Development and Assessment of Discrimination Exercises for Faculty Calibration in Preclinical Operative Dentistry

The aims of this study were to identify the level of interexaminer agreement among preclinical operative dentistry faculty members when grading Class II preparations performed by first-year dental students; to develop discrimination exercises for specific preparation components where interexaminer agreement was poor; and to evaluate if the discrimination exercises were able to improve inter- and intraexaminer agreement. In the preliminary phase of this study, 13 components of 32 Class II cavity preparations were assessed by eight course faculty members at one U.S. dental school. Analysis of average interexaminer agreement on these components revealed that six were below 60%. These were proximal contact clearance, retention groove placement, retention groove depth, preparation walls, preparation margins, and preparation toilet/debris. A 30-minute calibration session was subsequently developed to provide discrimination exercises utilizing 3-D models and digital images of various levels of student performance for five of the six components. Immediately following calibration, the course faculty assessed the same 32 preparations (Phase I) followed by a delayed assessment without calibration (Phase II) approximately six months later. The results showed that overall interexaminer reliability improved after calibration. Although there was a decline in interexaminer reliability after an interval of six months (Phase II), the degree of variation among examiners was lower than in the preliminary assessment. These findings support the use of discrimination exercises for preclinical operative dentistry course faculty to increase interexaminer agreement and thereby improve the consistency of faculty-student communication

Melamine formaldehyde-metal organic gel interpenetrating polymer network derived intrinsic Fe-N-doped porous graphitic carbon electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction

Fe, N doped porous graphitic carbon electrocatalyst (Fe-MOG-MF-C), obtained by pyrolysis of an Interpenetrating Polymer Network (IPN) comprised of melamine formaldehyde (MF as hard segment) and Metal-Organic Gel (MOG as soft segment), exhibited significant Oxygen Reduction Reaction (ORR) activity in alkaline medium. BET surface area analysis of Fe-MOG-MF-C showed high surface area (821 m2 g-1), while TEM, Raman and XPS results confirmed Fe and N co-doping. Furthermore, a modulated porous morphology with a higher degree of surface area (950 m2 g-1) has been accomplished for the system (Fe-MOG-MFN-C) when aided by a sublimable porogen, such as naphthalene. XPS results further demonstrated that these systems exhibited a better degree of distribution of graphitic N and an onset potential value of 0.91 V vs. RHE in 0.1 M KOH solution following an efficient four-electron ORR pathway. The electrocatalytic activity of Fe-MOG-MFN-C is superior to that of Fe-MOG-MF-C by virtue of its higher graphitic N content and surface area. Thus, the study presents a new class of IPN derived MF-MOG nanocomposites with the potential to generate extended versions of in situ Fe-N doped porous graphitic carbon structures with superior ORR activity

Defining novel functions for cerebrospinal fluid in ALS pathophysiology

Despite the considerable progress made towards understanding ALS pathophysiology, several key features of ALS remain unexplained, from its aetiology to its epidemiological aspects. The glymphatic system, which has recently been recognised as a major clearance pathway for the brain, has received considerable attention in several neurological conditions, particularly Alzheimer's disease. Its significance in ALS has, however, been little addressed. This perspective article therefore aims to assess the possibility of CSF contribution in ALS by considering various lines of evidence, including the abnormal composition of ALS-CSF, its toxicity and the evidence for impaired CSF dynamics in ALS patients. We also describe a potential role for CSF circulation in determining disease spread as well as the importance of CSF dynamics in ALS neurotherapeutics. We propose that a CSF model could potentially offer additional avenues to explore currently unexplained features of ALS, ultimately leading to new treatment options for people with ALS.</p

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Not AvailableIndian gooseberry (Emblica officinalis L.), an important fruit crop, is being grown on commercial scale in different parts of India. There is a great demand for aonla fruits and its products owing to their nutritional, medicinal properties and delicacy. The present investigation aimed at finding out suitable packing material and storage conditions for retention of chemical properties in osmo-air dried aonla segments as in the fresh product/fruits. Different kinds of packages viz. 200 gauge high density polyethylene bag, punnet and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) jar were used to pack freshly prepared product. Packed samples were stored at room temperature under light and dark conditions, and at low temperature for 6 months. Results revealed that samples packed in PET jar and stored at low temperature retained highest ascorbic acid and acidity. Furthermore, there was an increase in reducing sugar, total sugars, and partial reduction in non-reducing sugar content of the product during storage. Samples stored at low temperature showed lower non enzymatic browning values than the samples stored at room temperature. Among different treatments, significantly low non enzymatic browning (0.043 OD at 440 nm) was recorded in product stored in PET jar at low temperature. Same treatment was rated the best during the sensory evaluation, thus it could be concluded that, packing the produce in PET jar and storing them under low temperature is a promising way to improve the storage life of osmo-air dried aonla segments.Not Availabl

TCP-DCR: A novel protocol for tolerating wireless channel errors

This paper presents a new TCP protocol, TCP-DCR, designed to tolerate channel errors in wireless networks. TCP-DCR employs the simple solution of allowing a link level retransmission scheme to recover the packets lost due to channel errors thereby limiting the response of the transport protocol to mostly congestion losses. TCP-DCR delays responding to a packet loss indication for a small period of time (one RTT) to allow the channel errors to be recovered by link level retransmission. We analyze TCP-DCR to show that the congestion response delay does not impact its performance and its fairness. We evaluate TCP-DCR through simulations and compare its performance with TCP-Reno, TCP-SACK and TCP-Westwood under different network conditions. Our results show that TCP-DCR offers significantly better performance when channel errors make a large contribution to packet losses in the network and when the round trip delays are large. We also present an analysis to show that protocol evaluation in the wireless networks is significantly impacted by the number of flows in the network

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Not AvailableThe custard apple fruits packed in low density polyethylene (LDPE) and stored at 12°C had better shelf-life of two weeks. These fruits ripened normally in three days after storage. The fruits packed in LDPE film scored highest sensory characters at all storage intervals when stored at 12°CNot Availabl

A REVIEW OF COMPLEXITIES OF DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER

&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The complicated mental health disorder known as dissociative&nbsp;identity&nbsp;disorder(DID),&nbsp;originally&nbsp;calledMultiple&nbsp;Personality Disorder, is defined by the existence of two or more separate identities or personalitystates within an individual.&nbsp;Every&nbsp;identityhas a distinct set&nbsp;of&nbsp;behaviour, recollections, and&nbsp;worldviews.These&nbsp;personalities&nbsp;frequently&nbsp;take&nbsp;charge&nbsp;of&nbsp;a&nbsp;person'sbehaviour&nbsp;and&nbsp;may&nbsp;or&nbsp;may&nbsp;not&nbsp;be&nbsp;aware&nbsp;of&nbsp;oneanother.&nbsp;Chronic,severe&nbsp;trauma,&nbsp;especially&nbsp;in&nbsp;early&nbsp;childhood,&nbsp;is&nbsp;usually&nbsp;linked&nbsp;to&nbsp;the&nbsp;beginning&nbsp;of&nbsp;DID.&nbsp;Becausethere&nbsp;is&nbsp;a break&nbsp;in the regular integration&nbsp;of consciousness,&nbsp;memory,&nbsp;and identity, it is classified as a dissociative disorder. Due to&nbsp;DID's&nbsp;covert&nbsp;natureand symptoms&nbsp;that&nbsp;can&nbsp;coincide with&nbsp;those of other mental health issues, diagnosing&nbsp;it&nbsp;can&nbsp;be&nbsp;difficult.&nbsp;mostly&nbsp;for&nbsp;treatment&nbsp;include&nbsp;ongoing&nbsp;psychotherapy&nbsp;with the goal of combining the several identities into a single, coherent sense&nbsp;of self. A key&nbsp;component&nbsp;of treatment is&nbsp;attending to any co-occurring mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stressdisorder. The&nbsp;fundamental processes and efficacious therapies for DID are still being investigated. Helping people with DID enjoy happy,&nbsp;productive lives requires a thorough and caring approach to treatment. For those impacted by&nbsp;this&nbsp;illness,&nbsp;friends,&nbsp;family,and&nbsp;mental&nbsp;health&nbsp;experts'&nbsp;understanding&nbsp;and&nbsp;support&nbsp;are&nbsp;crucialelements&nbsp;of the&nbsp;recovery&nbsp;process.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt