Cohort profile: Worldwide Collaboration on OsteoArthritis prediCtion for the Hip (World COACH) - an international consortium of prospective cohort studies with individual participant data on hip osteoarthritis

Purpose Hip osteoarthritis (OA) is a major cause of pain and disability worldwide. Lack of effective therapies may reflect poor knowledge on its aetiology and risk factors, and result in the management of end-stage hip OA with costly joint replacement. The Worldwide Collaboration on OsteoArthritis prediCtion for the Hip (World COACH)...

General Aspects of Fractures in Children

A fracture is a partial or complete disruption of the continuity of bone or cartilage, due to mechanical forces exceeding the strength of the bone or cartilage to withstand these forces.Fractures are common in children. In a large Swedish study, the overall annual incidence of fractures in children was 2.1% (2.6 for boys; 1.7 for girls). Most...

Child Abuse, Non-Accidental Trauma, and Inflicted Injuries

Child abuse, irrespective of the type of child abuse, probably is the most prevalent risk factor for the development of children. Physical abuse is the type of abuse with the highest risk of infliction of injuries. The most injured organ due to physical abuse is the skin, with bruises being the most prevalent cutaneous injury. Other cutaneous...

Comparing the accuracy of several network-based COVID-19 prediction algorithms

Researchers from various scientific disciplines have attempted to forecast the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The proposed epidemic prediction methods range from basic curve fitting methods and traffic interaction models to machine-learning approaches. If we combine all these approaches, we obtain the Network Inference-based...

1H-NMR metabolomics-based surrogates to impute common clinical risk factors and endpoints

Background: Missing or incomplete phenotypic information can severely deteriorate the statistical power in epidemiological studies. High-throughput quantification of small-molecules in bio-samples, i.e. ‘metabolomics’, is steadily gaining popularity, as it is highly informative for various phenotypical characteristics. Here we aim to leverage...

“Stay nearby or get checked”: A Covid-19 control strategy

This paper repurposes the classic insight from network theory that long-distance connections drive disease propagation into a strategy for controlling a second wave of Covid-19. We simulate a scenario in which a lockdown is first imposed on a population and then partly lifted while long-range transmission is kept at a minimum. Simulated...

Statistical shape modeling of the hip and the association with hip osteoarthritis: a systematic review

Objective: To summarize available evidence on the association between hip shape as quantified by statistical shape modeling (SSM) and the incidence or progression of hip osteoarthritis. Design: We conducted a systematic search of five electronic databases, based on a registered protocol (available: PROSPERO CRD42020145411). Articles...

Resistance to developing brain pathology due to vascular risk factors: the role of educational attainment

Brain pathology develops at different rates between individuals with similar burden of risk factors, possibly explained by brain resistance. We examined if education contributes to brain resistance by studying its influence on the association between vascular risk factors and brain pathology. In 4111 stroke-free and dementia-free community...

Network-inference-based prediction of the COVID-19 epidemic outbreak in the Chinese province Hubei

At the moment of writing, the future evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic is unclear. Predictions of the further course of the epidemic are decisive to deploy targeted disease control measures. We consider a network-based model to describe the COVID-19 epidemic in the Hubei province. The network is composed of the cities in Hubei and their...

Network-based prediction of COVID-19 epidemic spreading in Italy

Initially emerged in the Chinese city Wuhan and subsequently spread almost worldwide causing a pandemic, the SARS-CoV-2 virus follows reasonably well the Susceptible–Infectious–Recovered (SIR) epidemic model on contact networks in the Chinese case. In this paper, we investigate the prediction accuracy of the SIR model on networks also for...

An automated workflow based on hip shape improves personalized risk prediction for hip osteoarthritis in the CHECK study

Objective: To design an automated workflow for hip radiographs focused on joint shape and tests its prognostic value for future hip osteoarthritis. Design: We used baseline and 8-year follow-up data from 1,002 participants of the CHECK-study. The primary outcome was definite radiographic hip osteoarthritis (rHOA) (Kellgren–Lawrence grade ≥2...

Patterns of functional connectivity in an aging population: The Rotterdam Study

Structural brain markers are studied extensively in the field of neurodegeneration, but are thought to occur rather late in the process. Functional measures such as functional connectivity are gaining interest as potentially more subtle markers of neurodegeneration. However, brain structure and function are also affected by ‘normal’ brain...

Trajectories of imaging markers in brain aging: the Rotterdam Study

With aging, the brain undergoes several structural changes. These changes reflect the normal aging process and are therefore not necessarily pathologic. In fact, better understanding of these normal changes is an important cornerstone to also disentangle pathologic changes. Several studies have investigated normal brain aging, both cross...

Altered tract-specific white matter microstructure is related to poorer cognitive performance. The Rotterdam Study

White matter microstructural integrity has been related to cognition. Yet, the potential role of specificwhite matter tracts on top of a global white matter effect remains unclear, especially when consideringspecific cognitive domains. Therefore, we determined the tract-specific effect of white matter micro-structure on global cognition and...

Is there a future for biomonitoring of elemental air pollution? A review focused on a larger-scaled health-related (epidemiological) context

The present paper focuses on biomonitoring of elemental atmospheric pollution, which is reviewed in terms of larger-scaled biomonitoring surveys in an epidemiological context. Based on the literature information, today’s availability of solar-powered small air filter samplers and fibrous ion exchange materials is regarded as adequate or an even...