Facial soft tissue changes after orthodontic treatment

Objectives: To successfully meet expectations on facial esthetics, it is important to understand normal craniofacial growth and the impact of orthodontic treatment thereon. To date, there have been few studies documenting changes in facial esthetics through photography. The objective of this study was to compare facial soft tissue esthetics beforeand after orthodontic treatment by means of photographic analysis.Materials and Methods: The 45 children were divided into 3 groups  according to Anglefs classification: Groups I, II, and III comprised children with class I, II, and III malocclusion, respectively. Photographs were analyzed with a software. Twenty.one soft tissue landmarks were identified on profile and frontal photographs, ratios and angles were calculated. Results: For group I, there was no difference between pre. and  post.treatment facial analysis. For group II, there were significant changes in 5 values. The most significant changes were observed for A-N-B and Al-Me/Ch-Me. For group III, we noted significant changes for 5 values. The most significant change was observed for N-Pn-Pog. Conclusion: There were significant changes in facial soft tissue esthetics after orthodontic treatment for class II and III cases. Changes in A.N.B and nose tip angle (N-Pn-Cm) were observed for class II and class III subjects.Key words: Aesthetics, photograph, soft tissu

Nebivolol might be Beneficial in Osteoporosis Treatment: A Hypothesis

Nebivolol is a β-blocker that is highly selective for β1-adrenergic receptors with vasodilating properties. This property can be attributed to an endothelial release of nitric oxide (NO). It has been reported that nebivolol also reduces intracellular oxidative stress. There are some studies conducted in humans and animal models which have shown that NO is an important regulator of bone metabolism. However, oxidative stress and antioxidant systems may play important roles in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis. In this paper, we hypothesized that nebivolol may have beneficial effects via nitric oxide and antioxidant action in osteoporosis treatment

Accelerated Tooth Movement with Orthodontic Mini-Screws

This case report outlines the possibility of accelerated tooth movement with the combination of microosteoperforation and mini-screws. A 14-year-old male patient presented Class II malocclusion with maxillary incisor protrusion. Upper first premolars were extracted, and after leveling, accelerated canine distalization started. For pre- and postdistalization times, amount of distalization, periodontal health, and root resorption were assessed. Within the limitations of this case report, micro-osteoperforations with mini-screw have a potential for shortening the treatment time

Canadian Traveler Problem with Neutralizations

The Canadian Traveler Problem (CTP) and the Obstacle Neutralization Problem (ONP) are two well-studied graph-theoretic path planning problems in the literature and both problems have been shown to be computationally intractable. In CTP, certain edges in a graph are blocked by a known probability and their status is revealed only when the traversing agent is at either end of these edges using the agent's limited disambiguation capability. The goal is to minimize the expected length of the traversal between a starting and a termination vertex by devising a policy that dictates in real-time which edge to disambiguate. In ONP, an agent needs to safely and swiftly navigate from a given source location to a destination through an arrangement of obstacles in the plane. The agent has a limited neutralization capability and uses it to safely pass through an obstacle at a cost of increased traversal length. The agent's goal is to find the sequence of obstacles to be neutralized en route which minimizes the overall traversal length subject to the agent's limited neutralization capability. Both of these problems have important and practical applications within the context of expert and intelligent systems. These include: autonomous robot navigation, adaptive transportation systems, naval and land minefield countermeasures, and navigation inside disaster areas for emergency relief operations. In this study, we consider a new path planning problem in the simultaneous presence of disambiguation and neutralization capabilities. This appears to be the first of its kind in the literature despite the close and inherent relationship between CTP and ONP. We call this problem the Canadian Traveler Problem with Neutralizations (CTPN). We present a Markov decision process formulation of CTPN and propose an optimal algorithm. This is based on an extension of the well-known AO* search algorithm. We provide computational experiments on Delaunay graphs to assess the relative performance of th

Painless aortic dissection with bilateral carotid involvement presenting with vertigo as the chief complaint

A 63 year‐old woman was admitted to the emergency department with vertigo, nausea, and vomiting. On arrival ,she was fully oriented and cooperative. She denied any pain in her chest, neck, back, or abdomen. A bruit was heard on both sides of her neck. Cranial computed tomography (CT) revealed no abnormality, while thoracic CT disclosed dissection in the ascending aorta, aortic arch, and bilateral common carotid arteries. After several hours, the patient underwent vascular surgery. She had an uneventful course and was discharged without any sequelae after 10 days

Optimal ship navigation with safety distance and realistic turn constraints

We consider the optimal ship navigation problem wherein the goal is to find the shortest path between two given coordinates in the presence of obstacles subject to safety distance and turn-radius constraints. These obstacles can be debris, rock formations, small islands, ice blocks, other ships, or even an entire coastline. We present a graph-theoretic solution on an appropriately-weighted directed graph representation of the navigation area obtained via 8-adjacency integer lattice discretization and utilization of the Aâ̂- algorithm. We explicitly account for the following three conditions as part of the turn-radius constraints: (1) the ship's left and right turn radii are different, (2) ship's speed reduces while turning, and (3) the ship needs to navigate a certain minimum number of lattice edges along a straight line before making any turns. The last constraint ensures that the navigation area can be discretized at any desired resolution. Once the optimal (discrete) path is determined, we smoothen it to emulate the actual navigation of the ship. We illustrate our methodology on an ice navigation example involving a 100,000 DWT merchant ship and present a proof-of-concept by simulating the ship's path in a full-mission ship handling simulator

Effect of caffeic acid phenethyl ester on bone formation in the expanded inter-premaxillary suture

Hakki Oguz Kazancioglu,1 Sertac Aksakalli,2 Seref Ezirganli,1 Muhammet Birlik,2 Mukaddes Esrefoglu,3 Ahmet Hüseyin Acar1 1Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 2Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, 3Department of Histology, Faculty of Medicine, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Turkey Background: Narrow maxilla is a common problem in orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics. To solve this problem, a procedure called rapid maxillary expansion (RME) has been used. However, relapse tendency is a major problem of RME. Although relapse tendency is not clearly understood, various treatment procedures and new application has been investigated. The present study aimed to investigate the possible effectiveness of caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) on new bone formation in rat midpalatal suture after RME.Materials and methods: Twenty male Sprague Dawley rats were used in this study. The animals were randomly divided into two groups as control and CAPE group. In CAPE group, CAPE was administered systemically via intraperitoneal injection. RME procedure was performed on all animals. For this purpose, the springs were placed on the maxillary incisors of rats and activated for 5 days. After then, the springs were removed and replaced with short lengths of rectangular retaining wire for consolidation period of 15 days. At the end of the study, histomorphometric analysis was carried out to assess of new bone formation.Results: New bone formation was significantly greater in CAPE group than the control group (P<0.05). CAPE enhances new bone formation in midpalatal suture after RME.Conclusion: These results show that CAPE may decrease the time needed for retention. Keywords: rapid maxillary expansion, bone formation, caffeic acid phenethyl ester, midpalatal suture, histopatholog