ITI Implant-Supported Dentures: Assessment of Peri-Implant Bone Changes

Mandibular overdentures, supported by osseointegrated implants, is a well established, successful treatment of partialy edentulous patients. The aim of the study was to analyse the bone mineral density (BMD) in the implant site of the mandibles with ITI implant-supported overdentures when compared with the same site of the edentulous mandibles in complete denture wearers. Eight patients (4 males, 4 females) with 16 ITI implants and overdentures in the mandible and 8 complete denture wearers (4 males, 4 females) who had approximately the same body mass index and the same age participated. The BMD measurements were performed on digitised periapical radiographs with a 10 steps copper stepwedge attached to each film. Grey levels of each step of the stepwedge were transformed to optical density values and using the 3rd degree polynomial the regression formula was calculated for each film. The BMD values of each measured region of interest (ROI) were expressed in the copper stepwedge thickness equivalents. BMD values of the ROIs close to the implant were statistically compared to the same ROIs in the edentulous mandible using t test for independent samples. BMD values were significantly higher in ITI implant ROIs compared to the matching edentulous mandible sites (p<0.05). We concluded that an increased function after the implant-overdenture treatmentcaused a load-related bone formation which minimizes the physiologic age-related mandibular BMD loss. Supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Republic of Croatia, Project No. 065911

Satisfaction with Removable Denture Therapy in Complete and Partial Denture Wearers

The aim of this study was to evaluate patients’ satisfaction with their dentures, with denture retention, speech, chewing ability and the comfort of wearing dentures in complete denture (CD) and Kennedy Class I removable partial denture (RPD) wearers The aim was also to compare the level of satisfaction between the CD and RP wearers. A total of 156 CD and 103 RPD wearers took part in this study. Patients graded their satisfaction by using an analogue-visual scale from 1 to 5. The statistical analysis was made (descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov one sample test, Mann-Whitney test). The following conclusions were made: Both CD and RPD patients were mostly satisfied with their dentures (the distribution of the scores of the patients’ assessments was not as described by Gauss, but was skewed towards the highest scores). Variables were ranged from the best to the worst grades in the group CD wearers as follows: retention of upper CD, comfort of wearing upper CD, speech, aesthetic, overall satisfaction, chewing ability, retention of lower CD and comfort of wearing lower CD. Variables were ranged from the best to the worst grades in the group of RPD wearers as follows: aesthetics, retention of upper RPD, comfort of wearing lower RPD, speech, retention of lower RPD, overall satisfaction, chewing ability and comfort of wearing lower RPD. The difference of the satisfaction between RPD and CD wearers was significant (p<0.05) for the comfort of wearing lower denture (higher scores RPD wearers), for the retention of lower denture (higher scores RPD wearers), and for chewing ability (higher scores CD wearers)

Milieu effects on the Dark Triad traits and their sex differences in 49 countries

Most research on the development of personality traits like the Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) focuses on local effects like parenting style or attachment, but people live in a larger society that may set the stage for any local effects. Here we paired nation-level data on the traits from 49 nations with several milieu indicators (e.g., life expectancy, homicide rates) from three timepoints (and change among them) where the average participant (≈ 22yo) would have been a child (≈ 6yo), a pre-teen (≈ 11yo), and a teenager (≈ 16yo). Congruent with previous research, variance in narcissism was far more sensitive to variance in milieu conditions in general and across all three time points than variance in Machiavellianism or psychopathy. The milieu conditions differentiated the traits somewhat with income and education revealing negative correlations with narcissism, positive correlations with Machiavellianism, and null correlations with psychopathy. Sex differences in Machiavellianism and narcissism were correlated with homicide rates across the three timepoints. The evidence that changes in milieu conditions in ones' past predicts the traits was erratic, but larger sex differences in the traits were associated with decreased life expectancies and homicide rates between childhood and pre-teens.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Do gender and torus mandibularis affect mandibular cortical index? A cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The interactions between torus and several factors such as age, gender, and dental status have not been studied comprehensively. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of gender on the mandibular cortical index (MCI) and to investigate a possible association between torus mandibularis (TM) and MCI.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study consisted of 189 consecutive patients referred to Department of Oral Diagnosis and Radiology of Hacettepe University within 30 workdays. Patients who did not have systemic disorders affecting bone density were included; and the age, gender, dental status and existing TM of the patients were recorded. Morphology of the mandibular inferior cortex was determined according to Klemitti's classification on panoramic radiographs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>MCI was affected by age and gender (<it>P </it>< 0.05). No significant relationship was found between TM and MCI (<it>P </it>> 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In the study population, MCI was affected by age and gender. As age increased, semilunar defects could be seen on the cortex of the mandible and MCI values increased. Women appeared to have higher MCI values than men.</p

Grandiose narcissism, unfounded beliefs, and behavioral reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic

A theoretical perspective on grandiose narcissism suggests four forms of it (sanctity, admiration, heroism, rivalry) and states that these forms conduce to different ways of thinking and acting. Guided by this perspective, we examined in a multinational and multicultural study (61 countries; N = 15,039) how narcissism forms are linked to cognitions and behaviors prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, differences in cognitions and behaviors across narcissism forms emerged. For example, higher narcissistic rivalry predicted lower likelihood of enactment of COVID-19 prevention behaviors, but higher narcissistic sanctity predicted higher likelihood of enactment of COVID-19 prevention behaviors. Further, whereas the heroism, admiration, and rivalry narcissism forms acted in a typically antisocial manner, with high narcissism predicting greater endorsement of unfounded health beliefs, the sanctity form acted in a prosocial manner, with higher narcissism being linked to lower endorsement of unfounded COVID-19 health beliefs. Thus, the findings (a) support the idea of four narcissism forms acting differently, and (b) show that these differences reflect a double-edged sword, sometimes linking to an anti-social orientation, and sometimes linking to a pro-social orientation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lossless Image Compression Exploiting Streaming Model for Efficient Execution on Multicores

Image and video coding play a critical role in present multimedia systems ranging from entertainment to specialized applications such as telemedicine. Usually, they are hand–customized for every intended architecture in order to meet performance requirements. This approach is neither portable nor scalable. With the advent of multicores new challenges emerged for programmers related to both efficient utilization of additional resources and scalable performance. For image and video processing applications, streaming model of computation showed to be effective in tackling these challenges. In this paper, we report the efforts to improve the execution performance of the CBPC, our compute intensive lossless image compression algorithm described in [1]. The algorithm is based on highly adaptive and predictive modeling, outperforming many other methods in compression efficiency, although with increased complexity. We employ a high–level performance optimization approach which exploits streaming model for scalability and portability. We obtain this by detecting computationally demanding parts of the algorithm and implementing them in StreamIt, an architecture–independent stream language which goal is to improve programming productivity and parallelization efficiency by exposing the parallelism and communication pattern. We developed an interface that enables the integration and hosting of streaming kernels into the host application developed in general–purpose language.Postupci obrade slikovnih podataka su iznimno zastupljeni u postojećim multimedijskim sustavima, počev od zabavnih sustava pa do specijaliziranih aplikacija u telemedicini. Vrlo često, zbog svojih računskih zahtjeva, ovi programski odsječci su iznimno optimirani i to na niskoj razini, što predstavlja poteškoće u prenosivosti i skalabilnosti konačnog rješenja. Nadolaskom višejezgrenih računala pojavljuju se novi izazovi kao što su učinkovito iskorištavanje računskih jezgri i postizanje skalabilnosti rješenja obzirom na povećanje broja jezgri. U ovom radu prikazan je novi pristup poboljšanja izvedbenih performansi metode za kompresiju slika bez gubitaka CBPC koja se odlikuje adaptivnim modelom predviđanja koji omogućuje postizanje boljih stupnjeva kompresije uz povećanje računske složenosti [1]. Pristup koji je primjenjen sastoji se u implementaciji računski zahtjevnog predikcijskog modela u tokovnom programskom jeziku koji omogućuje paralelizaciju izvornog programa. Ovako projektiran predikcijski model može se iskoristiti kroz sučelje koje smo razvili a koje omogućuje pozivanje tokovnih računskih modula i njihovo paralelno izvođenje uz iskorištavanje više jezgri

Influence of Age and Gender on Radiomorphometric Indices of the Mandible in Removable Denture Wearers

The objective of this study was to measure and assess a number of radiomorphometric indices of the mandibular removable denture wearers taking into account age and gender. In a total of 136 dental panoramic radiographs (DPR) the following parameters were evaluated: MI = thickness of the mandibular cortex below the mental foramen, AI = thickness at the antegonion and GI = thickness at gonion; PMI = MI/distance between the low border of the mandible and the low border of the mental foramen, and MCI = mandibular cortical index, based on the assessment of the 3 categories of cortical appearance due to the resorptive changes. There were 40 male patients (mean age 72.7; range 56 to 84 years) and 96 female patients (mean age 69.7; range 48 to 86 years). Patients were grouped according to age into three age groups (1 = less than 65 years; 2 = 65–75 years; 3 = more than 75 years). The results revealed that MI, PMI, AI and GI showed a general downward trend with age for the both sexes until 75 years of age when the mean values of GI, AI and MI begun to fall down sharply for females compared to males. The difference was significant between age groups and gender for GI and AI. Only two categories (C2 and C3) of MCI have been recognized in our study sample, due to the relatively old age groups of patients with removable dentures. However, significantly higher incidence of C3 existed in the oldest group of females

Multi-objective optimization control of plug-in electric vehicles in low voltage distribution networks

The massive introduction of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) into low voltage (LV) distribution networkswill lead to several problems, such as: increase of energy losses, decrease of distribution transformer lifetime, lines and transformer overload issues, voltage drops and unbalances. In this context, this paper proposes a new multi-objective optimization algorithm in order to reduce the mentioned problems. At thesame time, users’ interests in terms of charging cost and privacy have been taken into account. The proposed multi-objective optimization is based on minimizing the load variance and charging costs by using the weighted sum method and fuzzy control. The use of vehicle to grid (V2G) concept and load forecast uncertainties have been also considered. Furthermore, an innovative method for mitigating voltage unbalances has been developed. The effectiveness of this methodology has been tested using real data of a LV distribution network, located in Borup (Denmark). Simulation results show that this approachcan reduce both energy losses and charging costs as well as it allows a high PEV penetration rates(PEV-PR)