Eficacia del cepillo de esponja vegetal (Luffa cylindrica. L Roem) en la remoción de placa supragingival. Paraguay,2010

de la misma, el cepillo con esponja vegetal (Luffa cylindrica. L Roem) podría convertirseen un auxiliar alternativo económico. El objetivo de este estudio fue determinar la eficaciadel cepillo de esponja vegetal frente al cepillo convencional en la remoción de placasupragingival. Ensayo clínico, aleatorizado y simple ciego para el evaluador. Fueronincluidos en el estudio 95 estudiantes de Odontología de las Universidades del PacíficoPrivada, Nacional de Asunción, Central del Paraguay y Autónoma de Asunción sinpatología bucal evidente, con más de 20% de placa dental en el examen inicial. Lapresencia de placa gingival basal fue evaluada con el índice de O' Leary tras seis horasmínimas sin cepillado ni uso de colutorios, a continuación se procedió al cepillado con losmétodos asignados volviéndose a evaluar la presencia de placa supragingival. No seobservó diferencia significativa en el porcentaje promedio de placa por la técnica Luffa encomparación con la técnica convencional después del cepillado (60% ±19 vs 62% ±21valor de p = 0,53, prueba t de student. El cepillo con esponja vegetal (Luffa cylindrica. LRoem) es una alternativa económica para la reducción de la placa supragingival

Type IIn supernovae at z ~ 2 from archival data

Supernovae have been confirmed to redshift z ~ 1.7 for type Ia (thermonuclear detonation of a white dwarf) and to z ~ 0.7 for type II (collapse of the core of the star). The subclass type IIn supernovae are luminous core-collapse explosions of massive stars and, unlike other types, are very bright in the ultraviolet, which should enable them to be found optically at redshifts z ~ 2 and higher. In addition, the interaction of the ejecta with circumstellar material creates strong, long-lived emission lines that allow spectroscopic confirmation of many events of this type at z ~ 2 for 3 - 5 years after explosion. Here we report three spectroscopically confirmed type IIn supernovae, at redshifts z = 0.808, 2.013 and 2.357, detected in archival data using a method designed to exploit these properties at z ~ 2. Type IIn supernovae directly probe the formation of massive stars at high redshift. The number found to date is consistent with the expectations of a locally measured stellar initial mass function, but not with an evolving initial mass function proposed to explain independent observations at low and high redshift.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, includes supplementary informatio

Integrated photonic quantum gates for polarization qubits

Integrated photonic circuits have a strong potential to perform quantum information processing. Indeed, the ability to manipulate quantum states of light by integrated devices may open new perspectives both for fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and for novel technological applications. However, the technology for handling polarization encoded qubits, the most commonly adopted approach, is still missing in quantum optical circuits. Here we demonstrate the first integrated photonic Controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate for polarization encoded qubits. This result has been enabled by the integration, based on femtosecond laser waveguide writing, of partially polarizing beam splitters on a glass chip. We characterize the logical truth table of the quantum gate demonstrating its high fidelity to the expected one. In addition, we show the ability of this gate to transform separable states into entangled ones and vice versa. Finally, the full accessibility of our device is exploited to carry out a complete characterization of the CNOT gate through a quantum process tomography.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Optimizing fluid management in patients with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF): the emerging role of combined measurement of body hydration status and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels

The study tests the hypothesis that in patients admitted with acutely decompensated heart failure (ADHF), achievement of adequate body hydration status with intensive medical therapy, modulated by combined bioelectrical vectorial impedance analysis (BIVA) and B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) measurement, may contribute to optimize the timing of patient’s discharge and to improve clinical outcomes. Three hundred patients admitted for ADHF underwent serial BIVA and BNP measurement. Therapy was titrated to reach a BNP value of <250 pg/ml, whenever possible. Patients were categorized as early responders (rapid BNP fall below 250 pg/ml); late responders (slow BNP fall below 250 pg/ml, after aggressive therapy); and non-responders (BNP persistently >250 pg/ml). Worsening of renal function (WRF) was evaluated during hospitalization. Death and rehospitalization were monitored with a 6-month follow-up. BNP value on discharge of ≤250 pg/ml led to a 25% event rate within 6 months (Group A: 17.4%; Group B: 21%, Chi2; n.s.), whereas a value >250 pg/ml (Group C) was associated with a far higher percentage (37%). At discharge, body hydration was 73.8 ± 3.2% in the total population and 73.2 ± 2.1, 73.5 ± 2.8, 74.1 ± 3.6% in the three groups, respectively. WRF was observed in 22.3% of the total. WRF occurred in 22% in Group A, 32% in Group B, and 20% in Group C (P = n.s.). Our study confirms the hypothesis that combined BNP/BIVA sequential measurements help to achieve adequate fluid balance status in patients with ADHF and can be used to drive a “tailored therapy,” allowing clinicians to identify high-risk patients and possibly to reduce the incidence of complications secondary to fluid management strategies

The need to promote behaviour change at the cultural level: one factor explaining the limited impact of the MEMA kwa Vijana adolescent sexual health intervention in rural Tanzania. A process evaluation

Background - Few of the many behavioral sexual health interventions in Africa have been rigorously evaluated. Where biological outcomes have been measured, improvements have rarely been found. One of the most rigorous trials was of the multi-component MEMA kwa Vijana adolescent sexual health programme, which showed improvements in knowledge and reported attitudes and behaviour, but none in biological outcomes. This paper attempts to explain these outcomes by reviewing the process evaluation findings, particularly in terms of contextual factors. Methods - A large-scale, primarily qualitative process evaluation based mainly on participant observation identified the principal contextual barriers and facilitators of behavioural change. Results - The contextual barriers involved four interrelated socio-structural factors: culture (i.e. shared practices and systems of belief), economic circumstances, social status, and gender. At an individual level they appeared to operate through the constructs of the theories underlying MEMA kwa Vijana - Social Cognitive Theory and the Theory of Reasoned Action – but the intervention was unable to substantially modify these individual-level constructs, apart from knowledge. Conclusion - The process evaluation suggests that one important reason for this failure is that the intervention did not operate sufficiently at a structural level, particularly in regard to culture. Recently most structural interventions have focused on gender or/and economics. Complementing these with a cultural approach could address the belief systems that justify and perpetuate gender and economic inequalities, as well as other barriers to behaviour change

Determining the role of external beam radiotherapy in unresectable intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: a retrospective analysis of 84 patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is the second most common type of primary liver cancer. Only few studies have focused on palliative radiotherapy used for patients who weren't suitable for resection by surgery. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) for patients with unresectable ICC.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We identified 84 patients with ICC from December 1998 through December 2008 for retrospective analysis. Thirty-five of 84 patients received EBRT therapy five times a week (median dose, 50 Gy; dose range, 30-60 Gy, in fractions of 1.8-2.0 Gy daily; EBRT group); the remaining 49 patients comprised the non-EBRT group. Tumor response, jaundice relief, and survival rates were compared by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Patient records were reviewed and compared using Cox proportional hazard analysis to determine factors that affect survival time in ICC.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After EBRT, complete response (CR) and partial response (PR) of primary tumors were observed in 8.6% and 28.5% of patients, respectively, and CR and PR of lymph node metastases were observed in 20% and 40% of patients. In 19 patients with jaundice, complete and partial relief was observed in 36.8% and 31.6% of patients, respectively. Median survival times were 5.1 months for the non-EBRT group and 9.5 months for the EBRT group (<it>P </it>= 0.003). One-and two-year survival rates for EBRT versus non-EBRT group were 38.5% versus 16.4%, and 9.6% versus 4.9%, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that clinical symptoms, larger tumor size, no EBRT, multiple nodules and synchronous lymph node metastases were associated with poorer prognosis.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>EBRT as palliative care appears to improve prognosis and relieve the symptom of jaundice in patients with unresectable ICC.</p

Non-standard interactions versus non-unitary lepton flavor mixing at a neutrino factory

The impact of heavy mediators on neutrino oscillations is typically described by non-standard four-fermion interactions (NSIs) or non-unitarity (NU). We focus on leptonic dimension-six effective operators which do not produce charged lepton flavor violation. These operators lead to particular correlations among neutrino production, propagation, and detection non-standard effects. We point out that these NSIs and NU phenomenologically lead, in fact, to very similar effects for a neutrino factory, for completely different fundamental reasons. We discuss how the parameters and probabilities are related in this case, and compare the sensitivities. We demonstrate that the NSIs and NU can, in principle, be distinguished for large enough effects at the example of non-standard effects in the $\mu$-$\tau$-sector, which basically corresponds to differentiating between scalars and fermions as heavy mediators as leading order effect. However, we find that a near detector at superbeams could provide very synergistic information, since the correlation between source and matter NSIs is broken for hadronic neutrino production, while NU is a fundamental effect present at any experiment.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures. Final version published in JHEP. v3: Typo in Eq. (27) correcte