Failures in the drinking water distribution system cause gastrointestinal outbreaks with multiple pathogens. A water distribution pipe breakage caused a community-wide waterborne outbreak in Vuorela, ...Finland, July 2012. We investigated this outbreak with advanced epidemiological and microbiological methods. A total of 473/2931 inhabitants (16%) responded to a web-based questionnaire. Water and patient samples were subjected to analysis of multiple microbial targets, molecular typing and microbial community analysis. Spatial analysis on the water distribution network was done and we applied a spatial logistic regression model. The course of the illness was mild. Drinking untreated tap water from the defined outbreak area was significantly associated with illness (RR 5.6, 95% CI 1.9-16.4) increasing in a dose response manner. The closer a person lived to the water distribution breakage point, the higher the risk of becoming ill. Sapovirus, enterovirus, single Campylobacter jejuni and EHEC O157:H7 findings as well as virulence genes for EPEC, EAEC and EHEC pathogroups were detected by molecular or culture methods from the faecal samples of the patients. EPEC, EAEC and EHEC virulence genes and faecal indicator bacteria were also detected in water samples. Microbial community sequencing of contaminated tap water revealed abundance of Arcobacter species. The polyphasic approach improved the understanding of the source of the infections, and aided to define the extent and magnitude of this outbreak.
Introduction
The incidence of and mortality from cancers of the cervix uteri and corpus uteri are underestimated if the presence of uterine cancers, where the exact topography (site of origin) is not ...specified, is omitted. In this paper we present the corrected figures on mortality from and incidence of cervix and corpus uteri cancers in the Nordic countries by reallocating unspecified uterine cancer deaths and cases to originate either from the corpus uteri or cervix uteri. To further validate the accuracy of reallocation, we also analyzed how well the reallocation captures the changes occurring as the result of a transition in cause of death coding in Norway that took place in 2005.
Material and Methods
This study uses data available in the NORDCAN database, which contains aggregated cancer data from all the Nordic countries for the years 1960–2016. The unspecified uterine cancer cases and deaths were reallocated to either cervix uteri or corpus uteri based on the estimated probability that follows the distribution of cases and deaths with verified topography. The estimated proportions of cases and deaths for both cancers were calculated for each combination of age group, year, and country as a proportion of cases (and deaths, respectively) with known topography. Annual age‐standardized rates were calculated by direct age‐adjustment.
Results
The proportions of unspecified uterine cancers were higher in the mortality data than in incidence data, with mean values for 1960–2016 ranging between 5.1% and 26.6% and between 0.2% and 6.8% by country, respectively. In the Nordic countries combined, the reallocation increased the number of cases by 4% and deaths by approximately 20% for both cancers. Finland was the only Nordic country where the mortality rate did not increase substantially after reallocation.
Conclusions
The reallocation procedure had a significant impact on mortality from cancers of the cervix and corpus uteri for countries where the proportion of cancer deaths coded as uterus, not otherwise specified, is substantial. More effort to validate cause of death data with incidence data from cancer registries is warranted to avoid erroneous conclusions of temporal trends based on uncorrected cancer burden.
The purpose of the article is to introduce a systematic, three-level video analysis method for tracing the emotional aspects of a collaborative design and making process. Maker-centred learning can ...evoke strong emotions affecting students’ motivation because it involves them in externalising their ideas through conceptual, visual and material artefacts. For analysing longitudinal collaborative processes, we developed the visual Making-Process-Rug video analysis method, which enables tracing materially mediated verbal and embodied making processes. We provide examples of the method using data, where a team of seventh-grade students performing regular schoolwork were engaged in using traditional and digital fabrication technologies for inventing, designing, and making artefacts. Taking a case study perspective, we focus on a team of four students who worked on a smart product project. We analysed video recordings from the team’s 11 hours of design and making sessions on three levels: macro, intermediate and micro. The benefit of the three-level method is that it allows simultaneous analysis of social-discursive and materially embodied aspects of activities. It also enables analysing large samples of video data systematically, and focusing on both micro-level and macro-level perspectives of activity. The method for identifying emotions from video data has potential for educational research on various fields, however, the culture-specific expressions and interpretations of emotions require special attention when developing the method further.
Keywords: basic education, collaborative process, emotional expression, Making-Process-Rug, sociomateriality, video analysis method
The purpose of the present investigation was to analyze the pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of seventh graders' co-invention projects that involved using traditional and digital ...fabrication technologies for inventing and creating complex artefacts. The aim of the projects was to create high-end multi-material makerspaces by expanding Finnish craft classrooms with instruments of digital fabrication, such as micro-processors, wearable computing (e-textiles), and 3D design and making, for enabling creation of student-designed multi-faceted inventions. Through a qualitative meta-analysis of the three successive learning-by-making projects, we explored the kinds of pedagogical infrastructures required for fostering knowledge-creating practices of learning. Pedagogic infrastructures refer to the designed arrangements and underlying conditions of implementing an extensive study project in classroom practices needed for reaching the learning objectives. We analyzed the epistemological, scaffolding, social, and material-technological dimensions of the enacted pedagogic infrastructures. In accordance with design-based educational investigations, we collected a variety of data (classroom video recordings, teacher and tutor interviews, invention challenges, learning assignments, and working schedules) across three year-long developmental cycles. We discuss the limitations and opportunities of maker-centered learning settings as well as considerations for future development of makerspace as pedagogical innovations for integrating socio-digital and material-technical practices and spaces for learning.
The craft sciences have emerged as a field of academic research in Finland, Sweden and Norway since the early 1990s. In Finland, craft research has examined various aspects of crafts using a ...multidisciplinary approach adapting a range of methods from other academic disciplines according to the research topic. Another source has been the schools of domestic sciences in which craft research has been a recognized field. In Sweden and Norway, craft research has developed strongly in architectural conservation and cultural heritage with a focus on traditional craftsmanship and the performative elements of intangible cultural heritage. This article offers an overview of the developments and progress of the field of craft sciences in these countries, inluding its methodological approaches, with a focus on Ph.D theses. Through mapping recurrent methodological approaches, the following categories were derived: craft reconstruction, craft interpretations, craft elicitation, craft amplification and craft socialization. The aim of the classification, and the model derived from it, is to help researchers and students understand better how different types of knowledge relate to different research methods and apply them within their own research. The puropse of the research is to create a common infrastructure for research and education in order to connect and strengthen the dispersed academic communities of craft research and to establish craft science as a formally recognized discipline within the academic system.
The authors of the article have granted permission to have the original research article published in Craft Research Journal 11 (2), CC-BY-NC-ND to be translated from English and published in Estonian. The translation is accompanied with a brief contextualising afterword by the editorial team of Studia Vernacula.
Keywords: craft sciences, crafts, craft research, craft education, sloyd, research methods, art research
Colorectal cancer liver metastases respond to chemotherapy and targeted agents not only by shrinking, but also by morphologic and metabolic changes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the value of ...advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods in predicting treatment response and survival.
We investigated contrast-enhanced MRI, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) in diffusion-weighted imaging and 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) in detecting early morphologic and metabolic changes in borderline or resectable liver metastases, as a response to first-line neoadjuvant or conversion therapy in a prospective substudy of the RAXO trial (NCT01531621, EudraCT2011-003158-24). MRI findings were compared with histology of resected liver metastases and Kaplan–Meier estimates of overall survival (OS).
In 2012-2018, 52 patients at four Finnish university hospitals were recruited. Forty-seven patients received neoadjuvant or conversion chemotherapy and 40 liver resections were carried out. Low ADC values (below median) of the representative liver metastases, at baseline and after systemic therapy, were associated with partial response according to RECIST criteria, but not with morphologic MRI changes or histology. Decreasing ADC values following systemic therapy were associated with improved OS compared to unchanged or increasing ADC, both in the liver resected subgroup (5-year OS rate 100% and 34%, respectively, P = 0.022) and systemic therapy subgroup (5-year OS rate 62% and 23%, P = 0.049). 1H-MRS revealed steatohepatosis induced by systemic therapy.
Low ADC values at baseline or during systemic therapy were associated with treatment response by RECIST but not with histology, morphologic or detectable metabolic changes. A decreasing ADC during systemic therapy is associated with improved OS both in all patients receiving systemic therapy and in the resected subgroup.
•Colorectal liver metastases respond to systemic therapy by shrinking but also by morphological and metabolic changes.•Advanced MRI technologies (DWI and 1H-MRS) might provide more detailed insight into cancer treatment-induced changes.•We compare changes seen in MRI with histology.•Reduction of ADC during chemotherapy was associated with improved survival after liver resection.
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