Is there association between temporomandibular dysfunctions, sleep quality, parafunctional habits, anxiety and depressive symptoms in patients with chronic kidney disease undergoing hemodialysis? - Pilot study

 Abstract: There is a high prevalence of anxiety, depression, and stress in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and these factors associated with psychotropic medications can lead to temporomandibular disorders (TMD). However, the association between these variables and TMD is still unclear. Objective: To associate TMD with anxiety, depression, stress, sleep quality, use of psychotropic drugs and parafunctional habits (PH) in patients with CKD undergoing hemodialysis (HD). Methods: Cross-sectional study, approved by CEP (CAAE: 63054822.5.0000.5350) carried out with 28 patients. Patients with scores greater than 19 points on the Mini Mental State Examination questionnaire and at least one positive response on the American Academy of Orofacial Pain TMD screening questionnaire and who underwent hemodialysis for more than 3 months were included. Those who were in isolation or hospitalized at the time of data collection were excluded. After analyzing the screening results, the patients were submitted to the research protocol, which consisted of the following instruments: application of the questionnaire to collect clinical and sociodemographic data; Fonseca anamnestic index;  Parafunctional Habits (PFH) assessment questionnaire; Hamilton Anxiety Scale – HAM and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index – PSQI. Results: It was found that 60.71% of the patients had some degree of TMD and 92.86% had PH, the most cited being the habit of chewing gum/candy and sleeping on one side. Still, 82.17% of the patients slept more than 6 hours a day, even though they did not have a good quality of sleep. 42.8% of patients reported the presence of depression and 42.85% used psychotropic medications. TMD had a statistically significant association with the PFH of waking bruxism, resting the hand on the jaw, chewing on one side only and biting the nails and with the use of antidepressant medication. Conclusion: Most patients with CKD on hemodialysis have TMD and there is a statistically significant association of TMD degrees with the PFH of grinding teeth awake, clenching teeth awake, resting the hand on the jaw, biting nails and chewing on one side alone and with the use of antidepressant medication. This is an indication that TMD should be evaluated and treated in these patients with the potential to improve their quality of life

Simulating schizophrenia through virtual reality and artificial intelligence

This research project presents the use of Artificial Intelligence in a Virtual Reality simulation to immerse the player in a virtual world and experience the symptoms that a person with Schizophrenia would experience. The simulation features a number of simple tasks which the player needs to attempt, whilst at the same time facing challenges due to the effects of Schizophrenia, taking place in the form of both visual and auditory hallucinations. Artificial Intelligence is applied to the interactive narrative to allow the storyline and characters to adapt to the user’s actions, thus increasing the immersiveness of the experience. A pilot study with 58 mental health nursing students was carried out at the Department of Mental Health, University of Malta. Participant feedback from the evaluation sessions give indications that the project was well accepted and achieved the desired outcomes of increasing awareness and fostering empathy for people living with Schizophrenia. 91.4% of users who evaluated the system stated that the simulation has helped increase their understanding of Schizophrenia

Growth and fixed mindset classification using NLP approach

Theories regarding the growth and fixed mindsets have emerged in the last couple of decades. It focuses on how peoples’ brains think and handle problems. People with a fixed mindset tend to feel they cannot improve or overcome difficult situations. On the other hand, people with a growth mindset tend to focus on the process and believe they can improve no matter where they started. We hypothesized that these mindsets can also be detected from text. Our goal was to design an NLP framework to classify sentences as growth or fixed mindsets. We used data generated by a Large Language Model (LLM) for our dataset: around 2000 sentences. We discovered a relationship between the sentiment of the sentence and the mindset type. Our model was a merged model which extracted features from words using word embeddings and used manually extracted features such as sentiment scores. A bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) was used to provide more context to both the beginning as well as the end of sentence. The final model had an F1 score of 0.99. The model can be improved by using a greater dataset, preferably created by humans instead of an AI

Judo for elite Brazilian women: A successful trajectory into the 21st century: A narrative review

Background: The objective of this study was to verify, in a perspective way, the history and evolution of the development of the Brazilian Elite Female Judo. Brazilian women's Judo is one of the best Judo teams in the world. Performance and achievement in Olympic and world championships has reached a significant and expressive increase. That is, of course, medal winnings at different competitive levels. Making it one of the most prestigious sport in Brazil. Methods: This is a Narrative Review study, where the Scielo, Google Scholar and PubMed databases were used, with no initial period restriction until the year 2022. Results: Women's Brazilian Judo evolved both individually and as a team. Achieving expressive results in national and international competitions, in the Olympic Games and World Championships. In addition, these results have raised the competitive level of the Brazilian judo team worldwide. It has solidified women within sport and combat sports. However, some barriers (social resistance, lack of investment, little credibility and social representation) persist, albeit with less intensity. Conclusion: We conclude that Brazilian Women's Judo is a strong representative in the competitive, social and world scenario. In addition, that the participation of women raised the sport to a high level of social representation

Depressive symptoms as a predictor of rehospitalization and death of heart failure

Introduction: Hearth failure is a disease with a high risk of complications and reduces life expectancy. Ventricular function and neurohumoral activation are defining characteristics of the disease. The present of depressive symptoms is extremely common and determinant for the HF, and its influence may determine the prognosis of the disease.Methods: Consecutively hospitalized patients with HF were analyzed and recruited for three months, receiving clinical follow-up for six months after admission. Sociodemographic and clinical variables were analyzed and submitted to a type II Beck questionnaire to analyze depressive symptoms. They received clinical follow-up in person or by phone call to determine whether there was hospital readmission or death in the afore mentioned period. Chi-square test, Student’s t-test were used to compare groups with and without depressive symptoms, multivariate analysis was used to determine mortality predictors in the group with depressive symptoms up to the sixth month.Results: Initially, 103 patients were included, and after six months 96 patients remained alive. The mean age was 63.5±12.1 years. Most patients were female (58.4%). New York Heart Association functional class was in II and III in 75% of the sample. In the sample, 59 (61.4%) had DS by the Beck questionnaire type II. There were 28 (29.2%) patients with the analyzed outcomes and in the multivariate logistic regression analysis, the presence of age was a determining factor for the outcomes.Conclusion: The presence of heart failure associated with depressive symptoms becomes a combination with increasingly evident complications, as well as it also becomes a long-term relevant factor for readmission and death. Depressive symptoms in our sample proved to be a major factor in deaths and readmissions. A multidisciplinary care is extremely important for the improvement of care

Conflict resolution in Libya

This paper examines the role of key conflict elements such as solidarity among disagreeing groups and partisan foreign intervention in the complexification of the Libyan conflict. Incorporating evidentiary events along with a comparative application of different conflict theories (ripeness theory, instrumentalism, primordialism, protracted social conflict and constructivism), this paper argues that ideational factors top merely material factors in the Libyan conflict and no permanent solution can be achieved without changing people 's socially constructed identities and world view

A comparative study of the electrical properties of undoped schottky junction In/a-Si:H/AZO-Coated-Glass and In/SiNWs/AZO-Coated-Glass Solar Cells

Plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) is used to synthesise undoped hydrogenated amorphous thin film silicon (a-Si:H) and silicon nanowire (SiNWs) array for solar cell applications. Indium metal is used as the top contact electrode in Schottky junction configured solar cells devices represented as In/a-Si:H/AZO-coated glass and In/SiNWs/AZO-coated glass respectively. For six solar cell devices on each sample, its observed that charge carrier trap states are observed under dark conditions, despite indium metal's farther position on the various impurities in silicon mid-band gap and minimum temperature for Vapour-Liquid-Solid (VLS) Silicon nanowire growth, which is expected to not produce charge carrier trap states. In/SiNWs/AZO-coated glass solar device demonstrated  non-rectifying and ohmic  behaviour with no significant measurable solar cell device parameters, while In/a-Si:H/AZO-coated glass showed rectifying and Schottky behaviour with a reported average values of short circuit current (ISC) of (9.522 ± 0.82)A, open circuit voltage (VOC) of (0.305 ± 0.05)V, and ideality factor (n) of (4.7 ± 0.32)

Inability of 7,8 – Dihydroxy-4- Methylcoumarin antioxidant activity, to prolong longevity and to protect against stress in Caenorhabditis Elegans worms

Despite an increase in life expectancy, it is known that this factor is not necessarily accompanied by a better quality of life, which reflects in longevity. Aspects related to metabolic stress to which cells are subjected can modulate this process, which can lead to various pathologies. Coumarins are secondary metabolites found in several plants, such as guaco, and are part of the polyphenol family capable of producing up to 1300 derivatives, with potential effects against metabolic stress, in addition to being used in the cosmetics industry with the objective of improving fragrance of products. Therefore, it seems necessary to seek to elucidate molecular mechanisms that can regulate this aging process, which can be associated with the gradual loss of physiological functions of cells and tissues, increasing the number of cells in senescence that may be related to increased oxidative stress. PURPOSE: the aim of this study was to identify the influence of the use of the coumarin synthetic compound 7,8-Dihydroxy-4-methylcoumarin (DHMC) on longevity and resistance to different types of stress in vivo. METHODS: free radical scavenging (DPPH) analyzes were performed for the compound, longevity, and stress tests (H2O2, NaCl, Heat) for C. elegans worms. RESULTS: in the first analysis, the compound showed 92% of antioxidant activity already in small concentrations (25ug/ml) through DPPH analysis. In the following tests DHMC did not show antibacterial responses against Escherichia coli, and Caenorhabditis elegans worms did not show stress reduction or significant improvement in longevity with the use of the compound. CONCLUSION: therefore, the DHMC compound expresses a high antioxidant activity and presents several study potentials. However, it has no biological effects in protecting against stress or contributing to longevity in C. elegans worm

A string theory of quantum gravity and inertial fields for the description of reality

Relativity of space time neglects uncertainty principle while Quantum Mechanics takes into account the uncertainty principle but neglects space time structure.In this work we put both principles together and find one expression for the interval to the type of Kaluza Klein where the fifth term is not one extra dimension but a quantum state of space.This work is complementary with others where posit a model of vacuum in which decompose the continuous spatial geometry into 3-dimensional cells and put a oscillator in each one. This oscillators couple in a way that build a large set of open and closed fibers that group in open strings. Because this strings have no null section, it can be interpreted as a extra dimension.We will show in a self consistent way that this cells model can explain gravity and inertial forces in algebraic terms

Improving conversations with digital assistants through extracting, recommending, and verifying user inputs

Digital assistants, including chat bots and voice assistants, suffer from discrepancies and uncertainty in human text and speech inputs. Human dialogue is often varied, ambiguous, and inconsistent, making data entry prone to error and difficult for digital assistants to process. Finding and extracting pertinent information from unstructured user inputs improves and expands the use of digital assistants on any platform. By confirming data entries and providing relevant recommendations when invalid information is provided, the digital assistant enables the use of natural language and introduces a higher degree of flow into the conversation.This paper describes a series of input logic codifiers that form a corrective method to overcome errors and ambiguity typical of voice and text inputs. When users make a common mistake or forget data, the digital assistant can bridge the gap by recommending the most similar data that is available. The assistant measures the delta between the user’s utterance and valid entries using fuzzy logic to identify the closest and next closest data that relates to the unstructured text.Furthermore, there are endless ways to denote dates, locations, etc., making it difficult for digital assistants to extract accurate and relevant data from the user’s natural language. However, the assistant may infer the desired data format or reference from the dialogue provided and validate this with the user as a follow-on question. The desired data format or type is inferred using fuzzy extraction methods, such as fuzzy date extraction, to isolate the desired data format from the unstructured text. This extracted information is then verified or confirmed by the user to maintain data accuracy and avoid downstream data quality issues