Digital evaluation of occlusal forces: comparison between healthy subjects and TMD patients

ABSTRACT Aim: Continuous technological innovation has provided the clinicians to access to a computerized device that can analyse the different characteristics of occlusal contacts. The purpose of this research was to use this device to study the occlusal forces comparing healthy subjects and TMD patients. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted by following specific criteria to select participants, the sample was divided into two homogeneous groups: control group (CG) comprising healthy subjects, and dysfunctional group (DG) comprising TMD patients. The occlusal force analysis was performed using the computerized system T-Scan III V 5.20 T. The data were analysed with statistical methods. Results: The most significant differences emerged between the groups in the average occlusal load distribution and in the location of the centre of occlusal forces (COF). In particular, compared with the CG and the functional standard, reductions in the molar field forces on the second and first molars of 27% and 6.9%, respectively, were observed in the DG. The COF was located in the most forward position in TMD patients compared with healthy subjects. Conclusions: Although the differences in the distribution of the occlusal forces and the location of the occlusal centre of gravity were significant, the relationship between occlusal contacts and TMD remains to be fully clarified. Further research is needed to investigate whether studying occlusal force distributions in both healthy subjects and TMD patients

Learning Micromanipulation, Part 1: An Approach Based on Multidimensional Ability Inventories and Text Mining.

In the last decades, an effort has been made to improve the efficiency of high-level and academic education players. Nowadays, students’ preferences and habits are continuously evolving and so the educational institutions deal with important challenges, such as not losing attractiveness or preventing early abandonment during the programs. In many countries, some important universities are public, and so they receive national grants that are based on a variety of factors, on which the teaching efficiency has a great impact. This contribution presents a method to improve students commitment during traditional lessons and laboratory tests. The idea consists in planning some activities according to the students’ learning preferences, which were studied by means of two different approaches. The first one was based on Gardner’s multiple intelligence inventory, which is useful to highlight some peculiar characteristics of the students on the specific educational field. In the second method, direct interviews, voice recognition, and text mining were used to extract some interesting characteristics of the group of students who participated in the projects. The methods were applied in May 2018 to the students attending the course of Micro-Nano Sensors and Actuators for the postgraduate academic program dedicated to Industrial Nanotechnologies Engineering of the University of Rome La Sapienza. The present paper represents the first part of the investigation and it is dedicated essentially to the adopted methods. The second part of the work is presented in the companion paper dedicated to the presentation of the practical project that the students completed before the exam

Physical activity and sports science in Italian scientific research products

Purpose. This study aims to measure the number of scientific production of Italian researchers, as framed on academic disciplines of Physical training and methodology (code M-EDF/01) and Sports science and methodology (code M-EDF/02), afferents to the academic recruitment field of Exercise and sports science (code 06/N2) and Didactics, special education and educational research (code 11/D2). Material and Methods. The sample consisted of the entire population of full professors (n=30) belonging to the two academic disciplines of Physical training and methodology and Sports science and methodology, plus a proportional representation of the two academic recruitment fields with at least one associate professor per university, for a total of 124 researchers. The titles of the first ten scientific products in terms of more citations from the Google Scholar database were analysed for each researcher. The full consistency of the title with the scientific statement of the two academic disciplines was assessed, identifying the number of articles afferent to sports and physical activity, biomedical and Psycho-pedagogical domains. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the two academic disciplines of the two academic recruitment fields with the three domains. Results. The aggregate data showed a prevalence of the biomedical domain over the sport and physical activity ones in both the academic disciplines, in the academic recruitment field of Exercise and sports science. On the other hand, in the academic recruitment of Didactics, special education and educational research, there was a prevalence of the sport and physical activity domain over the biomedical ones. In addition, modest Psycho-pedagogical and biomedical scientific production were found in the academic recruitment fields of Exercise and sports science and Didactics, special education and educational research, respectively. Conclusions. The problem of the different coherence of the scientific profiles of the researchers concerning the relevant academic recruitment field and possibly also to the two academic disciplines was confirmed

Dynamic response of structures to thunderstorm outflows: Response spectrum technique vs time-domain analysis

Thunderstorms are transient events. Design wind velocity and wind-induced damage are often related to them. Despite this, research on thunderstorm loading of structures is still fragmentary and uncertain due to their complexity, short duration and small size. These issues make it difficult to set physically realistic and simple models as well as to gather real data. This favoured the implementation of refined methods based on limited measurements. The European Projects \u201cWind and Ports\u201d and \u201cWind, Ports and Sea\u201d realised an extensive monitoring network from which many thunderstorm outflow records were extracted. They were analysed to inspect their characteristics and to formulate methods coherent with measurements. Firstly, the response spectrum technique conceived for earthquakes was extended to thunderstorms. Then, a hybrid simulation strategy was proposed and time-domain integrations of the structural response were applied. This paper provides a joint calibration and advancement of these two methods, leading to results that substantially agree, especially faced with their conceptual and operative diversities. This confirms the potential of the response spectrum technique to become a suitable tool for calculating the thunderstorm loading of structures and the efficiency of hybrid simulations and time-domain analyses to investigate, with a limited computational burden, advanced structural issues

The accountability of football as a form of public good on local communities: a pilot study

Study purpose. Football is a social phenomenon, especially due to the enormous use of the media and the economic and financial implications that derive from its complex sporting activities. Amateur sports associations (ASD) are part of this phenomenon since they represent socio-educational agencies that pursue the aims of sports training by adopting specific educational, social, and economic models. Individually, they have modest dimensions but considered in an aggregate manner, they present a significant and not negligible dimension in society. The purpose of the study is to try to understand the stakeholders’ perceptions concerning the issues of youth football and the accountability that football, understood as a public good, produces in local communities. Materials and methods. The study was conducted through a survey submitted to a sample made up by presidents and trainers of 112 amateur sports clubs in the province of Salerno, a city in Southern Italy. The survey includes two thematic sections. The first section presents 6 items, common for both presidents and trainers, about the various social and educational issues related to the practice of the sport. The second section presents 4 items, that analyse the contribution that the U.S. Salernitana 1919 football club, considered as a “public good”, brings to the territory in terms of economic and social return. Validity and reliability were calculated. The collected data were analysed using the Chi-square (χ2) test to check the correlation between the responses given by the stakeholders. Results.The results show a concordance of opinions among the stakeholders regarding the most relevant educational aspects related to the practice of football, and the major critical issues involving the youth academy of U.S. Salernitana 1919 football club. Conclusions. These results highlight the stakeholders’ full awareness of the potential positive social effects of the presence of football ASDs in the territory, even considering the limitations of the study sample and the territorially circumscribed objective of the research

Solid particle erosion and viscoelastic properties of thermoplastic polyurethanes

The wear resistance of several thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs) having different chemical nature and micronscale arrangement of the hard and soft segments has been investigated by means of erosion and abrasion tests. The goal was correlating the erosion performances of the materials to their macroscopic mechanical properties. Unlike conventional tests, such as hardness and tensile measurements, viscoelastic analysis proved to be a valuable tool to study the erosion resistance of TPUs. In particular, a strict correlation was found between the erosion rate and the high-frequency (~10^7 Hz) loss modulus. The latter reflects the actual ability of TPU to dissipate the impact energy of the erodent particles