Kimmo Vehkalahti

Differences in health and taste attitudes and reported behaviour among Finnish, Dutch and British consumers: a cross-national validation of the Health and Taste Attitude Scales (HTAS).

The Health and Taste Attitude Scales (HTAS) developed by Roininen, Lähteenmäki and Tuorila in 1999 measure the importance of health and taste aspects of foods in the food choice process. These multi-item scales consist of sets of statements, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree, which further divide into three Health (General health interest, Light product interest and Natural product interest) and three Taste (Craving for sweet foods, Using food as a reward and Pleasure) sub-scales. Finnish (N=467), Dutch (N=477), and British (N=361) respondents completed a questionnaire which contained four components: the HTAS, a separate paper and pencil task of choosing a food for a snack; pleasantness, healthiness and frequency of consumption of eight foods; and the Restraint Eating Scale of the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ). The latter three components were included in order to validate various aspects of the HTAS. The factor structure of HTAS was found to be equal in all three countries. However, there were some minor differences in factor loadings among countries, e.g. the Natural product interest and Pleasure sub-scale items had lower factor loadings in the UK than in Finland and The Netherlands. Finnish respondents had the most positive attitude towards light products. Dutch and British respondents scored higher on all Taste sub-scales than their Finnish counterparts. Respondents health-related attitudes were good predictors of their healthy food choices in the snack task and self-reported consumption. Two of the Taste sub-scales (Craving for sweet foods and Using food as a reward) predicted well respondents self-reported consumption of, for example, full-fat chocolate bars. All the Health and two of the Taste sub-scales proved to be useful tools for characterizing consumer attitudes within and between countries.

Association of apolipoprotein E promoter polymorphisms with bone structural traits is modified by dietary saturated fat intake — The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study

Association of apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele with peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) bone traits at the distal and shaft sites of the radius and tibia was evaluated in the Young Finns Cohort (n=1777). We also analyzed the interactions of the APOE promoter polymorphisms (-219G/T rs405509 and +113G/C rs440446) and bone traits within the APOE ε3/ε3 genotype (n=1025 and n=1013, respectively), and investigated the gene-environment interactions on bone traits with longitudinal saturated fatty acids (SAFA) intake. Differences between the ε4 allele carriers and noncarriers were modest and mostly nonsignificant. Within the APOE promoter -219G/T polymorphism, cortical strength index (CSI) and compressive bone strength index (BSI) at the distal radius (linear, P=0.003 and P=0.05, respectively) and tibia (linear, P=0.01 and P=0.03, respectively), and CSI at the tibial shaft (linear, P=0.04) decreased towards the -219T/T genotype in women. In men, total cross-sectional areas at the radial site and stress-strain index (SSI) at the radial shaft (linear, P=0.03 and P=0.04 and P=0.05, respectively) increased, and conversely cortical bone density and CSI at the radial shaft (linear, P=0.005 and P=0.05, respectively) and CSI at the tibial shaft (linear, P=0.03) decreased towards the -219T/T genotype. In the highest SAFA tertile, women with the -219T/T genotype had the smallest total area and SSI at the radial shaft (P=0.01 and P=0.02, respectively). Subjects with the APOE +113C/C genotype shared similar bone traits as subjects with the APOE -219T/T genotype. In conclusion, APOE genotypes -219T/T and +113C/C could be genetic markers for cortical bone strength. Furthermore, high longitudinal SAFA intake seems to be more detrimental to bone in women with the -219T/T and +133C/C genotypes than others.

Implications of Dimensionality on Measurement Reliability

We study some topics of the reliability of measurement, especially certain implications of multidimensionality and unidimensionality. We consider these aspects within a measurement framework focusing on one hand on the dimensionality of the measurement model and on the other hand on the dimensionality of the measurement scale. Working through theorems and examples we compare two reliability estimators, namely Cronbachs alpha and Tarkkonens rho. It seems that there is not much use for Cronbachs alpha. It is based on unidimensional models and scales, while the models and scales used in practice are multidimensional. Tarkko-nens rho seems to work well in multidimensional studies, giving support to the real purpose of reliability estimation which seems to have been lost for a quite long time.

Effects of measurement errors in predictor selection of linear regression model

Measurement errors may affect the predictor selection of the linear regression model. These effects are studied using a measurement framework, where the variances of the measurement errors can be estimated without setting too restrictive assumptions about the measurement model. In this approach, the problem of measurement is solved in a reduced true score space, where the latent true score is multidimensional, but its dimension is smaller than the number of the measurable variables. Various measurement scales are then created to be used as predictors in the regression model. The stability of the predictor selection as well as the estimated predicted validity and the reliability of the prediction scales is examined by Monte Carlo simulations. Varying the magnitude of the measurement error variance four sets of predictors are compared: all variables, a stepwise selection, factor sums, and factor scores. The results indicate that the factor scores offer a stable method for predictor selection, whereas the other alternatives tend to give biased results leading more or less to capitalizing on chance.

Longevity of 2- and 3-surface restorations in posterior teeth of 25- to 30-year-olds attending Public Dental Service—A 13-year observation

OBJECTIVESnThe aim of this patient document-based retrospective study among 25- to 30-year-old Finnish adults was to evaluate longevity of 2- and 3-surface posterior restorations according to type of tooth, size of restoration, and restorative material used.nnnMETHODSnData were extracted from electronic patient files of the Helsinki City Public Dental Service (PDS), Finland. A total of 5542 2- and 3-surface posterior composite and amalgam restorations were followed indirectly from 2002 to 2015. Longevity of restorations was illustrated using Kaplan-Meier curves. Annual failure rates (AFRs) of the restorations were calculated separately by type of tooth, size, and material. Differences in longevity were statistically tested with log-rank tests.nnnRESULTSnComposite restorations formed the majority (93%). The longest median survival times and the smallest failure rates were found for teeth in the upper jaw, for premolars, and for 2-surface restorations. Median survival time of all restorations was 9.9 years (95% CI 9.6, 10.2) and re-intervention of restorations occurred less often in the maxilla (AFR 4.0%) than in the mandible (AFR 4.7%). Median survival time of composite restorations was greater for 2-surface than for 3-surface restorations: in premolars 12.3 vs. 9.6 years (p<0.001) and in molars, 9.2 vs. 6.3 years (p<0.001); for molar amalgams the difference (8.0 vs. 6.3 years) was non-significant (p=0.38). Median survival time of 2- and 3-surface restorations in premolars exceeded that in molars (12.0 vs. 8.7 years; p<0.001).nnnCONCLUSIONSnLongevity of posterior composite multisurface restoration is comparable to amalgam longevity.nnnCLINICAL SIGNIFICANCEnRegarding material choices for posterior multisurface restorations, composite and amalgam perform quite similarly in molars, 3-surface restoration being challenge for both materials.

Oral health behaviors and bacterial transmission from mother to child: an explorative study

BackgroundHealth behaviors play a major role in the prevention of the most common oral diseases. To investigate health behaviors related to the potential transmission of oral bacteria from mother to child using novel multiple correspondence analysis (MCA).MethodsMothers (nu2009=u2009313) with children under three years attending two municipal child health clinics in Finland completed a self-administered questionnaire on health knowledge and behaviors such as sharing a spoon with their child, kissing on the lips, and the mothers’ tooth brushing, smoking, age, and level of education. We used MCA to reveal the relationships between the mothers’ behaviors and background factors, along with unconditional, binary, multivariable logistic regression models, odds ratios (OR) and their 95xa0% confidence intervals (95 %CI).ResultsOf the mothers, 38 % kissed their child on the lips and 14 % shared a spoon with their child; 11 % believed that oral bacteria cannot be transmitted from mother to child. Two-thirds (68xa0%) of them reported tooth brushing twice daily, and 80 % were non-smokers. MCA revealed two diverging dimensions of the mothers’ behaviors: a ‘horizontal’ one showing clear evidence of relationships between tooth brushing, smoking, age and education, whereas the ‘vertical’ one revealed the mothers’ habits of kissing the child on the lips and sharing a spoon related to each other. Spoon sharing was related to the kissing on lips (OR 10.3), a higher level of education (OR 3.1), and, inversely, older age (OR 0.1), whereas kissing on lips behavior was inversely related to a higher level of education (OR 0.5).ConclusionThe study revealed two diverging dimensions of the mothers’ health behaviors. More emphasis in health education ought to be put to how to avoid bacterial transmission from caregiver to child during feeding.

Solving Survo puzzles using matrix combinatorial products

We investigate combinatorial matrix problems that are related to restricted integer partitions. They arise from Survo puzzles, where the basic task is to fill an m×n table by integers 1, 2,u2009…u2009, mn, so that each number appears only once, when the column sums and the row sums are fixed. We present a new computational method for solving Survo puzzles with binary matrices that are recoded and combined using the Hadamard, Kronecker, and Khatri–Rao products. The idea of our method is based on using the matrix interpreter and other data analytic tools of Survo R, which represents the newest generation of the Survo computing environment, recently implemented as a multiplatform, open source R package. We illustrate our method with detailed examples.