Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Periodontal health, quality of life, and smiling patterns--an exploration.

BACKGROUND This study explored whether periodontal health/disease affects psychosocial outcomes in smiling patterns of particular subjects and their smile-related quality of life. METHODS We collected data from 21 regularly scheduled patients in a periodontal graduate student clinic (four males and 17 females; average age: 50.38 years; age range: 24 to 82 years). The subjects were videotaped while watching a funny television (TV) program. Two independent raters rated each videotape at 31 predetermined time points to assess four aspects of the objective smiling patterns of the subjects. In addition, the subjects responded to a questionnaire to assess their smile-related quality of life. Provider ratings and chart review data were used to assess the clinically assessed oral health status of the subjects. RESULTS The smile-related quality of life of the subjects correlated significantly with indicators of the periodontal health of the subjects, such as the number of mobile teeth (r = 0.681; P =0.000), missing teeth (r = 0.784; P = 0.001), and gingival recession in the esthetic zone (r = 0.718; P = 0.001). Periodontal health and smiling patterns also were correlated. The more teeth with probing depths between 4 and 6 mm the subjects had, the less widely they opened their mouths when they smiled (r = -0.468; P = 0.032); the more hypermobile teeth the subjects had, the less open their smiles were (r = -0.442; P = 0.045) and the more likely they were to cover their mouths when they smiled (r = 0.517; P = 0.017); and the more sites of gingival recession in the esthetic zone the subjects had, the fewer teeth they showed when they smiled (r = -0.491; P = 0.028). CONCLUSIONS The periodontal health of the subjects affects their smiling patterns and their smile-related quality of life. Poor periodontal health may prevent adults from expressing positive emotions which, in turn, can impact their self-concept as well as their social interactions.
High-speed intracoronary optical frequency domain imaging: implications for three-dimensional reconstruction and quantitative analysis.

AIM To assess the reproducibility of quantitative analysis of optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI) acquired at different pullback speeds (20, 30, 40 mm/sec), as well as the impact of cardiac motion artefact on three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 36 OFDI pullbacks were obtained pre- and post-stent implantation at the pullback speeds of 20, 30 and 40 mm/sec in non-diseased swine coronary arteries. The amount of x-ray contrast needed for blood clearance during OFDI imaging was recorded. Three-dimensional images of stented segments were rendered and artefacts on 3D images were assessed. Lumen areas (LA) were measured on each individual frame in pre- and post-stent pullbacks. The volume of contrast used with a pullback speed of 40 mm/sec was significantly smaller than with those of 30 and 20 mm/sec (10.8±1.8, 12.9±1.6, 15.9±2.6 ml, p<0.01, respectively). Three-dimensional reconstruction was feasible in all pullbacks. Faster pullback speeds resulted in a smaller number of artefacts. For quantitative measurement, a total of 7,426 frames were analysed. In non-stented vessels, LA derived from corresponding selected frames increased significantly with increasing pullback speeds (6.35±2.14 vs. 6.58±2.10 mm2 for 20 vs. 30 mm/sec [p<0.001], 6.36±2.13 vs. 6.75±2.09 mm2 for 20 vs. 40 mm/sec [p<0.001]), whereas in stented vessels there was no significant difference in mean LA between the three different pullback speeds (6.75±1.30 vs. 6.78±1.36 mm2 for 20 vs. 30 mm/sec [NS], 6.74±1.30 vs. 6.76±1.31 mm2 for 20 vs. 40 mm/sec [NS]). CONCLUSIONS Quantitative analysis of OFDI obtained at different pullback speeds in non-stented coronary arteries could potentially vary in LA measurement. OFDI with high-speed pullback allows quantitative analysis of stented vessels while reducing the amount of contrast and cardiac motion artefacts.
Primary haemochromatosis: a missed cause of chronic fatigue syndrome?

OBJECTIVE To determine whether patients previously diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) actually have primary haemochomatosis (PH). METHODS The setting was a Dutch referral centre. Transferrin saturation (TS) was retrospectively evaluated in banked blood samples of 88 patients diagnosed as CFS. Patients with elevated TS values were asked to provide a new overnight fasting blood sample for a second determination of TS and measurement of serum ferritin. The DNA was investigated for mutations in the HFE gene when one of these iron parameters was elevated. RESULTS For 19 out of 88 patients with CFS an elevated TS was found. A new blood sample was obtained from 11 of these 19: six had increased TS and two had elevated serum ferritin values. These eight patients were neither C282Y homozygotes nor compound C282Y-H63D heterozygotes. In the eight cases where no new blood samples could be obtained, the TS was > 50% for two of the five men and < 45% for the three female patients. CONCLUSION In a group of 88 CFS patients we could exclude PH in all but two of them (prevalence 2.3%; 95% confidence interval 0-5.5%). In our population of CFS patients PH is not more common than in a control population of northern European descent (prevalence 0.25-0.50%).
Institutions, regulation and governance of the internet: A European perspective on traffic, uses and business practices in the digital economy

The business of the internet behaves distinctly in Europe from elsewhere, belying cliches about the digital economy being global, flat and neutral. Those differences are mainly associated with distinctive business practices and they are manifest in the architecture and dynamic features of digital traffic, the business models that are built upon that system, and the governance that applies. In this paper we describe these differences and show how the structure of competition, regulators and other governance mechanisms define n economic model for Euope distinct from that of the US and elsewhere. We base our analysis on evidence about the type, volume and routing of digital traffic. We show that in addition to the vast differential in revenue accrued through different types of traffic (e.g. SMS, voice, streaming videos, software download, etc.) there are great differences in the profitability that different stakeholders in the digital economy can command. These differences stem from different strategic uses off the internet architecture, different market structures, and crucially differences in the institutions and governance of the European internet.
Nutritional, immunological and microbiological profiles of burn patients

A burn is a lesion on an organic tissue resultant from direct or indirect action of heat on the organism. The present study aimed to evaluate the nutritional, immunological and microbiological status of burn patients at the Bauru State Hospital, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, in 2007. Eight patients, aged more than 18 years and injured up to 24 hours, were evaluated at the moment of hospitalization and seven days later. All victims were males with a mean age of 38 years. On average, 17.5% of their body surfaces were burned and 50% of the patients were eutrophic. There were significant alterations in levels of erythrocytes, hemoglobin, hematocrit, total protein and albumin due to increased endothelial permeability, direct destruction of proteins in the heat-affected area and blood loss from lesions or debridement. At a second moment, cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α had augmented significantly, with IL-6 presenting elevated levels in relation to controls at the first moment. Microbiological analysis showed that 100% of the samples collected at hospital admission were negative and after one week Staphylococcus aureus was found in all cultures. Therefore, a burn patient may be considered immunosuppressed and these results indicate significant nutritional, immunological and microbiological alterations that can interfere in his recovery.
Balloon Dacryoplasty in Internal Ostium Stenosis After Endoscopic Dacryocystorhinostomy

Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of balloon dacryoplasty in the treatment of internal ostium stenosis after endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy (EnDCR). Methods: A retrospective, noncomparative interventional case series of patients who underwent balloon dacryoplasty for post-EnDCR internal ostium stenosis were included. A balloon catheter was used in all procedures, with bicanalicular silicone intubation. Patient records were reviewed and data analyzed. Anatomical success was defined by functional endoscopic dye test, and functional success was defined as a subjective improvement in symptoms at last follow up. Results: Nineteen lacrimal systems of 18 consecutive patients were studied between July 2007 and September 2012. At a mean follow up of 20 months (range, 3–53 months), anatomical success rate was 84% (16/19 systems), whereas functional success was 74% (14/19 systems). No major complication was observed. Conclusions: Balloon dacryoplasty is a minimally invasive procedure in the treatment of post-EnDCR internal ostium stenosis. It is a simple, safe procedure and can provide symptomatic relief to some of these patients. It can be considered as a treatment option for patients demonstrated with internal ostium stenosis after EnDCR.
A surface reconstruction method for in-detail underwater 3D optical mapping

Underwater range scanning techniques are starting to gain interest in underwater exploration, providing new tools to represent the seafloor. These scans (often) acquired by underwater robots usually result in an unstructured point cloud, but given the common downward-looking or forward-looking configuration of these sensors with respect to the scene, the problem of recovering a piecewise linear approximation representing the scene is normally solved by approximating these 3D points using a heightmap (2.5D). Nevertheless, this representation is not able to correctly represent complex structures, especially those presenting arbitrary concavities normally exhibited in underwater objects. We present a method devoted to full 3D surface reconstruction that does not assume any specific sensor configuration. The method presented is robust to common defects in raw scanned data such as outliers and noise often present in extreme environments such as underwater, both for sonar and optical surveys. Moreover, the proposed method does not need a manual preprocessing step. It is also generic as it does not need any information other than the points themselves to work. This property leads to its wide application to any kind of range scanning technologies and we demonstrate its versatility by using it on synthetic data, controlled laser scans, and multibeam sonar surveys. Finally, and given the unbeatable level of detail that optical methods can provide, we analyze the application of this method on optical datasets related to biology, geology and archeology.
Corporate Governance in Europe: An Empirical Analysis of the Italian Case Among Non Financial Listed Companies

This paper has investigated the main features of the corporate governance system in Italy within a European perspective. The results of the research conducted among Italian non financial listed companies have been analysed and discussed in terms of issues such as ownership and control structures, executive remuneration and evaluation, the mission of the companies, the role of banks and other financial institutions, capital market and market for corporate control, employees, and the structure and the functioning of the board, considering the role of the chief executive officer, its separation with the role of chairperson, the role of the non executive directors and of the internal audit committee. The particular issues of corporate governance determined by the presence of the blockholder have been analysed. Furthermore, the potential changes on corporate governance that may derive from the Draghi reform in order to provide a solution to the problem of the unsafeguarded interest of the minority shareholders have been briefly underlined. The characteristics of the Italian corporate governance system have then been discussed in comparison to the main corporate governance systems in Europe: France, Germany and the UK. The intent was not to decide which of the corporate governance systems is the best and should be used as a benchmark, rather to explore the differences among the systems and to analyse the relevance of the cultural, historical, and institutional factors as well as some economic factors such as the ownership structure and the degree of separation between ownership and control. Both the so called nation effect and the ownership structure appear to be relevant in defining the issues of corporate governance. In some cases the reality sees the former prevail, whilst in others the latter does. Within a European context, the Italian system of corporate governance seems to be effectively summarised by the expression "weak managers, strong blockholders and unprotected minority shareholders", paraphrasing M. Roe's (1994) sentence.
Injury Outcomes in Elderly Patients Admitted at an Urban African Hospital

Background: Elderly patients have worse outcomes for similar severity when compared to younger trauma patients. Elderly patients form smaller proportions of the trauma population in the developing world in comparison to high income countries. Due to limited data capabilities, elderly trauma has been infrequently studied. Objective: To describe the common injuries that afflict elderly trauma patients associated resource utilization and the determinants of outcome in Kenyan urban hospital. Methods: Seventy two patients aged 60 years and older admitted for trauma from diverse mechanisms, were recruited over a period of one year (November 2009-December 2010). Data on the specific mechanism and type of injury, age, sex, intensive care unit (ICU) use, hospital length of stay, and cost were recorded. Survivors and those who died during admission were compared to determine associated factors. Elderly patients were also compared to younger trauma patients to determine significant group peculiarities using X2 analysis or Fisher’s exact test as appropriate. Results: Elderly trauma cases (mean age 70.5 + 9.1 years) formed 4.5% of all trauma admissions during the study period. The intent was accidental in 84.7% of cases. The predominant mechanisms of injury were traffic (44.4%) and falls (41.7%). Females comprised 41.7% of all patients and lower limb fractures predominated (54.9%). The average injury severity score was 7.82 + 4.4. (median 9.0). The proportion admitted to the ICU was 6%. The median length of hospital stay was 24 days, cost of treatment Kshs. 27,153 Kenya shillings and overall hospital mortality rate was 13.9% (25% for ISS > 15). Only gender and head injury were predictors of mortality. Conclusions: Traffic and falls are the predominant mechanisms in geriatric trauma in Kenya. Unique features of geriatric trauma are higher female involvement, prolonged length of hospital stay and fewer predictors of mortality compared to younger patients.
Molecular Phylogeny, Revised Higher Classification, and Implications for Conservation of Endangered Hawaiian Leaf-Mining Moths (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae: Philodoria)1

Abstract: The leaf-mining moth genus Philodoria Walsingham (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) is composed of 30 described species, all of which are endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. Philodoria is known to feed on 10 families of endemic Hawaiian host plants, with several species recorded only from threatened or endangered hosts. Beyond their dependence on these plants, little is known of their evolutionary history and conservation status. We constructed a molecular phylogeny of Philodoria to assess validity of its current subgeneric classification and to help guide future work on this threatened Hawaiian lineage. Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences from three genes (CO1, CAD, EF-1α) combining for a total of 2,041 base pairs, were collected from 11 Philodoria species, incorporating taxa from both currently recognized subgenera. These data were analyzed using both parsimony and model-based phylogenetic approaches. Contrary to the most recent systematic treatment of Philodoria, our results indicate strongly that the two currently recognized Philodoria subgenera are not monophyletic and that morphological characters used to classify them are homoplasious. Based on our robust results, we revised the higher classification of Philodoria: the subgenus Eophilodoria Zimmerman, 1978 is established as subjective junior synonym of Philodoria Walsingham, 1907. We also present new host plant and distribution data and discuss host range of Philodoria as it pertains to endangered Hawaiian plants.
60-GHz AMC-Based Circularly Polarized On-Chip Antenna Using Standard 0.18-$\mu$ m CMOS Technology

A 60-GHz artificial magnetic conductor (AMC)-based circularly polarized (CP) on-chip antenna has been designed and fabricated using standard 0.18-μm six metal-layer CMOS technology. The design consists of a wideband circularly polarized loop antenna at the top layer M6 and a novel AMC structure at the bottom layer M1. The size of the antenna including the modified AMC structure is 1.8 × 1.8 × 0.3 mm3. The circular open-loop structure is employed for antenna design because the gap within the loop can excite traveling wave current and then achieve circular polarized radiation. In addition, it is found that the bandwidth of circular polarization can be significantly increased by introducing one more inner parasitic loop. With the modified AMC structure integrated into the bottom layer, the antenna performance can be optimized and improved as more design freedom is introduced. The proposed antenna can offer a simulated peak gain of -3.7 dBi and a measured gain of -4.4 dBi, respectively, as well as simulated and measured axial ratio (AR <; 3) bandwidth to cover from 57 to 67 GHz.
Multivariate analysis of the dielectric response of materials modeled using networks of resistors and capacitors

We discuss the modeling of dielectric responses of electromagnetically excited networks which are composed of a mixture of capacitors and resistors. Such networks can be employed as lumped-parameter circuits to model the response of composite materials containing conductive and insulating grains. The dynamics of the excited network systems are studied using a state space model derived from a randomized incidence matrix. Time and frequency domain responses from synthetic data sets generated from state space models are analyzed for the purpose of estimating the fraction of capacitors in the network. Good results were obtained by using either the time-domain response to a pulse excitation or impedance data at selected frequencies. A chemometric framework based on a Successive Projections Algorithm (SPA) enables the construction of multiple linear regression (MLR) models which can efficiently determine the ratio of conductive to insulating components in composite material samples. The proposed method avoids restrictions commonly associated with Archie's law, the application of percolation theory or Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts models and is applicable to experimental results generated by either time domain transient spectrometers or continuous-wave instruments. Furthermore, it is quite generic and applicable to tomography, acoustics as well as other spectroscopies such as nuclear magnetic resonance, electron paramagnetic resonance and, therefore, should be of general interest across the dielectrics community.
Reactivity of CO2 on the surfaces of magnetite (Fe3O4), greigite (Fe3S4) and mackinawite (FeS)

The growing environmental, industrial and commercial interests in understanding the processes of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and conversion have led us to simulate, by means of density functional theory calculations, the application of different iron oxide and sulfide minerals to capture, activate and catalytically dissociate this molecule. We have chosen the {001} and {111} surfaces of the spinel-structured magnetite (Fe3O4) and its isostructural sulfide counterpart greigite (Fe3S4), which are both materials with the Fe cations in the 2+/3+ mixed valence state, as well as mackinawite (tetragonal FeS), in which all iron ions are in the ferrous oxidation state. This selection of iron-bearing compounds provides us with understanding of the effect of the composition, stoichiometry, structure and oxidation state on the catalytic activation of CO2. The largest adsorption energies are released for the interaction with the Fe3O4 surfaces, which also corresponds to the biggest conformational changes of the CO2 molecule. Our results suggest that the Fe3S4 surfaces are unable to activate the CO2 molecule, while a major charge transfer takes place on FeS{111}, effectively activating the CO2 molecule. The thermodynamic and kinetic profiles for the catalytic dissociation of CO2 into CO and O show that this process is feasible only on the FeS{111} surface. The findings reported here show that these minerals show promise for future CO2 capture and conversion technologies, ensuring a sustainable future for society. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Providing sustainable catalytic solutions for a rapidly changing world’.
Role of prostaglandin E2 receptor subtypes in ovarian follicle growth in the rat in vivo. Correlation with interleukin-8 and neutrophils.

UNLABELLED This study was conducted to elucidate the role of three of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) receptor subtype (EP2, EP3, and EP4) agonists in the process of follicular growth. The influence of these agonists on ovarian expression of intimately related factors to follicle development (neutrophils and interleukin-8 (IL-8)) was also investigated. Immature female Wistar rats were injected once with these agonists and killed 48 hours later. Another group of rats were injected pregnant mare serum gonadotrophin. For evaluation of follicle growth, morphometric assessment of antral and ovulatory follicles was performed in serial ovarian sections. The study demonstrated that, EP2 and EP4 agonists showed the maximum follicle counts and diameters versus the control. EP2 and EP4 agonists mimicked PMSG induced follicle growth. Injection of the three agonists induced neutrophil infiltration into theca layer. EP4 agonist showed the most intense ovarian neutrophil accumulation. In addition, dense ovarian IL-8 expression was observed only after EP4 agonist injection. CONCLUSIONS Our data suggests that: 1) EP2 and EP4 receptors are the key PGE2 receptors engaged in follicle growth. 2) Ovarian IL-8 expression and neutrophil infiltration are chiefly mediated via the EP4 receptor. EP2 and EP4 receptor agonists may be candidates for promising reagents that induce follicle maturation in clinical or agricultural fields. This knowledge could provide numerous targets for manipulation of fertility.
Genetics on the Fly: A Primer on the Drosophila Model System

Fruit flies of the genus Drosophila have been an attractive and effective genetic model organism since Thomas Hunt Morgan and colleagues made seminal discoveries with them a century ago. Work with Drosophila has enabled dramatic advances in cell and developmental biology, neurobiology and behavior, molecular biology, evolutionary and population genetics, and other fields. With more tissue types and observable behaviors than in other short-generation model organisms, and with vast genome data available for many species within the genus, the fly’s tractable complexity will continue to enable exciting opportunities to explore mechanisms of complex developmental programs, behaviors, and broader evolutionary questions. This primer describes the organism’s natural history, the features of sequenced genomes within the genus, the wide range of available genetic tools and online resources, the types of biological questions Drosophila can help address, and historical milestones.