Risk factors for prosthetic joint infections following total hip arthroplasty based on 33,337 hips in the Finnish Arthroplasty Register from 2014 to 2018

Background and purpose - Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) is a devastating complication and more information on risk factors for PJI is required to find measures to prevent infections. Therefore, we assessed risk factors for PJI after primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) in a large patient cohort. Patients and methods - We analyzed 33,337 primary THAs performed between May 2014 and January 2018 based on the Finnish Arthroplasty Register (FAR). Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for first PJI revision operation using 25 potential patient- and surgical-related risk factors as covariates. Results - 350 primary THAs were revised for the first time due to PJI during the study period. The hazard ratios for PJI revision in multivariable analysis were 2.0 (CI 1.3-3.2) for ASA class II and 3.2 (2.0-5.1) for ASA class III-IV compared with ASA class I, 1.4 (1.1-1.7) for bleeding > 500 mL compared with 120 minutes compared with 45-59 minutes, and 2.6 (1.4-4.9) for simultaneous bilateral operation. In the univariable analysis, hazard ratios for PJI revision were 2.3 (1.7-3.3) for BMI of 31-35 and 5.0 (3.5-7.1) for BMI of > 35 compared with patients with BMI of 21-25. Interpretation - We found several modifiable risk factors associated with increased PJI revision risk after THA to which special attention should be paid preoperatively. In particular, high BMI may be an even more prominent risk factor for PJI than previously assessed.Peer reviewe

Learned helplessness in chess players: The importance of task similarity and the role of skill

The effects of noncontingency between subjects' responses and outcomes were examined with respect to treatment/posttest similarity and skill in the task. The experimental design consisted of three groups. The first group had to solve chess problems with objective solutions and received veridical feedback; each member of the second group faced problems with no objective solutions, and received the same feedback as the member of the first group he was yoked with, but without any control on it; the control group received a waiting task. It was found that the group with unsolvable problems was more depressed than the two other groups at the end of the experiment. The mid-strength players were the most sensitive to the manipulation, and the weakest players showed little effect of learned helplessness. It was also found that the effects were proportional to the degree of similarity between the treatment and the posttest. The results limit the domain of applicability of the learned helplessness model

Cause-of-Death Contributions to Educational Inequalities in Mortality in Austria between 1981/1982 and 1991/1992: Les contributions des causes de décès aux inégalités de mortalité par niveau d’éducation en Autriche entre 1981/1982 et 1991/1992

This article uses census records and deaths records to analyze trends in educational inequalities in mortality for Austrian women and men aged 35–64 years between 1981/1982 and 1991/1992. We find an increasing gradient in mortality by education for circulatory diseases and especially ischaemic heart disease. Respiratory diseases and, in addition for women, cancers showed the opposite trend. Using decomposition analysis, we give evidence that in many cases changes in the age-structure within the 10-year interval had a bigger effect than direct improvements in mortality on the analyzed subpopulations

An evaluation of family physicians' educational needs and experiences in health promotion and disease prevention in Poland and Lithuania - a qualitative study

Reikšminiai žodžiai: Ligų prevencija; Sveikatos stiprinimas; Šeimos gydytojai; Šeimos gydytojų rengimas; Šeimos gydytojų švietimo poreikiai; Disease prevention; Family physicians; Family physicians educational needs; Health promotion; Training of family physician

Systematic identification of functional modules and cis-regulatory elements in Arabidopsis thaliana

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Several large-scale gene co-expression networks have been constructed successfully for predicting gene functional modules and cis-regulatory elements in Arabidopsis (<it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it>)<it>.</it> However, these networks are usually constructed and analyzed in an <it>ad hoc</it> manner. In this study, we propose a completely parameter-free and systematic method for constructing gene co-expression networks and predicting functional modules as well as cis-regulatory elements.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our novel method consists of an automated network construction algorithm, a parameter-free procedure to predict functional modules, and a strategy for finding known cis-regulatory elements that is suitable for consensus scanning without prior knowledge of the allowed extent of degeneracy of the motif. We apply the method to study a large collection of gene expression microarray data in Arabidopsis. We estimate that our co-expression network has ~94% of accuracy, and has topological properties similar to other biological networks, such as being scale-free and having a high clustering coefficient. Remarkably, among the ~300 predicted modules whose sizes are at least 20, 88% have at least one significantly enriched functions, including a few extremely significant ones (ribosome, <it>p</it> < 1E-300, photosynthetic membrane, <it>p</it> < 1.3E-137, proteasome complex, <it>p</it> < 5.9E-126). In addition, we are able to predict cis-regulatory elements for 66.7% of the modules, and the association between the enriched cis-regulatory elements and the enriched functional terms can often be confirmed by the literature. Overall, our results are much more significant than those reported by several previous studies on similar data sets. Finally, we utilize the co-expression network to dissect the promoters of 19 Arabidopsis genes involved in the metabolism and signaling of the important plant hormone gibberellin, and achieved promising results that reveal interesting insight into the biosynthesis and signaling of gibberellin.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results show that our method is highly effective in finding functional modules from real microarray data. Our application on Arabidopsis leads to the discovery of the largest number of annotated Arabidopsis functional modules in the literature. Given the high statistical significance of functional enrichment and the agreement between cis-regulatory and functional annotations, we believe our Arabidopsis gene modules can be used to predict the functions of unknown genes in Arabidopsis, and to understand the regulatory mechanisms of many genes.</p

Risk factors for prosthetic joint infections following total hip arthroplasty based on 33,337 hips in the Finnish Arthroplasty Register from 2014 to 2018

Background and purpose - Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) is a devastating complication and more information on risk factors for PJI is required to find measures to prevent infections. Therefore, we assessed risk factors for PJI after primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) in a large patient cohort.Patients and methods - We analyzed 33,337 primary THAs performed between May 2014 and January 2018 based on the Finnish Arthroplasty Register (FAR). Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for first PJI revision operation using 25 potential patient- and surgical-related risk factors as covariates.Results - 350 primary THAs were revised for the first time due to PJI during the study period. The hazard ratios for PJI revision in multivariable analysis were 2.0 (CI 1.3-3.2) for ASA class II and 3.2 (2.0-5.1) for ASA class III-IV compared with ASA class I, 1.4 (1.1-1.7) for bleeding > 500 mL compared with 120 minutes compared with 45-59 minutes, and 2.6 (1.4-4.9) for simultaneous bilateral operation. In the univariable analysis, hazard ratios for PJI revision were 2.3 (1.7-3.3) for BMI of 31-35 and 5.0 (3.5-7.1) for BMI of > 35 compared with patients with BMI of 21-25.Interpretation - We found several modifiable risk factors associated with increased PJI revision risk after THA to which special attention should be paid preoperatively. In particular, high BMI may be an even more prominent risk factor for PJI than previously assessed.</p