Evaluation and Comparison of Two Commercially Available Mouthrinses in Reducing Aerolised Bacteria During Ultrasonic Scaling When Used as a Preprocedural Rinse.

Objective:To compare and evaluate the effect of 0.2% chlorhexidine gluconate and commercially available herbal mouthrinse in reducing aerolized bacteria when used as a preprocedural mouth rinse.Materials and Methods:A total of 45 patients were selected and randomly divided into three groups. Group I consisted of 15 patients who rinsed with distilled water for 60 seconds. Group II consisted of 15 patients who rinsed with 0.2% chlorhexidine mouthwash (Clohex®) for 60 seconds and Group III consisted of 15 patients who rinsed with herbal mouthwash (Hiora®) for 60 seconds. Aerosols produced during the oral prophylaxis procedure were collected on blood agar plates by exposing the plates at patient’s and dentist’s chest area and the exposed plates were incubated at 37°c aerobically for 48 hours. The number of colony forming units (CFU) in aerosol and CFU in the saliva were counted and statistically analyzed. Results:Reduction in the bacterial load using 0.2% of chlorhexidine gluconate mouthwash is found to be significant at both patient’s and dentist’s chest area in aerosol produced during scaling followed by herbal mouthrinse.Conclusion:The results of the present study clearly indicate that pre-procedural rinsing with 0.2% chlorhexidine gluconate was significantly more effective than herbal mouthrinse in reducing the aerolized bacteria during ultrasonic scaling. Therefore a pre-procedural rinse can significantly reduce the risk for cross contamination

Effectiveness of a novel topical anesthetic gel in patients undergoing non surgical periodontal therapy.

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of a topical anesthetic gel containing potassium nitrate, benzocaine and tetracaine in patients undergoing non surgical periodontal therapy. Materials and Methods: The present study was a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled, split mouth design trial carried out in 300 patients. Two quadrants in each patient were selected for non surgical periodontal therapy. The drug gel and placebo were liberally applied over the teeth and gingiva on the selected quadrants and the treatment was started after two minutes. Patients were asked to evaluate their pain experience at the end of treatment of their respective quadrants using verbal rating scale. Results: The mean pain score on using the drug gel was 0.433+0.737 as compared to the mean pain score of 2.35+0.761 on using the placebo gel, and the results were statistically significant. The drug gel out performed the placebo gel. None of the patients reported of any local or systemic side effects. Conclusions: The topical anesthetic gel provided excellent pain control for the patients undergoing non surgical periodontal therapy. It can also be considered as a good option during periodontal examination and maintenance visits to increase the patients comfort

Parental mental illness: incidence, assessment and practice

The file attached to this record is the authors peer reviewed version. The publisher's version of fact can be found here: http://journals.rcni.com/journal/mhpBackground: Parental Mental Illness (PMI) increases risk of mental illness and other negative outcomes in children. Work on the family impacts of PMI can protect children’s mental health, but little is known about current assessment and practice. Methods: An audit of mental health service case notes was undertaken in one NHS Trust. A template was designed to code information on family mental health, assessment and referral for comparative analysis. Results: 60% CAMHS cases with data were children of parents with mental illness and 40% AMHS cases were parents of dependent children. Presence of PMI was poorly assessed: 32% CAMHS cases, 38% AMHS cases and 44% LD cases showed no evidence of assessment. Assessment of impacts of PMI on children and rates of referral to support services were very low. Conclusions: Mental health services should review practice in assessing, recording and treating cases where PMI might impact children’s mental health

Genetic variability studies for yield and yield-related traits in F2 populations based on UASD Bt Cotton Event No.78

Genetic variability for seed cotton yield and itscomponents were studied in three segregating F2 populations of cotton (Gossypium hirsutumL.). Significant variation was recorded for major traits in all the three F2 populations. Traits such as plant height (20 cm to 143 cm), bolls plant per plant (1 to 30), boll weight (2.0 g to 6.8 g) and seed cotton yield per plant (1.8 g to 115 g) exhibited wide range.High PCV and GCV estimates were recorded for all the traits under study except days to 50 per cent flowering and days to boll opening. High broad sense heritability and genetic advance over mean was observedin case of major yield attributing traits. Mid parent heterosis and inbreeding depression was significant for seed cotton yield per plant in the three F2 populations. The results suggest that the variation generated in the F2populations would be useful in selecting superior genotypes

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with orthostatic hypotension in older men: a cross-sectional analysis from the British Regional Heart Study.

BACKGROUND: orthostatic hypotension (OH) that occurs within, or at, 1 minute of standing is associated with higher risk of falls, myocardial infarction, syncope and mortality, compared to OH that occurs after 1 minute of standing. Whether vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of OH is controversial. METHODS: this was a cross-sectional analysis of 3,620 older, community-dwelling men. Multinomial, multiple logistic regression models were used to calculate the risk of OH across categories of vitamin D status (deficient [<25 nmol/l], insufficient [≥25-<50 nmol/l] and sufficient [≥50 nmol/l]) and parathyroid hormone quintile. RESULTS: men with vitamin D deficiency were more likely to have OH that occurred within 1 minute of standing in univariate logistic regression (OR 1.88, 95% CI 1.40-2.53) and multinomial, multiple logistic regression (OR 1.51, 95% CI 1.06-2.15), compared to men with sufficient levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D insufficiency was not associated with the risk of OH. Elevated parathyroid hormone was not associated with risk of OH. CONCLUSION: the absence of an association between vitamin D insufficiency and risk of OH and the presence of an association between vitamin D deficiency and risk of OH suggest that there may be a threshold effect; it is only below a particular level of vitamin D that risk of OH is increased. In this cohort, the threshold was <25 nmol/l. Future work should investigate whether treating vitamin D deficiency can improve postural blood pressure or if preventing vitamin D deficiency reduces the incidence of OH

Renin-angiotensin system inhibitors and risk of fractures: a prospective cohort study and meta-analysis of published observational cohort studies

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) represents an important target of antihypertensive medications. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARB), which are widely-used RAS inhibiting drugs, have been suggested to have beneficial effects on bone tissue. We aimed to assess the associations of use of ACEIs and/or ARBs with the risk of fractures using a population-based prospective cohort and a meta-analysis of published prospective cohort studies. Information on antihypertensive medication use (including both ACEIs and ARBs) were assessed in 1743 men and women of the Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease prospective cohort study. Hazard ratios (HRs) [95% confidence intervals (CI)] of ACEIs or ARBs use with incident fractures were calculated. A total of 203 composite (hip, humeral, and wrist) fractures occurred during a median follow-up of 14.8 years. In multivariate adjusted analysis, the HR for composite fractures comparing users of ACEIs or ARBs with non-users was 1.00 (0.59–1.69). The corresponding adjusted HR for hip fractures comparing users versus non-users of ACEIs or ARBs was 0.89 (0.32–2.47). Including the current study, a total of 11 observational cohort studies involving 3526,319 participants and &gt;323,355 fractures were included in a meta-analysis. Comparing ACEI users with non-users and ARB users with non-users, the HRs for composite fractures were 1.09 (0.89–1.33) and 0.87 (0.76–1.01) respectively. The corresponding HRs for hip fractures were 0.91 (0.86–0.95) and 0.80 (0.75–0.85) respectively. Use of RAS inhibitors was not associated with long-term risk of composite fractures in both primary and pooled analyses. Pooled evidence however suggests a beneficial effect of RAS blockers on hip fracture risk.</p

Experimental Investigation on Thermal Performance of Gravity Assisted Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers

The performance of a gravity assisted heat pipe heat exchangers (HPHX) investigated experimentally. The HPHX consist of evaporator and condenser sections of different lengths and designed with three section ratio 1:3, 1:1 and 3:1 keeping the total length of HPHX 300mm. The heat pipes were fabricated with standard copper tube of inner diameter of 22.5 mm. The distilled water and acetone were usedas working fluid with filling ratios of 40% and 80% of evaporator volume. In experiments, the exhausted engine waste heat at full load is used for supplying the heat to the evaporator section. The pongamia biodiesel was used to preheat in condenser section before admission into engine cylinder. The experimental results indicated that the effectiveness of HPHX decreases with the increased section ratio. In addition, the effectiveness of the HPHX obtained from the experiments varied between 0.272 and 0.717. The 80% Acetone charged HPHXs shows better results with reduced thermal resistance and larger heat capacity