Exploration of pathophysiological pathways for incident atrial fibrillation using a multiplex proteomic chip.

Objective: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia and associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Its increasing prevalence calls for novel biomarkers to identify underlying pathophysiological mechanisms as well as patients at risk.

Methods: Plasma samples from 1694 individuals from the Swedish population-based Malmö Preventive Project (mean age 69.

Thrombin dynamics in children with liver disease or extrahepatic portal vein obstruction or shunt.

Introduction: Changes in the coagulation profile in children with liver disease and extrahepatic portal vein obstruction or shunt result in both bleeding and thrombosis. Routine coagulation tests do not accurately predict bleeding risk, as they are not sensitive to changes in anticoagulant factors. The thrombin generation assay could be suitable for describing the overall balance of coagulation in children with liver disease.

Metabolically Healthy Obesity (MHO)-New Research Directions for Personalised Medicine in Cardiovascular Prevention.

Purpose Of Review: To discuss new findings on the heterogeneity of obesity and associated risks.

Recent Findings: Obesity is a public health problem of immense importance on a global scale. However, epidemiological findings and clinical studies have revealed that obesity is a heterogeneous phenotype and that not all obese subjects run the same risk for complications.

The molecular weight of ulvan affects the in vitro inflammatory response of a murine macrophage.

Ulvan, a sulfated polysaccharide extracted from the green seaweed genus Ulva, has bioactive properties including an immunomodulating capacity. The immunomodulatory capacity of ulvan from Ulva ohnoi, however, has not been assessed in detail. We depolymerised purified ulvan from U.

Can rapport building strategies, age, and question type influence preschoolers' disclosures of adult wrongdoing?

In the present experiment, we examined preschoolers' disclosures of a secret as a function of rapport building strategies used in Scandinavian field settings (verbal rapport building vs. prop rapport building), age in months (33-75 months) and question type (open-ended free recall invitation vs. suggestive questions).

PET Visualized Stimulation of the Vestibular Organ in Menière's Disease.

The cortical metabolic activity in patients with Menière's disease has not been investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate the F-FDG cerebral uptake in Menière's patients compared to healthy controls. Eight patients with right-sided Menière's disease and fourteen healthy controls underwent a video head impulse test (vHIT), test of utricular function with ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMP) and three F-FDG-based PET examinations of the brain.

T-Pattern Detection and Analysis (TPA) With THEME: A Mixed Methods Approach.

This work, which was started in the early 1970s, was inspired by social interaction analysis based on direct observation and careful coding of behaviors according to a list of behavioral (mostly ethological) categories, especially the ethological work of N. Tinbergen, K. Lorenz, and K.

Glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide and risk of cardiovascular events and mortality: a prospective study.

Aims/hypothesis: Evidence that glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP) and/or the GIP receptor (GIPR) are involved in cardiovascular biology is emerging. We hypothesised that GIP has untoward effects on cardiovascular biology, in contrast to glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), and therefore investigated the effects of GIP and GLP-1 concentrations on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality risk.

Methods: GIP concentrations were successfully measured during OGTTs in two independent populations (Malmö Diet Cancer-Cardiovascular Cohort [MDC-CC] and Prevalence, Prediction and Prevention of Diabetes in Botnia [PPP-Botnia]) in a total of 8044 subjects.

Beta-blocker therapy and risk of vascular dementia: A population-based prospective study.

There are a few studies that report cognitive impairment as a complication of treatment with beta- blockers. We aimed to evaluate the longitudinal association between use of beta-blockers, as a class, and incident risk of all-cause dementia, vascular dementia, Alzheimer's and mixed dementia in the prospective population-based Malmö Preventive Project. We included 18,063 individuals (mean age 68.

Segmentation of bones in medical dual-energy computed tomography volumes using the 3D U-Net.

Deep learning algorithms have improved the speed and quality of segmentation for certain tasks in medical imaging. The aim of this work is to design and evaluate an algorithm capable of segmenting bones in dual-energy CT data sets. A convolutional neural network based on the 3D U-Net architecture was implemented and evaluated using high tube voltage images, mixed images and dual-energy images from 30 patients.

Optical far-field extinction of a single GaAs nanowire towards in situ size control of aerotaxy nanowire growth.

A substrate-free approach of semiconductor nanowire growth has been achieved by the aerotaxy technique previously. In this work, we propose an in situ method to monitor the size of nanowires through non-destructive optical-extinction measurements. Our work aims to build a theoretical look-up database of extinction spectra for a single nanowire of varying dimensions.

Systemic Inflammatory Protein Profiles Distinguish Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Ulcerative Colitis, Irrespective of Inflammation or IBS-Like Symptoms.

Background: Inflammatory mechanisms of ulcerative colitis (UC) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may overlap or are part of different spectrums. However, potential links between inflammation and IBS-like symptoms in these patient groups are still unclear. The aim of this study was to determine if the systemic inflammatory protein (SIP) profiles differ between UC patients, with presence of inflammation or in remission with or without IBS-like symptoms, and IBS patients.

Dizziness and localized pain are often concurrent in patients with balance or psychological disorders.

Background and aims Symptoms of dizziness and pain are both common complaints and the two symptoms often seem to coincide. When symptoms appear concomitant for sustained periods of time the symptoms might maintain and even exacerbate each other, sometimes leading to psychological distress. In order to evaluate such comorbidity we studied patients referred to a vestibular unit and to a psychiatric outpatient clinic with respectively balance disorders and psychological issues.

Increased pulmonary blood volume variation in patients with heart failure compared to healthy controls: a noninvasive, quantitative measure of heart failure.

Variation of the blood content of the pulmonary vascular bed during a heartbeat can be quantified by pulmonary blood volume variation (PBVV) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The aim was to evaluate whether PBVV differs in patients with heart failure compared with healthy controls and investigate the mechanisms behind the PBVV. Forty-six patients and 10 controls underwent MRI.

A diabetes-associated genetic variant is associated with diastolic dysfunction and cardiovascular disease.

Aims: Although the epidemiological association between Type 2 diabetes and congestive heart failure (CHF) as well as cardiovascular disease (CVD) is well established, associations between diabetes-related single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), CHF, and CVD have been surprisingly inconclusive. Our aim is to examine if 43 diabetes-related SNPs were associated with prevalent diastolic dysfunction assessed by echocardiography and incident CVD and/or CHF.

Methods And Results: We genotyped 43 SNPs that previously reported genome-wide significant associations with Type 2 diabetes, in 1444 subjects from the population-based Malmö Preventive Project-Re-examination Study (MPP-RES) (mean age 68 years; 29% women, 36% prevalent diabetes) (discovery cohort) and in 996 subjects from the VARA cohort (mean age 51 years, 52% women, 7% prevalent diabetes) (replication cohort).

Effect of spatial scale and latitude on diversity-disease relationships.

Natural ecosystems provide humans with different types of ecosystem services, often linked to biodiversity. The dilution effect (DE) predicts a negative relationship between biodiversity and risk of infectious diseases of humans, other animals, and plants. We hypothesized that a stronger DE would be observed in studies conducted at smaller spatial scales, where biotic drivers may predominate, compared to studies at larger spatial scales where abiotic drivers may more strongly affect disease patterns.

The Anti-inflammatory Immune Regulation Induced by Butyrate Is Impaired in Inflamed Intestinal Mucosa from Patients with Ulcerative Colitis.

Altered gut microbiota composition and reduced levels of short-chain fatty acids, such as butyrate, have been identified as key components of ulcerative colitis (UC). We aimed to determine and compare effects of butyrate on the intestinal immune profile of UC patients with active disease and non-inflamed controls. Biopsies were cultivated during 6 h with or without butyrate.

MLLT3 governs human haematopoietic stem-cell self-renewal and engraftment.

Limited knowledge of the mechanisms that govern the self-renewal of human haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), and why this fails in culture, have impeded the expansion of HSCs for transplantation. Here we identify MLLT3 (also known as AF9) as a crucial regulator of HSCs that is highly enriched in human fetal, neonatal and adult HSCs, but downregulated in culture. Depletion of MLLT3 prevented the maintenance of transplantable human haematopoietic stem or progenitor cells (HSPCs) in culture, whereas stabilizing MLLT3 expression in culture enabled more than 12-fold expansion of transplantable HSCs that provided balanced multilineage reconstitution in primary and secondary mouse recipients.

A distinct gut microbiota composition in patients with ankylosing spondylitis is associated with increased levels of fecal calprotectin.

Background: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) shares many characteristics with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Intestinal microbiota most likely plays an important role in the development of IBDs and may also be involved in the pathogenesis of AS. We aimed to define and compare the fecal microbiota composition in patients with AS, ulcerative colitis (UC), and healthy controls (HC) and to determine relationships between fecal microbiota, fecal calprotectin, and disease-related variables in AS.

Breast Implant-Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma in Australia: A Longitudinal Study of Implant and Other Related Risk Factors.

Background: Breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) is an emerging cancer that has been linked to the use of textured devices. The recent increase in number and frequency of cases has led to worldwide regulatory action.

Objectives: The authors aimed to longitudinally study BIA-ALCL in Australia since the index case was first reported in 2007.

Metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) in the Malmö diet cancer study - Epidemiology and prospective risks.

Background/aims: Metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) remains controversial, since the underlying mechanisms behind this phenotype remain unclear. We aimed to investigate the characteristics of MHO, as well as prospective risks.

Method: A cross-sectional analysis was carried out in a subsample of 3812 obese subjects selected from the Malmo diet cancer study (n=28,403).

From cytogenetics to cytogenomics: whole-genome sequencing as a first-line test comprehensively captures the diverse spectrum of disease-causing genetic variation underlying intellectual disability.

Background: Since different types of genetic variants, from single nucleotide variants (SNVs) to large chromosomal rearrangements, underlie intellectual disability, we evaluated the use of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) rather than chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) as a first-line genetic diagnostic test.

Methods: We analyzed three cohorts with short-read WGS: (i) a retrospective cohort with validated copy number variants (CNVs) (cohort 1, n = 68), (ii) individuals referred for monogenic multi-gene panels (cohort 2, n = 156), and (iii) 100 prospective, consecutive cases referred to our center for CMA (cohort 3). Bioinformatic tools developed include FindSV, SVDB, Rhocall, Rhoviz, and vcf2cytosure.