Number of teeth and myocardial infarction and stroke among elderly never smokers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In most previous studies the association between number of teeth and cardiovascular diseases has been found to be stronger among younger age groups than in older age groups, which indicates that age may modify the association between number of teeth and cardiovascular diseases.</p> <p>We investigated the association between tooth loss and atherosclerotic vascular diseases such as myocardial infarction and stroke in a homogeneous elderly population.</p> <p>The study population was comprised of a subpopulation of 392 community-living elderly people who participated in the population-based Kuopio 75+ study. The data were collected through an interview, a structured clinical health examination and from patient records. The main outcome measures were a history of diagnosed myocardial infarction and diagnosed ischemic stroke. Prevalence proportion ratios (PPR) were estimated using generalised linear models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Edentate subjects had a weakly, statistically non-significantly increased likelihood of a history of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke compared with dentate subjects. Those with a large number of teeth had a slightly, but not statistically significantly increased likelihood of a history of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke compared with those with a small number of teeth.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data did not show evidence that total or partial tooth loss would be associated with atherosclerotic vascular diseases such as myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke among an elderly population aged 75 years or older.</p

The Rotterdam Study: 2010 objectives and design update

The Rotterdam Study is a prospective cohort study ongoing since 1990 in the city of Rotterdam in The Netherlands. The study targets cardiovascular, endocrine, hepatic, neurological, ophthalmic, psychiatric and respiratory diseases. As of 2008, 14,926 subjects aged 45 years or over comprise the Rotterdam Study cohort. The findings of the Rotterdam Study have been presented in close to a 1,000 research articles and reports (see www.epib.nl/rotterdamstudy). This article gives the rationale of the study and its design. It also presents a summary of the major findings and an update of the objectives and methods

OMiLAB: a Smart Innovation Environment for Digital Engineers

International audienceThe paper introduces a Smart Innovation Environment for the devel-opment of Digital Twins and experimentation related to digital transformation projects, thus consolidating the "Digital Engineer" skill profile (with a business-oriented facet labelled as "Digital Innovator"). In the Internet of Things (IoT) era, this profile implies not only the ability to perform both digital design and engi-neering activities, but also to semantically bridge multiple layers of abstraction, granularity or technical specificity – from high level business analysis down to cyber-physical engineering. In the paper's proposal, conceptual modelling meth-ods and interoperable modelling environments are tailored to enable such inte-gration through the creation of Digital Twins, as assets or manifestations of dig-ital business models resulting from innovation processes.The architecture of the proposed environment is guided by a Design Research perspective – i.e., we introduce it as a treatment to an education "design problem" regarding the Digital Engineer skill profile in the IoT era. The integrated skillset corresponding to this profile requires facilitators for Innovation Co-creation, Dig-ital Twin development and Agile Engineering of both software services and cyber-physical systems. The proposed environment encompasses workspaces and resource packages acting as such enablers, currently evaluated in "innovation corners" deployed across the Open Models Laboratory digital ecosystem

A gene expression atlas of the model legume Medicago truncatula

Legumes played central roles in the development of agriculture and civilization, and today account for approximately one-third of the world's primary crop production. Unfortunately, most cultivated legumes are poor model systems for genomic research. Therefore, Medicago truncatula, which has a relatively small diploid genome, has been adopted as a model species for legume genomics. To enhance its value as a model, we have generated a gene expression atlas that provides a global view of gene expression in all major organ systems of this species, with special emphasis on nodule and seed development. The atlas reveals massive differences in gene expression between organs that are accompanied by changes in the expression of key regulatory genes, such as transcription factor genes, which presumably orchestrate genetic reprogramming during development and differentiation. Interestingly, many legume-specific genes are preferentially expressed in nitrogen-fixing nodules, indicating that evolution endowed them with special roles in this unique and important organ. Comparative transcriptome analysis of Medicago versus Arabidopsis revealed significant divergence in developmental expression profiles of orthologous genes, which indicates that phylogenetic analysis alone is insufficient to predict the function of orthologs in different species. The data presented here represent an unparalleled resource for legume functional genomics, which will accelerate discoveries in legume biology