Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Retrievability of implant-retained crowns following cementation.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to assess the retrievability of cemented implant crowns using two different removal devices. The influence of five cement types and two cement application techniques was evaluated. METHODS Forty copings were cast from a CoCr alloy for 40 tapered titanium abutments (5 degrees taper, 4.3 mm diameter, 6 mm height, Camlog, Germany). Twenty copings were modeled as single crowns, whereas 20 copings were modeled with an extension to simulate fixed partial dentures (FPDs). Before cementation, the inner surfaces of the copings were air-abraded (50 mum Al(2)O(3) particles at 2.5 bars), while the abutments were used as delivered with machined surfaces. Copings were cemented with eugenol-free zinc oxide (Freegenol), zinc phosphate (Harvard), glass ionomer (Ketac Cem), polycarboxylate (Durelon) and so-called self-adhesive resin (RelyX Unicem) cement. Cement was applied in a thin film band of 1 or 3 mm to the cervical margin of the inner surface of the copings, respectively. After cementation, specimens were stored in saline solution for 24 h. The Coronaflex and a standardized custom-made removal device were used to remove the copings from the abutments. RESULTS Using the same cement, no statistically significant influence with regard to the type of restoration (crown/FDP), cement application mode and device was detected (P>0.05). Therefore, data of specimens cemented with the same cement were pooled. Median attempts to remove the copings were: zinc oxide: 3, self-adhesive resin: 3, zinc phosphate: 5, glass ionomer: 16 and polycarboxylate: 58. Four levels of significance (P<0.0001) were found: (1) zinc oxide/self-adhesive resin; (2) zinc phosphate; (3) glass ionomer; and (4) polycarboxylate. CONCLUSIONS Zinc phosphate and glass ionomer cement might be suitable for a so-called 'semipermanent' (=retrievable) cementation, while polycarboxylate seems to provide the most durable cementation.
Cheap Design Approach to Adaptive Behavior : Walking and Sensing through Body Dynamics

The approach of cheap design has been providing a number of implications by viewing behavior as the result of a system-environment interaction. It states that adaptive behavior cannot be reduced into the problem of control architectures, but the coupling between the system and the environment is essential. Case studies in the past have demonstrated not only the efficient behaviors but also the underlying mechanisms in the perception and the learning processes. This paper explores additional insights of the cheap design approach by introducing two recent case studies of the locomotion robots, which involve a few potentially important research directions for our further understanding of adaptive behavior. The first case study investigates the complex leg operation during bipedal walking. A newly developed biped robot will demonstrate the relatively complex human locomotion as a selforganized behavior of the compliant passive legs without the necessity of sensory feedback. In the second case study, we will discuss how the body dynamics influences the cognitive processes; It will be shown that, by exploiting the intrinsic body dynamics, the sensor information can be meaningfully structured for the purpose of situated perception of the environment.
Differences in fecal microflora between patients with atopic dermatitis and healthy control subjects.

BACKGROUND The prevalence of allergic diseases, such as atopic dermatitis (AD), has been increasing. However, few investigations have been made of the intestinal microflora in Japanese patients with AD. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in microflora, fecal serum IgA concentrations, and skin IgA contents between patients with AD and healthy control subjects. METHODS This trial was conducted as a case-control study using 30 minor patients with AD and age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects (n = 68). One week after a questionnaire was administered, fecal specimens and 24-hour skin secretion specimens were collected from all subjects. Fecal microflora, fecal IgA concentrations, and IgA contents on the skin surface were analyzed. RESULTS The counts of Bifidobacterium (in log10 colony-forming units per gram) were significantly lower in patients with AD than in healthy control subjects (9.75 +/- 0.68 vs 10.10 +/- 0.50 log(10) colony-forming units/g, P <. 05). In particular, percentages of Bifidobacterium were significantly lower in patients with severe skin symptoms than in those with mild skin symptoms (40% +/- 6% vs 19% +/- 6%, P <.05). In addition, the frequency of occurrence of Staphylococcus was significantly higher in patients with AD than in healthy control subjects (83% vs 59%, P <.05). There were no significant differences in fecal IgA content or IgA content on the skin between the 2 groups. CONCLUSION Patients with AD had lower counts of Bifidobacterium than healthy control subjects, and the frequency of Staphylococcus was higher in patients with AD than in control subjects. Disorder of the intestinal microflora might play a role in the onset of AD and the aggravation of skin symptoms.
The memory wall and the CMOS end-point

McKee draw attention to the fact that the discrepancy between processor speed and DRAM access time is increasing. Since cache misses cannot be reduced to zero, if this trend continues the time will come when the rate of executing instructions will be determined by the rate at which instructions, not already in the cache, can be supplied by the DRAM. They express this by saying that we will hit a wall beyond which increases in processor speed do not increase the rate at which calculations can be performed. This raises the question of how long the substantial annual increases of speed to which we have become accustomed during the last 20 years can continue. Wulf and McKee remark that, over the past thirty years, there have been many predictions that the annual increases were about to come to an end, but all were based on false assumptions and were overturned by subsequent events. This is very true. However, the new warnings now being issued that the CMOS process will soon run out of steam are based on the laws of quantum physics and must be taken seriously. The steady and predictable improvement in the speed of conventional CMOS circuits has been achieved by shrinkage. At each successive stage of shrinkage, the number of electrons available to represent the difference between a 0 and a 1 is reduced. So far this has not mattered, but we are now approaching a point when the number will be around 100 and statistical quantum effects will make themselves felt. The point will be reached at which CMOS circuits will either fail to work if the feature size is further reduced or will run no faster, perhaps more slowly. Present opinion puts the critical feature size at somewhere between 0.1 micron and 0.05 micron. Since the most advanced process lines now run with a feature size of 0.35 micron, it follows that we may expect a further increase in the intrinsic speed of CMOS circuits of less than ten. The CMOS process as we know it will then have reached the end of its development as far as switching speed is concerned, although it is possible that there may be further improvements in the density of storage chips. Wulf and McKec base their calculations on an estimated annual increase in processor speed of 80% and give a reference to a paper by Baskett published in …
In Vitro Hepatotoxicity and Cytochrome P450 Induction and Inhibition Characteristics of Carnosic Acid, a Dietary Supplement with Antiadipogenic Properties

Carnosic acid is a phenolic diterpene isolated from rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), which may have anticancer, antiadipogenic, and anti-inflammatory properties. Recently, carnosic acid was shown to prevent weight gain and hepatic steatosis in a mouse model of obesity and type II diabetes. Based on these results, carnosic acid has been suggested as a potential treatment for obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; however, little is known about the safety of carnosic acid at doses needed to elicit a pharmacological effect. For this reason, hepatotoxicity and cytochrome P450 inhibition and induction studies were performed in primary human hepatocytes and microsomes. Measuring cellular ATP, carnosic acid showed a dose-dependent increase in hepatotoxicity with an EC50 value of 94.8 ± 36.7 μM in three human hepatocyte donors without a concurrent increase in the apoptosis markers caspase-3/7. In human liver microsomes, carnosic acid did not exhibit significant time-dependent inhibition for any of the cytochrome P450 enzymes investigated, although it did inhibit CYP2C9- and CYP3A4-catalyzed reactions with Ki values of 9.2 and 4.3 μM, respectively. Carnosic acid also induced CYP2B6 and CYP3A4 mRNA and enzyme activity in a dose-dependent manner. At 10 μM, carnosic acid increased CYP2B6 enzyme activity 61.6 and 49.3% in two donors compared with phenobarbital, and it increased CYP3A enzyme activity 82.6 and 142% compared with rifampicin. These results indicate the potential for drug interactions with carnosic acid and illustrate the need for an appropriate safety assessment before being used as a weight loss supplement.
How Fantasy Becomes Reality: Seeing Through Media Influence

1. Fantasy and Reality: A Primer on Media and Social Construction 2. Challenges and Opportunities of Growing Up in a Media-Saturated World 3. Media Violence: Scholarship versus Salesmanship 4. Media Stereotypes: The Social Construction of Race and Gender 5. Fantasy and Reality Revisited: More on How Media Mythologies Shape Our Social Realities 6. Advertising, Consumerism, and Health 7. Get with the Programming: Media Messages About Who We Are 8. The Social Psychology of Political Coverage 9. From the Passenger's Seat to the Driver's Seat
High-Speed Fluorescence Imaging and Intensity Profiling of Femtosecond-Induced Calcium Transients

We have demonstrated a combined imaging system, where the physiology of biological specimens can be imaged and profiled at 10–20 frames per second whilst undergoing femtosecond laser irradiation. Individual GH3 cells labeled with the calcium fluorophore Fluo-3 were stimulated using a counter-propagating focused femtosecond beam with respect to the imaging system. As a result of the stimulation, calcium waves can be generated in COS cells, and laser-induced calcium oscillations are initiated in the GH3 cells. Single-photon fluorescence images and intensity profiles of the targeted specimens are sampled in real-time using a modified PerkinElmer UltraView LCI microscope.
The Emergence of Risk-Based Regulation and the New Public Risk Management in the United Kingdom

Discusses the emergence of public risk management, with particular attention to ARROW, the system of risk based regulation under the framework of the Financial Services Authority. Outlines the four main arguments given as to why public risk management is significant, highlighting: (1) the choices made about how to operationalise regulatory objectives; (2) the paradoxes of risk based regulation; (3) the strategies of meta regulation; and (3) risk based management and the parameters of blame.
Work, income, the economy, and married fathers as child-care providers

Previous research on fathers as child-care providers indicates a need to study the father’s role in child care in the context of different economic cycles. Using data from the 1988, 1991, and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we examine whether father’ availability and the couple’s economic resources are differentially related to child care by fathers over time. We focus on the differences between 1991—a recession year—and 1988 and 1993—two nonrecession years. Increased availability of fathers is significantly related to higher levels of fathers’ participation in child care in all three years. Relative economic resources between husbands and wives help explain care by fathers only during the recession year, whereas family income is important only in the nonrecession years. These results suggest that in the future, researchers should acknowledge fluctuations in the economy when studying husbands’ participation in traditional female tasks, as macroeconomic shifts appear to impact the likelihood of married fathers caring for their preschoolers during mothers’ working hours.
Nonperturbative effects and nonperturbative definitions in matrix models and topological strings

We develop techniques to compute multi-instanton corrections to the 1/N expansion in matrix models described by orthogonal polynomials. These techniques are based on finding trans-series solutions, i.e. formal solutions with exponentially small corrections, to the recursion relations characterizing the free energy. We illustrate this method in the Hermitian, quartic matrix model, and we provide a detailed description of the instanton corrections in the Gross-Witten-Wadia (GWW) unitary matrix model. Moreover, we use Borel resummation techniques and results from the theory of resurgent functions to relate the formal multi-instanton series to the nonperturbative definition of the matrix model. We study this relation in the case of the GWW model and its double-scaling limit, providing in this way a nice illustration of various mechanisms connecting the resummation of perturbative series to nonperturbative results, like the cancellation of nonperturbative ambiguities. Finally, we argue that trans-series solutions are also relevant in the context of topological string theory. In particular, we point out that in topological string models with both a matrix model and a large N gauge theory description, the nonperturbative, holographic definition involves a sum over the multi-instanton sectors of the matrix model
Adolescents' eating, exercise, and weight control behaviors: does peer crowd affiliation play a role?

OBJECTIVE To examine the association between peer crowd affiliation (e.g., Jocks, Populars, Burnouts, Brains) and adolescents' eating, exercise, and weight control behaviors. The roles of gender and ethnicity were also examined. METHOD Ethnically diverse adolescents (N = 705; 66% girls) completed the Peer Crowd Questionnaire, eating and exercise items from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, and weight control behaviors from the Eating Attitudes Test-12. RESULTS Controlling for gender and ethnicity, adolescents affiliating with the Burnouts reported more unhealthful eating and more bulimic behaviors than others; adolescents affiliating with the Brains reported more healthful eating, less unhealthful eating, and more dieting; those affiliating with Jocks and Populars reported engaging in more exercise; and Populars also reported more unhealthful eating. In addition, boys exercised more than girls; girls reported more dieting and bulimic behaviors. Black adolescents reported more unhealthful eating and less dieting than other adolescents. CONCLUSIONS Along with gender and ethnicity, peer crowd affiliation is related to adolescents' eating, exercise, and weight control behaviors. Prevention programs should consider adolescent peer crowds in developing health promotion and obesity prevention programs.
A dynamical system model for generating fundamental frequency for speech synthesis

Higher quality speech synthesis is required for widespread use of text to-speech (TTS) technology, and prosody is one component of synthesis technology with the greatest need for improvement. This paper describes a new approach to generation of two important cues to prosodic patterns-fundamental frequency (F/sub 0/) and energy contours-given symbolic prosodic labels and text. Specifically, the approach represents vectors of F/sub 0/ and energy with a dynamical system model, which allows automatic estimation of parameters from labeled speech. Parameters at different time scales in the model are structured to capture segment, syllable, phrase and discourse level effects based on linguistic research. F/sub 0/ generation experiments with the dynamical system model show improved synthetic speech quality over the hybrid target/filter approach.
Spatial Compressive Sensing for MIMO Radar

We study compressive sensing in the spatial domain to achieve target localization, specifically direction of arrival (DOA), using multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar. A sparse localization framework is proposed for a MIMO array in which transmit and receive elements are placed at random. This allows for a dramatic reduction in the number of elements needed, while still attaining performance comparable to that of a filled (Nyquist) array. By leveraging properties of structured random matrices, we develop a bound on the coherence of the resulting measurement matrix, and obtain conditions under which the measurement matrix satisfies the so-called isotropy property. The coherence and isotropy concepts are used to establish uniform and non-uniform recovery guarantees within the proposed spatial compressive sensing framework. In particular, we show that non-uniform recovery is guaranteed if the product of the number of transmit and receive elements, MN (which is also the number of degrees of freedom), scales with K(logG)2, where K is the number of targets and G is proportional to the array aperture and determines the angle resolution. In contrast with a filled virtual MIMO array where the product MN scales linearly with G, the logarithmic dependence on G in the proposed framework supports the high-resolution provided by the virtual array aperture while using a small number of MIMO radar elements. In the numerical results we show that, in the proposed framework, compressive sensing recovery algorithms are capable of better performance than classical methods, such as beamforming and MUSIC.
The meaning of the wave function

We investigate the meaning of the wave function by analyzing the mass and charge density distributions of a quantum system. According to protective measurement, a charged quantum system has effective mass and charge density distributing in space, proportional to the square of the absolute value of its wave function. In a realistic interpretation, the wave function of a quantum system can be taken as a description of either a physical field or the ergodic motion of a particle. The essential difference between a field and the ergodic motion of a particle lies in the property of simultaneity; a field exists throughout space simultaneously, whereas the ergodic motion of a particle exists throughout space in a time-divided way. If the wave function is a physical field, then the mass and charge density will be distributed in space simultaneously for a charged quantum system, and thus there will exist gravitational and electrostatic self-interactions of its wave function. This not only violates the superposition principle of quantum mechanics but also contradicts experimental observations. Thus the wave function cannot be a description of a physical field but a description of the ergodic motion of a particle. For the later there is only a localized particle with mass and charge at every instant, and thus there will not exist any self-interaction for the wave function. It is further argued that the classical ergodic models, which assume continuous motion of particles, cannot be consistent with quantum mechanics. Based on the negative result, we suggest that the wave function is a description of the quantum motion of particles, which is random and discontinuous in nature. On this interpretation, the square of the absolute value of the wave function not only gives the probability of the particle being found in certain locations, but also gives the probability of the particle being there. We show that this new interpretation of the wave function provides a natural realistic alternative to the orthodox interpretation, and its implications for other realistic interpretations of quantum mechanics are also briefly discussed.