The Contradictory Role of Technology in Finnish Young People’s Images of Future Schools

The aim of this study is to analyse the views of young people belonging to Generation Z about the role of technology in future schools in 2030. Without listening to young people’s voices, it has been stated that there is a strong need to increase the use of technology and digitalization in teaching and learning. Based on the essays collected from 89 Finnish young people aged 15–18 years from four different regions, this article presents four qualitatively different future images of technology in future schools. Our results show that the representatives of the same generation are divided into different units with different responses to the rapid technological change and hence one of the key formative experiences of their generation.</p

Psychiatric staff on the wards does not share attitudes on aggression

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Interventions following a high violence risk assessment score : a naturalistic study on a Finnish psychiatric admission ward

Background: Patient aggression and violence against staff members and other patients are common concerns in psychiatric units. Many structured clinical risk assessment tools have recently been developed. Despite their superiority to unaided clinical judgments, staff has shown ambivalent views towards them. A constant worry of staff is that the results of risk assessments would not be used. The aims of the present study were to investigate what were the interventions applied by the staff of a psychiatric admission ward after a high risk patient had been identified, how frequently these interventions were used and how effective they were. Methods: The data were collected in a naturalistic setting during a 6-month period in a Finnish psychiatric admission ward with a total of 331 patients with a mean age of 42.9 years (SD 17.39) suffering mostly from mood, schizophrenia-related and substance use disorders. The total number of treatment days was 2399. The staff assessed the patients daily with the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression (DASA), which is a structured violence risk assessment considering the upcoming 24 h. The interventions in order to reduce the risk of violence following a high DASA total score (>= 4) were collected from the patients' medical files. Inductive content analysis was used. Results: There were a total of 64 patients with 217 observations of high DASA total score. In 91.2% of cases, at least one intervention aiming to reduce the violence risk was used. Pro re nata (PRN)-medication, seclusion and focused discussions with a nurse were the most frequently used interventions. Non-coercive and non-pharmacological interventions like daily activities associated significantly with the decrease of perceived risk of violence. Conclusion: In most cases, a high score in violence risk assessment led to interventions aiming to reduce the risk. Unfortunately, the most frequently used methods were psychopharmacological or coercive. It is hoped that the findings will encourage the staff to use their imagination when choosing violence risk reducing intervention techniques.Peer reviewe

High intratumoral dihydrotestosterone is associated with antiandrogen resistance in VCaP prostate cancer xenografts in castrated mice

Antiandrogen treatment resistance is a major clinical concern in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) treatment. Using xenografts of VCaP cells we showed that growth of antiandrogen resistant CRPC tumors were characterized by a higher intratumor dihydrotestosterone (DHT) concentration than that of treatment responsive tumors. Furthermore, the slow tumor growth after adrenalectomy was associated with a low intratumor DHT concentration. Reactivation of androgen signaling in enzalutamide-resistant tumors was further shown by the expression of several androgen-dependent genes. The data indicate that intratumor DHT concentration and expression of several androgen-dependent genes in CRPC lesions is an indication of enzalutamide treatment resistance and an indication of the need for further androgen blockade. The presence of an androgen synthesis, independent of CYP17A1 activity, has been shown to exist in prostate cancer cells, and thus, novel androgen synthesis inhibitors are needed for the treatment of enzalutamide-resistant CRPC tumors that do not respond to abiraterone.Peer reviewe

Adrenals Contribute to Growth of Castration-Resistant VCaP Prostate Cancer Xenografts

The role of adrenal androgens as drivers for castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) growth in humans is generally accepted; however, the value of preclinical mouse models of CRPC is debatable, because mouse adrenals do not produce steroids activating the androgen receptor. In this study, we confirmed the expression of enzymes essential for de novo synthesis of androgens in mouse adrenals, with high intratissue concentration of progesterone (P-4) and moderate levels of androgens, such as androstenedione, testosterone, and dihydrotestosterone, in the adrenal glands of both intact and orchectomized (ORX) mice. ORX alone had no effect on serum P-4 concentration, whereas orchectomized and adrenalectomized (ORX + ADX) resulted in a significant decrease in serum P-4 and in a further reduction in the Low levels of serum androgens (androstenedione, testosterone, and dihydrotestosterone), measured by mass spectrometry. In line with this, the serum prostate-specific antigen and growth of VCaP xenografts in mice after ORX + ADX were markedly reduced compared with ORX alone, and the growth difference was not abolished by a glucocorticoid treatment. Moreover, ORX + ADX altered the androgen-dependent gene expression in the tumors, similar to that recently shown for the enzalutamide treatment. These data indicate that in contrast to the current view, and similar to humans, mouse adrenals synthesize significant amounts of steroids that contribute to the androgen receptor dependent growth of CRPC.Peer reviewe

FinnGen provides genetic insights from a well-phenotyped isolated population

Population isolates such as those in Finland benefit genetic research because deleterious alleles are often concentrated on a small number of low-frequency variants (0.1% ≤ minor allele frequency < 5%). These variants survived the founding bottleneck rather than being distributed over a large number of ultrarare variants. Although this effect is well established in Mendelian genetics, its value in common disease genetics is less explored1,2. FinnGen aims to study the genome and national health register data of 500,000 Finnish individuals. Given the relatively high median age of participants (63 years) and the substantial fraction of hospital-based recruitment, FinnGen is enriched for disease end points. Here we analyse data from 224,737 participants from FinnGen and study 15 diseases that have previously been investigated in large genome-wide association studies (GWASs). We also include meta-analyses of biobank data from Estonia and the United Kingdom. We identified 30 new associations, primarily low-frequency variants, enriched in the Finnish population. A GWAS of 1,932 diseases also identified 2,733 genome-wide significant associations (893 phenome-wide significant (PWS), P < 2.6 × 10–11) at 2,496 (771 PWS) independent loci with 807 (247 PWS) end points. Among these, fine-mapping implicated 148 (73 PWS) coding variants associated with 83 (42 PWS) end points. Moreover, 91 (47 PWS) had an allele frequency of <5% in non-Finnish European individuals, of which 62 (32 PWS) were enriched by more than twofold in Finland. These findings demonstrate the power of bottlenecked populations to find entry points into the biology of common diseases through low-frequency, high impact variants.publishedVersionPeer reviewe