Prevalence of Dental Caries and its Association with Risk Factors amongst Preschool Children of Bharakahu, Islamabad

Background: It is necessary to understand the prevalence and pattern of distribution of dental caries for better planning and execution of preventive activities in the right dimension. This study provided the base line data about prevalence of dental caries in pre-school children of Bharakahu, Islamabad, and its association with brushing, sugar consumption and previous dental visits. Material and Methods: A total of 384 preschool children aged 3-5-year-old were screened from periurban area of Bharakahu, Islamabad, using type IV screening method. Data about decayed, missing and filled teeth was recorded using decayed-missing-filled teeth (DMFT) index. Socio-demographics, brushing, sugar consumption and previous dental visits were also recorded and analyzed and their association with dental caries was assessed using Chi square and Odds ratio. Results: The overall caries prevalence among the sample was 49%. The mean DMFT score with 1 SD was 2.07±3.215. There was no significant difference in caries prevalence in relation to gender of the children. The most significant association was for brushing and low DMFT. Children who brushed their teeth were 4 times more likely to have a low DMFT score of <1 than those who did not brush at all (P<0.001). Likewise, those who had visited a dentist in the past were twice more likely to have a low DMFT (P=0.003). The association of low sugar consumption and a low DMFT score was statistically insignificant (OR 1.4; P=0.878). Hence, brushing turned out to be the most significant factor in determining the caries experience for a child. Conclusions: This study provided us with the baseline data regarding the prevalence of caries in primary school going children of Bharakahu. The prevalence of unmet dental treatment needs was reflected through a high number of ‘decayed teeth’ as compared to missing and filled ones highlighting the need for restorative care in these children

Risk-Constrained Control of Mean-Field Linear Quadratic Systems

The risk-neutral LQR controller is optimal for stochastic linear dynamical systems. However, the classical optimal controller performs inefficiently in the presence of low-probability yet statistically significant (risky) events. The present research focuses on infinite-horizon risk-constrained linear quadratic regulators in a mean-field setting. We address the risk constraint by bounding the cumulative one-stage variance of the state penalty of all players. It is shown that the optimal controller is affine in the state of each player with an additive term that controls the risk constraint. In addition, we propose a solution independent of the number of players. Finally, simulations are presented to verify the theoretical findings.Comment: Accepted at 62nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Contro

The study of validity and reliability of formetric 4D system in measuring of deformites in kyphosis and lordosis in women

زمینه و هدف: یکی از مسائل مهم در حیطه حرکات اصلاحی، اندازه گیری قوس های ستون فقرات به ویژه کیفوز و لوردوز است، یکی از این ابزارها، دستگاه ارزیاب فورمتریک 4 بعدی است که وسیله ای دقیق و بدون خطر اشعه می باشد. هدف از این پژوهش توصیفی، بررسی میزان روایی و پایایی دستگاه ارزیاب ستون فقرات در اندازه گیری ناهنجاری های کیفوز و لوردوز می باشد. روش بررسی: در این پژوهش که جامعه آماری آن را کلیه بیماران مراجعه کننده به متخصصان ارتوپد و مغز و اعصاب شهرستان اراک تشکیل می دادند 27 نفر خانم به روش در دسترس به عنوان نمونه انتخاب شدند. از ضریب همبستگی درون طبقه ای درون گروهی (Intraclass correlation coefficient=ICC) برای بررسی پایایی درونگرای دستگاه و برای تعیین روایی دستگاه از ضریب همبستگی پیرسون استفاده گردید. تمامی تجزیه و تحلیل‌های آماری توسط نرم افزار SPSS و در سطح معنی‌داری 05/0 α= مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. یافته ها: نتایج نشان داد که روایی دستگاه ارزیاب در اندازه گیری زوایای کیفوز ICT-ITL، VP–ITL، VP– T12 در مقایسه با رادیوگرافی به ترتیب همبستگی ای برابر با 712/0، 771/0 و 745/0 (05/0>P) و پایایی درونگرای بدست آمده (ICC) برابر با 966/0، 947/0 و 887/0 (001/0>P) بوده است. همچنین بررسی روایی دستگاه ارزیاب در اندازه گیری زوایای لوردوز ITL-ILS، ITL-DM، T12-DM در مقایسه با رادیوگرافی، میزان همبستگی به ترتیب 713/0، 734/0 و 458/0 (05/0>P) و پایایی درونگرای دستگاه (ICC)، 923/0، 884/0، 896/0 (001/0>P) بوده است. نتیجه گیری: بر اساس نتایج این مطالعه، دستگاه فورمتریک در اندازه گیری عارضه های کیفوز و لوردوز، روایی و پایایی درونگرای خوبی دارد، از این رو می‌توان گفت دستگاه ارزیاب برای اندازه گیری این ناهنجاری ها، ابزاری روا و پایا است و جایگزینی مناسب برای رادیوگرافی می باشد

Bis(4-carb­oxy­pyridine-2-carboxyl­ato-κ2 N,O 2)copper(II) dimethyl sulfoxide disolvate

In the title complex, [Cu(C7H4NO4)2]·2C2H6OS, the CuII atom is situated on an inversion centre and is N,O-chelated by two monoanionic 4-carb­oxy­pyridine-2-carboxyl­ate ligands in a slightly distorted square-planar coordination geometry. The dimethyl sulfoxide solvent mol­ecules and CuII complex mol­ecules are linked by O—H⋯O hydrogen bonding. In addition, C—H⋯O contacts and π–π inter­actions [centroid–centroid distance = 3.590 (1) Å] occur

Technical Quality of Root Canal Treatment Performed by Undergraduate Clinical Students of Isfahan Dental School

Introduction: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the radiographic quality of RCTs performed by undergraduate clinical students of Dental School of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Methods and Materials: In this cross sectional study, records and periapical radiographs of 1200 root filled teeth were randomly selected from the records of patients who had received RCTs in Dental School of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences from 2013 to 2015. After excluding 416 records, the final sample consisted of 784 root-treated teeth (1674 root canals). Two variables including the length and the density of the root fillings were examined. Moreover, the presence of ledge, foramen perforation, root perforation and fractured instruments were also evaluated as procedural errors. Descriptive statistics were used for expressing the frequencies of criteria and chi square test was used for comparing tooth types, tooth locations and academic level of students (P<0.05). Results: The frequency of root canals with acceptable filling was 54.1%. Overfilling was found in 11% of root canals, underfilling in 8.3% and inadequate density in 34.6%. No significant difference was found between the frequency of acceptable root fillings in the maxilla and mandible (P=0.072). More acceptable fillings were found in the root canals of premolars (61.3%) than molars (51.3%) (P=0.001). The frequency of procedural errors was 18.6%. Ledge was found in 12.5% of root canals, foramen perforation in 2%, root perforation in 2.4% and fractured instrument in 2%. Procedural errors were more frequent in the root canals of molars (22.5%) than the anterior teeth (12.3%) (P=0.003) and the premolars (9.5%) (P<0.001). Conclusion: Technical quality of RCTs performed by clinical students was not satisfactory and incidence of procedural errors was considerable.Keywords: Endodontics; Periapical Radiograph; Procedural Errors; Root Canal Treatment; Undergraduate Dental Studen

Artifact-Robust Graph-Based Learning in Digital Pathology

Whole slide images~(WSIs) are digitized images of tissues placed in glass slides using advanced scanners. The digital processing of WSIs is challenging as they are gigapixel images and stored in multi-resolution format. A common challenge with WSIs is that perturbations/artifacts are inevitable during storing the glass slides and digitizing them. These perturbations include motion, which often arises from slide movement during placement, and changes in hue and brightness due to variations in staining chemicals and the quality of digitizing scanners. In this work, a novel robust learning approach to account for these artifacts is presented. Due to the size and resolution of WSIs and to account for neighborhood information, graph-based methods are called for. We use graph convolutional network~(GCN) to extract features from the graph representing WSI. Through a denoiser {and pooling layer}, the effects of perturbations in WSIs are controlled and the output is followed by a transformer for the classification of different grades of prostate cancer. To compare the efficacy of the proposed approach, the model without denoiser is trained and tested with WSIs without any perturbation and then different perturbations are introduced in WSIs and passed through the network with the denoiser. The accuracy and kappa scores of the proposed model with prostate cancer dataset compared with non-robust algorithms show significant improvement in cancer diagnosis

Inhibition of Hepatitis C Virus 3a genotype entry through Glanthus Nivalis Agglutinin

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) has two envelop proteins E1 and E2 which is highly glycosylated and play an important role in cell entry. Inhibition of virus at entry step is an important target to find antiviral drugs against HCV. Glanthus Nivalis Agglutinin (GNA) is a mannose binding lectin which has tendency for specific recognition and reversible binding to the sugar moieties of a wide variety of glycoproteins of enveloped viruses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the present study, HCV pseudoparticles (HCVpp) for genotype 3a were produced to investigate the ability of GNA to block the HCV entry. The results demonstrated that GNA inhibit the infectivity of HCVpp and HCV infected serum in a dose-dependent manner and resulted in 50% reduction of virus at 1 ± 2 μg concentration. Molecular docking of GNA and HCV glycoproteins (E1 and E2) showed that GNA inhibit HCV entry by binding N-linked glycans.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results demonstrated that targeting the HCV glycans is a new approach to develop antiviral drugs against HCV.</p

Acridine–benzene-1,3,5-tricarb­oxy­lic acid (3/1)

In the title adduct, 3C13H9N·C9H6O6 or (acr)3(btc), associ­ations of one btc and three acr molecules linked by O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds occur. C—H⋯O interactions also occur, resulting in a cyclic hydrogen-bonded synthon R 2 1(6). The acr mol­ecules and the btc mol­ecules also form slipped or offset π–π stacking inter­actions [centroid–centroid distances of 3.5212 (17) Å for btc rings and 3.703 (2) and 3.731 (2) Å for acr rings]. Together these inter­actions lead to a three-dimensional network

Global monitoring of antimicrobial resistance based on metagenomics analyses of urban sewage

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious threat to global public health, but obtaining representative data on AMR for healthy human populations is difficult. Here, we use meta-genomic analysis of untreated sewage to characterize the bacterial resistome from 79 sites in 60 countries. We find systematic differences in abundance and diversity of AMR genes between Europe/North-America/Oceania and Africa/Asia/South-America. Antimicrobial use data and bacterial taxonomy only explains a minor part of the AMR variation that we observe. We find no evidence for cross-selection between antimicrobial classes, or for effect of air travel between sites. However, AMR gene abundance strongly correlates with socio-economic, health and environmental factors, which we use to predict AMR gene abundances in all countries in the world. Our findings suggest that global AMR gene diversity and abundance vary by region, and that improving sanitation and health could potentially limit the global burden of AMR. We propose metagenomic analysis of sewage as an ethically acceptable and economically feasible approach for continuous global surveillance and prediction of AMR.Peer reviewe

Global, regional, and national burden of tuberculosis, 1990–2016: results from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2016 Study

Background Although a preventable and treatable disease, tuberculosis causes more than a million deaths each year. As countries work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target to end the tuberculosis epidemic by 2030, robust assessments of the levels and trends of the burden of tuberculosis are crucial to inform policy and programme decision making. We assessed the levels and trends in the fatal and non-fatal burden of tuberculosis by drug resistance and HIV status for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2016. Methods We analysed 15 943 site-years of vital registration data, 1710 site-years of verbal autopsy data, 764 site-years of sample-based vital registration data, and 361 site-years of mortality surveillance data to estimate mortality due to tuberculosis using the Cause of Death Ensemble model. We analysed all available data sources, including annual case notifications, prevalence surveys, population-based tuberculin surveys, and estimated tuberculosis cause-specific mortality to generate internally consistent estimates of incidence, prevalence, and mortality using DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool. We assessed how the burden of tuberculosis differed from the burden predicted by the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, average years of schooling, and total fertility rate. Findings Globally in 2016, among HIV-negative individuals, the number of incident cases of tuberculosis was 9·02 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 8·05–10·16) and the number of tuberculosis deaths was 1·21 million (1·16–1·27). Among HIV-positive individuals, the number of incident cases was 1·40 million (1·01–1·89) and the number of tuberculosis deaths was 0·24 million (0·16–0·31). Globally, among HIV-negative individuals the age-standardised incidence of tuberculosis decreased annually at a slower rate (–1·3% [–1·5 to −1·2]) than mortality did (–4·5% [–5·0 to −4·1]) from 2006 to 2016. Among HIV-positive individuals during the same period, the rate of change in annualised age-standardised incidence was −4·0% (–4·5 to −3·7) and mortality was −8·9% (–9·5 to −8·4). Several regions had higher rates of age-standardised incidence and mortality than expected on the basis of their SDI levels in 2016. For drug-susceptible tuberculosis, the highest observed-to-expected ratios were in southern sub-Saharan Africa (13·7 for incidence and 14·9 for mortality), and the lowest ratios were in high-income North America (0·4 for incidence) and Oceania (0·3 for mortality). For multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, eastern Europe had the highest observed-to-expected ratios (67·3 for incidence and 73·0 for mortality), and high-income North America had the lowest ratios (0·4 for incidence and 0·5 for mortality). Interpretation If current trends in tuberculosis incidence continue, few countries are likely to meet the SDG target to end the tuberculosis epidemic by 2030. Progress needs to be accelerated by improving the quality of and access to tuberculosis diagnosis and care, by developing new tools, scaling up interventions to prevent risk factors for tuberculosis, and integrating control programmes for tuberculosis and HIV