Immunomodulatory Synthetic Glycocluster Molecule Prevents Melanoma Growth In Vivo.

Triacedimannose (TADM) is a synthetic trivalent acetylated glycocluster and a transmembrane macrophage activator independent of the mannose receptor. TADM induces Th1-type immune responses and suppresses Th2-type cytokines in acute and chronic allergic inflammation models in vivo. We, therefore, wanted to test whether TADM could also facilitate anti-tumour tissue responses similar to what has been observed for the immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4.

Mannose receptor independent uptake of transmembrane glycocluster immunostimulant TADM by macrophages.

Triacedimannose (TADM) is a synthetic trivalent acetylated glycocluster comprising β-1,2-linked mannobioses that in humans induces TNF in vitro and in vivo. The purpose of this study was to analyze whether uptake of acetylated glycoclusters of such β-1,2-linked mannobioses by human macrophages is dependent on the mannose receptor (CD206) or if it is mediated by transmembrane activation. In mannose receptor blocking assays, monocyte-derived polarized macrophages were incubated with carbohydrate test-compounds and their binding to the mannose receptor was demonstrated as inhibition of FITC-Dextran binding.

Clinical outcome and component-specific antibody levels in egg allergic children after lightened oral immunotherapy.

Objective: To evaluate the clinical outcome of lightened version of egg oral immunotherapy (OIT) and to analyze egg allergen component-specific antibody levels during short up-dosing with egg white powder and maintenance by egg in daily diet.

Patients And Methods: Eighteen egg-allergic children received egg powder with short up--dosing and they maintained tolerance using egg in daily diet. Seventeen egg-allergic children served as a control group.

Positionality and Its Problems: Questioning the Value of Reflexivity Statements in Research.

There has been a remarkable push for the use of positionality statements-also known as reflexivity statements-in scientific-journal articles and other research literatures. Grounded in reputable philosophical traditions, positionality statements are meant to address genuine concerns about the limits of knowledge production. However, there are at least three reasons why they should be avoided in scholarship.

Effect of remdesivir post hospitalization for COVID-19 infection from the randomized SOLIDARITY Finland trial.

We report the first long-term follow-up of a randomized trial (NCT04978259) addressing the effects of remdesivir on recovery (primary outcome) and other patient-important outcomes one year after hospitalization resulting from COVID-19. Of the 208 patients recruited from 11 Finnish hospitals, 198 survived, of whom 181 (92%) completed follow-up. At one year, self-reported recovery occurred in 85% in remdesivir and 86% in standard of care (SoC) (RR 0.

Effect of thresholding on avalanches and their clustering for interfaces with long-range elasticity.

Avalanches are often defined as signals higher than some detection level in bursty systems. The choice of the detection threshold affects the number of avalanches, but it can also affect their temporal correlations. We simulated the depinning of a long-range elastic interface and applied different thresholds including a zero one on the data to see how the sizes and durations of events change and how this affects temporal avalanche clustering.

Opportunity and the sexual abuse of adolescents.

Objectives: The risk of sexual abuse victimization was examined from a routine activity perspective. For comparison, predictors of sexual encounters with same-age peers were also examined.

Methods: Analyses were based on a nationally representative sample of 24,823 Finnish youth who responded to questions about their sexual encounters with peers and with someone outside their family who was at least five years older.

Food immunotherapy practice: Nation differences across Europe, the FIND project.

Background: Food allergen immunotherapy (FA-AIT) practice is known to vary globally. This project aims to identify and characterize European centres performing FA-AIT.

Methods: An EAACI task force conducted an online survey to gather relevant information regarding FA-AIT practice and setting-specific resources after reviewing the published literature and congress abstracts throughout Europe.

Long-term patient satisfaction and the sense of coherence - a longitudinal study 10-15 years after orthognathic surgery.

Objective: This study focuses on evaluating the long-term treatment outcome (10-15 years) and patient satisfaction after orthognathic treatment with bisagittal split osteotomy (BSSO). Furthermore, the aim was to evaluate whether the psychosocial factor, sense of coherence (SOC) associates with long-term patient satisfaction.

Materials And Methods: Study sample consisted of 57 patients who had orthognathic treatment with BSSO.

Using age difference and sex similarity to detect evidence of sibling influence on criminal offending.

Background: Sibling resemblance in crime may be due to genetic relatedness, shared environment, and/or the interpersonal influence of siblings on each other. This latter process can be understood as a type of 'peer effect' in that it is based on social learning between individuals occupying the same status in the social system (family). Building on prior research, we hypothesized that sibling pairs that resemble peer relationships the most, i.

Indications and predictors for pacemaker implantation after isolated aortic valve replacement with bioprostheses: the CAREAVR study.

Objectives: We sought to study the indications, long-term occurrence, and predictors of permanent pacemaker implantation (PPI) after isolated surgical aortic valve replacement with bioprostheses.

Methods: The CAREAVR study included 704 patients (385 females, 54.7%) without a preoperative PPI (mean ± standard deviation age 75 ± 7 years) undergoing isolated surgical aortic valve replacement at 4 Finnish hospitals between 2002 and 2014.

Parental Alcohol Use and the Alcohol Misuse of their Offspring in a Finnish Birth Cohort: Investigation of Developmental Timing.

There is a positive association between parental alcohol use and the alcohol use of their offspring. It is less clear whether this relation exists at different developmental periods. The purpose of the current study was to examine the associations between parental alcohol use at two developmental periods (prenatal and adolescence) and the alcohol misuse of their offspring at two developmental periods (adolescence and young adulthood).

Drug- and Alcohol-Associated Deaths in U.S. Jails.

Drugs and alcohol are the third leading cause of death in U.S. jails.

Role of oral pathogens in the pathogenesis of intracranial aneurysm: review of existing evidence and potential mechanisms.

Degeneration of intracranial aneurysm wall is under active research and recent studies indicate an increased risk of rupture of intracranial aneurysm among patients with periodontal diseases. In addition, oral bacterial DNA has been identified from wall samples of ruptured and unruptured aneurysms. These novel findings led us to evaluate if oral diseases could predispose to pathological changes seen on intracranial aneurysm walls eventually leading to subarachnoid hemorrhage.

State-of-the-art in marketed adjuvants and formulations in Allergen Immunotherapy: A position paper of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI).

Since the introduction of allergen immunotherapy (AIT) over 100 years ago, focus has been on standardization of allergen extracts, with reliable molecular composition of allergens receiving the highest attention. While adjuvants play a major role in European AIT, they have been less well studied. In this Position Paper, we summarize current unmet needs of adjuvants in AIT citing current evidence.

Reactions of Boys and Girls to Sexual Abuse and to Sexual Encounters with Peers.

To understand the etiology and consequences of child sexual abuse it is important to study the victims' subjective reactions to such incidents. Because researchers have not been able to survey children about sexual abuse, not much is known about how subjective reactions are related to gender, age, age difference, and the social relationship between the offender and victim. The present study fills this gap using data gathered from a large, nationally representative sample of Finnish children ages 11 to 17 (N = 32,145).

Prospective relations between alexithymia, substance use and depression: findings from a National Birth Cohort.

This study examined a developmental model that links affect-regulation difficulties in childhood with three dimensions of alexithymia in adolescence (difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking) and substance use and depression in adulthood, while accounting for cumulative contextual risk in childhood, and testing potential gender moderation. Multiple group path analyses were conducted using data from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 ( = 6963). Analyses used data collected during prenatal/birth, childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood periods.

Prevention of Firearm Injuries Among Children and Adolescents: Consensus-Driven Research Agenda from the Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens (FACTS) Consortium.

Importance: Firearm injuries are the second leading cause of death among US children and adolescents. Because of the lack of resources allocated to firearm injury prevention during the past 25 years, research has lagged behind other areas of injury prevention. Identifying timely and important research questions regarding firearm injury prevention is a critical step for reducing pediatric mortality.

Associations of Cumulative Family Risk With Academic Performance and Substance Involvement: Tests of Moderation by Child Reading Engagement.

: Exposure to cumulative contextual risk within the family early in life increases children's risk for substance involvement and related difficulties, including school failure, in adolescence and young adulthood. However, potential protective factors that buffer these risk associations are relatively untested, yet such tests are needed to improve existing preventive interventions for enhancing resilience among vulnerable children. : This study tested child reading engagement with parents at home as a moderator of cumulative family risk associations with adolescent substance use and academic performance as well as young adult substance abuse.

Periodontitis and gingival bleeding associate with intracranial aneurysms and risk of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Oral bacteria DNA has been found in intracranial aneurysms (IA) and a high prevalence of periodontitis was reported in IA patients. We investigated whether periodontitis associates with IA formation and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). First, we compared in a case-control setting the prevalence of periodontal disease in IA patients (42 unruptured IA, 34 ruptured IA) and in age- and gender-matched controls (n = 70) from the same geographical area (Health 2000 Survey, BRIF8901).

When a Woman Kills Her Man: Gender and Victim Precipitation in Homicide.

This research revisited the claim that victim precipitation (VP) is especially prevalent in situations where women kill their male intimate partners. Using administrative data from the Finnish Homicide Monitor ( N =1,494), we created a typology of homicide incidents to examine variation in VP across three factors: the gender of the offender, the gender of the victim, and the intimacy of the victim-offender relationship. The results from regression models demonstrated strong support for the assumption that killings by women of their male intimate partners are more likely to have been victim precipitated than other types of homicide.

Complementarity in Requirements Tracing.

Complementarity between activities reveals that doing any one of them increases the returns to doing the others. In other words, complementarity leads to the synergistic effect that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Identifying and exploiting complementarity can benefit many cybernetic activities, where human-machine interactions are inherent and dominant.

Novel Dextran-Supported Biological Probes Decorated with Disaccharide Entities for Investigating the Carbohydrate-Protein Interactions of Gal-3.

The quest for novel natural-like biomolecular probes that can be used to gain information on biological recognition events is of topical interest to several scientific areas. In particular, the recognition of carbohydrates by proteins modulates a number of important biological processes. These molecular recognition events are, however, difficult to study by the use of naturally occurring oligosaccharides and polysaccharides owing to their intrinsic structural heterogeneity and to the many technical difficulties encountered during the isolation of sufficient quantities of pure material for detailed structural and biological studies.

Structured intervention plan including component-resolved diagnostics helps reducing the burden of food allergy among school-aged children.

Background: Food allergies can substantially burden patients and families by negatively affecting finances, social relationships, and personal perceptions of health. This study was performed under the Finnish Allergy Programme aimed at reducing avoidance diets to foods in schoolchildren by 50%. The main goal of this study was to investigate how many children could be freed from diet restrictions in a Finnish school district through a diagnostic algorithm including component-resolved diagnostics and food challenge.

Performance of CHADS-VASc score for stroke prediction after surgical aortic valve replacement.

Objective: Stroke is a frequent complication occurring early and late after surgical aortic valve replacement. There is an unmet clinical need for simple tools to assess postoperative stroke risk. We sought to assess the predictive performance of Congestive heart failure; Hypertension; Age ≥75 (doubled); Diabetes mellitus; prior Stroke, transient ischemic attack or thromboembolism (doubled); Vascular disease; Age 65 to 74; Sex category (female) (CHADS-VASc) score in patients undergoing surgical aortic valve replacement with a bioprosthesis.