A review on the prevention of inflammatory periimplant diseases

Background: An impressive number of dental implants are inserted worldwide. Evolution in dental implants and simplification of surgical techniques allowed a significant increase in the number of dentists involved in implant surgery. Most of them are general dentists, are not always sufficiently formed and experienced, frequently use low-quality implants, do not adopt the proper patient selective criteria, do not adequately monitor and maintain the inserted implants, and do not report their own statistics to the dental community. Consequently, the incidence of inflammatory periimplant diseases (IPDs) has progressively increased to values significantly higher than those previously indicated by the scientific literature. Materials and Methods: Two main literature searches were undertaken in October 2018 in the PubMed Website database. Only articles written in English and published from 2008 onward were considered; 'Clinical Trial,' 'Meta analysis,' 'Observational study,' 'Review,' and 'Validation study' were selected as article type filters. The following keywords were used in the searches: 'Peri implantitis prevention' and 'Dental implant failure prevention.'Results: Preventive measures are analyzed according to the different factors that can favor the occurrence of an infection. The factors are divided into (i) implant dependent, (ii) patient dependent, and (iii) surgeon dependent. Conclusions: Scientific and clinical data confirm that when materials are selected with care, patients are carefully evaluated for factors of risk and attitude to adhere to the necessary maintenance program, and operative protocols and maintenance programs are respected dental implants can be attractive and effective tools for oral rehabilitation. Nevertheless, dentists and patients should have greater awareness that in many cases the decision to utilize dental implants cannot be taken lightly

Calculation of three-dimensional compressible laminar and turbulent boundary flows. Three-dimensional compressible boundary layers of reacting gases over realistic configurations

A three-dimensional boundary-layer code was developed for particular application to realistic hypersonic aircraft. It is very general and can be applied to a wide variety of boundary-layer flows. Laminar, transitional, and fully turbulent flows of compressible, reacting gases are efficiently calculated by use of the code. A body-oriented orthogonal coordinate system is used for the calculation and the user has complete freedom in specifying the coordinate system within the restrictions that one coordinate must be normal to the surface and the three coordinates must be mutually orthogonal

Probiotic streptococcus salivarius reduces symptoms of denture stomatitis and oral colonization by Candida Albicans

Denture stomatitis (DS) is an inflammatory status of oral mucosae frequently observed in denture wearers, and mainly associated with oral overgrowth of Candida albicans. DS is the cause of multiple visits to the dental office and is thought to enhance the risk of systemic infections. The treatment of DS mainly relies upon improvement of oral hygiene measures and prescription of topical or systemic antifungal agents, and disinfectants that, although effective, are not without drawbacks. Since, in recent years, some probiotics were investigated as a means to contrast oral colonization by Candida spp., this study was designed to preliminarily evaluate the effects of probiotic strain Streptococcus salivarius K12, in subjects affected by DS, and the duration of these effects. Fifty adult denture wearers affected by DS were enrolled and randomly divided into two groups: the experimental group was instructed to perform careful oral and denture hygiene and to assume the probiotic preparation for 30 days; the control group received only oral hygiene instructions. Patients were evaluated for signs of DS at the beginning of the study, at the end of treatment and 30 days later. Microbiological samples were obtained at the beginning of the study and at the end of treatment to quantify Candida albicans cells. Experimental treatment reduced clinical signs and symptoms of DS and the count of C. albicans. The clinical effects of experimental treatment were still evident after 30 days, suggesting that administration of probiotic strain Streptococcus salivarius K12 could be a promising approach in the treatment of DS

Ku & C Band solid state switch matrix for satellite payloads using LTCC multilayer substrate

This paper describes the design and development of Ku and C band solid state switch matrix for multimedia satellite payloads. The design, through the use of advanced packaging techniques, allows significant savings on mass and volume with respect to traditional electromechanical switches while guaranteeing a comparable reliability

Inflammatory periimplant diseases and the periodontal connection question

Implant therapy has become a widespread reality in modern dentistry. Nevertheless, dental implants can fail due to different causes, among which inflammatory peri-implant diseases (IPDs) are a major challenge, with prevalences that are much higher than previously believed. Specific searches were undertaken for each question raised between October and November 2017, in the PubMed website database (US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health; Bethesda, Maryland, United States). Only articles written in English and published from 2007 onward were considered initially. The following keywords were used in the searches periimplantitis (PI), periimplant mucositis (PM), dental implant failure, periimplant microbiota, periodontal microbiota, implant failure (no temporal limit), and foreign body reaction (no temporal limit). The selection process resulted in the selection of 239 articles that were analyzed in detail in elaborating this review. The reference list was limited to the 47 most relevant articles due to editorial limits of this Journal. Intrinsic differences between natural teeth and dental implants are able to give rise to inflammatory diseases that share only minor and scarcely relevant characters, and would consequently deserve different and specifically designed instruments and strategies, for both diagnosis and therapy

Competition between Visual Events Modulates the Influence of Salience during Free-Viewing of Naturalistic Videos

In daily life the brain is exposed to a large amount of external signals that compete for processing resources. The attentional system can select relevant information based on many possible combinations of goal-directed and stimulus-driven control signals. Here, we investigate the behavioral and physiological effects of competition between distinctive visual events during free-viewing of naturalistic videos. Nineteen healthy subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while viewing short video-clips of everyday life situations, without any explicit goal-directed task. Each video contained either a single semantically-relevant event on the left or right side (Lat-trials), or multiple distinctive events in both hemifields (Multi-trials). For each video, we computed a salience index to quantify the lateralization bias due to stimulus-driven signals, and a gaze index (based on eye-tracking data) to quantify the efficacy of the stimuli in capturing attention to either side. Behaviorally, our results showed that stimulus-driven salience influenced spatial orienting only in presence of multiple competing events (Multi-trials). fMRI results showed that the processing of competing events engaged the ventral attention network, including the right temporoparietal junction (R TPJ) and the right inferior frontal cortex. Salience was found to modulate activity in the visual cortex, but only in the presence of competing events; while the orienting efficacy of Multi-trials affected activity in both the visual cortex and posterior parietal cortex (PPC). We conclude that in presence of multiple competing events, the ventral attention system detects semantically-relevant events, while regions of the dorsal system make use of saliency signals to select relevant locations and guide spatial orienting

Universities’ social responsibility through the lens of strategic planning: A content analysis

This paper examines the degree of social responsibility integration in Italian public universities’ medium and long-term planning documents. We adopted a qualitative approach, applying the content analysis technique to a selected sample of 20 strategic plans issued by Italian large and mega universities. The coding instrument was developed considering the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contained in the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Therefore, we identified 17 categories and 103 key symbols. The analysis undertaken showed that to date, Italian public universities still pay little attention in their planning documents to objectives regarding the multiple dimensions of Social Responsibility, mainly in relation to environmental issues, a failure detrimental to University Social Responsibility implementation and achievement. However, there is a greater sensitivity to Social Responsibility issues in some universities’ planning documents, therefore also more mature practices can be identified, showing universities that have institutionalized the concept of sustainability in their planning documents

A Community-Structure-Based Method for Estimating the Fractal Dimension, and its Application to Water Networks for the Assessment of Vulnerability to Disasters

Most real-world networks, from the World-Wide-Web to biological systems, are known to have common structural properties. A remarkable point is fractality, which suggests the self-similarity across scales of the network structure of these complex systems. Managing the computational complexity for detecting the self-similarity of big-sized systems represents a crucial problem. In this paper, a novel algorithm for revealing the fractality, that exploits the community structure principle, is proposed and then applied to several water distribution systems (WDSs) of different size, unveiling a self-similar feature of their layouts. A scaling-law relationship, linking the number of clusters necessary for covering the network and their average size is defined, the exponent of which represents the fractal dimension. The self-similarity is then investigated as a proxy of recurrent and specific response to multiple random pipe failures – like during natural disasters – pointing out a specific global vulnerability for each WDS. A novel vulnerability index, called Cut-Vulnerability is introduced as the ratio between the fractal dimension and the average node degree, and its relationships with the number of randomly removed pipes necessary to disconnect the network and with some topological metrics are investigated. The analysis shows the effectiveness of the novel index in describing the global vulnerability of WDSs

Stark shift and field ionization of arsenic donors in 28^{28}Si-SOI structures

We develop an efficient back gate for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) devices operating at cryogenic temperatures, and measure the quadratic hyperfine Stark shift parameter of arsenic donors in isotopically purified $^{28}$Si-SOI layers using such structures. The back gate is implemented using MeV ion implantation through the SOI layer forming a metallic electrode in the handle wafer, enabling large and uniform electric fields up to $\sim$ 2 V/$\mu$m to be applied across the SOI layer. Utilizing this structure we measure the Stark shift parameters of arsenic donors embedded in the $^{28}$Si SOI layer and find a contact hyperfine Stark parameter of $\eta_a=-1.9\pm0.2\times10^{-3} \mu$m$^2$/V$^2$. We also demonstrate electric-field driven dopant ionization in the SOI device layer, measured by electron spin resonance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure