Development Of A Portable and Rapid Decalcification Device For Oral Hard Tissue Specimens

Decalcification is a routinely carried out procedure by oral pathologists, as the lesions involving the pulp can only be seen and identified through decalcified sections. The present methods involve usage of chemical agents, either with inorganic acids which dissolves the calcium to form soluble calcium salts or with chelating agents. Even though the chelating agents preserve the tissue morphology and show excellent microscopic picture, it has less diagnostic efficacy, as the time taken for it to decalcify the specimens is considerably high. It becomes important for us to develop a decalcification technique which will be faster and will maintain the balance between decalcification speed and tissue morphology. Hence, the aim of this study was to develop a portable rapid decalcification unit and compare the efficacy among all the three-decalcification procedure using teeth and bone specimens, namely the conventional method, microwave method and electrolytic method

A tabu search heuristic for the Equitable Coloring Problem

The Equitable Coloring Problem is a variant of the Graph Coloring Problem where the sizes of two arbitrary color classes differ in at most one unit. This additional condition, called equity constraints, arises naturally in several applications. Due to the hardness of the problem, current exact algorithms can not solve large-sized instances. Such instances must be addressed only via heuristic methods. In this paper we present a tabu search heuristic for the Equitable Coloring Problem. This algorithm is an adaptation of the dynamic TabuCol version of Galinier and Hao. In order to satisfy equity constraints, new local search criteria are given. Computational experiments are carried out in order to find the best combination of parameters involved in the dynamic tenure of the heuristic. Finally, we show the good performance of our heuristic over known benchmark instances

Spin-valley phase diagram of the two-dimensional metal-insulator transition

Using symmetry breaking strain to tune the valley occupation of a two-dimensional (2D) electron system in an AlAs quantum well, together with an applied in-plane magnetic field to tune the spin polarization, we independently control the system's valley and spin degrees of freedom and map out a spin-valley phase diagram for the 2D metal-insulator transition. The insulating phase occurs in the quadrant where the system is both spin- and valley-polarized. This observation establishes the equivalent roles of spin and valley degrees of freedom in the 2D metal-insulator transition.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Topological Entanglement Entropy of a Bose-Hubbard Spin Liquid

The Landau paradigm of classifying phases by broken symmetries was demonstrated to be incomplete when it was realized that different quantum Hall states could only be distinguished by more subtle, topological properties. Today, the role of topology as an underlying description of order has branched out to include topological band insulators, and certain featureless gapped Mott insulators with a topological degeneracy in the groundstate wavefunction. Despite intense focus, very few candidates for these topologically ordered "spin liquids" exist. The main difficulty in finding systems that harbour spin liquid states is the very fact that they violate the Landau paradigm, making conventional order parameters non-existent. Here, we uncover a spin liquid phase in a Bose-Hubbard model on the kagome lattice, and measure its topological order directly via the topological entanglement entropy. This is the first smoking-gun demonstration of a non-trivial spin liquid, identified through its entanglement entropy as a gapped groundstate with emergent Z2 gauge symmetry.Comment: 4+ pages, 3 figure

Prevalence and Predictors of Vitamin D Insufficiency in Children: A Great Britain Population Based Study

Objectives To evaluate the prevalence and predictors of vitamin D insufficiency (VDI) in children In Great Britain. Design A nationally representative cross-sectional study survey of children (1102) aged 4–18 years (999 white, 570 male) living in private households (January 1997–1998). Interventions provided information about dietary habits, physical activity, socio-demographics, and blood sample. Outcome measures were vitamin D insufficiency (<50 nmol/L). Results Vitamin D levels (mean = 62.1 nmol/L, 95%CI 60.4–63.7) were insufficient in 35%, and decreased with age in both sexes (p<0.001). Young People living between 53–59 degrees latitude had lower levels (compared with 50–53 degrees, p = 0.045). Dietary intake and gender had no effect on vitamin D status. A logistic regression model showed increased risk of VDI in the following: adolescents (14–18 years old), odds ratio (OR) = 3.6 (95%CI 1.8–7.2) compared with younger children (4–8 years); non white children (OR = 37 [95%CI 15–90]); blood levels taken December-May (OR = 6.5 [95%CI 4.3–10.1]); on income support (OR = 2.2 [95%CI 1.3–3.9]); not taking vitamin D supplementation (OR = 3.7 [95%CI 1.4–9.8]); being overweight (OR 1.6 [95%CI 1.0–2.5]); <1/2 hour outdoor exercise/day/week (OR = 1.5 [95%CI 1.0–2.3]); watched >2.5 hours of TV/day/week (OR = 1.6[95%CI 1.0–2.4]). Conclusion We confirm a previously under-recognised risk of VDI in adolescents. The marked higher risk for VDI in non-white children suggests they should be targeted in any preventative strategies. The association of higher risk of VDI among children who exercised less outdoors, watched more TV and were overweight highlights potentially modifiable risk factors. Clearer guidelines and an increased awareness especially in adolescents are needed, as there are no recommendations for vitamin D supplementation in older children

Rare B Decays with a HyperCP Particle of Spin One

In light of recent experimental information from the CLEO, BaBar, KTeV, and Belle collaborations, we investigate some consequences of the possibility that a light spin-one particle is responsible for the three Sigma^+ -> p mu^+ mu^- events observed by the HyperCP experiment. In particular, allowing the new particle to have both vector and axial-vector couplings to ordinary fermions, we systematically study its contributions to various processes involving b-flavored mesons, including B-Bbar mixing as well as leptonic, inclusive, and exclusive B decays. Using the latest experimental data, we extract bounds on its couplings and subsequently estimate upper limits for the branching ratios of a number of B decays with the new particle. This can serve to guide experimental searches for the particle in order to help confirm or refute its existence.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures; discussion on spin-0 case modified, few errors corrected, main conclusions unchange

Robotic assisted Laparoscopic partial Nephrectomy for suspected Renal Cell Carcinoma: Retrospective review of surgical outcomes of 35 Cases

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Holographic Conductivity in Disordered Systems

The main purpose of this paper is to holographically study the behavior of conductivity in 2+1 dimensional disordered systems. We analyze probe D-brane systems in AdS/CFT with random closed string and open string background fields. We give a prescription of calculating the DC conductivity holographically in disordered systems. In particular, we find an analytical formula of the conductivity in the presence of codimension one randomness. We also systematically study the AC conductivity in various probe brane setups without disorder and find analogues of Mott insulators.Comment: 43 pages, 28 figures, latex, references added, minor correction

Genome wide analysis of gene expression changes in skin from patients with type 2 diabetes

Non-healing chronic ulcers are a serious complication of diabetes and are a major healthcare problem. While a host of treatments have been explored to heal or prevent these ulcers from forming, these treatments have not been found to be consistently effective in clinical trials. An understanding of the changes in gene expression in the skin of diabetic patients may provide insight into the processes and mechanisms that precede the formation of non-healing ulcers. In this study, we investigated genome wide changes in gene expression in skin between patients with type 2 diabetes and non-diabetic patients using next generation sequencing. We compared the gene expression in skin samples taken from 27 patients (13 with type 2 diabetes and 14 non-diabetic). This information may be useful in identifying the causal factors and potential therapeutic targets for the prevention and treatment of diabetic related diseases

The Effect of Rural-to-Urban Migration on Obesity and Diabetes in India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Shah Ebrahim and colleagues examine the distribution of obesity, diabetes, and other cardiovascular risk factors among urban migrant factory workers in India, together with their rural siblings. The investigators identify patterns of change of cardiovascular risk factors associated with urban migration