The Mechanical Behavior of a 25Cr Super Duplex Stainless Steel at Elevated Temperature

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Unequally unequal? Contextual-level status inequality and social cohesion moderating the association between individual-level socioeconomic position and systemic chronic inflammation

Background: Status inequality is hypothesised to increase socioeconomic inequalities in health by creating an environment in which social cohesion erodes and social comparisons intensify. Such an environment may cause systemic chronic inflammation. Although these are often-used explanations in social epidemiology, empirical tests remain rare. Methods: We analysed data from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study. Our sample consisted of 1977 participants in 499 small residential areas. Systemic chronic inflammation was measured by high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP; <10 mg/L). An area-level measurement of status inequality was created using census data and contextual-level social cohesion was measured applying ecometrics. We estimated linear multilevel models with cross-level interactions between socioeconomic position (SEP), status inequality, and social cohesion adjusted for age and gender. Our main analysis on postcode sector-level was re-estimated on three smaller spatial levels. Results: The difference in hs-CRP between disadvantaged and advantaged SEPs (0.806 mg/L; p = 0.063; [95%CI: −0.044; 1.656]) was highest among participants living in areas where most residents were in advantaged SEPs. In these status distributions, high social cohesion was associated with a shallower socioeconomic gradient in hs-CRP and low social cohesion was associated with a steeper gradient. In areas with an equal mix of SEPs or most residents in disadvantaged SEPs, the estimated difference in hs-CRP between disadvantaged and advantaged SEPs was −0.039 mg/L (p = 0.898; [95%CI: 0.644; 0.566]) and −0.257 mg/L (p = 0.568; [95%CI: 1.139; 0.625]) respectively. In these status distributions, the gradient in hs-CRP appeared steeper when social cohesion was high and potentially reversed when social cohesion was low. Results were broadly consistent when using area-levels smaller than postcode sectors. Conclusions: Inequalities in hs-CRP were greatest among participants living in areas wherein a majority of residents were in advantaged SEPs and social cohesion was low. In other combinations of these contextual characteristics, inequalities in systemic chronic inflammation were not detectable or potentially even reversed

The challenges of measuring social cohesion in public health research: A systematic review and ecometric meta-analysis

The relationship between social cohesion and health has been studied for decades. Yet, due to the contextual nature of this concept, measuring social cohesion remains challenging. Using a meta-analytical framework, this review's goal was to study the ecometric measurement properties of social cohesion in order to describe dissimilarities in its measurement as well as bring a new perspective on the empirical usefulness of the concept itself. To this end, we analysed if, and to what extent, contextual-level reliability and intersubjective agreement of 78 social cohesion measurements varied under different measurement conditions like measurement instrument, spatial unit, ecometric model specification, or region. We found consistent evidence for the contextual nature of social cohesion, however, most variation existed between individuals, not contexts. While contextual dependence in response behaviour was fairly insensitive to item choices, population size within chosen spatial units of social cohesion measurements mattered. Somewhat counterintuitively, using spatial units with, on average, fewer residents did not yield systematically superior ecometric properties. Instead, our results underline that precise theory about the relevant contextual units of causal relationships between social cohesion and health is vital and cannot be replaced by empirical analysis. Although adjustment for respondent's characteristics had only small effects on ecometric properties, potential pitfalls of this analytic strategy are discussed in this paper. Finally, acknowledging the sensitivity of measuring social cohesion, we derived recommendations for future studies investigating the effects of contextual-level social characteristics on health

Thigh-Derived Inertial Sensor Metrics to Assess the Sit-to-Stand and Stand-to-Sit Transitions in the Timed Up and Go (TUG) Task for Quantifying Mobility Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis

INTRODUCTION: Inertial sensors generate objective and sensitive metrics of movement disability that may indicate fall risk in many clinical conditions including multiple sclerosis (MS). The Timed-Up-And-Go (TUG) task is used to assess patient mobility because it incorporates clinically-relevant submovements during standing. Most sensor-based TUG research has focused on the placement of sensors at the spine, hip or ankles; an examination of thigh activity in TUG in multiple sclerosis is wanting. METHODS: We used validated sensors (x-IMU by x-io) to derive transparent metrics for the sit-to-stand (SI-ST) transition and the stand-to-sit (ST-SI) transition of TUG, and compared effect sizes for metrics from inertial sensors on the thighs to effect sizes for metrics from a sensor placed at the L3 level of the lumbar spine. 23 healthy volunteers were compared to 17 ambulatory persons with MS (PwMS, HAI <= 2). RESULTS: During the SI-ST transition, the metric with the largest effect size comparing healthy volunteers to PwMS was the Area Under the Curve of the thigh angular velocity in the pitch direction -- representing both thigh and knee extension; the peak of the spine pitch angular velocity during SI-ST also had a large effect size, as did some temporal measures of duration of SI-ST, although less so. During the ST-SI transition the metric with the largest effect size in PwMS was the peak of the spine angular velocity curve in the roll direction. A regression was performed. DISCUSSION: We propose for PwMS that the diminished peak angular velocities during SI-ST directly represents extensor weakness, while the increased roll during ST-SI represents diminished postural control. CONCLUSIONS: During the SI-ST transition of TUG, angular velocities can discriminate between healthy volunteers and ambulatory PwMS better than temporal features. Sensor placement on the thighs provides additional discrimination compared to sensor placement at the lumbar spine

Using wearable inertial sensors to compare different versions of the dual task paradigm during walking

The dual task paradigm (DTP), where performance of a walking task co-occurs with a cognitive task to assess performance decrement, has been controversially mooted as a more suitable task to test safety from falls in outdoor and urban environments than simple walking in a hospital corridor. There are a variety of different cognitive tasks that have been used in the DTP, and we wanted to assess the use of a secondary task that requires mental tracking (the alternate letter alphabet task) against a more automatic working memory task (counting backward by ones). In this study we validated the x-io x-IMU wearable inertial sensors, used them to record healthy walking, and then used dynamic time warping to assess the elements of the gait cycle. In the timed 25 foot walk (T25FW) the alternate letter alphabet task lengthened the stride time significantly compared to ordinary walking, while counting backward did not. We conclude that adding a mental tracking task in a DTP will elicit performance decrement in healthy volunteers

Sucrose activates human taste pathways differently from artificial sweetener

Animal models suggest that sucrose activates taste afferents differently than non-caloric sweeteners. Little information exists how artificial sweeteners engage central taste pathways in the human brain. We assessed sucrose and sucralose taste pleasantness across a concentration gradient in 12 healthy control women and applied 10% sucrose and matched sucralose during functional magnet resonance imaging. The results indicate that (1) both sucrose and sucralose activate functionally connected primary taste pathways; (2) taste pleasantness predicts left insula response; (3) sucrose elicits a stronger brain response in the anterior insula, frontal operculum, striatum and anterior cingulate, compared to sucralose; (4) only sucrose, but not sucralose, stimulation engages dopaminergic midbrain areas in relation to the behavioral pleasantness response. Thus, brain response distinguishes the caloric from the non-caloric sweetener, although the conscious mind could not. This could have important implications on how effective artificial sweeteners are in their ability to substitute sugar intake

Deep learning-assisted radiomics facilitates multimodal prognostication for personalized treatment strategies in low-grade glioma

Determining the optimal course of treatment for low grade glioma (LGG) patients is challenging and frequently reliant on subjective judgment and limited scientific evidence. Our objective was to develop a comprehensive deep learning assisted radiomics model for assessing not only overall survival in LGG, but also the likelihood of future malignancy and glioma growth velocity. Thus, we retrospectively included 349 LGG patients to develop a prediction model using clinical, anatomical, and preoperative MRI data. Before performing radiomics analysis, a U2-model for glioma segmentation was utilized to prevent bias, yielding a mean whole tumor Dice score of 0.837. Overall survival and time to malignancy were estimated using Cox proportional hazard models. In a postoperative model, we derived a C-index of 0.82 (CI 0.79-0.86) for the training cohort over 10 years and 0.74 (Cl 0.64-0.84) for the test cohort. Preoperative models showed a C-index of 0.77 (Cl 0.73-0.82) for training and 0.67 (Cl 0.57-0.80) test sets. Our findings suggest that we can reliably predict the survival of a heterogeneous population of glioma patients in both preoperative and postoperative scenarios. Further, we demonstrate the utility of radiomics in predicting biological tumor activity, such as the time to malignancy and the LGG growth rate