The measurement of open apices of teeth to test chronological age of over 14-year-olds in living subjects

Age determination in living subjects is a problem of increasing interest in our community, due to the increasing numbers of individuals without identification papers, who have immigrated illegally or committed crimes, and for whom it is necessary to verify whether they have reached the age of 14 years in order to be charged legally. Although the most widespread methods for age estimation refer to skeletal or dental analysis, these methods do present some drawbacks for identification of the age of 14. The aim of the present study is to discriminate between children who are or are not 14 years of age or older by measuring the open apices of teeth. We evaluated the OPGs of 447 persons aged between 12 and 16 years, of Italian, Croatian and Slovenian nationality. For each individual, dental maturity was estimated using the number of the seven left permanent mandibular teeth with root development complete, and normalized measurement of the open apices of the third molar. The results revealed that an individual is considered to be 14 years of age or older if all seven left permanent mandibular teeth have closed apices and the normalized measurement of open apices of the third molar is lower than 1.1

Volatolomics: A broad area of experimentation

Chemical analysis (detection and monitoring) of compounds associated with the metabolic activities of an organism is at the cutting edge of science. Volatile metabolomics (volatolomics) are applied in a broad range of applications including: biomedical research (e.g. disease diagnostic tools, personalized healthcare and nutrition, etc.), toxicological analysis (e.g. exposure tool to environmental pollutants, toxic and hazardous chemical environments, industrial accidents, etc.), molecular communications, forensics, safety and security (e.g. search and rescue operations). In the present review paper, an overview of recent advances and applications of volatolomics will be given. The main focus will be on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) originating from biological secretions of various organisms (e.g. microorganisms, insects, plants, humans) and resulting fusion of chemical information. Bench-top and portable or field-deployable technologies-systems will also be presented and discussed

Teacher Candidates’ Emerging Perspectives on Trauma Informed Teaching

A transdisciplinary team of candidates with teacher and social work educators describe their perspectives of trauma-informed teaching and intentions to use evidence-based practices in classrooms. We studied classroom management from a trauma-informed perspective in the first course in the program, then reflected back on these through a professional learning community created to intentionally focus on trauma informed teaching. We highlight findings around candidates’ perspectives and specific actions they attended to in order to incorporate those practices

Identification of a novel mechanism of blood-brain communication during peripheral inflammation via choroid plexus-derived extracellular vesicles

Here, we identified release of extracellular vesicles (EVs) by the choroid plexus epithelium (CPE) as a new mechanism of blood-brain communication. Systemic inflammation induced an increase in EVs and associated pro-inflammatory miRNAs, including miR-146a and miR-155, in the CSF. Interestingly, this was associated with an increase in amount of multivesicular bodies (MVBs) and exosomes per MVB in the CPE cells. Additionally, we could mimic this using LPS-stimulated primary CPE cells and choroid plexus explants. These choroid plexus-derived EVs can enter the brain parenchyma and are taken up by astrocytes and microglia, inducing miRNA target repression and inflammatory gene up-regulation. Interestingly, this could be blocked in vivo by intracerebroventricular (icv) injection of an inhibitor of exosome production. Our data show that CPE cells sense and transmit information about the peripheral inflammatory status to the central nervous system (CNS) via the release of EVs into the CSF, which transfer this pro-inflammatory message to recipient brain cells. Additionally, we revealed that blockage of EV secretion decreases brain inflammation, which opens up new avenues to treat systemic inflammatory diseases such as sepsis

Early Introduction of cART Reverses Brain Aging Pattern in Well-Controlled HIV Infection: A Comparative MR Spectroscopy Study

Introduction: The aim of this study was to compare age-related changes in chronically infected, asymptomatic HIV-positive patients under combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), with age-, gender-, and educational-level-matched healthy subjects, using multi-voxel magnetic-resonance spectroscopy (MRS).Methods: There were 66 chronically infected HIV-positive subjects and 65 age-, gender-, and educational-level-matched control subjects, divided into four groups according to the age: group 1 (20–29 years old), group 2 (30–39), group 3 (40–49) and group 4 (50–59). MRS was performed and ratios of N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA)/creatine (Cr) were analyzed in ten locations of the supracallosal gray matter. For the comparison of NAA/Cr ratios in healthy and HIV-positive subjects, ANCOVA with age and education as covariates was performed. Correlations of NAA/Cr ratios with duration of cART were performed using Pearson’s correlation test. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.Results: The NAA/Cr ratios were decreased in the 20–29-year-old HIV-positive subjects in 8/10 locations (p < 0.005) compared to the healthy controls, while in the 50–59-year-old groups they were significiantly lower only in one location (p = 0.004). There were significant positive correlations of NAA/Cr levels with the duration of cART in the oldest group of HIV-positive subjects, while in the youngest group there were no significant correlations.Conclusion: The aging pattern in chronic HIV infection under cART is accentuated rather than accelerated. There is an initial HIV-related neuronal damage with a significant decline in NAA/Cr ratios; after the initiation of cART, however, NAA/Cr ratios increase continuously to become similar to healthy aging individuals, probably due to beneficial effect of long-standing cART.Summary: Brain aging in chronic HIV infection under cART is accentuated, with an initial HIV-related neuronal damage followed by a subtle NAA/Cr increase after the initiation of cART. Under cART, in advanced age, NAA/Cr ratios become similar to healthy aging individuals

Current research into brain barriers and the delivery of therapeutics for neurological diseases: a report on CNS barrier congress London, UK, 2017.

This is a report on the CNS barrier congress held in London, UK, March 22-23rd 2017 and sponsored by Kisaco Research Ltd. The two 1-day sessions were chaired by John Greenwood and Margareta Hammarlund-Udenaes, respectively, and each session ended with a discussion led by the chair. Speakers consisted of invited academic researchers studying the brain barriers in relation to neurological diseases and industry researchers studying new methods to deliver therapeutics to treat neurological diseases. We include here brief reports from the speakers

Ralstonia pickettii bacteremia in a cardiac surgery patient in Belgrade, Serbia

Ralstonia pickettii is an opportunistic bacterium found in the water environment with an increasing incidence as a nosocomial pathogen. The objectives of this study were to describe R. pickettii bacteremia in a cardiac surgery patient and to evaluate its ability to grow in a saline solution and to form biofilm. The patient in this study underwent mitral and aortic valve replacement surgery with two aortocoronary bypasses. She developed signs of respiratory and renal failure, therefore hemodialysis was started. After 25 days in an intensive care unit, the patient had recurrent episodes of fever with signs of bacteremia. R. pickettii was identified from blood cultures by MALDI-TOF MS. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using disc diffusion and broth microdilution methods in accordance with EUCAST methodology and results were interpreted following clinical breakpoints for Pseudomonas spp. The isolate was susceptible to all tested antimicrobial agents except aminoglycosides and colistin. Survival of R. pickettii was analyzed in saline solution with four different starting concentrations at 25 degrees C and 37 degrees C for six days. Biofilm capacity was tested using the microtiter plate method. R. pickettii showed substantial growth in saline solution, with starting concentration of 2 CFU ml(-1) reaching 107 CFU ml(-1) after six days. There was no significant difference between growth at 25 degrees C and 37 degrees C. This indicates that storage of contaminated solutions at room temperature can enhance the count of R. pickettii. Our strain did not show the capacity to form biofilm. The patient responded well to adequate treatment with ceftazidime, and after 48 days in ICU she was discharged to convalesce

Measurement of the diffractive structure function in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

This paper presents an analysis of the inclusive properties of diffractive deep inelastic scattering events produced in $ep$ interactions at HERA. The events are characterised by a rapidity gap between the outgoing proton system and the remaining hadronic system. Inclusive distributions are presented and compared with Monte Carlo models for diffractive processes. The data are consistent with models where the pomeron structure function has a hard and a soft contribution. The diffractive structure function is measured as a function of \xpom, the momentum fraction lost by the proton, of $\beta$, the momentum fraction of the struck quark with respect to \xpom, and of $Q^2$. The \xpom dependence is consistent with the form \xpoma where $a~=~1.30~\pm~0.08~(stat)~^{+~0.08}_{-~0.14}~(sys)$ in all bins of $\beta$ and $Q^2$. In the measured $Q^2$ range, the diffractive structure function approximately scales with $Q^2$ at fixed $\beta$. In an Ingelman-Schlein type model, where commonly used pomeron flux factor normalisations are assumed, it is found that the quarks within the pomeron do not saturate the momentum sum rule.Comment: 36 pages, latex, 11 figures appended as uuencoded fil

Observation of hard scattering in photoproduction events with a large rapidity gap at HERA

Events with a large rapidity gap and total transverse energy greater than 5 GeV have been observed in quasi-real photoproduction at HERA with the ZEUS detector. The distribution of these events as a function of the $\gamma p$ centre of mass energy is consistent with diffractive scattering. For total transverse energies above 12 GeV, the hadronic final states show predominantly a two-jet structure with each jet having a transverse energy greater than 4 GeV. For the two-jet events, little energy flow is found outside the jets. This observation is consistent with the hard scattering of a quasi-real photon with a colourless object in the proton.Comment: 19 pages, latex, 4 figures appended as uuencoded fil

D* Production in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA

This paper presents measurements of D^{*\pm} production in deep inelastic scattering from collisions between 27.5 GeV positrons and 820 GeV protons. The data have been taken with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The decay channel $D^{*+}\to (D^0 \to K^- \pi^+) \pi^+$ (+ c.c.) has been used in the study. The $e^+p$ cross section for inclusive D^{*\pm} production with $5<Q^2<100 GeV^2$ and $y<0.7$ is 5.3 \pms 1.0 \pms 0.8 nb in the kinematic region {$1.3<p_T(D^{*\pm})<9.0$ GeV and $| \eta(D^{*\pm}) |<1.5$}. Differential cross sections as functions of p_T(D^{*\pm}), $\eta(D^{*\pm}), W$ and $Q^2$ are compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations based on the photon-gluon fusion production mechanism. After an extrapolation of the cross section to the full kinematic region in p_T(D^{*\pm}) and $\eta$(D^{*\pm}), the charm contribution $F_2^{c\bar{c}}(x,Q^2)$ to the proton structure function is determined for Bjorken $x$ between 2 $\cdot$ 10$^{-4}$ and 5 $\cdot$ 10$^{-3}$.Comment: 17 pages including 4 figure