Aims/hypothesis: Low birthweight (LBW) is associated with younger age, less obesity and more hypertension among people recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, as well as increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality risk. It is not known whether LBW is associated with an increased risk of incident chronic kidney disease (CKD) among people with a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Methods: Original mid

Background and objective: Guideline recommendations regarding early management of grade group (GG) 2 prostate cancer with confirmatory biopsy (cBx) are not well established. Our aim was to determine which patients with GG 2 cancer should undergo cBx before treatment decision-making by evaluating the probability of downgrading to GG 1 or no cancer on cBx. Methods: This was a single-institution retr

Introduction: The infarcted heart is energetically compromised exhibiting a deficient production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and the ensuing impaired contractile function. Short-term blockade of the protein S100A9 improves cardiac performance in mice after myocardial infarction (MI). The implications upon ATP production during this process are not known. Objectives: This study evaluates whethe

Objectives: IgA vasculitis (IgAV) in adults has been relatively under-investigated. Since outcomes are worse in other forms of vasculitis with increasing age, we investigated the outcomes of IgAV comparing younger adults (18-34), middle-aged adults (35-64) and elderly patients (≥64 years) focusing on kidney outcomes. Methods: We identified patients with renal biopsy-confirmed IgAV nephritis and co

The dissociative effects of ketamine and psychedelics might be associated with their rapid antidepressant properties, raising questions about whether these effects are necessary for their therapeutic action. Additionally, the distinct dissociative experiences often reported by patients in clinical trials may reveal whether they receive an active treatment or a placebo, potentially introducing bias

In this paper, we develop an uncertainty-aware decision-making and motion-planning method for an autonomous ego vehicle in forced merging scenarios, considering the motion uncertainty of surrounding vehicles. The method dynamically captures the uncertainty of surrounding vehicles by online estimation of their acceleration bounds, enabling a reactive but rapid understanding of the uncertainty chara

Planning and navigation in real-time traffic is challenging, since the driving environment (e.g., road network and infrastructure) is complex and the accurate prediction of surrounding vehicles is hard. To address this, this paper proposes an environment and uncertainty-aware robust motion-planning strategy. The method achieves environment awareness by considering road-geometry constraints in the

Safe motion planning for robotic systems in dynamic environments is nontrivial in the presence of uncertain obstacles, where estimation of obstacle uncertainties is crucial in predicting future motions of dynamic obstacles. The worst case characterization gives a conservative uncertainty prediction and may result in infeasible motion planning for the ego robotic system. In this article, an efficie

Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs), formed via lipid vesicle adsorption on highly curved silica surfaces, are widely used in biosensor applications and as models for curved cell membranes. However, SLB formation is often hindered on convex structures with radii comparable to the vesicles. In this study, lightguiding semiconductor nanowires (NWs), engineered for fluorescence signal enhancement, were u

We present an explicit solution to the discrete-time Bellman equation for minimax optimal control of positive systems under unconstrained disturbances. The primary contribution of our result relies on deducing a bound for the disturbance penalty, which characterizes the existence of a finite solution to the problem class. Moreover, this constraint on the disturbance penalty reveals that, in scenar

The strategies, decisions and beliefs of those who occupy prominent positions of economic power have influence on very large corporations and the markets they dominate, on vast amounts of economic resources, and on the rules of the game. However, the sociology of elites faces a dual challenge: divergent conceptualisations of what can be considered as a position of economic power and internationall

In recent years, a growing interest in sustainable tourism and outdoor recreation has emerged in Sweden and globally. While a positive development for many reasons, it coincides with other shifting patterns in recreational nature use, influenced by climate change, social media, and experimental interventions in natural areas. These developments bring opportunities to broaden participation, but als

Terahertz pulses generated by two-color laser plasmas have reported peak field strengths exceeding MV/cm, and when illuminating metal nanotips, the near-field enhancement at the tip apex should result in extremely high bunch charges and electron energies via sub-cycle cold-field emission. Here, electron emission from tungsten nanotips driven by THz pulses generated by a long filament air-plasma is

Background: While recent studies suggest a high prevalence of Internet gaming disorder (IGD) in child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) clinics, little is known about the factors contributing to problematic gaming among these patients. Given the well-established role of parenting and parent-child relationships in the development of problem behaviors, this study aimed to explore parent-child relation

The Internet of Things (IoT) can be defined as the network of physical objects, or "things,"embedded with sensors and software for processing and exchanging data with other devices and ecosystems using the Internet as a medium. With its rapid growth over the past decade, it has permeated several application domains, including intelligent vehicular systems. The Internet of Autonomous Vehicles (IoAV

The marine environment faces significant changes due to anthropogenic activities, with urbanisation and "marine sprawl" introducing artificial structures that disrupt natural ecosystems. Artificial reefs (AR) and nature-inclusive design offer solutions to enhance habitat complexity and foster ecological restoration. This thesis investigates how AR design and material properties can suppo

Industrial symbiosis (IS) holds significant potential to reduce resource consumption and improve economic efficiency within process industries. Previous studies have shown that innovative solutions play an important role in advancing IS. However, the role of policy instruments promoting innovation has not yet been systematically analysed in relation to industrial symbiosis. This study takes a deep

Cerebral accumulation of alpha-synuclein (αSyn) aggregates is the hallmark event in a group of neurodegenerative diseases—collectively called synucleinopathies—which include Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy. Currently, these are diagnosed by their clinical symptoms and definitively confirmed postmortem by the presence of αSyn deposits in the brain. Here, w

Background: The Prostatype score (P-score) is a prognostic biomarker that integrates a three-gene (IGFBP3, F3, and VGLL3) signature derived from prostate biopsy samples, with key clinical parameters, including prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels, Gleason grade, and tumor stage at diagnosis. The test has demonstrated superior predictive accuracy for prostate cancer outcomes compared with traditi