Self-reported halitosis and emotional state: impact on oral conditions and treatments

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Halitosis represents a common dental condition, although sufferers are often not conscious of it. The aim of this study was to examine behavior in a sample of Italian subjects with reference to self-reported halitosis and emotional state, and specifically the presence of dental anxiety.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study was performed on Italian subjects (N = 1052; range 15-65 years). A self-report questionnaire was used to detect self-reported halitosis and other variables possibly linked to it (sociodemographic data, medical and dental history, oral hygiene, and others), and a dental anxiety scale (DAS) divided into two subscales that explore a patient's dental anxiety and dental anxiety concerning dentist-patient relations. Associations between self-reported halitosis and the abovementioned variables were examined using multiple logistic regression analysis. Correlations between the two groups, with self-perceived halitosis and without, were also investigated with dental anxiety and with the importance attributed to one's own mouth and that of others.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The rate of self-reported halitosis was 19.39%. The factors linked with halitosis were: anxiety regarding dentist patient relations (relational dental anxiety) (OR = 1.04, CI = 1.01-1.07), alcohol consumption (OR = 0.47, CI = 0.34-0.66), gum diseases (OR = 0.39, CI = 0.27-0.55), age > 30 years (OR = 1.01, CI = 1.00-1.02), female gender (OR = 0.71, CI = 0.51-0.98), poor oral hygiene (OR = 0.65, CI = 0.43-0.98), general anxiety (OR = 0.66, CI = 0.49-0.90), and urinary system pathologies (OR = 0.46, CI = 0.30-0.70). Other findings emerged concerning average differences between subjects with or without self-perceived halitosis, dental anxiety and the importance attributed to one's own mouth and that of others.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Halitosis requires professional care not only by dentists, but also psychological support as it is a problem that leads to avoidance behaviors and thereby limits relationships. It is also linked to poor self care. In the study population, poor oral health related to self-reported halitosis was associated with dental anxiety factors.</p

Is hazard perception ability culturally specific? A cross-cultural comparison between China, Spain and the UK

Hazard perception refers to a driver’s ability to spot hazards on the road in time to make a safe manoeuvre to avoid collision. Such a test is now part of the formal licencing procedure in the UK and in parts of Australia. But can such tests be successfully exported to other countries to reduce traffic fatalities? The aim of this project is to study whether hazard perception skill is culturally specific by comparing UK, Spanish and Chinese drivers across clips filmed in all three countries. Data collection was set-up in the respective countries in collaboration with the University of Granada (Spain) and Tsinghua University (China). Participants had to watch 30 video clips filmed from the driver’s perspective (10 filmed in each of the three countries). Two variants of the test were created: a typical hazard perception test (with full clips requiring speeded responses to hazards), and a hazard prediction task (or 'What Happens Next?' task), where the film ends immediately prior to the hazard onset. This latter test removes the confound of individual hazard thresholds, as participants could successfully report 'what happens next' without judging whether it posed a hazard to them. All videos contained a variety of hazardous situations (or precursors to hazards) reflecting the particular driving environment of each country. Three hundred participants across the 3 countries were tested, evenly divided between learner and experienced drivers. The differences between the culturally-specific tests in their ability to discriminate between driver groups will be discussed in regards to the potential for employing hazard perception testing in diverse geographical locations and cultures

Detection of the Cherenkov light diffused by Sea Water with the ULTRA Experiment

The study of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays represents one of the most challenging topic in the Cosmic Rays and in the Astroparticle Physics fields. The interaction of primary particles with atmospheric nuclei produces a huge Extensive Air Shower together with isotropic emission of UV fluorescence light and highly directional Cherenkov photons, that are reflected/diffused isotropically by the impact on the Earth's surface or on high optical depth clouds. For space-based observations, detecting the reflected Cherenkov signal in a delayed coincidence with the fluorescence light improves the accuracy of the shower reconstruction in space and in particular the measurement of the shower maximum, giving a strong signature for discriminating hadrons and neutrinos, and helping to estimate the primary chemical composition. Since the Earth's surface is mostly covered by water, the ULTRA (UV Light Transmission and Reflection in the Atmosphere)experiment has been designed to provide the diffusing properties of sea water, overcoming the lack of information in this specific field. A small EAS array, made up of 5 particle detectors, and an UV optical device, have been coupled to detect in coincidence both electromagnetic and UV components. The detector was in operation from May to December, 2005, in a small private harbor in Capo Granitola (Italy); the results of these measurements in terms of diffusion coefficient and threshold energy are presented here.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, PDF format, Proceedings of 30th ICRC, International Cosmic Ray Conference 2007, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, 3-11 July 200

EUSO Operations: Flight and Ground

Abstract The EUSO operations concept is described. Both the on-board and onground systems play an important role on operations. Since no permanent contact with the payload is provided, a considerable autonomy of the on-board system is required. The fulfilment of the scientific goals of the mission and the safety of the instrument require the definition of different operational modes and procedures. On-board, scientific and housekeeping data are collected and sent to ground, and control of the instrument subsystems is performed, based on on-board autonomous procedures and on telecommands sent from ground. On ground, telemetry is received, processed, monitored and archived. Telecommands are prepared for uplink, according to a defined mission activity planning

Enhanced diagnostic protocol to identify E.coli VTEC from milk filters

The EHEC (enterohemorrhagic E. coli) are a subgroup of VTEC with strong pathogenicity. The most well-known EHEC serotype is E. coli O157:H7, which has been implicated in many large outbreaks of deadly human diseases. However, EHEC strains of other serotypes have increasingly been implicated in sporadic cases and outbreaks of serious illness in humans, e.g., serotypes O26, O45, O103, O111, O121 and O145. Epidemics studied from 1982 to date have shown that ruminants, and in particular bovine, appear almost always involved in the transmission of these bacteria to humans through direct or indirect fecal contamination of foods. Unpasteurized milk and milk products are considered minor, but important sources of infection. The possible ways to the entrance of VTEC in milk are fecal contamination and mammary excretion during E.coli mastitis. Between the two ways, the first is considered much more frequent in practice, but it cannot be excluded that a small part of EHEC found in milk resulting from mammary gland, as reported. Previous investigation suggested that milk filters used in milking machines could be a useful control point to identify the presence of EHEC in dairy herds. However, conventional methods to identify the presence of EHEC have a poor sensitivity due the high content of fecal bacteria of these filters. In order to set up a monitoring scheme to identify herds at risk, we developed and tested a diagnostic protocol involving VIDAS\uae UP E.coli serogroups (ESPT) which is a method using phage recombinant proteins for the immuno-concentration (IC) of E.coli serogroups O157, O26, O103, O111, O145, O45 and O121 from food, multiplex PCR and high resolution melting analysis (HRMA). Practically, bulk tank milk or washing solution obtained from milk filters after stomacher mixing were analyzed by Vidas ESPT. After incubation, the solution obtained was analyzed by multiplex PCR based on serotype-specific primers coding for O-antigen regions of the seven major VTEC serogroups available in literature. If PCR was positive for any of the seven serogroups, a HRMA-based protocol to detect virulence-predictive SNPs, as discovered by Norman et al., 2012, was applied to confirm the presence of a EHEC strain. The protocol was preliminary validated by inoculation of milk and milk filters with a known concentration of the seven EHEC serotypes (O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145, O157). The results confirmed that this protocol was able to identify as low as 101 UFC in both milk and milk filters. The protocol applied to milk and milk filters obtained from 70 dairy herds allow to identify 2 EHEC from milk and 17 from milk filters for one or more of the EHEC serogroups considered. The proposed protocol confirmed to be useful in detecting the presence of EHEC and that milk filters are an important critical control point to identify herd at risk

A new integrated approach to analyze bulk tank milk and raw milk filters for the presence of the E. coli serogroups frequently associated with VTEC status

We optimized a combination of microbiological and molecular methods to quickly identify the presence of the O157 and the six non-O157 serogroups (O26, O45, O103, O111, O121 and O145) most frequently associated with VTEC status, at herd level. The lower detection limit of this methodology is 101 CFU/ml for each of the serogroups tested. We tested 67 bulk tank milk (BTM) and raw milk filters (RMF) derived from dairy herds located in Lombardy and Trentino Alto Adige. We identified 3 positive samples and 20 positive samples out of 67 respectively in the BTM and RMF. Interestingly, several samples showed positivity for more than one serogroups at the same time. We also identified the presence of E. coli O45 and O121 for the first time in raw milk and raw milk filters. Once screened the seven serogroups of interest in our samples, we evaluated the real pathogenicity of our positive, non-O157 samples through two parallel molecular biology methods: virulence gene research by PCR, and HRMA and sequencing. The most frequently isolated serogroups in milk were O157 (2.64%), O103 (2.11%), and O145 (1.06%), while in RMF the frequencies were, respectively 14.92%, 4.48%, and 2.98%. Moreover, this is the first published report in Italy of positive recovery of O45 and O121 serogroups in milk and milk filters. The new diagnostic approach proposed investigate the presence of the O157 and big six non-O157 serogroups at farm level and not to identify VTEC hazard only once the product is processed and/or is ready to be consumed

Differences and homologies of chromosomal alterations within and between breast cancer cell lines: A clustering analysis

BACKGROUND: The MCF7 (ER+/HER2-), T47D (ER+/HER2-), BT474 (ER+/HER2+) and SKBR3 (ER-/HER2+) breast cancer cell lines are widely used in breast cancer research as paradigms of the luminal and HER2 phenotypes. Although they have been subjected to cytogenetic analysis, their chromosomal abnormalities have not been carefully characterized, and their differential cytogenetic profiles have not yet been established. In addition, techniques such as comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), microarray-based CGH and multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) have described specific regions of gains, losses and amplifications of these cell lines; however, these techniques cannot detect balanced chromosomal rearrangements (e.g., translocations or inversions) or low frequency mosaicism. RESULTS: A range of 19 to 26 metaphases of the MCF7, T47D, BT474 and SKBR3 cell lines was studied using conventional (G-banding) and molecular cytogenetic techniques (multi-color fluorescence in situ hybridization, M-FISH). We detected previously unreported chromosomal changes and determined the content and frequency of chromosomal markers. MCF7 and T47D (ER+/HER2-) cells showed a less complex chromosomal make up, with more numerical than structural alterations, compared to BT474 and SKBR3 (HER2+) cells, which harbored the highest frequency of numerical and structural aberrations. Karyotype heterogeneity and clonality were determined by comparing all metaphases within and between the four cell lines by hierarchical clustering. The latter analysis identified five main clusters. One of these clusters was characterized by numerical chromosomal abnormalities common to all cell lines, and the other four clusters encompassed cell-specific chromosomal abnormalities. T47D and BT474 cells shared the most chromosomal abnormalities, some of which were shared with SKBR3 cells. MCF7 cells showed a chromosomal pattern that was markedly different from those of the other cell lines. CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides a comprehensive and specific characterization of complex chromosomal aberrations of MCF7, T47D, BT474 and SKBR3 cell lines. The chromosomal pattern of ER+/HER2- cells is less complex than that of ER+/HER2+ and ER-/HER2+ cells. These chromosomal abnormalities could influence the biologic and pharmacologic response of cells. Finally, although gene expression profiling and aCGH studies have classified these four cell lines as luminal, our results suggest that they are heterogeneous at the cytogenetic level

Reproducibility of the WHO histological criteria for the diagnosis of Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms.

This study, performed on behalf of the Italian Registry of Thrombocythaemias (Registro Italiano Trombocitemie), aimed to test the inter-observer reproducibility of the histological parameters proposed by the WHO classification for the diagnosis of the Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms. A series of 103 bone marrow biopsy samples of Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms consecutively collected in 2004 were classified according to the WHO criteria as follows: essential thrombocythaemia (n=34), primary myelofibrosis (n=44) and polycythaemia vera (n=25). Two independent groups of pathologists reviewed the bone marrow biopsies. The first group was asked to reach a collegial 'consensus' diagnosis. The second group reviewed individually all the cases to recognize the main morphological parameters indicated by the WHO classification and report their results in a database. They were subsequently instructed to individually build a 'personal' diagnosis of myeloproliferative neoplasms subtype just assembling the parameters collected in the database. Our results indicate that high levels of agreement ( 6570%) have been reached for about all of the morphological features. Moreover, among the 18 evaluated histological features, 11 resulted statistically more useful for the differential diagnosis among the different Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms. Finally, we found a high percentage of agreement (76%) between the 'personal' and 'consensus' diagnosis (Cohen's kappa statistic >0.40). In conclusion, our results support the use of the histological criteria proposed by the WHO classification for the Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms to ensure a more precise and early diagnosis for these patients