Critical analysis of artificial teeth for endodontic teaching

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of artificial teeth for endodontic teaching. A questionnaire was prepared and submitted to 18 professors of Endodontics from different Brazilian universities to evaluate the following features of five cloudy resin artificial teeth: internal and external anatomy; coronal chambers regarding their size, shape and canal path; root canal regarding their size, shape and position; fulfillment of the pulp chamber and root canals by considering the texture, quantity, color, and ease of handling; resin hardness and visualization of the radiographic image. The results presented favorable opinions, in terms of internal and external anatomy, coronal pulp chambers and root canal and handling and radiographic imaging. The contents of the pulp space and hardness of the teeth were considered satisfactory. The average grade assigned to the artificial tooth quality was 8.4, in a 0-10 scale. In conclusion, the artificial teeth have potential to replace the natural teeth in endodontic teaching; however, improvements are still necessary to reach a better quality model

Submillimetre observations of WISE-selected high-redshift, luminous, dusty galaxies

We present SCUBA-2 850um submillimetre (submm) observations of the fields of 10 dusty, luminous galaxies at z ~ 1.7 - 4.6, detected at 12um and/or 22um by the WISE all-sky survey, but faint or undetected at 3.4um and 4.6um; dubbed hot, dust-obscured galaxies (Hot DOGs). The six detected targets all have total infrared luminosities greater than 10^13 L_sun, with one greater than 10^14 L_sun. Their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) are very blue from mid-infrared to submm wavelengths and not well fitted by standard AGN SED templates, without adding extra dust extinction to fit the WISE 3.4um and 4.6um data. The SCUBA-2 850um observations confirm that the Hot DOGs have less cold and/or more warm dust emission than standard AGN templates, and limit an underlying extended spiral or ULIRG-type galaxy to contribute less than about 2% or 55% of the typical total Hot DOG IR luminosity, respectively. The two most distant and luminous targets have similar observed submm to mid-infrared ratios to the rest, and thus appear to have even hotter SEDs. The number of serendipitous submm galaxies (SMGs) detected in the 1.5-arcmin-radius SCUBA-2 850um maps indicates there is a significant over-density of serendipitous sources around Hot DOGs. These submm observations confirm that the WISE-selected ultra-luminous galaxies have very blue mid-infrared to submm SEDs, suggesting that they contain very powerful AGN, and are apparently located in unusual arcmin-scale overdensities of very luminous dusty galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA

Focus Group Study of Diverse Local Populations and Their Health Care Experiences in Northeastern Pennsylvania: Cross-Cultural Issues

This investigation was conducted through the support of the College Misericordia Diversity Institute and a grant from the Blue Ribbon Foundation of Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Focus group participants were 49 adults from seven minority populations residing in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Luzerne and Lackawanna counties. Data was collected by 11 focus group leaders who were members of a Blue Ribbon Grant Core Committee at College Misericordia in 2004. The seven populations studied were African Americans, Arabic Muslims, Asian-Chinese and Korean, Gay and Lesbian, Hispanic, Jewish, and Asian Indian. A 30-question survey was used to collect data during one to two hour focus group interviews. Through content analysis, six problematic issues faced by many of the participants were identified. All of the findings were validated by a review process. The six issues faced by the 7 groups were: 1) Economics, Education, and Employment Influence Life for Newcomers, 2) Customs and Traditions Sometimes Sacrificed- The Influence of American Culture, 3) Socialization Often Limited to Same Population Group, 4) Mixed Acceptance Level from Area Natives, 5) Bilingual Challenges Impede Optimal Inclusion, 6) Health Care Access Problems. The aforementioned cross-groups study is explored in this report. The study also yielded seven other reports (one for each diverse population) which provide a description of that particular focus group’s perspective on topics such as religion, food, family, customs, and health care (see Appendices A, B, C, D, E, F, and G). Findings of this study are being disseminated in a local effort to educate health care professionals. Future research will be needed to determine if progress is being made in fulfilling the health care needs of all diverse populations living in Luzerne and Lackawanna County, as well as other parts of northeastern Pennsylvania

FABIA: factor analysis for bicluster acquisition

Motivation: Biclustering of transcriptomic data groups genes and samples simultaneously. It is emerging as a standard tool for extracting knowledge from gene expression measurements. We propose a novel generative approach for biclustering called ‘FABIA: Factor Analysis for Bicluster Acquisition’. FABIA is based on a multiplicative model, which accounts for linear dependencies between gene expression and conditions, and also captures heavy-tailed distributions as observed in real-world transcriptomic data. The generative framework allows to utilize well-founded model selection methods and to apply Bayesian techniques

Are we missing hypoglycaemia? Elderly patients with insulin-treated diabetes present to primary care frequently with non-specific symptoms associated with hypoglycaemia.

We assessed if patients with known hypoglycaemia present on other occasions with non-specific symptoms associated with (but not diagnosed as) hypoglycaemia, potentially representing missed hypoglycaemia.This article is freely available online via Open Access. Click on the Additional Link above to access the full-text via the publisher's site

Critical analysis of artificial teeth for endodontic teaching

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of artificial teeth for endodontic teaching. A questionnaire was prepared and submitted to 18 professors of Endodontics from different Brazilian universities to evaluate the following features of five cloudy resin artificial teeth: internal and external anatomy; coronal chambers regarding their size, shape and canal path; root canal regarding their size, shape and position; fulfillment of the pulp chamber and root canals by considering the texture, quantity, color, and ease of handling; resin hardness and visualization of the radiographic image. The results presented favorable opinions, in terms of internal and external anatomy, coronal pulp chambers and root canal and handling and radiographic imaging. The contents of the pulp space and hardness of the teeth were considered satisfactory. The average grade assigned to the artificial tooth quality was 8.4, in a 0-10 scale. In conclusion, the artificial teeth have potential to replace the natural teeth in endodontic teaching; however, improvements are still necessary to reach a better quality model

Optical Control of Tumor Induction in the Zebrafish

International audienceThe zebrafish has become an increasingly popular and valuable cancer model over the past few decades. While most zebrafish cancer models are generated by expressing mammalian oncogenes under tissue-specific promoters, here we describe a method that allows for the precise optical control of oncogene expression in live zebrafish. We utilize this technique to transiently or constitutively activate a typical human oncogene, kRASG12V, in zebrafish embryos and investigate the developmental and tumorigenic phenotypes. We demonstrate the spatiotemporal control of oncogene expression in live zebrafish, and characterize the different tumorigenic probabilities when kRASG12V is expressed transiently or constitutively at different developmental stages. Moreover, we show that light can be used to activate oncogene expression in selected tissues and single cells without tissue-specific promoters. Our work presents a novel approach to initiate and study cancer in zebrafish, and the high spatiotemporal resolution of this method makes it a valuable tool for studying cancer initiation from single cells