Impact of Smoking Habit on Peri-Implant Indicators following Different Therapies: A Systematic Review

Peri-implant disease and its treatment is becoming a major concern for clinicians as the number of implants placed each year is rising. Smoking is a common habit, and it is associated with an increased risk of developing peri-implant disease. The role of smoking in the response to peri-implant treatment has never been investigated. Searches were conducted in electronic databases to screen articles published until August 2021. The included studies had at least two groups of patients: peri-implant disease only or peri-implant disease and smoking status. Outcomes of interest included plaque index (PI), probing depth (PD), bleeding on probing (BoP), radiographic crestal bone loss (CBL), and analysis of peri-implant sulcular fluid. Seven hundred and forty-nine articles were found in the databases, only 71 articles potentially qualified. A total of seven studies with a minimum follow-up of six months were included. There is no homogeneity in the diagnosis, smoker definition and treatment proposed. All surgical and non-surgical treatment have statistically significantly different outcomes in smokers and nonsmokers. Recognizing this study's limitations, we conclude that smoking might play a significant role on the outcome of peri-implant disease treatment. None of the proposed treatments appear to be significantly more effective

Unifying gauge couplings at the string scale

Using the current precision electroweak data, we look for the minimal particle content which is necessary to add to the standard model in order to have a complete unification of gauge couplings and gravity at the weakly coupled heterotic string scale. We find that the addition of a vector-like fermion at an intermediate scale and a non-standard hypercharge normalization are in general sufficient to achieve this goal at two-loop level. Requiring the extra matter scale to be below the TeV scale, it is found that the addition of three vector-like fermion doublets with a mass around 700 GeV yields a perfect string-scale unification, provided that the affine levels are $(k_Y, k_2 ,k_3)=(13/3, 1, 2)$, as in the $SU(5) \times SU(5)$ string-GUT. Furthermore, if supersymmetry is broken at the unification scale, the Higgs mass is predicted in the range 125 GeV - 170 GeV, depending on the precise values of the top quark mass and $\tan \beta$ parameter.Comment: 11 pages, 4 eps figures, using jpconf style, talk given at CORFU2005, RTN meeting ``The Quest for Unification: Theory Confronts Experiment'', 11 - 18 September 2005, Corfu, Greec

Simulating the High Energy Gamma-ray sky seen by the GLAST Large Area Telescope

This paper presents the simulation of the GLAST high energy gamma-ray telescope. The simulation package, written in C++, is based on the Geant4 toolkit, and it is integrated into a general framework used to process events. A detailed simulation of the electronic signals inside Silicon detectors has been provided and it is used for the particle tracking, which is handled by a dedicated software. A unique repository for the geometrical description of the detector has been realized using the XML language and a C++ library to access this information has been designed and implemented. A new event display based on the HepRep protocol was implemented. The full simulation was used to simulate a full week of GLAST high energy gamma-ray observations. This paper outlines the contribution developed by the Italian GLAST software group.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium ''Frontiers of Fundamental and Computational Physics'' (FFP6), Udine (Italy), Sep. 26-29, 200

The Effect of Lockdown Period during the COVID-19 Pandemic on Air Quality in Sydney Region, Australia.

In early 2020 from April to early June, the metropolitan area of Sydney as well as the rest of New South Wales (NSW, Australia) experienced a period of lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 virus in the community. The effect of reducing anthropogenic activities including transportation had an impact on the urban environment in terms of air quality which is shown to have improved for a number of pollutants, such as Nitrogen Dioxides (NO2) and Carbon Monoxide (CO), based on monitoring data on the ground and from a satellite. In addition to primary pollutants CO and NOx emitted from mobile sources, PM2.5 (primary and secondary) and secondary Ozone (O3) during the lockdown period will also be analyzed using both statistical methods on air quality data and the modelling method with emission and meteorological data input to an air quality model. By estimating the decrease in traffic volume in the Sydney region, the corresponding decrease in emission input to the Weather Research and Forecasting—Community Multiscale Air Quality Modelling System (WRF-CMAQ) air quality model is then used to estimate the effect of lockdown on the air quality especially CO, NO2, O3, and PM2.5 in the Greater Metropolitan Region (GMR) of Sydney. The results from both statistical and modelling methods show that NO2, CO, and PM2.5 levels decreased during the lockdown, but O3 instead increased. However, the change in the concentration levels are small considering the large reduction of ~30% in traffic volum

March1-dependent modulation of donor MHC II on CD103+ dendritic cells mitigates alloimmunity.

In transplantation, donor dendritic cells (do-DCs) initiate the alloimmune response either by direct interaction with host T cells or by transferring intact donor MHC to host DCs. However, how do-DCs can be targeted for improving allograft survival is still unclear. Here we show CD103+ DCs are the major do-DC subset involved in the acute rejection of murine skin transplants. In the absence of CD103+ do-DCs, less donor MHC-II is carried to host lymph nodes, fewer allogenic T cells are primed and allograft survival is prolonged. Incubation of skin grafts with the anti-inflammatory mycobacterial protein DnaK reduces donor MHC-II on CD103+DCs and prolongs graft survival. This effect is mediated through IL-10-induced March1, which ubiquitinates and decreases MHC-II levels. Importantly, in vitro pre-treatment of human DCs with DnaK reduces their ability to prime alloreactive T cells. Our findings demonstrate a novel therapeutic approach to dampen alloimmunity by targeting donor MHC-II on CD103+DCs

Mucosal immune response after the booster dose of the BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine

Background: To date, only a few studies reported data regarding the development of mucosal immune response after the BNT162b2-booster vaccination. Methods: Samples of both serum and saliva of 50 healthcare workers were collected at the day of the booster dose (T3) and after two weeks (T4). Anti-S1-protein IgG and IgA antibody titres and the neutralizing antibodies against the Wuhan wild-type Receptor-Binding Domain in both serum and saliva were measured by quantitative and competitive ELISA, respectively. Data were compared with those recorded after the primary vaccination cycle (T2). Neutralizing antibodies against the variants of concern were measured in those individuals with anti-Wuhan neutralizing antibodies in their saliva. Findings: After eight months from the second dose, IgG decreased in both serum (T2GMC: 23,838.5 ng/ml; T3GMC: 1473.8 ng/ml) and saliva (T2GMC: 12.9 ng/ml; T3GMC: 0.3 ng/ml). Consistently, serum IgA decreased (T2GMC: 48.6 ng/ml; T3GMC: 6.4 ng/ml); however, salivary IgA showed a different behaviour and increased (T2GMC: 0.06 ng/ml; T3GMC: 0.41 ng/ml), indicating a delayed activation of mucosal immunity. The booster elicited higher titres of both IgG and IgA when compared with the primary cycle, in both serum (IgG T4GMC: 98,493.9 ng/ml; IgA T4GMC: 187.5 ng/ml) and saliva (IgG T4GMC: 21.9 ng/ml; IgA T4GMC: 0.65 ng/ml). Moreover, the booster re-established the neutralizing activity in the serum of all individuals, not only against the Wuhan wild-type antigen (N = 50; INH: 91.6%) but also against the variants (Delta INH: 91.3%; Delta Plus INH: 89.8%; Omicron BA.1 INH: 85.1%). By contrast, the salivary neutralizing activity was high against the Wuhan antigen in 72% of individuals (N = 36, INH: 62.2%), but decreased against the variants, especially against the Omicron BA.1 variant (Delta N = 27, INH: 43.1%; Delta Plus N = 24, INH: 35.2%; Omicron BA.1 N = 4; INH: 4.7%). This was suggestive for a different behaviour of systemic immunity observed in serum with respect to mucosal immunity described in saliva (Wald chi-square test, 3 df of interaction between variants and sample type = 308.2, p < 0.0001). Interpretation: The BNT162b2-booster vaccination elicits a strong systemic immune response but fails in activating an effective mucosal immunity against the Omicron BA.1 variant. Funding: This work was funded by the Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Insubria, and supported by Fondazione Umberto Veronesi (COVID-19 Insieme per la ricerca di tutti, 2020), Italy