Dilemmas of Rawlsian Opportunity

John Rawls's repeated assertions that the basic structure of society creates profound and inevitable differences in life prospects for people born in different starting places seems to contradict his assertions that, under fair equality of opportunity, a person's life prospects would not be affected by class of origin for those similarly endowed and motivated. This seeming contradiction seems to be resolved by Rawls's apparent belief that class of origin inevitably affects motivation. This reconciliation leaves us with a very weak conception of "fair equality of opportunity." Should Rawls have advocated something stronger? Within the constraints of his theory of justice nothing stronger seems possible. Still, his theory harbors highly implausible sociological assumptions. A more plausible sociology requires us to reject distributive justice in favor of contributive justice

Does Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation Provide Better Outcomes Than Microfracture in the Repair of Articular Knee Defects?

OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this selective EBM review is to determine whether or not Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation is more effective than microfracture in the repair of articular knee defects. STUDY DESIGN: Review of three English language primary studies published in 2009 and 2010. DATA SOURCES: Randomized controlled trials comparing Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation and Microfracture found using PubMed, MedLine and Cochrane Database. OUTCOMES MEASURED: Clinical outcome measured by the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS). The primary measure of outcome was evaluated using the KOOS questionnaire with subdomains of ADL’s, pain, symptoms, stiffness and quality of life. KOOS data was compared between treatment groups for patients with symptom onset less than 2 years vs more than 2 years and less or more than 3 years. Serial MRI scans were scored using Magnetic resonance Observation of Cartilage Repair Tissue (MOCART) system. A rehabilitation protocol was implemented where components were evaluated pre surgery and at 6, 9, 12 and 24 months post surgery. Patients are followed up 8-12, 22-26, 50-54 weeks post operatively for efficacy and safety evaluations. RESULTS: Three randomized controlled trials were included in this review. The study by Basad indicated ACI as having significantly more effective outcomes over 2 years compared to microfracture. Saris’ study provided similar conclusions, offering improved outcomes with ACI after 36 months. However, Van Assche’s study had similar overall functional outcomes for both ACI and MF. CONCLUSIONS: Based on findings upon analysis of three RCT’s, Autologous chondrocyte implantation provides significant improvement in articular knee defects allowing improved function, mobilitiy and activity as compared to that of microfracture

On the motion of vertical and oblique sand jets in stagnant immiscible liquids

Sand jets and particle clouds in water and viscous fluids have been a frequent subject of intense research and are pertinent to many environmental, industrial, and engineering processes. Mixing and dispersion of sand jets and particle clouds in water have been studied to design and optimize wastewater dredging disposal and marine bed capping. Motion of dispersed particles in viscous fluids is of great interest in design and operation of oil-sand tailing ponds and modeling magma flows. The motion of vertical and oblique sand jets passing through an immiscible layer is controlled by the properties of background fluids, the physical characteristics of sand particles, and the initial release conditions. Predicting the fate of the instantaneously released sediments in stratified oil-water system requires knowledge of how various physical factors contribute to the formation process of sediment clouds. Laboratory experiments were conducted to study the behaviour of particle clouds passing through two immiscible fluids (i.e., oil and water), formed by instantaneous release of dry sand particles from different angles and various heights above the oil layer, and to understand the effects of controlling parameters on the formation of particle clusters. Different air release heights h, release angle θ, nozzle diameters do, and sand masses m were tested. Nozzle size and mass of sand particles were grouped to form a non-dimensional parameter as L/do where L is the length of pipe filled up with sand particles. Wide ranges of aspect ratios (1≤L/do≤19.6 for vertical and 1.5≤L/do≤24.5 for oblique sand jets) were considered. Air release height was normalized to form non-dimensional air release height as η. Effects of the characteristics of sand jets in air such as mass flow rate, sand impact velocity, and jet diameter on the evolution of oily sand jets were investigated. It was found that the diameter of sand jet in air linearly correlated with the nozzle diameter. Evolution of oily sand jets with time was investigated using image processing and boundary visualization techniques. Different shapes of the frontal head and various evolution patterns were observed based on the initial parameters. The frontal width and velocity of oily sand were measured for different evolution times. Dimensional analysis was performed, and empirical correlations were introduced to predict the frontal width and velocity of particle clouds passing through immiscible layer. The average shear stress in the immiscible layer and in the early stages of evolution was calculated from the measurements: the normalised shear stress between sand particles and the immiscible layer was found to linearly increase with the impact momentum. The average drag coefficient of sand jet front was calculated and results were compared with the classical drag models. The average drag coefficient of oily sand jets was found to be smaller than the drag coefficient of individual sand particles in a steady-state condition

Evaluation of mothers’ awareness about early childhood caries in Yasuj, Iran, 2015-2016

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a multifactorial disease and several factors are implicated in its establishment. Considering the numerous problems those children with ECC face and the important role of parents in preventing them, the aim of this study was to evaluate the mothers’ awareness about ECC in Yasuj, Iran. METHODS: It was a cross-sectional study. The study population included 384 mothers of children below 6 years, who were randomly selected from the children referring to 4 urban health care centers. The data were collected using a 30-item questionnaire to assess mothers’ awareness about definition, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of ECC. The face and content validities of the questionnaire were confirmed by pediatric dentists and experts in questionnaire design. Its reliability was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.73. Descriptive (mean, standard deviation, frequency) and analytic statistics (Spearman correlation coefficient) were used for data analysis. RESULTS: The mean age of children was 2.45 ± 1.46 years while the mean age of mothers was 29.71 ± 5.04 years. Almost half of the mothers had high school education, while others had higher degrees. Mothers’ awareness about ECC was poor in 20.8% of the cases, moderate in 62.2% of the cases, and good in 16.9% of the cases. It was observed that mother’s awareness about ECC had statistically significant direct relationships with both mother’s age and education. Based on multivariate linear regression, mother’s age (β = 0.17, P = 0.0001) and their education (β = 0.20, P = 0.0001) had significantly direct relation with mother’s awareness, too. CONCLUSION: Considering the undesirable ECC awareness level in the majority of Yasujian mothers and its association with mothers’ educations, the implementation of interventions to increase mothers’ awareness seems essential in this regard. KEYWORDS: Dental Caries; Awareness; Mother

Evaluation of mothers’ awareness about the presence of first permanent molar teeth among the 6-8 year old children in Yasuj, Iran, 2016

BACKGROUND AND AIM: First permanent molar teeth (FPMT) erupt slowly and without any side effects among the 6-8 year old children. Sweet snacks consumption, parents’ unawareness about existence of these teeth and lack of attention to oral health care cause early caries among children in these ages. First permanent molars (FPMs) have a very important role in oral cavity among children. Therefore, missing of these teeth causes serious mastication and dental problems. In the present study, mothers' knowledge on the presence of FPMs in their children’s mouth and its effect on health of these teeth were evaluated. METHODS: In this cross sectional study, 350 elementary school students of the 1st and 2nd grades and their mothers from Yasuj, Iran, were evaluated in 2015-2016. After sampling, questionnaires were used for data collection and were filled out by mothers. Then, each student was visited separately and the decayed, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT) index of FPMs was registered. Data were analyzed statistically using independent samples t-test, Mann-Whitney test and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. RESULTS: The results showed that the difference between mothers’ knowledge score about the presence of FPMs in their children’s mouth was not significant regarding their education level, occupation and age. The same result was obtained after evaluation of DMFT index of children’s FPMT. CONCLUSION: Mothers’ education about methods of dental caries prevention and protective oral health care is essential. KEYWORDS: Decayed, Missing, and Filled Teeth Index; Permanent Molar; Tooth Eruptio

A Comparison of Energy-Efficient Seizure Detectors for Implantable Neurostimulation Devices

INTRODUCTION: About 30% of epilepsy patients are resistant to treatment with antiepileptic drugs, and only a minority of these are surgical candidates. A recent therapeutic approach is the application of electrical stimulation in the early phases of a seizure to interrupt its spread across the brain. To accomplish this, energy-efficient seizure detectors are required that are able to detect a seizure in its early stages. METHODS: Three patient-specific, energy-efficient seizure detectors are proposed in this study: (i) random forest (RF); (ii) long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network (RNN); and (iii) convolutional neural network (CNN). Performance evaluation was based on EEG data (n = 40 patients) derived from a selected set of surface EEG electrodes, which mimic the electrode layout of an implantable neurostimulation system. As for the RF input, 16 features in the time- and frequency-domains were selected. Raw EEG data were used for both CNN and RNN. Energy consumption was estimated by a platform-independent model based on the number of arithmetic operations (AOs) and memory accesses (MAs). To validate the estimated energy consumption, the RNN classifier was implemented on an ultra-low-power microcontroller. RESULTS: The RNN seizure detector achieved a slightly better level of performance, with a median area under the precision-recall curve score of 0.49, compared to 0.47 for CNN and 0.46 for RF. In terms of energy consumption, RF was the most efficient algorithm, with a total of 67k AOs and 67k MAs per classification. This was followed by CNN (488k AOs and 963k MAs) and RNN (772k AOs and 978k MAs), whereby MAs contributed more to total energy consumption. Measurements derived from the hardware implementation of the RNN algorithm demonstrated a significant correlation between estimations and actual measurements. DISCUSSION: All three proposed seizure detection algorithms were shown to be suitable for application in implantable devices. The applied methodology for a platform-independent energy estimation was proven to be accurate by way of hardware implementation of the RNN algorithm. These findings show that seizure detection can be achieved using just a few channels with limited spatial distribution. The methodology proposed in this study can therefore be applied when designing new models for responsive neurostimulation

Effect of N-Acetylcysteine on Inflammatory and Biochemical Markers of Hemodialysis Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The oxidative stress results in atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases in patients receiving hemodialysis. N-acetylcysteine is a well-known antioxidant agent. There are little studies about the effect of N-acetylcysteine on patients receiving hemodialysis, and, if any, their results are inconsistent. This study, as a double-blind, randomized clinical trial, was conducted on 44 hemodialysis patients in Shahid Beheshti Hospital, Yasuj, Iran in 2015. Patients were randomly allocated into two groups, in the intervention group, N-acetylcysteine 600 mg every 12 hours for eight weeks was administered and the second group received placebo during this period every 12 hours. Blood samples were taken to measure C-reactive protein, interleukin-6 and other biochemical markers such as ferritin, albumin, and creatinine at baseline and at the end of treatment. 40 patients completed the study (21 on N-acetylcysteine, 19 on placebo), with a mean age of 60.72±17.60. There was not any significant difference between intervention and control groups in interleukin-6 (8.85±6.9 vs. 10.32±8.68, 95% CI, -3.52 to 6.46; P=0.55) and C - reactive protein (0.85±0.29 vs. 0.9±0.31, 95% CI, -.14 to .24; P=0.60). In addition, there was no significant relationship between the two groups in other biochemical markers. In this study, administering N-acetylcysteine was safe and caused a reduction in some inflammatory markers, but these changes were not significant in comparison with placebo