Abstract International assessments are important to benchmark the quality of education internationally. However, ignoring students’ efforts in low-stakes tests can lead biased interpretations test performance. We use data from PISA analyse potential role student effort explaining gender achievement gaps across countries. build two measures based on response times questions (i.e. rapid-guessing ...

Experience suggests that many celiac patients suffer from persistent symptoms despite a long-term gluten-free diet (GFD). We investigated the prevalence and severity of these symptoms in patients with variable duration of GFD. Altogether, 856 patients were classified into untreated (n = 128), short-term GFD (1-2 years, n = 93) and long-term GFD (≥3 years, n = 635) groups. Analyses were made of ...

MicroRNA (miRNA) expression is deregulated in many tumors including chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Although the particular mechanism(s) responsible for their aberrant expression is not well characterized, the presence of mutations and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in miRNA genes, possibly affecting their secondary structure and expression, has been described. In CLL; however, the ...

Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC) are currently the best candidate therapeutic cells for regenerative medicine related to osteoarticular, muscular, vascular and inflammatory diseases, although these cells remain heterogeneous and necessitate a better biological characterization. We and others recently described that MSC originate from two types of perivascular cells, namely pericytes and adv...

The axillary staging in newly diagnosed breast cancer is under major evolution. The aims of this study were to define the diagnostic performance of 3.0-T diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the detection of axillary metastases in newly diagnosed breast cancer, to assess apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) for histopathologically confirmed metastatic lymph nodes in a clinical setting. Altoget...

OBJECTIVE To investigate 1-year outcomes of a national diabetes prevention program in Finland. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Altogether 10,149 individuals at high risk for diabetes were identified with the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC; scoring ≥15 points), by a history of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), cardiovascular disease, or gestational diabetes...