaction

Child subjective well-being is determined by various personal, social, and contextual factors. Few studies have found reliable differences in the prediction power of these factors; however, the results vary especially when it comes to sociodemographic factors, such as the effect of child’s socioeconomic background on life satisfaction. This paper examines how poverty and social relationships affect the perceived life satisfaction of Finnish schoolchildren. Drawing on survey data of Finnish schoolchildren, from grades 5, 7, and 9 (n = 1793), linear regression was used to test how life satisfaction would be associated with socio-demographic variables, poverty, and child–parent and peer relationships. The results emphasize the complex nature of the determinants of children’s life satisfaction. The greatest unique contribution for change of life satisfaction was made by the time spent with mother (β(p) = 0.189). Overall, the model showed a good fit (R2 19.9). These findings have important implications for family policies and services that promote good parenting and positive parent–child relationships. Furthermore, this study highlights relational well-being as a key determinant of children’s life satisfaction.</p

Using big data to explore worldwide trends in objective sleep in the transition to adulthood

Background: Development induces changes in sleep, and its duration has been reported to change as a function of aging. Additionally, sleep timing is a marker of pubertal maturation, where during adolescence, the circadian rhythm shifts later. Typically, this is manifested in a later sleep onset in the evening and later awakening in the morning. These changes across development seem to be universal around the world but are unlikely to persist into adulthood. Methods: This study utilized accelerometer data from 17,355 participants aged 16-30 years (56% female) measured by validated Polar wearables over a 14-day period. We compared sleep duration, chronotype (sleep midpoint) and weekend catch-up (ie, social jetlag) sleep across ages and regions over 242,948 nights. Results: The data indicate a decline in sleep duration as well as a dramatic shift in sleep onset times throughout adolescence. This continues well into early adulthood and stabilizes nearer age 30. Differences in sleep duration across ages were significant, and ranged from 7:53 h at age 16 to 7:29 h at age 30 in the sample. Additionally, there was a clear difference between females and males throughout adolescence and young adulthood: girls had longer sleep duration and earlier timed sleep in the current study. Differences in sleep were found between regions across the world, and across European areas. Conclusions: Both sleep duration and sleep timing go through a clear developmental pattern, particularly in early adulthood. Females had an earlier sleep midpoint and obtained more sleep. Regional differences in sleep occurred across the world. Crown Copyright (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Complexity Theory for a New Managerial Paradigm: A Research Framework

In this work, we supply a theoretical framework of how organizations can embed complexity management and sustainable development into their policies and actions. The proposed framework may lead to a new management paradigm, attempting to link the main concepts of complexity theory, change management, knowledge management, sustainable development, and cybernetics. We highlight how the processes of organizational change have occurred as a result of the move to adapt to the changes in the various global and international business environments and how this transformation has led to the shift toward the present innovation economy. We also point how organizational change needs to deal with sustainability, so that the change may be consistent with present needs, without compromising the future

A novel aerosol filter sampler for measuring the vertical distribution of ice-nucleating particles via fixed-wing uncrewed aerial vehicles

A mobile sampler for collecting aerosol particles on an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) was developed and tested during three consecutive Pallas cloud experiment campaigns in the vicinity of the Sammaltunturi Global Atmosphere Watch site (67°58′ N, 24°7′ E, 565 m above sea level) in Finland. The sampler is designed to collect aerosol particles onto Nuclepore filters, which are subsequently analysed for the temperature-dependent number concentration of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) of the sampled aerosol using a freezing assay. The sampler was flown with a fixed-wing UAV in different altitudes up to 1000 m above ground level (a.g.l). The total flight times ranged from 60 min to around 100 min, depending on environmental conditions. Pressure, temperature and relative humidity were also measured to provide information about the meteorological flight conditions. The flow over the filter was maintained by a micro-diaphragm pump, providing approximately 10 standard litres per minute over a small filter (diameter of 25 mm) and around 11 standard litres per minute over a larger filter (diameter of 47 mm) at a pressure corresponding to 500 m above sea level. For a typical flight time of 1.5 h, this results in a sampled air volume of approximately 930 to 1000 standard litres per flight, giving an INP detection limit of approximately 1.1×10-3 and 1.0×10-3 INPs per standard litre, respectively. For comparison to the flight results, a similar set-up was deployed at ground level. The comparison shows a clear distinction from the water and handling blank background for both set-ups, proving the technical feasibility of the set-ups. Furthermore, for some flights, a shift between the two INP populations can be seen, indicating that ground-based INP measurements deviate from the samples collected on board the UAV.</p

Pandemic dreams: network analysis of dream content during the COVID-19 lockdown

We used crowdsourcing (CS) to examine how COVID-19 lockdown affects the content of dreams and nightmares. The CS took place on the 6th week of the lockdown. Over the course of one week, 4275 respondents (mean age 43, SD=14 years) assessed their sleep and 811 reported their dream content. Overall, respondents slept substantially more (54.2%) but reported an average increase of awakenings (28.6%) and nightmares (26%) from the pre-pandemic situation. We transcribed the content of the dreams into word lists and performed unsupervised computational network and cluster analysis of word associations, which suggested 33 dream clusters including 20 bad dream clusters, of which 55% were pandemic specific (e.g. Disease Management, Disregard of Distancing, Elderly in Trouble). The dream association networks were more accentuated for those who reported an increase in perceived stress. This CS survey on dream-association networks and pandemic stress introduces novel, collectively shared COVID-19 bad dream contents. </p

Towards a data publishing framework for primary biodiversity data: challenges and potentials for the biodiversity informatics community

Background: Currently primary scientific data, especially that dealing with biodiversity, is neither easily discoverable nor accessible. Amongst several impediments, one is a lack of professional recognition of scientific data publishing efforts. A possible solution is establishment of a ‘Data Publishing Framework’ which would encourage and recognise investments and efforts by institutions and individuals towards management, and publishing of primary scientific data potentially on a par with recognitions received for scholarly publications. Discussion: This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of primary biodiversity data publishing, and conceptualises a ‘Data Publishing Framework’ that would help incentivise efforts and investments by institutions and individuals in facilitating free and open access to biodiversity data. It further postulates the institutionalisation of a ‘Data Usage Index (DUI)’, that would attribute due recognition to multiple players in the data collection/creation, management and publishing cycle. Conclusion: We believe that institutionalisation of such a ‘Data Publishing Framework’ that offers socio-cultural, legal, technical, economic and policy environment conducive for data publishing will facilitate expedited discovery and mobilisation of an exponential increase in quantity of ‘fit-for-use’ primary biodiversity data, much of which is currently invisible

A value-based perspective on supporting and hindering factors for research data management

Research data management (RDM) is an important prerequisite for a substantial and sustainable contribution to knowledge. There is a pressing need to examine why researchers hesitate to store, annotate, share and manage their research data. To model underlying psychological factors influencing researchers’ refusal to conduct RDM, the social exchange theory is extended with elements from prospect theory. Thus, it allows psychological insights into researchers’ decision-making, and illustrates the role of cost and benefit evaluations under uncertainty. Data management policies of a major funding agency were presented to a homogeneous group of researchers from the Information Systems community in Germany. The findings show that many researchers see a high value in RDM but are still held back by uncertainty. While the benefits seem to outweigh the costs, we ascertain the uncertainty factors which hinder researchers’ intention from conducting RDM in the future. The perceived fear of losing control over one's data is identified as a major hindering factor, while the fear of losing one's unique value did not prevail. The study provides novel insights for executives, administrators, and developers in higher education institutions, which are especially important for furthering RDM implementation strategies, as well as for system development

Understanding the roles of gingival beta-defensins

Gingival epithelium produces β-defensins, small cationic peptides, as part of its contribution to the innate host defense against the bacterial challenge that is constantly present in the oral cavity. Besides their functions in healthy gingival tissues, β-defensins are involved in the initiation and progression, as well as restriction of periodontal tissue destruction, by acting as antimicrobial, chemotactic, and anti-inflammatory agents. In this article, we review the common knowledge about β-defensins, coming from in vivo and in vitro monolayer studies, and present new aspects, based on the experience on three-dimensional organotypic culture models, to the important role of gingival β-defensins in homeostasis of the periodontium

Metalloproteinases and their inhibitors—diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities in orthopedics

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and related enzymes (ADAMs, ADAMTS) and their inhibitors control matrix turnover and function. Recent advances in our understanding of musculoskeletal conditions such as tendinopathy, arthritis, Dupuytren's disease, degenerative disc disease, and bone and soft tissue healing suggest that MMPs have prominant roles. Importantly, MMPs are amenable to inhibition by cheap, safe, and widely available drugs such as the tetracycline antibiotics and the bisphosphonates. This indicates that these MMP inhibitors, if proven effective for any novel indication, may be quickly brought into clinical practice