Impact response of different materials for sports mouthguards

Up to this moment, there is no guideline regarding the materials to produce mouthguards. The most used is Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate (EVA). Studies indicate that laminating EVA sheets with rigid components could increase the protection capacities of the mouthguards whereas other studies suggest that only replacement of the material within it structure can increase energy absorption. The aim of this work is to evaluate the impact response of four different foils when compared to a 4 mm thickness EVA sheet. Five groups of different materials were subjected to impact tests with energies of 1.72 J, 2.85 J and 4.40 J. In this context was considered the following materials: EVA foils (G1), EVA foils with an EVA foam core (G2), EVA foils with an acetate core (G3), Foils of Erkoloc-pro (G4) and Foils of Ortho IBT resin (G5). Comparisons between the materials were made by qualitative analysis of the average energy-time and load-displacement curves, as well as by comparison of the peak load, maximum displacement, contact time and absorbed energy using the Kruskal-Wallis test. It was possible to conclude that statistically significant differences were found in the energy absorbed (p=0.001). Laminated foils with a soft core (G2) are a good option to produce mouthguards, while EVA foils with an acetate core (G3) and foils of Ortho IBT resin (G5) were declared unsuitable

Needle stick injuries among dental students: risk factors and recommendations for prevention

Aim: To evaluate the risk factors of needle stick injuries (NSIs) sustained by undergraduate dental students and nurse students at the King's College London (KCL) Dental Institute. Materials and methods: A retrospective study evaluated the incident reports relating to NSIs reported over a period of 2 years. Factors including the dental department, study year, and when the injury took place during administration of local anaesthesia (LA) and recapping conventional syringe or clearing work surface or during disposal. Results: This report showed that students are at the highest risk of NSIs at the fourth year of their 5-year BDS course. About one-third of injuries were reported among this group of students followed by year 5 students (25%). Oral surgery clinics were the major source of incident reporting when compared with other specialised dental clinics within the institute. The left hands of the students were the most frequently affected by such injuries and then the right hands of student dental nurses. The attempt of needle recapping of conventional syringes was the least reported mechanism of injuries and constituted only 15% of the total injuries and mainly occurred in third year students. The most frequent injuries among student nurses were during disposal of the needle. Conclusion: Less NSIs occur when using safety syringes. A non-recapping policy with immediate disposal of either the conventional or safety syringe systems after injection would prevent all clearance-related NSIs sustained by nurses. To avoid NSIs, education plays a vital role particularly with effective implementation of the change to safety syringes with appropriate training

The association between family and community social capital and health risk behaviours in young people: an integrative review

Background: Health risk behaviours known to result in poorer outcomes in adulthood are generally established in late childhood and adolescence. These ‘risky’ behaviours include smoking, alcohol and illicit drug use and sexual risk taking. While the role of social capital in the establishment of health risk behaviours in young people has been explored, to date, no attempt has been made to consolidate the evidence in the form of a review. Thus, this integrative review was undertaken to identify and synthesise research findings on the role and impact of family and community social capital on health risk behaviours in young people and provide a consolidated evidence base to inform multi-sectorial policy and practice.<p></p> Methods: Key electronic databases were searched (i.e. ASSIA, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, Embase, Medline, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts) for relevant studies and this was complemented by hand searching. Inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied and data was extracted from the included studies. Heterogeneity in study design and the outcomes assessed precluded meta-analysis/meta-synthesis; the results are therefore presented in narrative form.<p></p> Results: Thirty-four papers satisfied the review inclusion criteria; most were cross-sectional surveys. The majority of the studies were conducted in North America (n=25), with three being conducted in the UK. Sample sizes ranged from 61 to 98,340. The synthesised evidence demonstrates that social capital is an important construct for understanding the establishment of health risk behaviours in young people. The different elements of family and community social capital varied in terms of their saliency within each behavioural domain, with positive parent–child relations, parental monitoring, religiosity and school quality being particularly important in reducing risk.<p></p> Conclusions: This review is the first to systematically synthesise research findings about the association between social capital and health risk behaviours in young people. While providing evidence that may inform the development of interventions framed around social capital, the review also highlights key areas where further research is required to provide a fuller account of the nature and role of social capital in influencing the uptake of health risk behaviours.<p></p&gt

Synchronous malignant B-cell lymphoma and gastric tubular adenocarcinoma associated with paraneoplastic cutaneous vasculitis: hypereosinophilic syndrome with mixed cryoglobulinemia is an important sign of paraneoplastic syndrome

Gastric adenocarcinoma developing concomitantly with a lymphoma is rare. Furthermore, B-cell lymphoma, originating from lymph nodes, with eosinophilia is extremely rare. We report here a case with a synchronous diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and an early adenocarcinoma of the stomach. In addition, this case seemed to be associated with paraneoplastic cutaneous vasculitis caused by hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES) with mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC). Many neoplastic diseases that affect internal organs display cutaneous manifestations, which may be the presenting signs and symptoms of the underlying malignancy. In particular, the association between cutaneous vasculitis and malignancy has been widely reviewed, and recently neoplasms have been suggested to produce antigens and the resultant immune complex formations, activating the serum complement, thus cause paraneoplastic vasculitis. In this case, severe eosinophilia and cryoglobulinemia with low complements were observed in a laboratory test. A biopsy specimen from a skin lesion revealed leukocytoclastic vasculitis with severe perivascular infiltration of eosinophils. The cutaneous vasuculitis was considered to be a manifestation of HES with MC, although there were no etiological factors of HES and MC. Therefore, the vasculitis seems to be a symptom of paraneoplastic syndrome in this case. Our finding suggests that the potential presence of malignancies should be kept in mind as a possible underlying disorder especially in the presence of HES with MC; this possibility is interesting also as regards at least part of the pathogenesis for paraneplastic syndrome

Effectiveness and acceptability of progestogens in combined oral contraceptives – a systematic review

BACKGROUND: The progestogen component of oral contraceptives (OCs) has undergone changes since it was recognized that their chemical structure can influence the spectrum of minor adverse and beneficial effects. METHODS: The objective of this review was to evaluate currently available low-dose OCs containing ethinylestradiol and different progestogens in terms of contraceptive effectiveness, cycle control, side effects and continuation rates. The Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched. Randomized trials reporting clinical outcomes were considered for inclusion and were assessed for methodological quality and validity. RESULTS: Twenty–two trials were included in the review. Eighteen were sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and in only 5 there was an attempt for blinding. Most comparisons between different interventions included one to three trials, involving usually less than 500 women. Discontinuation was less with second-generation progestogens compared to first–generation (RR 0.79; 95% CI 0.69–0.91). Cycle control appeared to be better with second-compared to first-generation progestogens for both, mono-and triphasic preparations (RR 0.69; 95% CI 0.52–0.91) and (RR 0.61; 95% CI 0.43–0.85), respectively. Intermenstrual bleeding was less with third- compared to second-generation pills (RR 0.71; 95% CI 0.55–0.91). Contraceptive effectiveness of gestodene (GSD) was comparable to that of levonorgestrel (LNG), and had similar pattern of spotting, breakthrough bleeding and absence of withdrawal bleeding). Drospirenone (DRSP) was similar compared to desogestrel (DSG) regarding contraceptive effectiveness, cycle control and side effects. CONCLUSION: The third- and second-generation progestogens are preferred over first generation in all indices of acceptability. Current evidence suggests that GSD is comparable to LNG in terms of contraceptive effectiveness and for most cycle control indices. GSD is also comparable to DSG. DRSP is comparable to DSG. Future research should focus on independently conducted well designed randomized trials comparing particularly the third- with second-generation progestogens

Enhancing sampling design in mist-net bat surveys by accounting for sample size optimization

The advantages of mist-netting, the main technique used in Neotropical bat community studies to date, include logistical implementation, standardization and sampling representativeness. Nonetheless, study designs still have to deal with issues of detectability related to how different species behave and use the environment. Yet there is considerable sampling heterogeneity across available studies in the literature. Here, we approach the problem of sample size optimization. We evaluated the common sense hypothesis that the first six hours comprise the period of peak night activity for several species, thereby resulting in a representative sample for the whole night. To this end, we combined re-sampling techniques, species accumulation curves, threshold analysis, and community concordance of species compositional data, and applied them to datasets of three different Neotropical biomes (Amazonia, Atlantic Forest and Cerrado). We show that the strategy of restricting sampling to only six hours of the night frequently results in incomplete sampling representation of the entire bat community investigated. From a quantitative standpoint, results corroborated the existence of a major Sample Area effect in all datasets, although for the Amazonia dataset the six-hour strategy was significantly less species-rich after extrapolation, and for the Cerrado dataset it was more efficient. From the qualitative standpoint, however, results demonstrated that, for all three datasets, the identity of species that are effectively sampled will be inherently impacted by choices of sub-sampling schedule. We also propose an alternative six-hour sampling strategy (at the beginning and the end of a sample night) which performed better when resampling Amazonian and Atlantic Forest datasets on bat assemblages. Given the observed magnitude of our results, we propose that sample representativeness has to be carefully weighed against study objectives, and recommend that the trade-off between logistical constraints and additional sampling performance should be carefully evaluated

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Measurement of the cross-section of high transverse momentum vector bosons reconstructed as single jets and studies of jet substructure in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the cross-section for high transverse momentum W and Z bosons produced in pp collisions and decaying to all-hadronic final states. The data used in the analysis were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7 TeV;{\rm Te}{\rm V}$and correspond to an integrated luminosity of$4.6\;{\rm f}{{{\rm b}}^{-1}}$. The measurement is performed by reconstructing the boosted W or Z bosons in single jets. The reconstructed jet mass is used to identify the W and Z bosons, and a jet substructure method based on energy cluster information in the jet centre-of-mass frame is used to suppress the large multi-jet background. The cross-section for events with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson, with transverse momentum${{p}_{{\rm T}}}\gt 320\;{\rm Ge}{\rm V}$and pseudorapidity$|\eta |\lt 1.9$, is measured to be${{\sigma }_{W+Z}}=8.5\pm 1.7$ pb and is compared to next-to-leading-order calculations. The selected events are further used to study jet grooming techniques