Browsing by Department "Aarhus Universitet"
  • Institution Publication
    Accounting for medication particularities: Designing for everyday medication management
    ( 2013-09-02)
    Dalgaard L.G.
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    Gronvall E.
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    Verdezoto N.
    Several projects have shown that self-management of medication in private homes can be challenging. Many projects focused on specific illness-related approaches (e.g. diabetes) or practical issues such as how to handle medication while travelling. However, designing for everyday medication management involves more than just specific illness-related strategies and should take into account the broad set of activities conforming people's everyday life. This study investigates how older adults manage their medication in everyday life. To inform the design of pervasive healthcare medication management systems (PHMMS), the study calls for attention to medication-specific particularities that account for: according to need medication, the heterogeneous care network, the substitute medication, the medication informational order, the shared responsibility and the adjustment of medication intake. These medication particularities can enhance the individual's medication overview and support the understanding of medication intake in everyday life. The study also presents five design principles for future design of PHMMS. © 2013 ICST.
  • Institution Publication
    Air quality simulation with WRF-Chem over southeastern Brazil, part I: Model description and evaluation using ground-based and satellite data
    ( 2023-11-01)
    Benavente N.R.
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    Vara-Vela A.L.
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    Vara-Vela A.L.
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    Vara-Vela A.L.
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    Nascimento J.P.
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    Nascimento J.P.
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    Acuna J.R.
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    Damascena A.S.
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    de Fatima Andrade M.
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    Yamasoe M.A.
    A comprehensive Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model evaluation is conducted using ground-based and total column observational data from air quality stations and satellite retrievals. Fine particles (PM2.5; ≤ 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter), nitrogen oxides (NOx, NO + NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), tropospheric ozone (O3) concentrations and AOD values over southeastern Brazil were analyzed to assess the model's capability in reproducing atmospheric observation. The model simulations were performed over simple one domain at grid resolution of 10 km over southeastern Brazil. This spatial resolution was chosen due to a previous evaluation between five MODIS AOD products with AERONET estimates, resulting in Dark Target at 10 km of spatial resolution the best product to represent the AOD values over our study domain. Model input emissions comprise vehicular emissions derived from a bottom-up emission model, as well as on-line calculations of biogenic and fire emission rates. Given that the atmospheric state affects air pollution dispersion, a model evaluation on the meteorological conditions was carried out to better evaluate the model performance in reproducing the pollutant concentrations. Good agreement between model simulations and observations for air temperature and relative humidity at 2 m height was found, with correlation coefficients higher than 0.85 in most periods. Expected benchmarks for wind speed and direction at 10 m height were also found in this analysis, though with larger uncertainties. Underestimation occurred for daily accumulated precipitation due to the limitations of the cloud microphysics scheme or cumulus parameterization. Model simulations of PM2.5, NOx, CO and O3 agreed well with ground-based observations in terms of temporal variations and trends, with model-observation discrepancies due to uncertainties in the emission inventories. O3 was the better simulated pollutant in terms of temporal variability, with the characteristic large and small amplitudes observed over urban and rural areas being well represented by the model. High O3 concentrations were observed at the Botucatu station, due to transport of pollutants generated in the Metropolitan Area of São Paulo, and were also represented by the model, indicating the need of more active air quality monitoring stations over inland regions in southeastern Brazil. Moderate and high correlation coefficients (ranging 0.46–0.81) were found for tropospheric NO2 VCD and CO column, and AOD at 550 nm due to uncertainties in the emission inventories and aerosol model simplifications. Both the model and satellite captured higher values in similar regions over our study domain. This work represents a first effort, in southeastern Brazil, that combines numerical modeling, remote sensing and ground-based stations to analyze and understand the impact exerted by the emissions of urban pollution over surrounding areas. A more in-depth analysis of the impact of emissions transport to inland regions from urban areas in southeastern Brazil will be discussed in the second part of this work.
  • Institution Publication
    Antipsychotic prescriptions in people with dementia in primary care: a cohort study investigating adherence of dose and duration to UK clinical guidelines
    ( 2025-10-01)
    Smith H.C.
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    Petersen I.
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    Petersen I.
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    Hayes J.F.
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    Jordan K.P.
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    Boman M.
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    Boman M.
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    Banerjee S.
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    Walters K.
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    Cooper C.
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    Bazo-Alvarez J.C.
    Background: In the UK, it is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) that if antipsychotics are initiated in people living with dementia, treatment should be at the lowest dose for the shortest time possible (1–3 months). In this study, we aimed to investigate how dose and duration of antipsychotic medication adhere to UK clinical guidelines and explore treatment restart details in those who stop treatment. Methods: We did a retrospective cohort study using longitudinal UK primary care data from the IQVIA Medical Research Database. We included people living with dementia aged 60–85 years who received their first antipsychotic prescription between Jan 1, 2000, and Dec 31, 2023. Individuals with any previous antipsychotic prescriptions in their records more than 1 year before a dementia diagnosis and those who had missing social deprivation information were excluded from the study. Duration of first and subsequent antipsychotic treatment episodes, medication dosage, and treatment discontinuation and reinitiation rates were investigated. Duration and discontinuation were defined by grouping consecutive prescriptions into treatment episodes using the waiting time distribution method (80% inter-arrival density, 59 days). Daily doses were derived from strength and frequency information and categorised as low or moderate or high based on established minimum effective dose equivalences. People with lived experience of dementia care contributed throughout this project, shaping the research question and advising on interpretation and dissemination strategies. Findings: In our dataset search, we identified 108 910 people with a record indicating dementia at any time. In total, 99 091 cases were excluded (ie, individuals with no antipsychotic prescription between the ages of 60 and 85 years between 2000 and 2023, a previous history of antipsychotics, missing deprivation information, or only one eligible prescription). We included 9819 people living with dementia aged 60–85 years who received their first antipsychotic prescription between 2000 and 2023 in the study. 5310 (54·1%) were female and 4509 (45·9%) were male, with a mean age of 77·1 years (SD 5·6 years), and ethnicity data were not available. The first treatment episode lasted a median of 7 months (IQR 6·6–8·7), exceeding NICE guidelines of 1–3 months and 18·1% [95% CI 17·4–18·9]) were initiated on a prescription above the minimum effective dose (ie, low dose). Of the 1781 participants who started on a moderate or high dose, 519 (29·1%) had a moderate or high dose in all quarters of the first year of treatment. 1 year after treatment initiation, 5136 (78·3%) of 6559 eligible individuals remained on medication (48·9% [95% CI 47·7–50·1] on low dose, 14·8% [13·9–15·6] on moderate or high dose of haloperidol, olanzapine, quetiapine or risperidone; and 14·6% [13·8–15·5] on other antipsychotics). Of the 5547 individuals eligible to restart treatment after initial discontinuation, 3106 (56%) restarted with a median treatment duration of 2·6 months (IQR 0·0–9·9). Interpretation: This study highlights how antipsychotic prescribing in dementia is discordant with current NICE guidelines on both duration and dose. More than half of those who discontinued their treatment then restarted treatment. These findings emphasise a persistent gap between clinical guidelines and real-world prescribing, underscoring the need for interventions that prioritise safety and person-centred dementia care. Funding: National Institute for Health and Care Research School for Primary Care Research.
  • Institution Publication
    Beyond self-monitoring: Understanding non-functional aspects of home-based healthcare technology
    ( 2013-10-15)
    Grönvall E.
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    Verdezoto N.
    Monitoring of health parameters in non-clinical settings is one strategy to address the increasingly aging population and age-related disabilities and diseases. However, challenges exist when introducing self-monitoring activities in people's everyday life. An active lifestyle can challenge the appropriation of healthcare technologies and people with comorbidity may have diverse but co-existing monitoring needs. In this paper, we seek to understand home-based health monitoring practices to better design and integrate them into people's everyday life. We perform an analysis of socio-technical complexities in home-based healthcare technologies through three case studies of self monitoring: 1) preeclampsia (i.e. pregnancy poisoning), 2) heart conditions, and 3) preventive care. Through the analysis seven themes emerged (people, resources, places, routines, knowledge, control and motivation) that can facilitate the understanding of home-based healthcare activities. We present three modes of self-monitoring use and provide a set of design recommendations for future Ubicomp designs of home-based healthcare technology. Copyright © 2013 ACM.
  • Institution Publication
    Beyond the individual: The contextual wheel of practice as a research framework for sustainable HCI
    ( 2015-04-18)
    Entwistle J.M.
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    Rasmussen M.K.
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    Verdezoto N.
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    Brewer R.S.
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    Andersen M.S.
    Addressing human impact on the environment by focusing on shared everyday practices, rather than just individual behavior is an approach that shows promise. However, it can be challenging to put this approach into concrete use, especially in teams unfamiliar with the practice orientation. To support the practice approach, we introduce the Contextual Wheel of Practice (COWOP), a framework that can: 1) help researchers and designers to better understand practices, 2) design effective interventions, and 3) facilitate collaboration between team members from different disciplines, who may not be familiar with the practice orientation. We describe how COWOP was developed, and our experiences using COWOP in three different cases. We then position COWOP as part of the "turn to practice" in HCI, and discuss how it can be useful to HCI researchers and be applied in domains beyond sustainability, such as healthcare and privacy.
  • Institution Publication
    Chronic neuropsychiatric sequelae of SARS-CoV-2: Protocol and methods from the Alzheimer's Association Global Consortium
    ( 2022-01-01)
    de Erausquin G.A.
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    Snyder H.
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    Brugha T.S.
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    Seshadri S.
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    Carrillo M.
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    Sagar R.
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    Huang Y.
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    Newton C.
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    Tartaglia C.
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    Teunissen C.
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    Håkanson K.
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    Akinyemi R.
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    Prasad K.
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    D'Avossa G.
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    Gonzalez-Aleman G.
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    Hosseini A.
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    Vavougios G.D.
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    Sachdev P.
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    Bankart J.
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    Mors N.P.O.
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    Lipton R.
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    Katz M.
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    Fox P.T.
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    Katshu M.Z.
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    Iyengar M.S.
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    Weinstein G.
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    Sohrabi H.R.
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    Jenkins R.
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    Stein D.J.
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    Hugon J.
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    Mavreas V.
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    Blangero J.
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    Cruchaga C.
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    Krishna M.
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    Wadoo O.
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    Becerra R.
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    Zwir I.
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    Longstreth W.T.
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    Kroenenberg G.
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    Edison P.
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    Mukaetova-Ladinska E.
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    Staufenberg E.
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    Figueredo-Aguiar M.
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    Yécora A.
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    Vaca F.
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    Zamponi H.P.
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    Re V.L.
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    Majid A.
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    Sundarakumar J.
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    Gonzalez H.M.
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    Geerlings M.I.
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    Skoog I.
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    Salmoiraghi A.
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    Boneschi F.M.
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    Patel V.N.
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    Santos J.M.
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    Arroyo G.R.
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    Moreno A.C.
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    Felix P.
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    Gallo C.
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    Arai H.
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    Yamada M.
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    Iwatsubo T.
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    Sharma M.
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    Chakraborty N.
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    Ferreccio C.
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    Akena D.
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    Brayne C.
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    Maestre G.
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    Blangero S.W.
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    Brusco L.I.
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    Siddarth P.
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    Hughes T.M.
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    Zuñiga A.R.
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    Kambeitz J.
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    Laza A.R.
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    Allen N.
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    Panos S.
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    Merrill D.
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    Ibáñez A.
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    Ibáñez A.
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    Ibáñez A.
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    Tsuang D.
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    Valishvili N.
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    Shrestha S.
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    Wang S.
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    Wang S.
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    Padma V.
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    Anstey K.J.
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    Ravindrdanath V.
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    Blennow K.
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    Mullins P.
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    Łojek E.
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    Pria A.
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    Mosley T.H.
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    Gowland P.
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    Girard T.D.
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    Bowtell R.
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    Vahidy F.S.
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    Vahidy F.S.
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    Vahidy F.S.
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    Vahidy F.S.
    Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused >3.5 million deaths worldwide and affected >160 million people. At least twice as many have been infected but remained asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. COVID-19 includes central nervous system manifestations mediated by inflammation and cerebrovascular, anoxic, and/or viral neurotoxicity mechanisms. More than one third of patients with COVID-19 develop neurologic problems during the acute phase of the illness, including loss of sense of smell or taste, seizures, and stroke. Damage or functional changes to the brain may result in chronic sequelae. The risk of incident cognitive and neuropsychiatric complications appears independent from the severity of the original pulmonary illness. It behooves the scientific and medical community to attempt to understand the molecular and/or systemic factors linking COVID-19 to neurologic illness, both short and long term. Methods: This article describes what is known so far in terms of links among COVID-19, the brain, neurological symptoms, and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias. We focus on risk factors and possible molecular, inflammatory, and viral mechanisms underlying neurological injury. We also provide a comprehensive description of the Alzheimer's Association Consortium on Chronic Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (CNS SC2) harmonized methodology to address these questions using a worldwide network of researchers and institutions. Results: Successful harmonization of designs and methods was achieved through a consensus process initially fragmented by specific interest groups (epidemiology, clinical assessments, cognitive evaluation, biomarkers, and neuroimaging). Conclusions from subcommittees were presented to the whole group and discussed extensively. Presently data collection is ongoing at 19 sites in 12 countries representing Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Discussion: The Alzheimer's Association Global Consortium harmonized methodology is proposed as a model to study long-term neurocognitive sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Key Points: The following review describes what is known so far in terms of molecular and epidemiological links among COVID-19, the brain, neurological symptoms, and AD and related dementias (ADRD) The primary objective of this large-scale collaboration is to clarify the pathogenesis of ADRD and to advance our understanding of the impact of a neurotropic virus on the long-term risk of cognitive decline and other CNS sequelae. No available evidence supports the notion that cognitive impairment after SARS-CoV-2 infection is a form of dementia (ADRD or otherwise). The longitudinal methodologies espoused by the consortium are intended to provide data to answer this question as clearly as possible controlling for possible confounders. Our specific hypothesis is that SARS-CoV-2 triggers ADRD-like pathology following the extended olfactory cortical network (EOCN) in older individuals with specific genetic susceptibility. The proposed harmonization strategies and flexible study designs offer the possibility to include large samples of under-represented racial and ethnic groups, creating a rich set of harmonized cohorts for future studies of the pathophysiology, determinants, long-term consequences, and trends in cognitive aging, ADRD, and vascular disease. We provide a framework for current and future studies to be carried out within the Consortium. and offers a “green paper” to the research community with a very broad, global base of support, on tools suitable for low- and middle-income countries aimed to compare and combine future longitudinal data on the topic. The Consortium proposes a combination of design and statistical methods as a means of approaching causal inference of the COVID-19 neuropsychiatric sequelae. We expect that deep phenotyping of neuropsychiatric sequelae may provide a series of candidate syndromes with phenomenological and biological characterization that can be further explored. By generating high-quality harmonized data across sites we aim to capture both descriptive and, where possible, causal associations.
  • Institution Publication
    Common agronomic adaptation strategies to climate change may increase soil greenhouse gas emission in Northern Europe
    ( 2024-04-15)
    Grados D.
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    Kraus D.
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    Haas E.
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    Butterbach-Bahl K.
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    Butterbach-Bahl K.
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    Olesen J.E.
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    Abalos D.
    Climate change poses a significant threat to agriculture, highlighting the need for adaptation strategies to reduce its impacts. Agronomic adaptation strategies, such as changes in planting dates, fertilization, and irrigation, might sustain crop yield. However, their impact on soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emission is unknown under future climate scenarios. Using the LandscapeDNDC model, we assessed the effect of agronomic adaptation strategies (early sowing, increased fertilization dose, and increased irrigation amount) on soil GHG emission, yield, and yield-scaled GHG emission. A diversified crop rotation (potato – winter wheat – spring barley – faba bean) of a long-term experiment in Denmark was used for model validation. The adaptation practices to climate change were implemented for two representative concentration pathways (RCPs; 4.5 and 8.5) and five coupled global circulation and regional climate models. The adaptation scenarios were contrasted against a baseline scenario under current management practices. Soil-related variables showed better model fit (refined index of agreement ≥ 0.38) and lower errors (mean absolute error ≤ 8.18) than crop-based outputs for model validation. A total yield of ∼29 (± 3) t DW ha−1, and soil GHG emission of ∼3.02 (± 1.39) t CO2e ha−1 (RCP8.5) were obtained for the crop rotation system under the baseline for 2071–2100. Early sowing and its combination with increased fertilization decreased the yield compared to the baseline by 6.1 and 4.8 %, respectively (RCP8.5). Conversely, early sowing with increased irrigation, and early sowing with increased fertilization and irrigation, produced higher yields by 2.3 and 4.0 %, respectively (RCP8.5). All the agronomic adaptation strategies increased soil GHG emissions (ranging from 4.1 to 17.8 %) as well as yield-scaled GHG emissions (varying from 3.0 to 12.9 %) (RCP8.5). The highest soil GHG emission was simulated for early sowing in combination with increased fertilization and irrigation. Our study indicates that soil GHG emission will increase in the coming decades and that the agronomic adaptation strategies needed to sustain food production may further exacerbate this emission.
  • Institution Publication
    Data curation of extracellular enzyme activity spectrophotometric or fluorometric data
    ( 2025-06-01)
    Christiansen N.G.
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    Christiansen N.G.
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    Iturbe-Espinoza P.
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    Sapkota R.
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    Winding A.
    Extracellular Enzyme Activity (EEA) assay is an important tool in soil ecology. During data analyses, we experienced outlier time-point measurements and samples deviating from a linear development. However, we lacked a satisfying method for curating these data, and our goal is to provide a standardized and transparent method for data curation of EEA data. This was done in the form of an R function that allows for both customized and standardized approaches to data curation of EEA data. When testing the function on multiple datasets, we found that our data curation did change EEA levels, but only in instances close to minimum detection levels. During curation, R² generally increased, resulting in more samples with acceptable R² values. The function provides a relatively unbiased, easy-to-use method for EEA data curation that will hopefully improve the transparency and standardization of EEA data curation. Main outcomes: • Function for curation of Extracellular Enzyme Activity data. • Improving transparency and standardization. • Relatively unbiased, easy-to-use method.
  • Institution Publication
    Political leadership, a quasi-experimental study of Peruvian voters’ emotional reaction and visual attention to political humor
    ( 2022-03-01)
    Ortigueira-Sánchez L.C.
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    Cárdenas-Egúsquiza A.L.
    Political humor is a wise communicative strategy for politicians to use. However, previous research has not linked politicians’ use of political humor with voter’s emotional reaction and visual attention. Two experiments were conducted using facial expression analysis and eye-tracking technology to record the emotional reaction and visual attention of participants while watching one of the two presidential debates broadcast during the second round of the 2016 presidential election campaign in Peru. Results showed that voters’ educational level, candidates’ facial expressions while expressing the political humor, the type of camera shot displayed and the debate’s audience laughs influence voter’s positive emotional reaction and visual attention to instances of political humor.