Oral health-related impact profile of patients treated with fixed, removable, and telescopic dental prostheses in student courses — a prospective bicenter clinical trial

Objectives!#!To analyze the oral health-related impact profile in patients treated with three different types of dental prosthesis in student courses.!##!Materials and methods!#!This prospective bicenter clinical trial was conducted with 151 patients being treated with fixed (n = 70), removable (n = 61), or telescopic dental prostheses (n = 20) in clinical student courses of two German universities from October 2018 to October 2019. All patients completed three standardized German versions of the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-G49/53) before prosthetic treatment (T0), at control after 1 week (T1), and after 3 months (T2), divided into five dimensions: (a) appearance, (b) oral function, (c) psychosocial impact, (d) linguistic limitations, and (e) orofacial pain. Data were analyzed with Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Wilcoxon signed-rank, Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, and Cronbach's alpha tests.!##!Results!#!Within T0-T1 and T0-T2, greater improvements were determined for removable compared with fixed dental prostheses for the dimensions' oral function (p ≤ 0.014), linguistic limitations (p ≤ 0.016), and appearance (p ≤ 0.003). No significant differences were found between fixed and telescopic dental prostheses (p ≥ 0.104) or between removable (partial dental prosthesis with clasps and complete dental prosthesis) and telescopic dental prostheses (p ≥ 0.100). Within T1-T2, a significant improvement in orofacial pain could be determined (p = 0.007).!##!Conclusions!#!Restorations presented an improvement in oral health-related quality of life. Removable dental prostheses showed better improvement than fixed ones in various dimensions.!##!Clinical relevance!#!Knowledge about the influence of oral health-related quality of life on the three different types of prosthesis used in student courses can be of decisive help in dental consultations

The uniting of Europe and the foundation of EU studies: revisiting the neofunctionalism of Ernst B. Haas

This article suggests that the neofunctionalist theoretical legacy left by Ernst B. Haas is somewhat richer and more prescient than many contemporary discussants allow. The article develops an argument for routine and detailed re-reading of the corpus of neofunctionalist work (and that of Haas in particular), not only to disabuse contemporary students and scholars of the normally static and stylized reading that discussion of the theory provokes, but also to suggest that the conceptual repertoire of neofunctionalism is able to speak directly to current EU studies and comparative regionalism. Neofunctionalism is situated in its social scientific context before the theory's supposed erroneous reliance on the concept of 'spillover' is discussed critically. A case is then made for viewing Haas's neofunctionalism as a dynamic theory that not only corresponded to established social scientific norms, but did so in ways that were consistent with disciplinary openness and pluralism

Optimizing water and nitrogen application for neglected horticultural species in tropical sub-humid climate areas: A case of African eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum L.)

African eggplant, a traditional and important nutrient-dense crop to Tanzania’s nutrition and food security. However, yields remain low as a result of sub-optimal irrigation and fertilizer practices. To reduce the yield gap, a randomized split-plot design set up with irrigation as a main and nitrogen (N) treatments as a sub-factor. The irrigation regimes were 100 % (I100), 80 % (I80) and 60 % (I60) of crop water requirements whilst nitrogen levels were 250 kg N/ha (F100), 187 kg N/ha (F75), 125 kg N/ha (F50) and 0 kgN/ha (F0). The study evaluated the effect of irrigation water and N on crop growth variables and yield, fruit quality, WUE and NUE. The study showed the importance of combining different irrigation performance indicators which responds to different levels of water and nitrogen to evaluate and assess suitable irrigation and fertilizer strategies for African eggplant. The crop growth variables (plant height and LAI) had a good correlation with fruit yield (R2 = 0.6 and 0.8). The fruit quality was best performed by 100 % water in combination with 75 % N treatment. The best WUE and NUE was attained at 80 % and 100 % levels of water in combination with 75 % N. However, minimizing trade-offs between the various indicators, the optimal application for African eggplant would likely be around 80 % of the total irrigation requirement and 75 % of the N requirement in sandy clay loam soils under tropical sub-humid conditions

Multiband diffusion-weighted MRI of the eye and orbit free of geometric distortions using a RARE-EPI hybrid

Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) provides information on tissue microstructure. Single-shot echo planar imaging (EPI) is the most common technique for DWI applications in the brain, but is prone to geometric distortions and signal voids. Rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement [RARE, also known as fast spin echo (FSE)] imaging presents a valuable alternative to DWI with high anatomical accuracy. This work proposes a multi-shot diffusion-weighted RARE-EPI hybrid pulse sequence, combining the anatomical integrity of RARE with the imaging speed and radiofrequency (RF) power deposition advantage of EPI. The anatomical integrity of RARE-EPI was demonstrated and quantified by center of gravity analysis for both morphological images and diffusion-weighted acquisitions in phantom and in vivo experiments at 3.0 T and 7.0 T. The results indicate that half of the RARE echoes in the echo train can be replaced by EPI echoes whilst maintaining anatomical accuracy. The reduced RF power deposition of RARE-EPI enabled multiband RF pulses facilitating simultaneous multi-slice imaging. This study shows that diffusion-weighted RARE-EPI has the capability to acquire high fidelity, distortion-free images of the eye and the orbit. It is shown that RARE-EPI maintains the immunity to B0 inhomogeneities reported for RARE imaging. This benefit can be exploited for the assessment of ocular masses and pathological changes of the eye and the orbit

Soil and water managements and landscapes: Africa RISING science, innovations and technologies with scaling potential from the Ethiopian highlands

United States Agency for International Developmen

Are language production problems apparent in adults who no longer meet diagnostic criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder?

In this study, we examined sentence production in a sample of adults (N = 21) who had had attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as children, but as adults no longer met DSM-IV diagnostic criteria (APA, 2000). This “remitted” group was assessed on a sentence production task. On each trial, participants saw two objects and a verb. Their task was to construct a sentence using the objects as arguments of the verb. Results showed more ungrammatical and disfluent utterances with one particular type of verb (i.e., participle). In a second set of analyses, we compared the remitted group to both control participants and a “persistent” group, who had ADHD as children and as adults. Results showed that remitters were more likely to produce ungrammatical utterances and to make repair disfluencies compared to controls, and they patterned more similarly to ADHD participants. Conclusions focus on language output in remitted ADHD, and the role of executive functions in language production

The Paradoxes of Democracy and the Rule of Law

The promise of modernization after the Second World War was that economic growth, equality, the rule of law and democracy would proceed together. In many ways, this has happened. Yet many of the promises of social progress developed after WWII have been undermined by internal tensions within the democratic project, as well as by social and economic trends. While stating the challenges that these trends have posed for democratic institutions and actors, we also look at the responses (both proposals and practices) that have emerged in order to address those challenges. In doing this, we note that the very conception of democracy as liberal democracy (based on delegation and majority voting) is under stress as neoliberalism has attacked those very intermediary institutions (parties, unions, voluntary associations) that had been at the basis of the development of the welfare state and democratic capitalism. We start by noting the growth in inequality, which means that formal democracy is shaped by uneven power resources as concentration of wealth provides advantages in the capacity to influence public decision making with mutual convertibility of economic and political resources. The spiral of inequality and corporate political power is reflected in a growing legitimacy crisis in old and new democracies. Liberalism, which promised the separation between the state and the market, has evolved into neoliberalism, , based on the domination of the corporation, exacerbated by privatization and de-regulation. This has raised private profit criteria about considerations of the broader public good and in many cases encouraged corruption. The ensuing inefficiency and lack of transparency foster institutional mistrust, with perverse effects. Challenges are also related to the fact that democracy has been mainly defined in a national mode, with the demos identified as the nation. Economic rescaling produced by global capitalism has however a produced both de-territorialization and re-territorialization, which requires a (yet unachieved) rethinking of the basis for democracy but also of welfare and its foundation in both identities and institutions. In the North and (with different characteristics) in the South of the globe, movement of capital and of people pose challenges of national pluralism and its constitutional recognition, questioning key concepts such as the definition of political community and popular sovereignty and the . relationship between human rights and citizenship. Citizenship is more appropriately considered as related not to fixed institutions but rather as ‘acts of citizenships’ requiring subjectivity and agency and more inclusive conceptions. The main actors in democratic development have been affected by these challenges. Political parties are an important element in democracy but they have become an interest in their own right. A crisis of representation has emerged from growing social detachment of political parties from social cleavages as well as of elected representatives from the citizens. This had most dramatic effects on the Left, when left-wing parties have supported neoliberal reforms. Relying on expertise for the development of progressive policies is not a solution given the non-accountable power of science as well as the increasing challenges of privatization of knowledge-making, opacity of knowledge production and persistence of fundamental class imbalances in access to knowledge. Participatory channels of access to institutions have been opened to ‘ordinary citizens’ but, within neoliberalism, they are often based on individualist conceptions and do not address fundamental issues of inequalities. While citizens often call for direct participation, existing experiments rarely empower the citizens. While the judiciary has been seen as a surrogate for democratic participation for marginalized minority groups, its capacity for rights enforcement is limited by the expansion (in particular at international level) of a lex mercatoria as well as the use of courts in order to protect economic freedom from democratic dynamics. The rule of law has also been subverted by unequal access to the law and by the influence of money while the judiciary also has its own particular interests and corporate lawyers assume a brokerage function in globalized markets. On the other hand, in the control of political dissent, the state, rather than being weakened from globalization, increases its reach and power. The ‘war on terror’ has been used to challenge the rule of law by states of emergency as well as authoritarian drifts with attempts at imposing a permanent ‘state of exception’. On the other hand, progressive social movements have addressed growing inequalities and democratic crises by developing alternative visions of democracy, stressing participation over delegation and deliberation over majoritarian decision-making. Participatory and deliberative conceptions have been prefigured as well as elaborated in recent waves of protests. The consolidation of oppositional actors, however, faces challenges in the fragmentation of the potential social bases, the need to build a new collective identity as well as to establish channels of access to power. This has resulted from, but also triggered, the reduction in citizens’ entitlements and the weakening of the social contract upon which social progress depends

Phosphorus export from two contrasting rural watersheds in the (sub) humid Ethiopian highlands

Establishing worldwide sustainable and phosphorus efficient cropping systems is urgently needed because the supply of suitable phosphate rock is limited, and excess phosphorus in streams causes eutrophication. One of the impediments in the developing world for sustainable P practices is the lack of studies on P transport and its eventual disposition in the environment. One of these regions with few studies is the Ethiopian Highlands, with permeable volcanic soils. The objective was to establish baseline data on P watershed export in the (sub)humid highlands. Two contrasting watersheds were selected near Lake Tana. For 2 years, stream discharge and sediment, total P, dissolved P, and bioavailable particulate P concentrations were determined at the watershed outlet. The first watershed is the 57 km2 Dangishta, with lava intrusion dikes, forcing subsurface flow through faults to the surface and preventing gully formation. Subsurface flow was half of the 1745 mm annual precipitation, and surface runoff and erosion were minimal. The second watershed is the 9 km2 Robit Bata with 1,420 mm precipitation. The banks of several river banks were slumping. The upper part of the watershed generates saturation excess runoff. A hillslope aquifer in the lower part provided interflow. The average sediment concentrations of 10.5 g L−1 in the stream in Robit Bata (11 times that in Dangishta) reflected the sediments from banks slipping in the stream. The hydrology and the soil loss directly affected the phosphorus export. In Dangishta, the total P concentration averaged 0.5 mg L−1 at the outlet. In Robit Bata, the average total P concentration was 2 mg L−1. The bioavailable particulate P concentration was only twice the concentration in the runoff water. The low phosphorus content of the subsoil slipping in Robit Bata moderated biologically available particulate P at the outlet. Average dissolved P concentrations for both watersheds were around 0.1 mg L−1 in the low range found in temperate climates. It reflects the difference in length of time that phosphorus fertilizers have been applied. Our research concludes that commonly implemented practices such as strengthening river banks and stabilizing gully might not lead to improved water quality in Lake Tana

Together forever? Explaining exclusivity in party-firm relations

Parties and firms are the key actors of representative democracy and capitalism respectively and the dynamic of attachment between them is a central feature of any political economy. This is the first article to systematically analyse the exclusivity of party-firm relations. We consider exclusivity at a point in time and exclusivity over time. Does a firm have a relationship with only one party at a given point in time, or is it close to more than one party? Does a firm maintain a relationship with only one party over time, or does it switch between parties? Most important, how do patterns of exclusivity impact on a firm’s ability to lobby successfully? We propose a general theory, which explains patterns of party-firm relations by reference to the division of institutions and the type of party competition in a political system. A preliminary test of our theory with Polish survey data confirms our predictions, establishing a promising hypothesis for future research