1. Diagnosis, clinical presentation and management of celiac disease in children and adolescents in PolandJoanna Bierła, Anna Szaflarska-Popławska, Urszula Grzybowska-Chlebowczyk, Beata Oralewska, Marta Cyba, Grzegorz Oracz, Ewa Konopka, Božena Cukrowska, Małgorzata Syczewska, Honorata Kołodziejczyk, Petra Rižnik, Jernej Dolinšek, 2024, original scientific article Abstract: Celiac disease (CD) is a chronic immune-mediated disorder triggered by the ingestion of gluten in genetically predisposed individuals, affecting about 1% of the general population in the developed world. In 2012, the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) recommendations for CD diagnoses in children and adolescents were introduced, allowing the “no-biopsy” approach if certain criteria were met. This approach was also confirmed in the revised guidelines published in 2020. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess—over a one-year period—the clinical presentations and current status of the management of children and adolescents diagnosed with CD in Poland. Medical records of children and adolescents, newly diagnosed with CD in 2022/2023 in three medical centers in Poland, were involved. Gastroenterologists completed the specific anonymous web-based forms developed in the CD SKILLS project, including data routinely assessed at individual visits about the diagnostic approach and clinical presentation of the disease. Our study assessed 100 patients (56% girls) with an age range 1.6–18.0 years. We found that 98% of patients were serologically tested prior to a CD diagnosis and 58% of patients were diagnosed using the “no-biopsy” approach. In the analyzed group, 40% belonged to a known risk group, only 22% had annual screening before the CD diagnosis (the longest for 9 years), and 19% showed no symptoms at the time of the CD diagnosis. Our research confirmed the applicability of the “no-biopsy” approach for the diagnosis of CD in children and adolescents in Poland, and also showed changes in the clinical picture of CD. Moreover, we highlight the need to introduce broad CD serological screening in risk groups of the Polish population.
Keywords: celiac disease, no-biopsy, risk groups, Polish population
Published in DKUM: 04.04.2025; Views: 0; Downloads: 1
 Full text (1,28 MB)
This document has many files! More... |
2. The analysis of the effects of a fare free public transport travel demand based on e-ticketingDanijel Hojski, David Hazemali, Marjan Lep, 2022, original scientific article Abstract: The traditional approach in public transport planning was to collect travel demand data for a more extended period and compose timetables to serve this demand. There are two significant identifiable issues. In the rural areas and off-peak hours, public transport operators provide much more capacities than needed. On the other hand, more capacities than scheduled are needed on certain lines at certain departures on some sporadically occurring occasions. The problem is how to react to short-term changes (daily) triggered by exceptional circumstances and events and midterm changes (weekly, monthly basis) in travel demand. We can trigger changes in travel demand chiefly by introducing a desirable (almost for free) tariff system applied to specific populations. No long-term travel response data exists for this kind of intervention, but an immediate response in public transport supply is needed. In Slovenia, public transport for free for the whole population over 65 years was introduced. With the modern ticketing system, which was designed to be as simple as possible for users (that means "check-in only" at the moment of boarding), the research task was to analyze the travel behavior of the retired population, faced with a new attractive option to travel, based on data of purchased tickets and their afterward validation, for better mid-and long-term planning. Our study finds that ITS technology (in this case, e-ticketing system) can satisfactorily solve the discussed planning and management task.
Keywords: fare-free public transport, smart card data collecting, population mobility, travel demand
Published in DKUM: 13.03.2025; Views: 0; Downloads: 1
Full text (2,11 MB)
This document has many files! More... |
3. Ranking the invasions of cheaters in structured populationsGuoli Yang, Matteo Cavaliere, Cheng Zhu, Matjaž Perc, 2020, original scientific article Abstract: The identification of the most influential individuals in structured populations is an important research question, with many applications across the social and natural sciences. Here, we study this problem in evolutionary populations on static networks, where invading cheaters can lead to the collapse of cooperation. We propose six strategies to rank the invading cheaters and identify those which mostly facilitate the collapse of cooperation. We demonstrate that the type of successful rankings depend on the selection strength, the underlying game, and the network structure. We show that random ranking has generally little ability to successfully identify invading cheaters, especially for the stag-hunt game in scale-free networks and when the selection strength is strong. The ranking based on degree can successfully identify the most influential invaders when the selection strength is weak, while more structured rankings perform better at strong selection. Scale-free networks and strong selection are generally detrimental to the performance of the random ranking, but they are beneficial for the performance of structured rankings. Our research reveals how to identify the most influential invaders using statistical measures in structured communities, and it demonstrates how their success depends on population structure, selection strength, and on the underlying game dynamics.
Keywords: cooperation, cheating, network, population, evolution
Published in DKUM: 07.01.2025; Views: 0; Downloads: 4
Full text (6,72 MB)
This document has many files! More... |
4. Socio-demographic and health factors drive the epidemic progression and should guide vaccination strategies for best COVID-19 containmentRene Markovič, Marko Šterk, Marko Marhl, Matjaž Perc, Marko Gosak, 2021, original scientific article Abstract: We propose and study an epidemiological model on a social network that takes into account heterogeneity of the population and different vaccination strategies. In particular, we study how the COVID-19 epidemics evolves and how it is contained by different vaccination scenarios by taking into account data showing that older people, as well as individuals with comorbidities and poor metabolic health, and people coming from economically depressed areas with lower quality of life in general, are more likely to develop severe COVID-19 symptoms, and quicker loss of immunity and are therefore more prone to reinfection. Our results reveal that the structure and the spatial arrangement of subpopulations are important epidemiological determinants. In a healthier society the disease spreads more rapidly but the consequences are less disastrous as in a society with more prevalent chronic comorbidities. If individuals with poor health are segregated within one community, the epidemic outcome is less favorable. Moreover, we show that, contrary to currently widely adopted vaccination policies, prioritizing elderly and other higher-risk groups is beneficial only if the supply of vaccine is high. If, however, the vaccination availability is limited, and if the demographic distribution across the social network is homogeneous, better epidemic outcomes are achieved if healthy people are vaccinated first. Only when higher-risk groups are segregated, like in elderly homes, their prioritization will lead to lower COVID-19 related deaths. Accordingly, young and healthy individuals should view vaccine uptake as not only protecting them, but perhaps even more so protecting the more vulnerable socio-demographic groups.
Keywords: epidemic model, COVID-19, vaccination strategy, vaccination strategy, population heterogeneity, socio-demographic structure, metabolic disease, social network
Published in DKUM: 14.11.2024; Views: 0; Downloads: 12
Full text (7,09 MB)
This document has many files! More... |
5. Architecture of the health system as an enabler of better wellbeingTimotej Jagrič, Štefan Bojnec, Christine Elisabeth Brown, Vita Jagrič, 2023, original scientific article Abstract: ntroduction: Health systems worldwide have heterogenous capacities and financing characteristics. No clear empirical evidence is available on the possible outcomes of these characteristics for population wellbeing.
Aim: The study aims to provide empirical insight into health policy alternatives to support the development of health system architecture to improve population wellbeing.
Method and results: We developed an unsupervised neural network model to cluster countries and used the Human Development Index to derive a wellbeing model. The results show that no single health system architecture is associated with a higher level of population wellbeing. Strikingly, high levels of health expenditure and physical health capacity do not guarantee a high level of population wellbeing and different health systems correspond to a certain wellbeing level.
Conclusions: Our analysis shows that alternative options exist for some health system characteristics. These can be considered by governments developing health policy priorities.
Keywords: population wellbeing, health system capacity, public health system, health policy, neural network
Published in DKUM: 19.07.2024; Views: 186; Downloads: 9
Full text (3,01 MB)
This document has many files! More... |
6. Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected mathematics achievement? : a case study of university students in social sciencesAnja Žnidaršič, Alenka Brezavšček, Gregor Rus, Janja Jerebic, 2022, original scientific article Abstract: This study examines the effects of COVID-19-related measures on the mathematics achievement of university students in social sciences in Slovenia. Our particular concern was to compare two student populations (pre-pandemic and pandemic) in terms of factors affecting student performance in mathematics courses. Data were collected over nine consecutive academic years (from 2013–2014 to 2020–2021) and analyzed using two-stage structural equation modelling (SEM). The analyses confirmed that the conceptual model developed before the pandemic was applicable during the pandemic period. For both populations (pre-pandemic and pandemic), mathematics confidence, perceived level of math anxiety, background knowledge from secondary school, and self-engagement in mathematics courses at university were confirmed as factors influencing mathematics achievement. Moreover, both populations perceived the effects of the factors in the same way, and the magnitude of the effects is comparable. The rather high values of determination coefficient for mathematics achievement (greater than 0.66 for both student populations) indicate that the variables “Perceived Level of Math Anxiety” and “Self-Engagement in Mathematics Course at University” together explain a significant proportion of the total variance before and during the pandemic. Consequently, the results of our case study indicated that pandemic measures did not have a significant impact on our students’ mathematics achievement. Although a more in-depth study of a broader sample of academic courses would be needed to confirm our findings, our experience indicates that mathematics courses at the tertiary level of education can be successfully delivered online.
Keywords: COVID-19, mathematics achievement, university students, social sciences, pre-pandemic population, pandemic population, comparison, multi-group structural equation modeling (MG-SEM)
Published in DKUM: 09.07.2024; Views: 112; Downloads: 11
Full text (1,64 MB)
This document has many files! More... |
7. Complex population structure and haplotype patterns in the Western European honey bee from sequencing a large panel of haploid dronesDavid Wragg, Sonia E. Eynard, Benjamin Basso, Kamila Canale-Tabet, Emmanuelle Labarthe, Olivier Bouchez, Kaspar Bienefeld, Małgorzata Bieńkowska, Cecilia Costa, Aleš Gregorc, Per Kryger, Melanie Parejo, Alice M. Pinto, Jean-Pierre Bidanel, Bertrand Servin, Yves Le Conte, Alain Vignal, 2022, original scientific article Abstract: Honey bee subspecies originate from specific geographical areas in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and beekeepers interested in specific phenotypes have imported genetic material to regions outside of the bees' original range for use either in pure lines or controlled crosses. Moreover, imported drones are present in the environment and mate naturally with queens from the local subspecies. The resulting admixture complicates population genetics analyses, and population stratification can be a major problem for association studies. To better understand Western European honey bee populations, we produced a whole genome sequence and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotype data set from 870 haploid drones and demonstrate its utility for the identification of nine genetic backgrounds and various degrees of admixture in a subset of 629 samples. Five backgrounds identified correspond to subspecies, two to isolated populations on islands and two to managed populations. We also highlight several large haplotype blocks, some of which coincide with the position of centromeres. The largest is 3.6 Mb long and represents 21% of chromosome 11, with two major haplotypes corresponding to the two dominant genetic backgrounds identified. This large naturally phased data set is available as a single vcf file that can now serve as a reference for subsequent populations genomics studies in the honey bee, such as (i) selecting individuals of verified homogeneous genetic backgrounds as references, (ii) imputing genotypes from a lower-density data set generated by an SNP-chip or by low-pass sequencing, or (iii) selecting SNPs compatible with the requirements of genotyping chips.
Keywords: genome, haplotype, honey bee, population genetics, SNP
Published in DKUM: 08.07.2024; Views: 109; Downloads: 15
Full text (3,07 MB)
This document has many files! More... |
8. Towards forty years of Krško NPP operation : an overview of population exposures to radiationMatjaž Koželj, 2021, original scientific article Abstract: In this article, the influence of a controlled magnetic field on gadolinium plates was modelled and simulated to be used in magnetic refrigeration installations. This is a state-of-the-art technology that does not use refrigerants and does not work based on vapour compression, which is based on the operation of the magnetocaloric properties of the material used; in the case below, this material, in the form of a flat plate, has certain magnetocaloric properties and under the influence of magnetic induction can be used successfully in such innovative installations. The advantages of using gadolinium in the form of a flat plate in a magnetic regenerator and thermal energy dissipation on its surface under the controlled magnetic field's influence were studied.
Keywords: Krško NPP, NEK, radioactivity monitoring, radioactivity releases, dose assessment, population exposures, history of doses
Published in DKUM: 10.11.2023; Views: 305; Downloads: 4
Full text (5,29 MB)
This document has many files! More... |
9. |
10. |
