Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Untreated periodontal disease: a follow-up on 30 cases.

BACKGROUND Many studies have shown that periodontal disease can be successfully treated. However, there is limited documentation as to what happens when periodontal disease is left untreated. This study examined patients in a private practice who were diagnosed with periodontal disease and did not complete any treatment. The goal was to see what happened to this group of untreated patients. METHODS Thirty patients with periodontal disease were included in this study. After a mean period of 2.1 years without periodontal treatment, the patients were re-examined and the changes which occurred evaluated. RESULTS There was a statistically significant increase in probing depth (3.43 mm to 3.95 mm) and attachment loss (4.19 mm to 4.77 mm) and a statistically significant decrease in the number of teeth present (23.37 to 22.67). Twenty-one teeth were lost, which was 3.0% of the teeth present at the time of initial diagnosis. The rate of tooth loss was 0.32 teeth/patient/year. The teeth that were lost had deeper recession, probing depths, and attachment loss than the teeth that were retained. Patient factors evaluated could not be associated with statistically significant changes in the clinical parameters, except that smokers had a greater number of sites gaining > or = 2 mm of attachment and patients with the poorest oral hygiene had a greater percent of sites breaking down. However, certain site specific variables could be associated with statistically significant changes in the clinical parameters. These included sites: with bleeding on probing, associated with molar furcations, on interproximal surfaces, at posterior teeth, with probing depths > or = 3.43 mm, with probing depths > or = 7 mm, attachment loss > or = 7 mm, and teeth with increased mobility. CONCLUSIONS This group of patients with untreated periodontal disease had greater breakdown and tooth loss than one would expect to see in a group of patients if their periodontal disease was treated.
Customer Perception towards Service Quality in Retail Banking

The present study has aimed to know the perception of customers towards services rendered by banks in major cities of Tamil Nadu. Descriptive study method has adopted and convenience sampling technique was followed. On that basis, a sample size of 560 customers of different public and private sector banks was selected for this purpose from the major cities of Tamil Nadu state namely, Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Trichy by using Servqual instrument developed by Parasuraman et al., 1998. The results show that specific customer categories namely, Young age group, unmarried customers, who have 5 to 6 dependents and live in joint family customers have also higher level perception towards service quality of the banks. Further, the result shows that post-graduate level educated customers, mainly students and lower and high income group customers also have higher level perception towards the service quality of the banks in the study area.
Cytology findings of the thyroid lesions with the histopathology findings correlation

Result: The histopathology findings of thyroid lesions in 60 patients, comprising six male subjects (10%) and 54 female subjects (90%; age range, 6–80 years; median, 43 years), were reviewed. The FNAC showed a sensitivity of 87.5%; specificity, 96.15%; positive predictive value, 77.77%; negative predictive value, 98.03%; and diagnostic accuracy, 95%. The efficacy of FNAC was quite reliable. Conclusion: The results are comparable with the current published data and demonstrate that FNA cytology examination in our hands is an accurate investigation for further management of thyroid lesions.
On a Particular Class of Minihypers and its Applications. III. Applications

In the first two articles of this series, the structure of certain minihypers was determined. Hamada shows how these results translate into results on linear codes meeting the Griesmer bound, while Govaerts and Storme show how they can be applied to obtain bounds on the size of maximal partial t -spreads and minimal t -covers in finite projective spaces that admit a t -spread. In this article, further applications are given. It is shown that the previously studied minihypers are closely connected to partial t -spreads and t -covers of finite classical polar spaces whose size admits a t -spread. This connection is used to obtain new bounds on the sizes of maximal partial t -spreads of finite classical polar spaces whose sizes admit t -spreads. In order to get a clearer view on which polar spaces these are, divisibility conditions are rewritten into a more convenient form. This yields necessary conditions for the existence of t -spreads in those spaces; it turns out that for some of the polar spaces these conditions are also sufficient. The results on minihypers are then applied to t -covers of the classical polar spaces, and give us a better understanding of their structure. As an immediate corollary to an extendability result for partial t -spreads, a theorem on the extendability of partial ovoids of H(3, q2) is given. This theorem is then used to prove a new upper bound on the size of partial ovoids of H(4, q2), which can be lifted to an upper bound on the size of partial ovoids of H(2 n, q2),n? 2. Also partial ovoids on the generalized hexagon H(q) are studied.
A study of epistemic modality in academic and popularised discourse: The case of possibility adverbs perhaps, maybe and possibly

This paper describes the use of perhaps, maybe and possibly in a cross- disciplinary corpus of academic and popularised scientific writing. It accounts for their higher frequency in popularised discourse by investigating their functions in detail. The analysis, conducted from various perspectives (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and rhetorical), suggests that two factors are at work: the evidential basis for the epistemic assessment and the mode of discourse the marker is most closely associated with. The fact that perhaps and maybe express unsupported conjectures within explicative passages explains why they are less frequent in academic contexts where excessive recourse to ungrounded assumptions and to the explicative mode –which implies a knowledge asymmetry– would be harshly received. As for possibly , we show that its distribution depends on its interpretation. In its root meaning, it is equally fit for popularised and academic discourses. In its epistemic use, however, it is less frequent in research articles, like epistemic modals and other epistemic adverbs. Because it indicates that the epistemic assessment is based on the writer’s recognised expertise, its use is preferred in the most factual and uncontroversial modes of discourse, namely, narration and information, which are more typical of popularisation.
Physics in radiation.

It is essential that we distinguish between the different wavelengths of light, as the interaction of light with solids, particles and gases is strongly sensitive to wavelength. As a result, the relationship between intensity and wavelength generally carries much of the information about the objects which the radiation has touched. Because the wavelength can vary over many orders of magnitude, we use various notations for describing it. The most commonly used length unit for wavelength is the micrometer (i.e. micron) defined as one millionth of a meter. For very short wavelengths, the nanometer is useful (i.e. one trillionth of a meter). For longer waves, the millimeter, centimeter or meter can be used. By convention, the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation is subdivided in to the following ranges: gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, microwave and radiowaves. These ranges can be further subdivided; for example, the ultraviolet (.12 to .4 microns) can be divided into the far UV (.2 to .3 microns) and the near UV (.3 to.4 microns). The visible range (.4 to .7 microns), that range to which the human eye is sensitive, can be crudely divided into blue (.4 to .5 microns), green (.5 to .6) and the red (.6 to .7). A much finer subdivision by wavelength in the visible range is used in the study of color. The infrared (.7 to about 400 microns) is divided in to the near infrared (i.e. NIR; .7 to 2 microns), middle infrared (2 to 5), the “thermal” infrared (5 to 100) and the far IR. Microwaves (1mm to 1 meter) are often divided into “bands”; such as X-band, L-band etc., based on wavelength. Radio wave subdivisions are referred to by their wavelengths directly (e.g. 2-meter, 6-meter) by HAM radio operators.
Visual Gamma Oscillations in Schizophrenia: Implications for Understanding Neural Circuitry Abnormalities

Gamma oscillations may play an important role in the representation of information in the brain by synchronizing the firing of neurons in local and distributed neural circuits. The Bleulerian conceptualization of schizophrenia as “disintegration of thought and personality” suggests that neural mechanisms responsible for the integration of neural activity, such as gamma oscillations, might be particularly disrupted in this disorder. Here we review studies of gamma oscillations in healthy and schizophrenic individuals performing visual perception tasks. The findings suggest that schizophrenia is associated with a variety of abnormalities of visual gamma oscillations, which appear to be linked to core symptoms and cognitive deficits of schizophrenia. The relationships between these abnormalities and neural circuitry abnormalities in schizophrenia are discussed.
The role of fungi in the airway of chronic rhinosinusitis patients

Purpose of review To analyze the role of fungi in the upper and lower airway in chronic rhinosinusitis patients. Recent findings Recently, the involvement of the lower airway (as asthma, small airway disease and bronchial hyperresponsiveness) in chronic rhinosinusitis patients had been documented. Fungal spores after inhalation are submerged in the aqueous lining layers of the airway. The site depends on the size of the inhaled spores. The process of inhalation, retention and clearance of fungal spores may explain the positive culture results in both normal subjects and in most chronic rhinosinusitis patients. Fungal culture of different parts of the upper and lower airway in chronic rhinosinusitis patients had no correlation with cellular changes (local eosinophilia) and other clinical parameters. In chronic rhinosinusitis, with persistence of the chronic inflammatory process, the cells may be activated nonspecifically. Summary The role played by fungi in most chronic rhinosinusitis patients as the target antigen of initiation of such chronic inflammation is still debated. With the presence of chronic eosinophilic inflammation in chronic rhinosinusitis, an exaggerated reaction to various inhaled antigens is anticipated. The role of fungi will be confirmed only when T cells within the sinuses are shown to be actively responding to fungal antigens cultured from the sinus and with the demonstration that their elimination will stop the disease.
Night‐Shift Work Related Problems in Young Female Nurses in Japan

Night‐Shift Work Related Problems in Young Female Nurses in Japan: Takashi Ohida, et al . Department of Public Health Administration, National Institute of Public Health—Background: The relationship of night‐shift work to sleep problems and work performance was examined in young female nurses in 11 hospitals in Japan. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted by means of anonymous self‐administered questionnaires, carried out in July 1999. Subjects were 620 female nurses (Average age: 23.9) who started their careers in April 1997 and continued working in the same hospitals for two years and three months until the time of the survey. A questionnaire consisting mainly of items concerning sleep disorders from the Japanese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was distributed to the subjects. Results: Significant associations were observed between working on night shift and the use of alcoholic beverages to help induce sleep, and between working on night shift and daytime drowsiness. Significant differences were also observed between two and three‐shift systems with regard to subjective sleep quality. Moreover, average hours of sleep were significantly associated with three related sleep items: subjective sleep quality, difficulty in getting to sleep, and daytime drowsiness. Conclusion: Results suggest that in Japanese shift‐work systems, sufficient sleep hours are needed for nurses who work night shift to ensure good quality of sleep and consequently better services for patients.
Changes in the nuclear distribution of cyclin (PCNA) but not its synthesis depend on DNA replication.

Synthesis of cyclin in serum‐stimulated quiescent 3T3 cells increases shortly before DNA synthesis after 10 h of stimulation, reaching a maximum after 16 h. Inhibition of DNA synthesis by hydroxyurea does not affect the increase of cyclin following stimulation, as determined by quantitative two‐dimensional gel electrophoresis. The levels of cyclin decrease dramatically at the end of the S‐phase. Cells kept in the presence of hydroxyurea (G1/S boundary) do not show this decrease in cyclin, indicating that its amounts are regulated by events occurring during the S‐phase. Immunofluorescence studies of serum‐stimulated quiescent cells in the presence of hydroxyurea, using proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) autoantibodies, confirm the results obtained by protein analysis. They also reveal that there are dramatic changes in the nuclear distribution of cyclin and that these depend on DNA synthesis or events occurring during the S‐phase. Cyclin (PCNA) is no longer detectable at the end of the S‐phase. However, pulse‐chase experiments indicate that this protein is very stable, suggesting that it possibly interacts with other macromolecules rendering it inaccessible to the antibody. These results strengthen the notion that cyclin is an important component of the events leading to DNA replication and cell division.
Beneficial effects of intravenous and oral carvedilol treatment in acute myocardial infarction. A placebo-controlled, randomized trial.

BACKGROUND Evidence of efficacy and safety of beta-blockers after thrombolysis for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is equivocal. Newer beta-blockers such as carvedilol have not been tested in this setting. METHODS AND RESULTS This study investigated the effects of acute (intravenous) and long-term (6 months, oral) treatment with carvedilol versus placebo in 151 consecutive patients with AMI. Exercise ECG, ambulatory monitoring, and two-dimensional echocardiography were performed before hospital discharge and at 3 and 6 months. All patients were followed up and cardiovascular events recorded. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to compare time from randomization with the occurrence of a cardiovascular event, and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were calculated. Carvedilol was found to be safe, and it significantly reduced cardiac events compared with placebo (18 on carvedilol and 31 on placebo, P < .02). Fifty-four patients had heart failure at study entry; 34 received carvedilol. There were no adverse effects of carvedilol therapy and no excess events in this subgroup. Carvedilol produced significant reductions in heart rate (P < .0001), blood pressure (P < .005) at rest, and rate-pressure product at peak exercise (P < .003), but exercise capacity was unchanged. Left ventricular ejection fraction was not altered significantly by carvedilol, but stroke volume was higher at pre-hospital discharge examination (63 versus 53 mL; P < .01). Diastolic filling of the left ventricle (E/A ratio) was also improved (1.2 versus 0.9; P < .001). In a subgroup with left ventricular ejection fraction < 45% (n = 49 patients; 24 on carvedilol and 25 on placebo), carvedilol showed attenuation of remodeling. CONCLUSIONS Carvedilol was well tolerated and safe to use in patients immediately after AMI, including those with heart failure, and significantly improved outcome.
Murine Noroviruses Bind Glycolipid and Glycoprotein Attachment Receptors in a Strain-Dependent Manner

ABSTRACT Human norovirus infections are the most common cause of acute nonbacterial gastroenteritis in humans worldwide, and glycan binding plays an important role in the susceptibility to these infections. However, due to the lack of an efficient cell culture system or small animal model for human noroviruses, little is known about the biological role of glycan binding during infection. Murine noroviruses (MNV) are also enteric viruses that bind to cell surface glycans, but in contrast to their human counterparts, they can be grown in tissue culture and a small animal host. In this study, we determined glycan-binding specificities of the MNV strains MNV-1 and CR3 in vitro, identified molecular determinants of glycan binding, and analyzed infection in vivo. We showed that unlike MNV-1, CR3 binding to murine macrophages was resistant to neuraminidase treatment and glycosphingolipid depletion. Both strains depended on N-linked glycoproteins for binding, while only MNV-1 attachment to macrophages was sensitive to O-linked glycoprotein depletion. In vivo, CR3 showed differences in tissue tropism compared to MNV-1 by replicating in the large intestine. Mapping of a glycan-binding site in the MNV-1 capsid by reverse genetics identified a region topologically similar to the histo-blood group antigen (HBGA)-binding sites of the human norovirus strain VA387. The recombinant virus showed distinct changes in tissue tropism compared to wild-type virus. Taken together, our data demonstrate that MNV strains evolved multiple strategies to bind different glycan receptors on the surface of murine macrophages and that glycan binding contributes to tissue tropism in vivo.
Characterization of the rod photoresponse isolated from the dark-adapted primate ERG

The a-wave of the human dark-adapted ERG is thought to derive from activity of rod photoreceptors. However, other sources within the retina could potentially perturb this simple equation. We investigated the extent to which the short-latency dark-adapted rod a-wave of the primate ERG is dominated by the rod photoresponse and the applicability of the phototransduction model to fit the rod a-wave. Dark-adapted Ganzfeld ERGs were elicited over a 5-log-unit intensity range using short bright xenon flashes, and the light-adapted cone responses were subtracted to isolate the rod ERG a-wave. Intravitreal 4-phosphono-butyric acid (APB) and cis-2,3-piperidine-dicarboxylic acid (PDA) were applied to isolate the photoreceptor response. The Hood and Birch version of the phototransduction model, Rmax[1 − e−I·S·(t−teff)2] , was fitted to the a-wave data while allowing Rmax and S to vary. Three principle observations were made: (1) At flash intensities ≥0.77 log sc-td-s the leading edge of the normalized rod ERG a-wave tracks the isolated photoreceptor response across the first 20 ms or up to the point of b-wave intrusion. The rod ERG a-wave was essentially identical to the isolated receptor response for all intensities that produce peak responses within 14 ms after the flash. (2) The best fit of sensitivity (S) was not affected by APB and/or PDA, suggesting that the inner retina contributes very little to the dark-adapted a-wave. (3) APB always reduced the maximum dark-adapted a-wave amplitude (by 15–30%), and PDA always increased it (by 7–15%). Using the phototransduction model, both events can be interpreted as a scaling of the photoreceptor dark current. This suggests that activity of postreceptor cells somehow influences the rod dark current, possibly by feedback through horizontal cells (although currently not demonstrated for the rod system), or by altering the ionic concentrations near the photoreceptors, or by neuromodulator effects mediated by dopamine or melatonin.
Communicating With Patients: What Happens in Practice?

Background and Purpose Communication is the most important aspect of practice that health care professionals have to master. The purpose of this study was to measure the content and prevalence of verbal and nonverbal communications between physical therapists and patients with back pain. Subjects Seven physical therapists and 21 patients with back pain participated in this study. Methods The first interaction following the initial assessment was recorded with a video camera. The outcome measures were the Medical Communications Behavior System (verbal communication) and frequencies of nonverbal behaviors (affirmative head nodding, smiling, eye gaze, forward leaning, and touch). Semistructured interviews were undertaken with the physical therapists to determine the perceived influence of the video camera. Results A total of 2,055 verbal statements were made. Physical therapists spent approximately twice as much time talking as patients, with content behaviors (such as taking history and giving advice) comprising 52% of verbal communications. The most prevalent nonverbal behaviors were touch by physical therapists (54%) and eye gaze by patients (84%). Discussion and Conclusion The prevalence and content of communication can be measured with video analysis and validated tools. Communication is an extremely important but underexplored dimension of the patient-therapist relationship, and the methods described here could provide a useful model for further research and reflective practice.
A shape shifting organelle: unusual mitochondrial phenotype determined with three-dimensional electron microscopy reconstruction

Mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell, are dynamic organelles that constantly move and change their size and morphology to meet energetic demands of the cell (Wai and Langer, 2016). Recent studies demonstrated that energy production is dependent on the ability of mitochondria to undergo cycles of fission and fusion collectively termed “mitochondrial dynamics” (Youle and van der Bliek, 2012). Fidelity of mitochondrial dynamics is especially important in neuronal cells where mitochondria traverse distances over one meter long to deliver energy to the distant parts of the cell for proper synaptic development, maintenance, and activity, and ultimately neuronal survival. Excessive mitochondrial fission has been associated with multiple neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD) (Reddy et al., 2011). Based on these studies, modulation of mitochondrial dynamics has been considered as novel therapeutic approach that could be beneficial for multiple human conditions (Reddy, 2014).
Effectiveness of Disinfectants in Killing Enterobacter sakazakii in Suspension, Dried on the Surface of Stainless Steel, and in a Biofilm

ABSTRACT The effectiveness of 13 disinfectants used in hospitals, day-care centers, and food service kitchens in killing Enterobacter sakazakii in suspension, dried on the surface of stainless steel, and in biofilm was determined. E. sakazakii exhibited various levels of resistance to the disinfectants, depending on the composition of the disinfectants, amount and type of organic matrix surrounding cells, and exposure time. Populations of planktonic cells suspended in water (7.22 to 7.40 log CFU/ml) decreased to undetectable levels (<0.30 log CFU/ml) within 1 to 5 min upon treatment with disinfectants, while numbers of cells in reconstituted infant formula were reduced by only 0.02 to 3.69 log CFU/ml after the treatment for 10 min. The presence of infant formula also enhanced the resistance to the disinfectants of cells dried on the surface of stainless steel. The resistance of cells to disinfectants in 6-day-old and 12-day-old biofilms on the surface of stainless steel was not significantly different. The overall order of efficacy of disinfectants in killing E. sakazakii was planktonic cells > cells inoculated and dried on stainless steel > cells in biofilms on stainless steel. Findings show that disinfectants routinely used in hospital, day-care, and food service kitchen settings are ineffective in killing some cells of E. sakazakii embedded in organic matrices.