Dental students’ and patients’ perceived importance and knowledge of dental anxiety

Abstract Aim: To examine the perceived importance and knowledge of the dental students’ in their treatment of dental anxiety according to their year of study and to find out patients’ perceived importance of the dental students’ knowledge of dental anxiety according to their level on dental fear. Methods: Dental students (N = 219) at the University of Turku and non‐probability convenience sample of 100 of patients attending the Dental Teaching Clinic were given questionnaires with multiple choice and open‐ended questions. Students were categorised into three groups according to the year of study (1–3, 4, 5). Patients were categorised into three groups using the established cut points for Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (no fear = 5–9, low fear = 10–18, high fear = 19–25). The differences between groups were evaluated using cross‐tabulations, chi squared and Fisher’s exact tests. The open‐ended questions were subjected to content analysis. Results: Students’ perceived importance of dental anxiety did not differ between three groups. Students with greater undergraduate education and clinical experience were more likely to have excellent or quite good knowledge (P < 0.001). Patients’ perceived importance of dental students’ knowledge of dental anxiety was greater in patients with high level of fear. The overlapping category that emerged from the open‐ended question analysis was communication skills. This appeared to be important for patients with dental anxiety and for dental students in their management of dental anxiety. Conclusion: Clinical communication skills should be part of dental anxiety management teaching. Dental students should be able to gain sufficient knowledge and skills in treating dental anxiety before graduating

Acoustic Emission from Paper Fracture

We report tensile failure experiments on paper sheets. The acoustic emission energy and the waiting times between acoustic events follow power-law distributions. This remains true while the strain rate is varied by more than two orders of magnitude. The energy statistics has the exponent $\beta \sim 1.25 \pm 0.10$ and the waiting times the exponent $\tau \sim 1.0 \pm 0.1$, in particular for the energy roughly independent of the strain rate. These results do not compare well with fracture models, for (brittle) disordered media, which as such exhibit criticality. One reason may be residual stresses, neglected in most theories.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Dental students' and patients' perceived importance and knowledge of dental anxiety

Aim To examine the perceived importance and knowledge of the dental students' in their treatment of dental anxiety according to their year of study and to find out patients' perceived importance of the dental students' knowledge of dental anxiety according to their level on dental fear. Methods Dental students (N = 219) at the University of Turku and non-probability convenience sample of 100 of patients attending the Dental Teaching Clinic were given questionnaires with multiple choice and open-ended questions. Students were categorised into three groups according to the year of study (1-3, 4, 5). Patients were categorised into three groups using the established cut points for Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (no fear = 5-9, low fear = 10-18, high fear = 19-25). The differences between groups were evaluated using cross-tabulations, chi squared and Fisher's exact tests. The open-ended questions were subjected to content analysis. Results Students' perceived importance of dental anxiety did not differ between three groups. Students with greater undergraduate education and clinical experience were more likely to have excellent or quite good knowledge (P < .001). Patients' perceived importance of dental students' knowledge of dental anxiety was greater in patients with high level of fear. The overlapping category that emerged from the open-ended question analysis was communication skills. This appeared to be important for patients with dental anxiety and for dental students in their management of dental anxiety. Conclusion Clinical communication skills should be part of dental anxiety management teaching. Dental students should be able to gain sufficient knowledge and skills in treating dental anxiety before graduating

High frequency of TTK mutations in microsatellite-unstable colorectal cancer and evaluation of their effect on spindle assembly checkpoint

Frameshift mutations frequently accumulate in microsatellite-unstable colorectal cancers (MSI CRCs) typically leading to downregulation of the target genes due to nonsense-mediated messenger RNA decay. However, frameshift mutations that occur in the 3' end of the coding regions can escape decay, which has largely been ignored in previous works. In this study, we characterized nonsense-mediated decay-escaping frameshift mutations in MSI CRC in an unbiased, genome wide manner. Combining bioinformatic search with expression profiling, we identified genes that were predicted to escape decay after a deletion in a microsatellite repeat. These repeats, located in 258 genes, were initially sequenced in 30 MSI CRC samples. The mitotic checkpoint kinase TTK was found to harbor decay-escaping heterozygous mutations in exon 22 in 59% (105/179) of MSI CRCs, which is notably more than previously reported. Additional novel deletions were found in exon 5, raising the mutation frequency to 66%. The exon 22 of TTK contains an A(9)-G(4)-A(7) locus, in which the most common mutation was a mononucleotide deletion in the A(9) (c.2560delA). When compared with identical non-coding repeats, TTK was found to be mutated significantly more often than expected without selective advantage. Since TTK inhibition is known to induce override of the mitotic spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC), we challenged mutated cancer cells with the microtubule-stabilizing drug paclitaxel. No evidence of checkpoint weakening was observed. As a conclusion, heterozygous TTK mutations occur at a high frequency in MSI CRCs. Unexpectedly, the plausible selective advantage in tumourigenesis does not appear to be related to SAC

Associations of Leisure-Time Physical Activity Trajectories with Fruit and Vegetable Consumption from Childhood to Adulthood: The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study

A physically active lifestyle and a diet rich in vegetables and fruits have a central role in promoting health. This study examined the associations between leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) trajectories and fruit and vegetable consumption (FVC) from childhood to middle age. The data were drawn from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study with six age cohorts. Participants were 9 to 18 years (n = 3536; 51% females) at baseline in 1980 and 33 to 48 years at the last follow-up in 2011. LTPA and FVC were self-reported. LTPA trajectories were identified using latent profile analyses, after which the mean differences in FVC across the trajectories were studied. Active, low-active, decreasingly and increasingly active trajectories were identified for both genders. An additional trajectory describing inactivity was identified for females. Those who were persistently active or increased their LTPA had higher FVC at many ages when compared to their inactive or low-active counterparts (p < 0.05). In females prior to age 42 and in males prior to age 24, FVC was higher at many ages in those with decreasing activity than in their inactive or low-active counterparts (p < 0.05). The development of LTPA and FVC from childhood to middle age seem to occur in tandem.</p

The CAFA challenge reports improved protein function prediction and new functional annotations for hundreds of genes through experimental screens

Background: The Critical Assessment of Functional Annotation (CAFA) is an ongoing, global, community-driven effort to evaluate and improve the computational annotation of protein function. Results: Here, we report on the results of the third CAFA challenge, CAFA3, that featured an expanded analysis over the previous CAFA rounds, both in terms of volume of data analyzed and the types of analysis performed. In a novel and major new development, computational predictions and assessment goals drove some of the experimental assays, resulting in new functional annotations for more than 1000 genes. Specifically, we performed experimental whole genome mutation screening in Candida albicans and aeruginosa genomes, which provided us with genome-wide experimental data for genes associated with biofilm formation and motility. We further performed targeted assays on selected genes in Drosophila melanogaster, which we suspected of being involved in long-term memory. Conclusion: We conclude that while predictions of the molecular function and biological process annotations have slightly improved over time, those of the cellular component have not. Term-centric prediction of experimental annotations remains equally challenging; although the performance of the top methods is significantly better than the expectations set by baseline methods in C. albicans and D. melanogaster, it leaves considerable room and need for improvement. Finally, we report that the CAFA community now involves a broad range of participants with expertise in bioinformatics, biological experimentation, biocuration, and bio-ontologies, working together to improve functional annotation, computational function prediction, and our ability to manage big data in the era of large experimental screens

Biokinetics and dosimetry of commonly used radiopharmaceuticals in diagnostic nuclear medicine – a review

Purpose The impact on patients’ health of radiopharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine diagnostics has not until now been evaluated systematically in a European context. Therefore, as part of the EU-funded Project PEDDOSE. NET (www.peddose.net), we review and summarize the current knowledge on biokinetics and dosimetry of commonly used diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals. Methods A detailed literature search on published biokinetic and dosimetric data was performed mostly via PubMed (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed). In principle the criteria for inclusion of data followed the EANM Dosimetry Committee guidance document on good clinical reporting. Results Data on dosimetry and biokinetics can be difficult to find, are scattered in various journals and, especially in paediatric nuclear medicine, are very scarce. The data collection and calculation methods vary with respect to the time-points, bladder voiding, dose assessment after the last data point and the way the effective dose was calculated. In many studies the number of subjects included for obtaining biokinetic and dosimetry data was fewer than ten, and some of the biokinetic data were acquired more than 20 years ago. Conclusion It would be of interest to generate new data on biokinetics and dosimetry in diagnostic nuclear medicine using state-of-the-art equipment and more uniform dosimetry protocols. For easier public access to dosimetry data for diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals, a database containing these data should be created and maintained