ANTERIOR OPEN BITE TREATED WITH E F APPLIANCE: A CASE REPORT

Aim. Current trends in pediatric orthodontics aim to identify incorrect development of occlusion and medium/lower facial third as early as possible. Functional appliances are a popular type of device used for treating malocclusion in patients who are growing. Among the functional orthodontic devices intended for this purpose, \u201cEducation Functional\u201d is highlighted. It was developed by Dr. Daniel Rollet. In fact, in the occlusal alterations, early preventive treatment with elastodontic devices resulted in avoiding dysfunctional forces from acting on the skeletal pattern, thus reaching a balance between bone basis and muscular components. This report describes a clinical case of a patient (9-year-old female) with anterior open bite associated to oral dysfunction, treated, in the mixed dentition, with EF-line appliance. Our purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness of this device for the correction of the dysmorphoses

Robots as intelligent assistants to face COVID-19 pandemic

Motivation: The epidemic at the beginning of this year, due to a new virus in the coronavirus family, is causing many deaths and is bringing the world economy to its knees. Moreover, situations of this kind are historically cyclical. The symptoms and treatment of infected patients are, for better or worse even for new viruses, always the same: More or less severe flu symptoms, isolation and full hygiene. By now man has learned how to manage epidemic situations, but deaths and negative effects continue to occur. What about technology? What effect has the actual technological progress we have achieved? In this review, we wonder about the role of robotics in the fight against COVID. It presents the analysis of scientific articles, industrial initiatives and project calls for applications from March to now highlighting how much robotics was ready to face this situation, what is expected from robots and what remains to do. Results: The analysis was made by focusing on what research groups offer as a means of support for therapies and prevention actions. We then reported some remarks on what we think is the state of maturity of robotics in dealing with situations like COVID-19

A global workspace theory model for trust estimation in human-robot interaction

Successful and genuine social connections between humans are based on trust, even more when the people involved have to collaborate to reach a shared goal. With the advent of new findings and technologies in the field of robotics, it appears that this same key factor that regulates relationships between humans also applies with the same importance to human-robot interactions (HRI). Previous studies have proven the usefulness of a robot able to estimate the trustworthiness of its human collaborators and in this position paper we discuss a method to extend an existing state-of-the-art trust model with considerations based on social cues such as emotions. The proposed model follows the Global Workspace Theory (GWT) principles to build a novel system able to combine multiple specialised expert systems to determine whether the partner can be considered trustworthy or not. Positive results would demonstrate the usefulness of using constructive biases to enhance the teaming skills of social robots

Inside the robot’s mind during human-robot interaction

Humans and robots collaborating and cooperating for pursuing a shared objective need to rely on the other for carrying out an effective decision process and for updating knowledge when necessary in a dynamic environment. Robots have to behave as they were human teammates. To model the cognitive process of robots during the interaction, we developed a cognitive architecture that we implemented employing the BDI (belief, desire, intention) agent paradigm. In this paper, we focus on how to let the robot show to the human its reasoning process and how its knowledge on the work environment grows. We realized a framework whose heart is a simulator that serves the human as a window on the robot’s mind

An unusual Erdheim-Chester disease with orbital involvement: A case report

Erdheim-Chester disease is a rare non-Langerhans cell histiocytosis with multiorgan involvement and a specific tropism for perivascular and fatty connective tissue, of unclear origin, with poor response to therapy. Its identification is difficult because of the variable clinical presentation and its lack of knowledge. We report the case of a 63-years-old woman, with a history of bilateral orbital pseudotumor, who comes to our attention because of progressively worsening asthenia, vomiting and systemic inflammation. Total body computerized tomography scan showed a volumetric increase of choroid plexus of the temporal horn of the left lateral ventricle, presence of solid retrobulbar tissue at the level of both maxillary sinuses, lung fibrosis, and retroperitoneal and peri-aortic infiltration. The association of these signs addressed to a diagnosis of Erdheim-Chester disease. Thus, although extremely rare, the diagnosis of Erdheim-Chester disease must be considered in the case of bilateral retro-orbital tumors and multisystemic involvement

Role of Allelic Imbalance in Predicting Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) Recurrence Risk After Liver Transplant

BACKGROUND One of the most controversial problems for liver transplantation in patients affected by hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains the lack of an oncologic staging system to predict cancer recurrence after liver transplantation (LT). We analyzed allelic imbalance (AI) in 19 microsatellites, and assessed the post-LT HCC recurrence risk. MATERIAL AND METHODS Seventy-one patients were included; 18 had tumor recurrence within 5 years post-transplant. Molecular analysis was done in the primary HCC and peripheral blood samples: a total of 19 microsatellites was used to assess AI. Specific AI was evaluated when outside of range value between 0.66 and 1.5. Based on data in the literature, we grouped the 19 microsatellites into 4 panels. We calculated the fractional allelic imbalance (FAI) to make comparisons between different panels including different subsets of microsatellites. RESULTS We report that AI was associated with HCC recurrence in 3 main loci (D3S2303, D9S251, and D9S254). Tumor recurrence was associated only with 2 specific panels with 9 microsatellites previously reported to be associated with high risk for HCC recurrence. Our data show that fractional allelic imbalance (FAI) index has good negative ability to predict HCC recurrence (Panel 2: negative predictive value of 95%). CONCLUSIONS AI analysis could have prognostic value in risk management of HCC recurrence after LT, especially for early recurrence