3,340 research outputs found
Oral Health Status Of Handicapped Primary School Pupils In Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Background: There is hardly any information regarding oral health status of handicapped primary school pupils in Tanzania. Determination of their oral health status could help in planning sustainable intervention programmes for this disadvantaged group.
Objectives: To determine caries and periodontal status and treatment needs of handicapped primary school pupils in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study. Setting: Uhuru Mchanganyiko and Buguruni special schools, Dar es Salaam.
Results: The sample consisted of 179 (55.8%) males and 142 (44.2%) females aged between 7 and 22 years. Majority (71%) were deaf followed by blind (17.8%) and mentally retarded (8.7%). Six (1.9%) pupils were both deaf and blind, while one (0.3%) pupil was blind and mentally retarded. Forty one (12.8%) pupils had at least one decayed deciduous tooth, with the mean (dmfs) ranging from 0.25 to 3.24. The deaf had the highest mean decayed surfaces, followed by the mentally retarded and the blind. There was only one (0.3%) pupil who had a filled deciduous tooth. Thirty three (10.3%) pupils had decayed
permanent teeth and 31 (9.7%) had missing permanent teeth. None of the decayed
permanent teeth were restored. The blind had the lowest mean deciduous surfaces (DS)
scores of between 0 and 1.0. In the mentally retarded group the mean DS ranged from 0.25
to 1.75. About 73.5% of the studied group had bleeding of the gums, with the blind having
the highest mean bleeding index scores (p < 0.001) and about 82.8% of the pupils had
calculus, with highest mean scores mainly among the blind (p= 0.008).
Conclusion: The caries prevalence among handicapped primary school pupils was
quite low. However, there was relatively high level of gingival bleeding and calculus.
Regarding treatment needs, 23% required dental fillings mainly of one and two surface
restorations and 82% required scaling and polishing. Despite these treatment needs
these pupils had not received any dental attention. East African Medical Journal Vol. 85 (3) 2008: pp. 113-11
Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system to identify therapeutics for alcohol use disorders
Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) cause serious problems in society and few effective treatments are available. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is an excellent invertebrate model to study the neurobiological basis of human behavior with a conserved, fully tractable genome, and a short generation time for fast generation of data at a fraction of the cost of other organisms. C. elegans demonstrate movement toward, and concentration-dependent self-exposure to various psychoactive drugs. The discovery of opioid receptors in C. elegans provided the impetus to test the hypothesis that C. elegans may be used as a medications screen to identify new AUD treatments. We tested the effects of naltrexone, an opioid antagonist and effective treatment for AUDs, on EtOH preference in C. elegans. Six-well agar test plates were prepared with EtOH placed in a target zone on one side and water in the opposite target zone of each well. Worms were treated with naltrexone before EtOH preference testing and then placed in the center of each well. Wild-type worms exhibited a concentration-dependent preference for 50, 70 and 95% EtOH. Naltrexone blocked acute EtOH preference, but had no effect on attraction to food or benzaldehyde in wild-type worms. Npr-17 opioid receptor knockout mutants did not display a preference for EtOH. In contrast, npr-17 opioid receptor rescue mutants exhibited significant EtOH preference behavior, which was attenuated by naltrexone. Chronic EtOH exposure induced treatment resistance and compulsive-like behavior. These data indicate that C. elegans can serve as a model system to identify compounds to treat AUDs
Biotypes of oral Candida albicans isolates in a Tanzanian child population
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Low-Quality Housing Is Associated With Increased Risk of Malaria Infection: A National Population-Based Study From the Low Transmission Setting of Swaziland.
BackgroundLow-quality housing may confer risk of malaria infection, but evidence in low transmission settings is limited.MethodsTo examine the relationship between individual level housing quality and locally acquired infection in children and adults, a population-based cross-sectional analysis was performed using existing surveillance data from the low transmission setting of Swaziland. From 2012 to 2015, cases were identified through standard diagnostics in health facilities and by loop-mediated isothermal amplification in active surveillance, with uninfected subjects being household members and neighbors. Housing was visually assessed in a home visit and then classified as low, high, or medium quality, based on housing components being traditional, modern, or both, respectively.ResultsOverall, 11426 individuals were included in the study: 10960 uninfected and 466 infected (301 symptomatic and 165 asymptomatic). Six percent resided in low-quality houses, 26% in medium-quality houses, and 68% in high-quality houses. In adjusted models, low- and medium-quality construction was associated with increased risk of malaria compared with high-quality construction (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 2.11 and 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.26-3.53 for low vs high; AOR, 1.56 and 95% CI, 1.15-2.11 for medium vs high). The relationship was independent of vector control, which also conferred a protective effect (AOR, 0.67; 95% CI, .50-.90) for sleeping under an insecticide-treated bed net or a sprayed structure compared with neither.ConclusionsOur study adds to the limited literature on housing quality and malaria risk from low transmission settings. Housing improvements may offer an attractive and sustainable additional strategy to support countries in malaria elimination
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The mechanical properties of amniotic membrane influence its effect as a biomaterial for ocular surface repair
The human amniotic membrane (AM) is a tissue of fetal origin and has proven to be clinically useful as
a biomaterial in the management of various ocular surface disorders including corneal stem cell
transplantation. However, its success rate displays a degree of clinical unpredictability. We suggest that
the measured variability inAMstiffness offers an explanation for the poor clinical reproducibility when
it is used as a substrate for stem cell expansion and transplantation. Corneal epithelial stem cells were
expanded upon AM samples possessing different mechanical stiffness. To investigate further the
importance of biological substrate stiffness on cell phenotype we replaced AM with type I collagen gels
of known stiffness. Substrate stiffness was measured using shear rheometry and surface topography
was characterized using scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The
differentiation status of epithelial cells was examined using RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and
Western blotting. The level of corneal stem cell differentiation was increased in cells expanded upon
AM with a high dynamic elastic shear modulus and cell expansion on type I collagen gels confirmed
that the level of corneal epithelial stem cell differentiation was related to the substrate’s mechanical
properties. In this paper we provide evidence to show that the preparatory method of AM for clinical
use can affect its mechanical properties and that these measured differences can influence the level of
differentiation within expanded corneal epithelial stem cells
The State and Phase of Nanoconfined H2:Neutron diffraction and spectroscopy of H2 adsorbed in micro and mesoporous activated carbons
Manipulation of the crystalline phase diagram of hydrogen through nanoscale confinement effects in porous carbons
Entanglement generation in continuously coupled parametric generators
We investigate a compact source of entanglement. This device is composed of a
pair of linearly coupled nonlinear waveguides operating by means of degenerate
parametric downconversion. For the vacuum state at the input the generalized
squeeze variance and logarithmic negativity are used to quantify the amount of
nonclassicality and entanglement of output beams. Squeezing and entanglement
generation for various dynamical regimes of the device are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure
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