Evaluation of the effects of cotton roll-bitingon debonding pain: a split-mouth study

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Debonding pain is an unpleasant sensation that is frequently encountered during debonding procedure. Aim of the study: To investigate the effectiveness of cotton roll-biting on pain caused by the debonding procedure. Materials and methods: 102 patients (61 females, 41 males) who were at the debonding stage in orthodontic treatment were included in the research. The study was planned using a split-mouth design: one side of the jaw was the study, and the other side was the control. The anxiety level of participants was measured before debonding. On the study side, debonding was performed while patients were biting a cotton roll. On the control side, debonding was implemented as a routine debonding procedure. Study and control sides were assigned differently in each successive patient. The debonding pain of each tooth was recorded using the Visual Analog Scale prepared separately for each tooth. Shapiro–Wilk and Mann–Whitney U tests were used for statistical analysis. For both gender groups, patients were sequenced according to the average amount of pain per tooth. Subsequently, statistical analysis was repeated by using 50% of patients suffering more pain.Results: In the lower second premolar tooth, a statistically significant difference was detected. Pain scores were statistically higher in the study side for this tooth. No statistically significant differences were found for all other teeth. Conclusion: Cotton roll-biting has no alleviating effect on debonding pain. When debonding is performed gently using a squeezing action without applying torsional forces, additional pain relief methods are not required

Fast Color Space Transformations Using Minimax Approximations

Color space transformations are frequently used in image processing, graphics, and visualization applications. In many cases, these transformations are complex nonlinear functions, which prohibits their use in time-critical applications. In this paper, we present a new approach called Minimax Approximations for Color-space Transformations (MACT).We demonstrate MACT on three commonly used color space transformations. Extensive experiments on a large and diverse image set and comparisons with well-known multidimensional lookup table interpolation methods show that MACT achieves an excellent balance among four criteria: ease of implementation, memory usage, accuracy, and computational speed

On Euclidean Norm Approximations

Euclidean norm calculations arise frequently in scientific and engineering applications. Several approximations for this norm with differing complexity and accuracy have been proposed in the literature. Earlier approaches were based on minimizing the maximum error. Recently, Seol and Cheun proposed an approximation based on minimizing the average error. In this paper, we first examine these approximations in detail, show that they fit into a single mathematical formulation, and compare their average and maximum errors. We then show that the maximum errors given by Seol and Cheun are significantly optimistic.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, Pattern Recognitio

Relationship between the position of maxilla and rapid maxillary expansion failure

Introduction: The palatal expansion may be a challenging treatment in late adolescents who has passed the peak of skeletal growth. The success rate of palatal expansion in these patients decreases due to decreased growth potential. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a predictor that can be used in the failure of rapid maxillary expansion (RME) among investigated five cephalometric variables (related to maxillary position) and three other variables. Materials and methods: The records of the patients who had undergone RME therapy between 2013-2019 were evaluated. The patients were allocated into two groups according to expansion success: successful (S-RME) and failed (F-RME) RME groups. Fifty systemically healthy patients in the cervical vertebral maturation stage 5/6 were enrolled (35 females, 15 males). Eleven patients were (10 females, one male) in the F-RME group, and 39 patients were (25 females, 14 males) in the S-RME group. Five cephalometric variables (related to maxillary position) and three other variables (age, gender, and CVMS) were evaluated. Variables were subjected to multiple logistic regression analysis for setting a prediction model and detecting predictors. Results: Patients with CVMS-6 had a 16.8-fold higher risk of palatal expansion failure than CVMS-5. 1 mm anterior position of PNS increased the risk of failure 2.9 times. 1 mm reduction in the distance between the PNS and cranial base in the vertical direction increased 60% the risk of RME failure. Conclusion: The CVM stage of the patient, along with the vertical and sagittal position of the PNS, were found to be the possible predictors of RME success in late adolescence. Corresponding Author:Fatih Celebi Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Tokat Gaziosmanpasa University, 60100 Tokat, TurkeyE-mail: [email protected] between the skeletal position ofmaxilla and rapid maxillary expansion failure INTRODUCTIONTransverse maxillary deficiency is one of the common skeletal disorders. The treatment includes nonsurgical and surgical treatment modalities. Rapid maxillary expansion (RME) is a method for correcting the transverse skeletal deficiency, which involves heavy force application to the maxilla transversally. The response to this force usually results in the separation of the maxillary halves by rupturing the mid-palatine suture.RME can be successfully achieved in pre-adolescent and adolescent periods without any surgical intervention due to the immature structure of the sutures. In adulthood, the maturation of the mid-palatal suture, along with the circummaxillary sutures, causes resistance to the expansion.1,2 The surgical assistance in the RME procedure (SARME) is the valid treatment option for these patients until sufficient evidence occurs that nonsurgical or bone-anchored RME treatments are feasible. However, the surgical approach requirement is a critical decision since the failure of RME without surgery causes further tissue destruction and complications such as mucosal ulceration or necrosis, accentuated buccal tooth tipping, gingival recession and severe pain around the posterior teeth.3-5 On the other hand, surgery preference in a case that could be treated without surgical assistance would make the patient suffer from an unnecessary operation, which is invasive, costly, and includes surgical risks

Comments on "On Approximating Euclidean Metrics by Weighted t-Cost Distances in Arbitrary Dimension"

Mukherjee (Pattern Recognition Letters, vol. 32, pp. 824-831, 2011) recently introduced a class of distance functions called weighted t-cost distances that generalize m-neighbor, octagonal, and t-cost distances. He proved that weighted t-cost distances form a family of metrics and derived an approximation for the Euclidean norm in $\mathbb{Z}^n$. In this note we compare this approximation to two previously proposed Euclidean norm approximations and demonstrate that the empirical average errors given by Mukherjee are significantly optimistic in $\mathbb{R}^n$. We also propose a simple normalization scheme that improves the accuracy of his approximation substantially with respect to both average and maximum relative errors.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, 3 tables. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1008.487

The use of germinants to potentiate the sensitivity of Bacillus anthracis spores to peracetic acid

Elimination of Bacillus anthracis spores from the environment is a difficult and costly process due in part to the toxicity of current sporicidal agents. For this reason we investigated the ability of the spore germinants L-alanine (100 mM) and inosine (5 mM) to reduce the concentration of peracetic acid (PAA) required to inactivate B. anthracis spores. While L-alanine significantly enhanced (p = 0.0085) the bactericidal activity of 500 ppm PAA the same was not true for inosine suggesting some form of negative interaction. In contrast the germinant combination proved most effective at 100 ppm PAA (p = 0.0009). To determine if we could achieve similar results in soil we treated soil collected from the burial site of an anthrax infected animal which had been supplemented with spores of the Sterne strain of B. anthracis to increase the level of contamination to 104 spores/g. Treatment with germinants followed 1 h later by 5000 ppm PAA eliminated all of the spores. In contrast direct treatment of the animal burial site using this approach delivered using a back pack sprayer had no detectable effect on the level of B. anthracis contamination or on total culturable bacterial numbers over the course of the experiment. It did trigger a significant, but temporary, reduction (p < 0.0001) in the total spore count suggesting that germination had been triggered under real world conditions. In conclusion, we have shown that the application of germinants increase the sensitivity of bacterial spores to PAA. While the results of the single field trial were inconclusive, the study highlighted the potential of this approach and the challenges faced when attempting to perform real world studies on B. anthracis spores contaminated sites

The use of inflammatory markers as a diagnostic and prognostic approach in neonatal calves with septicaemia

The objective of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of inflammatory markers as a diagnostic and prognostic approach in neonatal calves with septicaemia. The study material consisted of 13 neonatal calves with septicaemia (septicaemic calves, SC) and ten healthy neonatal calves (control calves, CC). Blood samples were collected for biochemical, haematological and microbiological analyses. In addition, faecal samples were collected for microbiological and virological analyses. Three of neonatal calves with septicaemia were positive for E. coli (E. coli O157 serotype) by microbiological examination, but all neonatal calves with septicaemia were negative for rota- and coronaviruses. By haematological examination, there were no significant differences between SC and CC for white blood cell (WBC) and neutrophil (NEU) counts (P > 0.05). NEU counts were higher on day 0 than on day 15 in SC (P < 0.05). Red blood cell (RBC) counts and packed cell volume (PCV) values were higher on day 0 in the SC than in the CC (P < 0.05). By biochemical analyses, tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), procalcitonin (PCT), haptoglobin (Hp), and fibrinogen (Fb) concentrations were higher on day 0 in the SC than in the CC (P < 0.05). After treatment (on day 15), the serum IL-6, PCT, Hp, and Fb concentrations were significantly decreased in the SC compared to the CC (P < 0.05). The serum iron (Fe) concentrations were lower on day 0 in the SC than in the CC (P < 0.05), and were higher on day 15 than on day 0 in the SC (P < 0.05). The study revealed that inflammatory markers could be used for determining the diagnosis and prognosis in neonatal calves with septicaemia

Human exposure to naturally occurring Bacillus anthracis in the Kars region of Eastern Türkiye

Environmental contamination with Bacillus anthracis spores poses uncertain threats to human health. We undertook a study to determine whether inhabitants of the anthrax-endemic region of Kars in eastern Türkiye could develop immune responses to anthrax toxins without recognised clinical infection. We measured anti-PA and anti-LF IgG antibody concentrations by ELISA in serum from 279 volunteers, 105 of whom had previously diagnosed anthrax infection (100 cutaneous, 5 gastrointestinal). Of the 174 without history of infection, 72 had prior contact with anthrax-contaminated material. Individuals were classified according to demographic parameters, daily working environment, and residence type. All villages in this study had recorded previous animal or human anthrax cases. Stepwise regression analyses showed that prior clinical infection correlated strongly with concentrations at the upper end of the ranges observed for both antibodies. For anti-PA, being a butcher and duration of continuous exposure risk correlated with high concentrations, while being a veterinarian or shepherd, time since infection, and town residence correlated with low concentrations. For anti-LF, village residence correlated with high concentrations, while infection limited to fingers or thumbs correlated with low concentrations. Linear discriminant analysis identified antibody concentration profiles associated with known prior infection. Profiles least typical of prior infection were observed in urban dwellers with known previous infection and in veterinarians without history of infection. Four individuals without history of infection (two butchers, two rural dwellers) had profiles suggesting unrecognised prior infection. Healthy humans therefore appear able to tolerate low-level exposure to environmental B. anthracis spores without ill effect, but it remains to be determined whether this exposure is protective. These findings have implications for authorities tasked with reducing the risk posed to human health by spore-contaminated materials and environments