A multicenter randomized controlled clinical pilot study of buccally micro‐veneered lithium‐disilicate and zirconia crowns supported by titanium base abutments: 1‐year outcomes

Objectives: To investigate survival rates, technical and biologic outcomes of buccally micro-veneered all-ceramic single implant crowns. Material and methods: Sixty subjects randomly received immediately or early placed implants. Crowns out of lithium-disilicate (n = 30) and zirconia-ceramic (n = 30) were bonded to titanium-base-abutments. Restorations were inspected at baseline (BL) and during follow-up visits (6, 12 months). Technical and biologic parameters were recorded. Data were analysed descriptively. Differences between groups were tested with Student's t-test. Paired T-test was used when comparing data from the same implant or tooth over time. Linear model repeated measures were used to test differences between materials over time. Differences in counts were evaluated using Pearson Chi-square test. The level of significance was at p < .05. Results: After a mean observation time of 13.2 ± 2.4 months, 54 restorations were re-examined. The implant survival rate was 98.3%, and the restoration survival rate was 100%. One early implant failure occurred. Two minor chippings occurred in lithium-disilicate restorations. No chippings or fractures occurred in any zirconia restorations at 1 year (0%). The technical complication rate was 3.7%, with 7.7% complications among the lithium-disilicate restorations and no differences between the two materials (p = .558). At 1-year follow-up, mean Bleeding on Probing (BOP) was higher at implants (0.27 ± 0.3) than adjacent teeth (0.17 ± 0.18) (p = .046) with no differences between materials (p = .36). Differences in pocket probing depth (PPD) between implants and adjacent teeth were significant (p < .01). Jemt Index improved significantly from BL to 1-y-follow-up (p < .001). Conclusions: Preliminary results were good, suggesting that the ceramic type does not impact technical and biologic parameters. Keywords: all-ceramic single crowns; chipping; clinical trials; implant-borne reconstructions; technical outcome

HERBICIDE PHOSPHINOTHRICIN CAUSES DIRECT STIMULATION HORMESIS

Herbicide phosphinothricin (PPT) inhibits glutamine synthetase (GS), a key enzyme in nitrogen assimilation, thus causing ammonia accumulation, glutamine depletion and eventually plant death. However, the growth response of Lotus corniculatus L. plants immersed in solutions with a broad range of PPT concentrations is biphasic, with pronounced stimulating effect on biomass production at concentrations ≤ 50 μM and growth inhibition at higher concentrations. The growth stimulation at low PPT concentrations is a result of activation of chloroplastic isoform GS2, while the growth suppression is caused by inhibition of both cytosolic GS1 and GS2 at higher PPT concentrations. Since the results are obtained in cell-free system (e.g. protein extracts), to which the principles of homeostasis are not applicable, this PPT effect is an unambiguous example of direct stimulation hormesis. A detailed molecular mechanism of concentration-dependent interaction of both PPT and a related GS inhibitor, methionine sulfoximine, with GS holoen- zymes is proposed. The mechanism is in concurrence with all experimental and literature data

Characterization of Plasma Labile Heme in Hemolytic Conditions

The deposited article is the accepted manuscript (post-print version) posted online 7 August 2017 and provided by The Febs Journal. This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. The deposited article version contains attached the supplementary materials within the pdf. This publication hasn't any creative commons license associated, although it is in open access.Extracellular hemoglobin (Hb), a byproduct of hemolysis, can release its prosthetic heme groups upon oxidation. This produces metabolically active heme that is exchangeable between acceptor proteins, macromolecules and low molecular weight ligands, termed here labile heme. As it accumulates in plasma labile heme acts in a pro-oxidant manner and regulates cellular metabolism while exerting pro-inflammatory and cytotoxic effects that foster the pathogenesis of hemolytic diseases. Here we developed and characterized a panel of heme-specific single domain antibodies (sdAbs) that together with a cellular-based heme reporter assay, allow for quantification and characterization of labile heme in plasma during hemolytic conditions. Using these approaches we demonstrate that labile heme generated during hemolytic conditions is bound to plasma molecules with an affinity higher than 10(-7) M and that 2-8% (~2-5 μM) of the total amount of heme detected in plasma can be internalized by bystander cells, i.e. bioavailable heme. Acute, but not chronic, hemolysis is associated with transient reduction of plasma heme binding capacity (HBC1/2 ), that is, the ability of plasma molecules to bind labile heme with an affinity higher than 10(-7) M. The heme-specific sdAbs neutralize the pro-oxidant activity of soluble heme in vitro, suggesting that these maybe used to counter the pathologic effects of labile heme during hemolytic conditions. Finally, we show that heme-specific sdAbs can be used to visualize cellular heme. In conclusion, we describe a panel of heme-specific sdAbs that when used with other approaches provide novel insights to the pathophysiology of heme. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia grants: (RECI-IMI-IMU-0038-2012, PTDC/SAU-TOX/116627/2010, HMSP-ICT/0018/2011, SFRH/BD/44828/2008, SFRH/BPD/47477/2008, PTDC/SAU-FAR/119173/2010, IF/01010/2013/CP1183/CT0001); ERC grants: (ERC-2011-AdG 294709-DAMAGECONTROL); NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship: (1003484).info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

A community-sourced glossary of open scholarship terms

Open scholarship has transformed research, and introduced a host of new terms in the lexicon of researchers. The ‘Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Teaching’ (FORRT) community presents a crowdsourced glossary of open scholarship terms to facilitate education and effective communication between experts and newcomers

Daily volume, intraday and overnight returns for volatility prediction: profitability or accuracy?

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the relative ability of three information sets—daily trading volume, intraday returns and overnight returns—to predict equity volatility. We investigate the extent to which statistical accuracy of one-day-ahead forecasts translates into economic gains for technical traders. Various profitability criteria and utility-based switching fees indicate that the largest gains stem from combining historical daily returns with volume information. Using common statistical loss functions, the largest degree of predictive power is found instead in intraday returns. Our analysis thus reinforces the view that statistical significance does not have a direct mapping onto economic value. As a byproduct, we show that buying the stock when the forecasted volatility is extremely high appears largely profitable, suggesting a strong return-risk relationship in turbulent conditions

The burden of breast, cervical, and colon and rectum cancer in the Balkan countries, 1990–2019 and forecast to 2030.

Background Despite effective prevention and control strategies, in countries of the Balkan region, cancers are the second leading cause of mortality, closely following circulatory system diseases. Objective To describe trends in the burden of breast, cervical, and colon and rectum cancer in the Balkan region and per country between 1990 and 2019, including a forecast to 2030. Methods We described the 2019 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimates for breast, cervical, and colon and rectum cancers in eleven Balkan countries over the period 1990–2019, including incidence, years lived with disability (YLD), years of life lost (YLL), and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) rates per 100,000 population and accompanied 95% uncertainty interval. With the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average, we forecasted these rates per country up to 2030. Results In the Balkan region, the highest incidence and DALYs rates in the study period were for colon and rectum, and breast cancers. Over the study period, the DALYs rates for breast cancer per 100,000 population were the highest in Serbia (reaching 670.84 in 2019) but the lowest in Albania (reaching 271.24 in 2019). In 2019, the highest incidence of breast cancer (85 /100,000) and highest YLD rate (64 /100,000) were observed in Greece. Romania had the highest incidence rates, YLD rates, DALY rates, and YLL rates of cervical cancer, with respective 20.59%, 23.39% 4.00%, and 3.47% increases for the 1990/2019 period, and the highest forecasted burden for cervical cancer in 2030. The highest incidence rates, YLD rates and DALY rates of colon and rectum cancers were continuously recorded in Croatia (an increase of 130.75%, 48.23%, and 63.28%, respectively), while the highest YLL rates were in Bulgaria (an increase of 63.85%). The YLL rates due to colon and rectum cancers are forecasted to progress by 2030 in all Balkan countries. Conclusion As most of the DALYs burden for breast, cervical, and colon and rectum cancer is due to premature mortality, the numerous country-specific barriers to cancer early detection and quality and care continuum should be a public priority of multi-stakeholder collaboration in the Balkan region

Psycho-social factors associated with mental resilience in the Corona lockdown.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. Although increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes, as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. To gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (22 March to 19 April) in a convenience sample of N = 15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p < 0.0001). The resilience factor PAS also partly mediated the positive association between perceived social support and resilience, and its association with resilience was in turn partly mediated by the ability to easily recover from stress (both p < 0.0001). In comparison with other resilience factors, good stress response recovery and positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis were the strongest factors. Preregistered exploratory subgroup analyses (osf.io/thka9) showed that all tested resilience factors generalize across major socio-demographic categories. This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts in this and in future pandemics