Efficacy of Enamel Matrix Derivative in Vital Pulp Therapy: A Review of Literature

Introduction: Vital pulp therapy (VPT) aims to preserve the health and maintain life of the tooth pulp which has been compromised by caries, trauma or restorative procedures. Recently, enamel matrix derivative (EMD) has been introduced as a material for vital pulp therapy. The aim of this review is to critically analyze and summarize the available literature on EMD for VPT. Methods and Materials: Online databases (PubMED/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, ISI Web of Science, and Wiley-Online) were searched by using the following keywords in various combinations: Enamel Matrix Derivative, Emdogain, ‘Vital Pulp Therapy, ‘Apexogenisis’, Apexification, Pulp Capping, Endodontics, Dentine and Pulpotomy for studies indexed from January 1949 to April 2016. We used an English-limited search in Google.co.uk for the missing grey literature. All studies fulfilling the selection criteria were carefully reviewed for the focused question: “Does using EMD in VPT, compared with other materials, result in better clinical, radiographic and histological outcomes?”. Results: The primary search resulted in 18 articles of which, 14 articles (including 6 animal studies and 6 clinical trials and 2 case reports) met the inclusion criteria for this review and hence were included. The number of teeth tested in the animal studies ranged from 8 to 144 including pigs, rats and dogs teeth. A number of studies used EMD in the experimental group in comparison with calcium hydroxide, propylene glycol alginate (PGA) and MTA as a control. The observation period ranged from 1 to 2 months and 4 out of 6 animal trials reported more favorable outcomes with EMD while two studies reported comparable outcomes. Conclusion: Although EMD has potential for various applications in endodontics, studies conducted to date have failed to demonstrate any significant advantage of EMD over conventional VPT materials. Additionally, the 5-year and 10-year survival rate of EMD-treated teeth is not yet known. Hence, studies with a longer follow-up periods are required to deduce the long-term viability of teeth treated with EMD.Keywords: Enamel Matrix Derivative; Pulp Capping; Pulpotomy; Root Canal; Vital Pulp Therap

STOCK MARKET COINTEGRATION: EVIDENCE FROM DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING EQUITY MARKETS

This study examined the relationship between KSE and stockmarkets of developed and developing countries for the period of 2000-2012. Cointegration approach showed that one cointegrationequation exists in KSE and developed countries equity markets andtwo cointegration equations exist in KSE and developing countriesequity markets case. Granger causality test showed a uni-directionalrelationship between KSE and developed and developing markets,and a bi-directional relationship with Taiwan’s equity market.Variance decomposition analysis showed that most of the changes inKSE are due to its own dynamics in both the developed and developingmarkets. Correlation matrix shows that there is a weak or nocorrelation between the KSE and developed and developing countriesso the benefit of diversification can be achieved by investing in KSE

A comparative analysis of machine learning approaches for plant disease identification

Background: The problems to leaf in plants are very severe and they usually shorten the lifespan of plants. Leaf diseases are mainly caused due to three types of attacks including viral, bacterial or fungal. Diseased leaves reduce the crop production and affect the agricultural economy. Since agriculture plays a vital role in the economy, thus effective mechanism is required to detect the problem in early stages.Methods: Traditional approaches used for the identification of diseased plants are based on field visits which is time consuming and tedious. In this paper a comparative analysis of machine learning approaches has been presented for the identification of healthy and non-healthy plant leaves. For experimental purpose three different types of plant leaves have been selected namely, cabbage, citrus and sorghum. In order to classify healthy and non-healthy plant leaves color based features such as pixels, statistical features such as mean, standard deviation, min, max and descriptors such as Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) have been used.Results:  382 images of cabbage, 539 images of citrus and 262 images of sorghum were used as the primary dataset. The 40% data was utilized for testing and 60% were used for training which consisted of both healthy and damaged leaves. The results showed that random forest classifier is the best machine method for classification of healthy and diseased plant leaves.Conclusion:  From the extensive experimentation it is concluded that features such as color information, statistical distribution and histogram of gradients provides sufficient clue for the classification of healthy and non-healthy plants

Wheat (Triticum aestivum l.) production under drought and heat stress – adverse effects, mechanisms and mitigation: A review

Heat and drought stresses are the most important abiotic factors that reduce crops productivity by affecting various physiological and biochemical processes. Thus, selecting cultivars with better drought or heat stress tolerance or breeding for stress tolerance will be helpful in enhancing crop productivity under harsh environments. This review elaborates the physiological basis of high temperature and drought stress tolerance in wheat which can be used as selection criteria in wheat breeding program. In addition, some agronomic selection criteria which are valid and useful in selecting stress tolerant wheat species and cultivars. The review also discussed the valid usage of stress tolerance indices (such as mean productivity (MP), geometric mean productivity (GMP), yield index (YI), yield stability index (YSI), relative productivity (RP%), stress susceptibility index (SSI), and the tolerance index (TOL)) to scan the genotypes against drought and heat stress. Beside these, exogenous application of stress signaling compounds, osmolytes, or certain inorganic salts play a vital role for alleviating adverse effects of abiotic stresses for sustainable wheat production. In addition, applications for soil amendments will also helpful in increasing wheat crop productivity under stressful conditions. All these strategies may be helpful to meet the food demands of the increasing population.Fil: El Sabagh, A.. University of Kafrelsheikh; EgiptoFil: Hossain, A.. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; BangladeshFil: Barutçular, C.. University of Çukurova; TurquíaFil: Islam, Mohammad Sirajul. Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University; BangladeshFil: Awan, S. I.. University of the Poonch; PakistánFil: Galal, A.. University of Kafrelsheikh; EgiptoFil: Iqbal, M. A.. University of the Poonch; PakistánFil: Sytar, O.. Slovak University of Agriculture; EslovaquiaFil: Yildirim, M.. Dicle University; TurquíaFil: Meena, R. S.. Inistitute of Agricultural Sciences; IndiaFil: Fahad, S.. The University of Swabi; PakistánFil: Najeeb, U.. The University of Queensland; AustraliaFil: Konuskan, O.. Mustafa Kemal University; TurquíaFil: Habib, R. A.. Bahauddin Zakariya University; PakistánFil: Llanes, Analia Susana. Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Agrobiotecnológicas - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Agrobiotecnológicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales; ArgentinaFil: Hussain, S.. University of Agriculture; PakistánFil: Farooq, M.. Sultan Qaboos University; OmánFil: Hasanuzzaman, M.. Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University; BangladeshFil: Abdelaal, K. H.. Kafrelsheikh University; EgiptoFil: Hafez, Y.. Kafrelsheikh University; EgiptoFil: Cig, F.. Siirt University; TurquíaFil: Saneoka, H.. Hiroshima University; Japó

Influence of uncontrolled diabetes mellitus on periodontal tissues during orthodontic tooth movement: a systematic review of animal studies

Abstract Diabetes mellitus (DM) may adversely affect periodontal tissues during orthodontic tooth movement (OTM). The aim of this review is to systematically analyze and review animal studies investigating the effect of DM on periodontal tissues during OTM. An electronic search was conducted via PubMed/Medline, Google Scholar, Embase, ISI Web of Knowledge, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CONTROL) using the keywords “diabetes,” “orthodontics,” and “tooth movement” for studies published between January 2000 and August 2016. After elimination of duplicate items, the primary search resulted in 89 articles. After exclusion of irrelevant articles on the basis of abstract and title, full texts of 25 articles were read to exclude additional irrelevant studies. Seven animal studies were included in this review for qualitative analysis. When compared to healthy animals, more bone resorption and diminished bone remodeling were observed in diabetic animals in all studies. Furthermore, DM decreased the rate of OTM in one study, but in another study, DM accelerated OTM. DM may adversely affect bone remodeling and tooth movement during application of orthodontic forces. However, a number of potential sources of bias and deficiencies in methodology are present in studies investigating the association between OTM and DM. Hence, more long-term and well-designed studies are required before the exact mechanism and impact of DM on outcomes of orthodontic treatment is understood

Automatic Vehicle Number Plate Recognition Approach Using Color Detection Technique

An Automatic Vehicle Number Plate Recognition System (AVNPR) is a key research area in image processing. Various techniques are developed and tested by researchers to improve the detection and recognition rate of AVNPR system but faced problems due to issues such as variation in format, lighting conditions, scales, and colors of number plates in different countries or states or even provinces of a country. Douglas Peucker Algorithm for shape approximation has been used in this research to detect the rectangular contours and the most prominent rectangular contour is extracted as a number plate (NP) and the connected component analysis is used to segment the characters followed by optical character recognition (OCR) to recognize the number plate characters. A custom dataset of 210 vehicle images with different colors at various distances and lighting conditions was used for the proposed method captured on my smart phone Galaxy J7 Model SM-j700F at roads and parking. The dataset contains various types of vehicles (i.e. Trucks, motorcars, mini-buses, tractors, pick-ups etc). The proposed method shows an average result of 95.5%. The novelty used in this method is that it works for different colors simultaneously because in Pakistan, several colors are used for vehicle NPs. Full Tex

Automatic Vehicle Number Plate Recognition Approach Using Color Detection Technique

An Automatic Vehicle Number Plate Recognition System (AVNPR) is a key research area in image processing. Various techniques are developed and tested by researchers to improve the detection and recognition rate of AVNPR system but faced problems due to issues such as variation in format, lighting conditions, scales, and colors of number plates in different countries or states or even provinces of a country. Douglas Peucker Algorithm for shape approximation has been used in this research to detect the rectangular contours and the most prominent rectangular contour is extracted as a number plate (NP) and the connected component analysis is used to segment the characters followed by optical character recognition (OCR) to recognize the number plate characters. A custom dataset of 210 vehicle images with different colors at various distances and lighting conditions was used for the proposed method captured on my smart phone Galaxy J7 Model SM-j700F at roads and parking. The dataset contains various types of vehicles (i.e. Trucks, motorcars, mini-buses, tractors, pick-ups etc). The proposed method shows an average result of 95.5%. The novelty used in this method is that it works for different colors simultaneously because in Pakistan, several colors are used for vehicle NPs. Full Tex

Coping with drought: stress and adaptive mechanisms, and management through cultural and molecular alternatives in cotton as vital constituents for plant stress resilience and fitness

Increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and associated climatic variability is primarily responsible for inducing heat waves, flooding and drought stress. Among these, water scarcity is a major limitation to crop productivity. Water stress can severely reduce crop yield and both the severity and duration of the stress are critical. Water availability is a key driver for sustainable cotton production and its limitations can adversely affect physiological and biochemical processes of plants, leading towards lint yield reduction. Adaptation of crop husbandry techniques suitable for cotton crop requires a sound understanding of environmental factors, influencing cotton lint yield and fiber quality. Various defense mechanisms e.g. maintenance of membrane stability, carbon fixation rate, hormone regulation, generation of antioxidants and induction of stress proteins have been found play a vital role in plant survival under moisture stress. Plant molecular breeding plays a functional role to ascertain superior genes for important traits and can offer breeder ready markers for developing ideotypes. This review highlights drought-induced damage to cotton plants at structural, physiological and molecular levels. It also discusses the opportunities for increasing drought tolerance in cotton either through modern gene editing technology like clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR/Cas9), zinc finger nuclease, molecular breeding as well as through crop management, such as use of appropriate fertilization, growth regulator application and soil amendments