We examined whether metabolic conditions (MCs) during pregnancy (diabetes, hypertension, and obesity) are associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), developmental delays (DD), or impairments in ...specific domains of development in the offspring.
Children aged 2 to 5 years (517 ASD, 172 DD, and 315 controls) were enrolled in the CHARGE (Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment) study, a population-based, case-control investigation between January 2003 and June 2010. Eligible children were born in California, had parents who spoke English or Spanish, and were living with a biological parent in selected regions of California. Children's diagnoses were confirmed by using standardized assessments. Information regarding maternal conditions was ascertained from medical records or structured interview with the mother.
All MCs were more prevalent among case mothers compared with controls. Collectively, these conditions were associated with a higher likelihood of ASD and DD relative to controls (odds ratio: 1.61 95% confidence interval: 1.10-2.37; odds ratio: 2.35 95% confidence interval: 1.43-3.88, respectively). Among ASD cases, children of women with diabetes had Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) expressive language scores 0.4 SD lower than children of mothers without MCs (P < .01). Among children without ASD, those exposed to any MC scored lower on all MSEL and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS) subscales and composites by at least 0.4 SD (P < .01 for each subscale/composite).
Maternal MCs may be broadly associated with neurodevelopmental problems in children. With obesity rising steadily, these results appear to raise serious public health concerns.
The Belle Gibson scandal that broke in 2015 is a testament to the growing phenomenon of lifestyle gurus in the 21st century. In this article, our aim is not to explain the psychology behind Gibson's ...lies. Rather, we focus on the social, cultural and technological conditions that enabled Gibson's persona to flourish and their impact on contemporary understandings of the self. Lifestyle gurus embody the para-social, trading off the appeal of intimacy, authenticity and integrity. We demonstrate how social media have increased the levels of emotional investment, trust and attention capital in para-social relationships by providing ubiquitous access to native experts and creating the platform to achieve influence and micro-celebrity status. Finally, we contend that the growing number of lifestyle gurus providing the public with health advice and scientific knowledge points to the need to examine critically the social and cultural landscape that enables micro-celebrities to emerge.
Social media have been central in informing people about the COVID-19 pandemic. They influence the ways in which information is perceived, communicated and shared online, especially with physical ...distancing measures in place. While these technologies have given people the opportunity to contribute to public discussions about COVID-19, the narratives disseminated on social media have also been characterised by uncertainty, disagreement, false and misleading advice. Global technology companies have responded to these concerns by introducing new content moderation policies based on the concept of harm to tackle the spread of misinformation and disinformation online. In this essay, we examine some of the key challenges in implementing these policies in real time and at scale, calling for more transparent and nuanced content moderation strategies to increase public trust and the quality of information about the pandemic consumed online.
Objectives
Patients with dementia are at high risk for hip fractures and often have poor outcomes when a fracture is sustained. Despite this poor prognosis, little data are available on what factors ...should be prioritized to guide surgical decision making in these cases. We aimed to understand the decision‐making process for older dementia patients hospitalized after hip fractures.
Design
We performed a qualitative analysis of in‐depth elite interviews conducted with a clinical care team involved in management of patients with dementia after hospitalization for hip fractures.
Setting
Interviews were conducted with an interprofessional team involved in the care of patients with dementia after being hospitalized for hip fractures.
Participants
Interviewees included nine orthopaedic surgeons, three hospitalists, three geriatricians, five nurses, three occupational therapists, three physical therapists, and two clinical ethicists.
Measurements
Verbatim transcripts of the interviews were analyzed and coded using QSR International's NVivo 10 qualitative database management software.
Results
The three main themes that most interviewees discussed were pain control, functional status, and medical comorbidities. Interviewees brought up many factors related to restoring functional status including baseline functional status, rehabilitation potential, social support, and the importance of mobility. Dementia and its impact on rehabilitation potential were mentioned by all geriatricians.
Conclusion
Although frailty, prognosis, and life expectancy were largely absent from the responses, the emphasis on dementia, advanced directives, and involving family or caregivers by the three geriatricians indicates the importance of including geriatricians in the decision‐making team for these patients.
Disinformation research is increasingly concerned with the hierarchies and conditions that enable the strategic production of false and misleading content online. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was ...revealed that 12 influencers were responsible for a significant volume of antivaccine disinformation. This article examines how influencers use antivaccination memes for commercial and political gain. Drawing on a 12-month digital ethnography of three disinformation producers on Instagram and Telegram, we conceptualize their strategy of meme warfare in terms of the logics of spoiled identity, demonstrating how stigma is used to galvanize and recast the antivaccination movement around themes of persecution and moral superiority. Dispensing with the idea that content moderation has forced disinformation “underground,” we find that disinformation producers configure memes to adapt to specific platforms by directing mainstream audiences to less regulated platforms, personal newsletters, and sites. By examining the tactics and techniques disinformation producers use to spread antivaccination messaging online, we question the effectiveness of content moderation policies as a solution to regulate influencers whose visibility and status strategically straddle multiple sites in the broader information ecosystem.
Purpose - This article aims to explore the impact of new social media on the 2011 English riots.Design methodology approach - The paper suggests that discourse on the riots in the news and popular ...press is obscured by speculation and political rhetoric about the role of social media in catalysing the unrest that overlooks the role of individual agency and misrepresents the emotional dimensions of such forms of collective action.Findings - In considering the riots to be symptomatic of criminality and austerity, commentators have tended to revive nineteenth- and twentieth-century crowd theories to make sense of the unrest, which are unable to account for the effect of new social media on this nascent twenty-first century phenomenon.Research limitations implications - Here, the notion of the "mediated crowd" is introduced to argue that combining emotions research with empirical analysis can provide an innovative account of the relationship between new social media and the type of collective action that took place during the riots. Such a concept challenges orthodox nineteenth- and twentieth-century crowd theories that consider crowds to be a corollary of "emotive contagion" in spatial proximity, with "the mediated crowd" mobilised in the twenty-first century through social networking in both geographic and virtual arenas.Originality value - The paper proposes that this original approach provides insight into the particular conditions in which the 2011 English riots emerged, while advancing crowd theory in general.
Acupuncture has been used as a treatment for pain associated with osteoarthritis (OA) for thousands of years; however, there is a lack of definitive evidence for this indication in humans or animals. ...The aim of this study was to prospectively evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture on lameness and clinical function in dogs affected by naturally-occurring OA using objective outcome measures. A total of 32 client-owned dogs completed this prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, blinded clinical trial, using a cross-over design. Participants were assigned to receive placebo or acupuncture treatment once weekly for 4 weeks in random order with a two-week wash-out period in between treatment phases. Outcome measures included ground reaction forces (GRF), subjective orthopedic scoring (SOS), activity counts (AC), and owner-completed clinical metrology instruments (CMI; Canine Brief Pain Inventory CBPI and Client Specific Outcome Measures CSOM). For statistical comparison, baseline GRF, SOS, and CMI data were compared to data obtained 1 week after each treatment phase. Similarly, total weekly AC of the final week of each treatment phase were compared to the baseline week.
Evidence of differences between baseline versus acupuncture and placebo treatments was not identified for the following outcome measures: GRF, AC, or SOS. However, evidence of differences was identified for some of the CMI scores, including the CSOM questionnaire which showed evidence of improvement when comparing baseline versus acupuncture (p = 0.0002) as well as between placebo versus acupuncture treatments (p = 0.035) but not between baseline versus placebo treatments (p = 0.221).
The applied acupuncture protocol did not show improvement in function when using objective outcome measures for OA in dogs; however, certain CMI measurements recorded some degree of treatment response.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
A blood-based gene expression test can diagnose obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). The test is sensitive to inflammatory and immune processes associated with atherosclerosis. Acute exercise ...engages short-term inflammatory pathways, and exercise stress testing may affect results of gene expression testing during the same diagnostic workup. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of exercise on diagnostic gene expression testing. Ten patients with obstructive CAD (≥50% stenosis) and 10 with no/minimal CAD (≤20% stenosis) were identified by angiography. Blood samples for gene expression were obtained at baseline, peak exercise, 30 to 60 minutes after testing, and 24 to 36 hours after testing. Core-lab gene expression analysis yielded raw gene expression scores (GES) for each time point. Linear models were used to estimate changes in GES, adjusting for CAD status and other covariates. GES increased during peak exercise across both genders, with no significant differences as a function of CAD status. The overall adjusted mean GES increase at peak exercise was 0.29 (95% confidence interval 0.22 to 0.36; p <0.001). GES after exercise were not significantly different from baseline. The change in gene expression levels during peak exercise may reflect a transient inflammatory response to acute exercise that may be independent of patient gender or CAD status. In conclusion, CAD GES increase at peak exercise testing and rapidly return to baseline. Such may reflect a transient inflammatory response to acute exercise independent of gender or extent of CAD.
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