Periodontal disease and some adverse perinatal outcomes in a cohort of low risk pregnant women

Objective: To evaluate the association of periodontal disease (PD) in pregnancy with some adverse perinatal outcomes. Method: This cohort study included 327 pregnant women divided in groups with or without PD. Indexes of plaque and gingival bleeding on probing, probing pocket depth, clinical attachment level and gingival recession were evaluated at one periodontal examination below 32 weeks of gestation. The rates of preterm birth (PTB), low birth weight (LBW), small for gestational age (SGA) neonates and prelabor rupture of membranes (PROM) were evaluated using Risk Ratios (95%CI) and Population Attributable Risk Fractions. Results: PD was associated with a higher risk of PTB (RRadj. 3.47 95% CI 1.62-7.43), LBW (RRadj. 2.93 95% CI 1.36-6.34) and PROM (RRadj. 2.48 95% CI 1.35-4.56), but not with SGA neonates (RR 2.38 95% CI 0.93 - 6.10). Conclusions: PD was a risk factor for PT, LBW and PROM among Brazilian low risk pregnant women

ZnO-Based Quantum Structures for Terahertz Sources

In this paper we report on the numerical study of the terahertz devices based on metal oxide semiconductors and its application in biology and medicine. We also report on the recent progress of the theoretical and experimental studies of ZnO-based THz quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) and resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs). We show that ZnO-based semiconductor compounds are promising materials for fabrication terahertz sources operating up to room temperature due to their unique properties such as large bandgap and conduction band offset (CBO) energy, high LO-phonon energy, and high resistant to the high breakdown electric field. Moreover, it was established that the ZnO-based terahertz sources can cover the spectral region of 5--12 THz, which is very important for THz imaging and detection of explosive materials, and which could be not covered by conventional GaAs-based terahertz devices. In terms of the reported significant progress in growth of non-polar m-plane ZnO-based heterostructures and devices with low density defects, it is open a wide perspective towards design and fabrication of non-polar m-plane ZnO-based high power terahertz sources with capabilities of operation at room temperature

Antiproliferative activity of the Michael adducts of aroylacrylic acids and cyclic amines

Antiproliferative activity of twenty one Michael adducts of aroylacrylic acids and cyclic amines ( N -Me-piperazine, imidazole, 2-Me-imidazole, and indole) was tested toward five human tumor cell lines (HeLa, LS174, K562, FemX, MDA-MB-361) in vitro. Compounds exerted antiproliferative activity in the high to the single-digit micromolar concentrations, causing increase of the cell population fraction in S phase and apoptosis. N -Me-piperazine and imidazole derivatives of aroylacrylic acids substituted with bulky alkyl substituents (2,4-di- i -Pr-Ph-, 2,4,6-tri-Et-Ph-, or β -tetrahydronaphthyl-) showed the best potency, while indole adducts were proved as the inferior antiproliferative agents. Few compounds showed significant selectivity, tumor versus healthy cells, with selectivity index ∼60 for the most selective congener. An unbiased in silico distinction between more and less potent compounds was obtained from 3D QSAR models derived by alignment-independent GRIND-2 descriptors