Peri-implant diseases and metabolic syndrome components: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is defined as a spectrum of conditions associated with an increased risk of developing CVD and type 2 diabetes. MetS include: hyperglycemia, hypertension, visceral obesity, dyslipidemia with elevated values of triglycerides (TG) and low levels of HDL. The aim of this review is to provide current knowledge of the relationship between MetS, its components and peri-implant diseases. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An electronic literature search was conducted in the English language in several databases. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used for quality assessment of cohort and cross-sectional studies; while systematic reviews were evaluated through AMSTAR; results were reported according to the PRISMA Statement. RESULTS: A total of 272 records were identified through database searching, six studies were included for qualitative analysis. No study directly related to MetS was found, there was inconsistent and controversial evidence regarding association with cardiovascular disease. A higher risk of peri-implantitis was detected in people with hyperglycemia. CONCLUSIONS: Future research should be orientated in assessing the risk of peri-implant diseases, evaluating patient's therapeutic response, analyzing directionality of the relationship between MetS, its components and biologic implant complications. Few studies have investigated the possible relationship between systemic conditions and peri-implant diseases. The aim of this review is to present, in a systematic manner, current evidence and knowledge regarding possible association between cardiovascular disease and implant biologic complications. Out of the one-hundred-eighty-nine studies screened, just five studies were selected for qualitative analysis: three cohort studies (one prospective and two retrospectives) and two cross-sectional studies. According to their results, there is inconsistent and controversial evidence regarding association of cardiovascular disease and implant biologic complications. Future research should be orientated in conducting longitudinal studies, evaluating patients affected by cardiovascular disease rehabilitated with dental implants

Josef Hoffmann e il sanatorio di Purkersdorf

É chiaro che il Mediterraneo è cosa complessa e sfaccettata, disponibile ad alimentare, ricevere e generare tutta una serie di pensieri ed elaborazioni. La proposta si avvale dell’interpretazione progettuale che architetti non appartenenti alla cultura mediterranea danno del Mediterraneo. Si tratta di una dimostrazione per assurdo che va a ricercare un agente tracciante esaminando esperienze di qualcuno che ha dovuto elaborare un concetto che per noi è familiare. Essi hanno avvertito la necessità di porsi una domanda: “che cosa è il Mediterraneo?” L’operazione, dunque, consiste nella decodificazione di un codice scaturito da architetti non appartenenti geograficamente alla mediterraneità. Ciò che questi architetti ricercano è la costruzione di un’idea di spazio che hanno potuto esperire nel grand tour. Il viaggio in Italia rappresenta un viaggio nella memoria. La ricerca attraverso l’esperienza di un’architettura costruita nell’intelletto attraverso il mito. La ricerca della costruzione di un’idea. I giovani del nord scendono al sud per esperire l’archè, per ritrovare o trovare l’immagine primordiale dell’architetture, l’ordine universale, l’archetipo da cui tutto ha avuto inizio e per comprenderne la technè, ovvero i tipi e i modi della costruzione. Un protagonista del viaggio attraverso il Mediterraneo è l’architetto Austriaco J. Hoffmann, testimoniato da una serie di immagini ed elaborazioni grafiche che assumeranno un bagaglio importante nella sua attività progettuale. La conferma sul ruolo decisivo giocato dall’Italienische Reise nella sua formazione trova il suo apice nella pura stereometria del Sanatorio di Punkersdorf a Vienna, in qui il linguaggio hauffmanniano raccoglie i risultati del processo di decantazione delle immagini contemplate durante il suo viaggio al sud. Già tra pagine di Der Architekt, nel suo scritto L’architettura dell’Isola di Capri, si trova traccia del valore che per l’austriaco assume la ricerca architettonica indirizzata verso la mediterraneità. L’obiettivo è quello di rintracciare un fil rouge che lega le immagini del grand tour di Hoffmann e le sue realizzazioni da architetto. La forza della ricerca portata avanti da questo architetto è osservare, comprendere e riprodurre criticamente un’idea, trasformandola in un’idea costruita

Injecting roles in Java agents through runtime bytecode manipulation

Agents are problem-solving entities that can be used to develop complex and distributed systems because they are autonomous, mobile, reactive, social, and proactive. Today's trends in agent technology include the development of applications as multi-agent systems, where several agents interact within the same application. In these systems, the interactions among agents must be carefully considered. Roles constitute a powerful paradigm for modeling interactions, allowing algorithmic issues and interaction-dependent issues to be handled independently. In this paper, we present the RoleX interaction infrastructure, which enables Java(TM) agents to dynamically assume and use roles at runtime. Our approach is based on using bytecode manipulation to add (or remove) Java members from agents, changing their capabilities. We detail the main component of RoleX, the Role Loader, which performs the bytecode manipulation that allows agents to dynamically assume and release roles

The cardiovascular risk of young women with polycystic ovary syndrome: an observational, analytical, prospective case-control study

To evaluate the cardiovascular risk of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), we investigated lipid profile, metabolic pattern, and echocardiography in 30 young women with PCOS and 30 healthy age- and body mass index (BMI)-matched women. PCOS women had higher fasting glucose and insulin levels, homeostasis model assessment score of insulin sensitivity, total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, and TC/high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) ratio and lower HDL-C levels than controls. Additionally, PCOS women had higher left atrium size (32.0 +/- 4.9 vs. 27.4 +/- 2.1 mm; P < 0.0001) and left ventricular mass index (80.5 +/- 18.1 vs. 56.1 +/- 5.4 g/m(2); P < 0.0001) and lower left ventricular ejection fraction (64.4 +/- 4.1 vs. 67.1 +/- 2.6%; P = 0.003) and early to late mitral flow velocity ratio (1.6 +/- 0.4 vs. 2.1 +/- 0.2; P < 0.0001) than controls. When patients and controls were grouped according to BMI [normal weight (BMI, >18 and <25 kg/m(2)), overweight (BMI, 25.1-30 kg/m(2)), and obese (BMI, >30 kg/m(2))], the differences between PCOS women and controls were maintained in overweight and obese women. In normal weight PCOS women, a significant increase in left ventricular mass index and a decrease in diastolic filling were observed, notwithstanding no change in TC, LDL-C, HDL-C, TC/HDL-C ratio, and TG compared with controls. In conclusion, our data show the detrimental effect of PCOS on the cardiovascular system even in young women asymptomatic for cardiac disease

Studio RIFRA: il rischio fratturativo in Italia

L'osteoporosi \ue8 un disordine scheletrico cronico-evolutivo, caratferizzato dalla perdita dell'equilibrio del metabolismo osseo con conseguente degenerazione quantitativa e qualitativa che compromette la resistenza dell'osso e predispone ad un aumentato rischio di fratture. Colpisce soprattutto il sesso femminile,conunaprevalenza del33%nelrange tra60eT0aacheaumentaconl'avanzaredell'et\ue0. Pu\uf2 rimanere clinicamente silente e successivamente manifestarsi con fratture (vertebrali 100.000 casi/anno, di polso 85.000 casi/anno e femorali 80.000 casi/anno). Le fratture da fragilit\ue0 comportano gravi conse gse\ueeze, sia a livello clinico individuale che sociale ed economico; rappresenrano pertanto una fonte di disabilit\ue0 complessa, che in quanto tale necessita di una presa in carico globale. Lo studio RIFRA nasce da un'idea del GISMO per rispondere alla necessit\ue0 primaria di quantificare il reale rischio fratturativo in Italia attraverso una specifica scheda e di valutare l'influenza delle comorbilit\ue0 e delle terapie corelate al rischio di frattura. L'obiettivo secondario analizzare \a percentuale di pazienti sottoposti a trattamento farmacologico in relazione ai valori densitometrici e alle pregresse fratture, nonch\ue9 valutare la prevalenza di fratture da fragilit\ue0 nella popol azione in studio

Benthic foraminiferal assemblages and rhodolith facies evolution in post-LGM sediments from the Pontine Archipelago shelf (Central Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy)

The seabed of the Pontine Archipelago (Tyrrhenian Sea) insular shelf is peculiar as it is characterized by a mixed siliciclastic–carbonate sedimentation. In order to reconstruct the Late Quaternary paleoenvironmental evolution of the Pontine Archipelago, this study investigates the succession of facies recorded by two sediment cores. For this purpose, benthic foraminifera and rhodoliths assemblages were considered. The two cores (post-Last Glacial Maximum in age) were collected at 60 (CS1) and 122 m (Caro1) depth on the insular shelf off Ponza Island. The paleontological data were compared with seismo-stratigraphic and lithological evidence. The cores show a deepening succession, with a transition from a basal rhodolith-rich biodetritic coarse sand to the surface coralline-barren silty sand. This transition is more evident along core Caro1 (from the bottom to the top), collected at a deeper water depth than CS1. In support of this evidence, along Caro1 was recorded a fairly constant increase in the amount of planktonic foraminiferal and a marked change in benthic foraminiferal assemblages (from Asterigerinata mamilla and Lobatula lobatula assemblage to Cassidulina carinata assemblage). Interestingly, the dating of the Caro1 bottom allowed us to extend to more than 13,000 years BP the rhodolith record in the Pontine Archipelago, indicating the possible presence of an active carbonate factory at that time

Assessing multi-hazard susceptibility to cryospheric hazards:Lesson learnt from an Alaskan example

Classifying a given landscape on the basis of its susceptibility to surface processes is a standard procedure in low to mid-latitudes. Conversely, these procedures have hardly been explored in periglacial regions. However, global warming is radically changing this situation and will change it even more in the future. For this reason, understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of geomorphological processes in peri-arctic environments can be crucial to make informed decisions in such unstable environments and shed light on what changes may follow at lower latitudes. For this reason, here we explored the use of data-driven models capable of recognizing locations prone to develop retrogressive thaw slumps (RTSs) and/or active layer detachments (ALDs). These are cryospheric hazards induced by permafrost degradation, and their development can negatively affect human settlements or infrastructure, change the sediment budget and release greenhouse gases. Specifically, we test a binomial Generalized Additive Modeling structure to estimate the probability of RST and ALD occurrences in the North sector of the Alaskan territory. The results we obtain show that our binary classifiers can accurately recognize locations prone to RTS and ALD, in a number of goodness-of-fit (AUCRTS = 0.83; AUCALD = 0.86), random cross-validation (mean AUCRTS = 0.82; mean AUCALD = 0.86), and spatial cross-validation (mean AUCRTS = 0.74; mean AUCALD = 0.80) routines. Overall, our analytical protocol has been implemented to build an open-source tool scripted in Python where all the operational steps are automatized for anyone to replicate the same experiment. Our protocol allows one to access cloud-stored information, pre-process it, and download it locally to be integrated for spatial predictive purposes

Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph slitless observations of Small Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae: a study on morphology, emission line intensity, and evolution

A sample of 27 Planetary Nebulae (PNs) in the Small Magellanic Clouds (SMC) have been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) to determine their morphology, size, and the spatial variation of the ratios of bright emission lines. The morphologies of SMC PNs are similar to those of LMC and Galactic PNs. However, only a third of the resolved SMC PNs are asymmetric, compared to half in the LMC. The low metallicity environment of the SMC seems to discourage the onset of bipolarity in PNs. We measured the line intensity, average surface brightness (SB), and photometric radius of each nebula in halpha, hbeta, [O III] lambda4959 and 5007, [NII] 6548 and 6584, [S II] lambda6716 and 5731, He I 6678, and [OI] 6300 and 6363. We show that the surface brightness to radius relationship is the same as in LMC PNs, indicating its possible use as a distance scale indicator for Galactic PNs. We determine the electron densities and the ionized masses of the nebulae where the [S II] lines were measured accurately, and we find that the SMC PNs are denser than the LMC PNs by a factor of 1.5. The average ionized mass of the SMC PNs is 0.3 Msun. We also found that the median [O III]/hbeta intensity ratio in the SMC is about half than the corresponding LMC median. We use Cloudy to model the dependence of the [O III]/hbeta ratio on the oxygen abundance. Our models encompass very well the average observed physical quantities. We suggest that the SMC PNs are principally cooled by the carbon lines, making it hard to study their excitation based on the optical lines at our disposal.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, 30 pages, 13 figures, 6 tables. For high resolution version of Figs 1 to 6, see http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/mcpn/home.htm