Instituting an Oral Health Preventive Service Program, Including Fluoride Varnish, for Preschool Children Birth to Five Years in a Rural Health Clinic: A clinical Scholarship Project

Abstract This project was designed to institute an oral health preventive program in a rural health clinic, in a dental provider shortage area, promoting oral health in preschool children birth to five years by: (a) instituting a program that supports the Missouri preventive service program in oral health, (b) promoting oral screenings and fluoride varnish twice yearly, (c) assessing the risk of caries, (d) referring to appropriate dental services and (e) educating parents or guardian about the importance of oral health and how to maintain oral health at home with children birth to five years. This project sought to answer the following questions: (1) Will children birth to five years in a rural health clinic have low, moderate, or high risk for caries? (2)Are there specific risk factors in children birth to five years in a rural health clinic that are more common in the high risk category for caries? (3) Is there a specific ethnic group in children birth to five years in rural health clinics that are at a higher risk for caries? (4) Are oral health educational materials an effective tool for the parents? Key findings were: The majority of the children 35 (97.2%) had never been seen by a dentist; 27 (75%) were in the High Risk category for early childhood cavities, 3 (8.3%) were found to have white spot lesions, the first sign of decay, 8 (22%) had evidence of rampant decay (seven or more cavities), 9 (25%) had untreated decay, 10 (27.8%) had evidence of early childhood cavities; urgent referral for extensive cavities was needed by 9 (25%) of the children, 6 (67%) were African American and Hispanic. There was insufficient time to evaluate if educational materials were an effective tool. Findings from this study clearly demonstrate that an oral health preventive service program, which includes the application of fluoride varnish, be a part of the well child exam and should begin earlier than school age children

Verbal Abuse of Pediatric Nurses by Patients and Families

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which nurses practicing in a pediatric hospital encounter verbal abuse by patients and families and their reactions to this abuse. Background: Verbal abuse, the most common type of workplace violence against nurses results in declining morale and job satisfaction, and can negatively impact nurse turnover and quality of patient care. Methods: The study employed a concurrent triangulation strategy using mixed methods. The 162 nurses who volunteered completed a 3-part questionnaire, and a subgroup participated in one of three focus groups. Results: Eighty-two percent of subjects reported verbal abuse an average of 4 times per month. The majority of these continued to think about the incident for a few hours (25%), a few days (36%), or a week or more (12%). Nearly half reported feeling angry or powerless and 14% said they thought of leaving their position. Conclusions: The findings of this study described the nature and scope of the problem, and prompted improvement in processes and education to support nurses. This study was motivated by nurses employed at an urban children\u27s hospital reporting increased incidences of verbal abuse by patients and families. These nurses told of negative encounters which produced feelings of frustration. They perceived that the hospital\u27s increased emphasis on patient and family satisfaction prevented them from setting limits on verbal abuse perpetrated by patients and families. Nursing administration, concerned about staff morale, proposed a study that would describe the extent to which nurses practicing in a pédiatrie hospital encounter verbal abuse by patients and families and their reactions to this abuse

Oral Assessment Guide

The Oral Assessment Guide (OAG) can be used by the clinician to evaluate changes in the oral cavity. The OAG is comprised of eight categories of mucositis assessment of the mouth on a scale of 1 to 3, with “1” indicating normal and “3” indicating breakdown or loss of function. The OAG has been validated and is reliable in the current published format. Permission is granted for use in the current format. Any modifications will require new testing for validity and reliability. The OAG has been widely used in cancer and other populations and published in professional journals and books.https://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/con_guides/1000/thumbnail.jp

Identifying Young KeplerKepler Planet Host Stars from Keck-HIRES Spectra of Lithium

The lithium doublet at 6708 \AA\ provides an age diagnostic for main sequence FGK dwarfs. We measured the abundance of lithium in 1305 stars with detected transiting planets from the Kepler Mission using high-resolution spectroscopy. Our catalog of lithium measurements from this sample have a range of abundance from A(Li) = 3.11 $\pm$ 0.07 to an upper limit of $-$0.84 dex. For a magnitude-limited sample that comprises 960 of the 1305 stars, our Keck-HIRES spectra have a median S/N = 45 per pixel at $\sim$6700 \AA\ with spectral resolution $\frac{\lambda}{\Delta \lambda}$ = $R$ = 55,000. We identify 80 young stars that have A(Li) values greater than the Hyades at their respective effective temperatures; these stars are younger than $\sim$650 Myr old, the approximate age of the Hyades. We then compare the distribution of A(Li) with planet size, multiplicity, orbital period, and insolation flux. We find larger planets preferentially in younger systems, with an A-D two-sided test p-value = 0.002, a $>3\sigma$ confidence that the older and younger planet samples do not come from the same parent distribution. This is consistent with planet inflation/photoevaporation at early ages. The other planet parameters ($Kepler$ planet multiplicity, orbital period, and insolation flux) are uncorrelated with age.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ. For a brief video explaining this paper, see https://youtu.be/TkO-ef28Va

De novo transcriptome assembly of the Southern Ocean copepod Rhincalanus gigas sheds light on developmental changes in gene expression

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Berger, C. A., Steinberg, D. K., Copley, N. J., & Tarrant, A. M. De novo transcriptome assembly of the Southern Ocean copepod Rhincalanus gigas sheds light on developmental changes in gene expression. Marine Genomics, (2021): 100835, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margen.2021.100835.Copepods are small crustaceans that dominate most zooplankton communities in terms of both abundance and biomass. In the polar oceans, a subset of large lipid-storing copepods occupy central positions in the food web because of their important role in linking phytoplankton and microzooplankton with higher trophic levels. In this paper, we generated a high-quality de novo transcriptome for Rhincalanus gigas, the largest—and among the most abundant—of the Southern Ocean copepods. We then conducted transcriptional profiling to characterize the developmental transition between late-stage juveniles and adult females. We found that juvenile R. gigas substantially upregulate lipid synthesis and glycolysis pathways relative to females, as part of a developmental gene expression program that also implicates processes such as muscle growth, chitin formation, and ion transport. This study provides the first transcriptional profile of a developmental transition within Rhincalanus gigas or any endemic Southern Ocean copepod, thereby extending our understanding of copepod molecular physiology.Funding for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation (Grants OPP-1746087 to AMT and OPP-1440435 to DKS)