Exploring the variation in associations between socioeconomic indicators and non-communicable diseases in the Tromsø Study: an algorithmic approach.

AIMS: We contribute to the methodological literature on the assessment of health inequalities by applying an algorithmic approach to evaluate the capabilities of socioeconomic variables in predicting the prevalence of non-communicable diseases in a Norwegian health survey. METHODS: We use data from the seventh survey of the population based Tromsø Study (2015-2016), including 11,074 women and 10,009 men aged 40 years and above. We apply the random forest algorithm to predict four non-communicable disease outcomes (heart attack, cancer, diabetes and stroke) based on information on a number of social root causes and health behaviours. We evaluate our results using the classification error, the mean decrease in accuracy, partial dependence statistics. RESULTS: Results suggest that education, household income and occupation to a variable extent contribute to predicting non-communicable disease outcomes. Prediction misclassification ranges between 25.1% and 35.4% depending on the non-communicable diseases under study. Partial dependences reveal mostly expected health gradients, with some examples of complex functional relationships. Out-of-sample model validation shows that predictions translate to new data input. CONCLUSIONS: Algorithmic modelling can provide additional empirical detail and metrics for evaluating heterogeneous inequalities in morbidity. The extent to which education, income and occupation contribute to predicting binary non-communicable disease outcomes depends on both non-communicable diseases and socioeconomic indicator. Partial dependences reveal that social gradients in non-communicable disease outcomes vary in shape between combinations of non-communicable disease outcome and socioeconomic status indicator. Misclassification rates highlight the extent of variation within socioeconomic groups, suggesting that future studies may improve predictive accuracy by exploring further subpopulation heterogeneity.

Father's reading beliefs and child's media usage habits.

The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between fathers' reading beliefs and father's and child's media habits and book reading status in the preschool period. In total, 520 fathers with children aged 2-5 years were included in the study. "z score above+1" were defined as the High Parental Reading Scale Score (HPRSS). Moreover, 72.3% of fathers spent 3 hours or more with their children on a day, and 32.9% of fathers used the screen as a reward and 35% as a punishment. Multivariable analysis showed that spending more than 3 hours with their children, not using the screen as a reward, not using it as a punishment, knowing smart signs, getting information from a book, having a screen time less than 1 hour, not using screen alone, doing another activity when not allowed were associated with the HPRSS. The father's reading belief is related to the child's media usage habits.

Suicide and economic uncertainty: New findings in a global setting.

This study extends the previous literature on the association between country-level economic uncertainty and suicide rate to 141 countries by introducing the World Uncertainty Index. We first examine the role of economic uncertainty on the suicide rates in a global setting for the period 2000-2019 and then analyze if the association varied across different income groups. Our primary findings suggest that a rise in economic uncertainty is related to an increased suicide rate. According to the estimates based on various income levels, higher economic uncertainty is associated with increased suicide risk in high-income countries. For middle- and low-income countries, we find no such impact. Overall, we conclude that contemporaneous and lagged economic uncertainty is a concern for the increased risk of suicide, especially in high-income countries. The results highlight the need for proactive suicide-prevention strategies in uncertain times.

Association between neighborhood health behaviors and body mass index in Northern Norway: evidence from the Tromsø Study.

AIM: The prevalence of overweight and obesity has risen rapidly worldwide, and the ongoing obesity pandemic is one of the most severe public health concerns in modern society. The average body mass index (BMI) of people living in Northern Norway has also steadily increased since the late 1970s. This study aimed to understand how individuals' health behavior is associated with the general health behavior of the people in their neighborhood. METHODS: Using the population-based Tromsø Study, we examined the life course association between average leisure time physical activity at the neighborhood level and the BMI of individuals living in the same neighborhood. We used a longitudinal dataset following 25,604 individuals living in 33 neighborhoods and performed a linear mixed-effects analysis. RESULTS: The results showed that participants living in neighborhoods whose residents were more physically active during their leisure time, were likely to have a significantly lower BMI (-0.9 kg/m², 95% CI -1.5 to -0.4). Also, individuals living in neighborhoods whose residents were doing mainly manual work, had significantly higher BMIs (0.7 kg/m², 95% CI 0.4-1.0). CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed a strong association between the average leisure time physical activity level of neighborhood residents and the higher BMI levels of residents of the same neighborhood.

Dataset on social and psychological effects of COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey.

This data was gathered to investigate how individuals' levels of intolerance to distress and instant anxiety are related to some of the behaviors that people can change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We present a dataset based on a four-wave survey of the social and psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey (N = 2,817). Turkey was heavily impacted by the first waves of infections in 2020, and citizens were forced to adapt to governmental measures. So, the dataset provides unique opportunities to investigate the COVID-19 pandemic's role in shaping people's intolerance to distress and instant anxiety. The survey considered personal cleaning behavior, bank/credit card usage, online spending habits, individual security perception, and stockpile behavior. Furthermore, in this data, whether an individual or a household member was officially diagnosed with COVID-19 and socio-demographic indicators were determined. Hence, the resulting dataset can enable various analyses on social, psychological, perceived security, and self-rated health, influencing how individuals' levels of intolerance to distress and instant anxiety.

Transgenerational health effects of in utero exposure to economic hardship: Evidence from preindustrial Southern Norway.

We studied whether in utero exposure to economic hardship during a grandmother's pregnancy has a transgenerational effect on her grandchildren's health condition. We used an individual-level three-generation data set covering people born between 1734 and 1840 in the municipality of Rendalen in Norway. We found a culling effect in which grandchildren whose grandmothers gave birth in years of economic hardship lived approximately ten years longer than grandchildren whose mothers were born in years of economic well-being. This impact was only observed among the grandmothers who belong to the lowest social classes. Our results also showed that in higher social classes, economic hardship during a grandmother's pregnancy deteriorated her grandchildren's health by "scarring" the mother's health.

Polarized emission from CsPbBr3 nanowire embedded-electrospun PU fibers.

Interest in all-inorganic halide perovskites has been increasing dramatically due to their high quantum yield, band gap tunability, and ease of fabrication in compositional and geometric diversity. In this study, we synthesized several hundreds of nanometer long and ∼4 nm thick CsPbBr 3 nanowires (NWs). They were then integrated into electrospun polyurethane (PU) fibers to examine the polarization behavior of the composite fiber assembly. Aligned electrospun fibers containing CsPbBr 3 NWs showed a remarkable increase in the degree of polarization from 0.17-0.30. This combination of NWs and PU fibers provides a promising composite material for various applications such as optoelectronic devices and solar cells.

Dislocation density dependent electroabsorption in epitaxial lateral overgrown InGaN/GaN quantum structures.

We study electroabsorption (EA) behavior of InGaN/GaN quantum structures grown using epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG) in correlation with their dislocation density levels and in comparison to steady state and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements. The results reveal that ELOG structures with decreasing mask stripe widths exhibit stronger EA performance, with a maximum EA enhancement factor of 4.8 compared to the reference without ELOG. The analyses show that the EA performance follows similar trends with decreasing dislocation density as the essential parameters of the photoluminescence spectra (peak position, width and intensity) together with the photoluminescence lifetimes. While keeping the growth window widths constant, compared to photoluminescence behavior, however, EA surprisingly exhibits the largest performance variation, making EA the most sensitive to the mask stripe widths.

Opposite carrier dynamics and optical absorption characteristics under external electric field in nonpolar vs. polar InGaN/GaN based quantum heterostructures.

We report on the electric field dependent carrier dynamics and optical absorption in nonpolar a-plane GaN-based quantum heterostructures grown on r-plane sapphire, which are surprisingly observed to be opposite to those polar ones of the same materials system and similar structure grown on c-plane. Confirmed by their time-resolved photoluminescence measurements and numerical analyses, we show that carrier lifetimes increase with increasing external electric field in nonpolar InGaN/GaN heterostructure epitaxy, whereas exactly the opposite occurs for the polar epitaxy. Moreover, we observe blue-shifting absorption spectra with increasing external electric field as a result of reversed quantum confined Stark effect in these polar structures, while we observe red-shifting absorption spectra with increasing external electric field because of standard quantum confined Stark effect in the nonpolar structures. We explain these opposite behaviors of external electric field dependence with the changing overlap of electron and hole wavefunctions in the context of Fermi's golden rule.

[Causative agents of intravenous catheter-related infections and their antibiotic susceptibilities]. / Damar Içi Kateter ile Iliskili Enfeksiyon Etkenleri ve Antibiyotik Duyarliliklari

Intravenous catheterization can lead to colonization as well as a broad spectrum of infections ranging from catheter site infections to catheter-related blood stream infections (CRBSIs). The aim of this study was to evaluate the distribution of causative agents and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns in CRBSIs and catheter site infections along with the colonization rates and colonizing microorganisms in Zonguldak Karaelmas University Hospital, Turkey. The results of cultures from catheter tips and/or intracatheter blood cultures and simultaneously taken peripheral blood cultures were sent to medical microbiology laboratory and were retrospectively investigated for 201 patients hospitalized between September 2007 and September 2009. The catheter tips were cultured by semi-quantitative and quantitative culture methods. Blood cultures from the catheters and peripheral veins were performed in BACTEC 9120 (Becton Dickinson, USA) blood culture systems. The antibiotic susceptibility tests were done by Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method according to the guidelines of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). Out of 201 patients included, 28 (13.9%) had CRBSIs and 13 (6.4%) had catheter site infections while colonization was defined for 55 (27.3%) patients. Of 28 patients with CRBSIs, Acinetobacter spp. were isolated from 11 including five carbapenem-resistant strains, methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci (MRCNS) from eight, methicillin-susceptible coagulase-negative staphylococci (MSCNS) from two, Klebsiella pneumoniae from two patients and one of each patient's cultures yielded methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterococcus spp., Escherichia coli and MRCNS + Enterococcus faecium. Of 13 patients with catheter site infections, five MSCNS, two methicillin-susceptible S.aureus (MSSA), two E.coli, and one of each K.pneumoniae, MRCNS, Enterococcus spp., K.pneumoniae + P.aeruginosa were isolated. No resistance to vancomycin and teicoplanin were detected among the staphylococci isolated from CRBSIs and catheter site infections. The distribution of the 55 colonizing microorganisms were as follows; 18 MSCNS, 18 MRCNS, four Acinetobacter spp., five K.pneumoniae, three E.coli, two MSSA, and one of each MRSA, P.mirabilis, P.aeruginosa, Corynebacterium spp., Candida albicans. In this study, the predominant microorganism isolated from CRBSIs was Acinetobacter spp., followed by coagulase-negative staphylococci. This unexpected distribution of the agents was related to the Acinetobacter spp. that have gained endemic potential following an Acinetobacter outbreak in our hospital in 2006. We emphasize that it is critical for any individual hospital to assess periodically the distribution and susceptibility profiles of isolates obtained from catheter-related infections to set out rational empirical treatment strategies.

Spatially selective assembly of quantum dot light emitters in an LED using engineered peptides.

Semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots are utilized in numerous applications in nano- and biotechnology. In device applications, where several different material components are involved, quantum dots typically need to be assembled at explicit locations for enhanced functionality. Conventional approaches cannot meet these requirements where assembly of nanocrystals is usually material-nonspecific, thereby limiting the control of their spatial distribution. Here we demonstrate directed self-assembly of quantum dot emitters at material-specific locations in a color-conversion LED containing several material components including a metal, a dielectric, and a semiconductor. We achieve a spatially selective immobilization of quantum dot emitters by using the unique material selectivity characteristics provided by the engineered solid-binding peptides as smart linkers. Peptide-decorated quantum dots exhibited several orders of magnitude higher photoluminescence compared to the control groups, thus, potentially opening up novel ways to advance these photonic platforms in applications ranging from chemical to biodetection.