Factors Associated With Receipt of Preventive Dental Treatment Procedures Among Adult Patients at a Dental Training School in Wisconsin, 2001-2002

Background: Gender differences in oral health-related quality of life and the fear of dental pain in seeking and receiving preventive dental care have been recognized and documented. Preventive dental treatment procedures (PDTPs) are commonly accepted as the primary approach to prevent dental disease. Objective: We examined whether the likelihood of receiving PDTPs differed by gender in adult patients receiving dental care at a dental training institution in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Methods: Data from the Marquette University School of Dentistry electronic patient management database for 2001 through 2002 were analyzed. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariable analyses were performed. The preventive procedures used in the study were those coded in accordance with the American Dental Association\u27s classification system: D1110 (adult prophylaxis: professional cleaning and polishing of the teeth), D1204 (adult topical application of fluoride), D1205 (adult topical application of fluoride plus prophylaxis), and D1330 (oral hygiene instruction).Results: Of the 1563 consecutive patient records (888 women, 675 men) reviewed for the years 2001-2002, 794 individuals (51%), aged 18 to 60 years, were identified as having received PDTPs. At the bivariate level, a significant gender difference in the receipt of PDTPs was identified (423 women [48%] vs 371 men [55%]; P = 0.004). In the multivariable analyses, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, poverty level, and health insurance type (public, private, none) were significantly associated with the receipt of PDTPs (all, P \u3c 0.05), but gender was not.Conclusions: Gender differences in receiving PDTPs were not found in this dental school patient population. Receipt of PDTPs was associated with other demographic factors such as age, race/ethnicity, marital status, income level, and health insurance

Electrostatic Field Classifier for Deficient Data

This paper investigates the suitability of recently developed models based on the physical field phenomena for classification problems with incomplete datasets. An original approach to exploiting incomplete training data with missing features and labels, involving extensive use of electrostatic charge analogy, has been proposed. Classification of incomplete patterns has been investigated using a local dimensionality reduction technique, which aims at exploiting all available information rather than trying to estimate the missing values. The performance of all proposed methods has been tested on a number of benchmark datasets for a wide range of missing data scenarios and compared to the performance of some standard techniques. Several modifications of the original electrostatic field classifier aiming at improving speed and robustness in higher dimensional spaces are also discussed

Calibration of material parameters for the Chang-Mander model for unconfined concrete

The current basic OpenSees distribution includes several uniaxial models for concrete. Among them, the model proposed by Chang and Mander in 1994 offers a comprehensive setting applicable both to confined and unconfined concrete, by a proper selection of material parameters. The model offers the possibility to smoothly combine Tsai equation, for the first part of the curve, with a linear branch for the final part. This option is useful to model spalling of unconfined concrete while keeping the smoothness of the curve. Two basic parameters of the Chang-Mander model for compression, denoted by n and r, govern initial and post-peak stiffness of the Tsai equation, respectively. Besides them, there is a further parameter, denoted by α, which received less attention in the literature and determines the position of the switch between nonlinear and linear parts of the curve. In the first part of this work, the calibration of the parameters n and r is discussed in some detail. In the second part, the problem of the calibration of α is analyzed. Changes in the value of α may produce large variations in the evaluation of the spalling strain for unconfined concrete. After some comparative analyses with existing models, a simple expression to calibrate α parameter is finally proposed

A Non-Sequential Representation of Sequential Data for Churn Prediction

We investigate the length of event sequence giving best predictions when using a continuous HMM approach to churn prediction from sequential data. Motivated by observations that predictions based on only the few most recent events seem to be the most accurate, a non-sequential dataset is constructed from customer event histories by averaging features of the last few events. A simple K-nearest neighbor algorithm on this dataset is found to give significantly improved performance. It is quite intuitive to think that most people will react only to events in the fairly recent past. Events related to telecommunications occurring months or years ago are unlikely to have a large impact on a customer’s future behaviour, and these results bear this out. Methods that deal with sequential data also tend to be much more complex than those dealing with simple nontemporal data, giving an added benefit to expressing the recent information in a non-sequential manner

Phylogenetic stability, tree shape, and character compatibility: a case study using early tetrapods

Phylogenetic tree shape varies as the evolutionary processes affecting a clade change over time. In this study, we examined an empirical phylogeny of fossil tetrapods during several time intervals, and studied how temporal constraints manifested in patterns of tree imbalance and character change. The results indicate that the impact of temporal constraints on tree shape is minimal and highlights the stability through time of the reference tetrapod phylogeny. Unexpected values of imbalance for Mississippian and Pennsylvanian time slices strongly support the hypothesis that the Carboniferous was a period of explosive tetrapod radiation. Several significant diversification shifts take place in the Mississippian and underpin increased terrestrialization among the earliest limbed vertebrates. Character incompatibility is relatively high at the beginning of tetrapod history, but quickly decreases to a relatively stable lower level, relative to a null distribution based on constant rates of character change. This implies that basal tetrapods had high, but declining, rates of homoplasy early in their evolutionary history, although the origin of Lissamphibia is an exception to this trend. The time slice approach is a powerful method of phylogenetic analysis and a useful tool for assessing the impact of combining extinct and extant taxa in phylogenetic analyses of large and speciose clades

Combined XPS and TPD study of oxygen-functionalized carbon nanofibers grown on sintered metal fibers

A novel composite material consisting of carbon nanofibers (CNF) grown on sintered metal fibers (SMF) filters was modified by H2O2 or plasma-generated O3. Coupling TPD and XPS techniques in the same UHV apparatus allowed the direct correlation between the nature of the created O-functional groups and their evolution as CO and CO2 upon heating. The two oxidative treatments yielded different distributions of O-containing groups. The relative contribution of oxidized carbon was very low in the C1s region, so the functional groups were better analyzed in the O1s region. The quantification of the released oxygen by integration of the TPD CO, CO2 and H2O spectra, compared with the intensity loss of the XPS O1s spectra showed a good agreement. In order to fit the data adequately, the set of O1s spectra was decomposed in at least four peaks for the differently activated samples. Finally, it was shown that functional groups formed by H2O2-treatment (mostly non-phenolic OH groups) are thermally more stable than the ones formed by O3-treatment. The latter treatment increases the concentration of carboxylic functionalities, which decomposes at temperatures < 800 K; O3-activated CNF therefore should show a more pronounced acidic behavior

The DAG1 transcription factor negatively regulates the seed-to-seedling transition in Arabidopsis acting on ABA and GA levels

BACKGROUND: In seeds, the transition from dormancy to germination is regulated by abscisic acid (ABA) and gibberellins (GAs), and involves chromatin remodelling. Particularly, the repressive mark H3K27 trimethylation (H3K27me3) has been shown to target many master regulators of this transition. DAG1 (DOF AFFECTING GERMINATION1), is a negative regulator of seed germination in Arabidopsis, and directly represses the GA biosynthetic gene GA3ox1 (gibberellin 3-β-dioxygenase 1). We set to investigate the role of DAG1 in seed dormancy and maturation with respect to epigenetic and hormonal control. RESULTS: We show that DAG1 expression is controlled at the epigenetic level through the H3K27me3 mark during the seed-to-seedling transition, and that DAG1 directly represses also the ABA catabolic gene CYP707A2; consistently, the ABA level is lower while the GA level is higher in dag1 mutant seeds. Furthermore, both DAG1 expression and protein stability are controlled by GAs. CONCLUSIONS: Our results point to DAG1 as a key player in the control of the developmental switch between seed dormancy and germination

A Methodology for the Diagnostic of Aircraft Engine Based on Indicators Aggregation

Aircraft engine manufacturers collect large amount of engine related data during flights. These data are used to detect anomalies in the engines in order to help companies optimize their maintenance costs. This article introduces and studies a generic methodology that allows one to build automatic early signs of anomaly detection in a way that is understandable by human operators who make the final maintenance decision. The main idea of the method is to generate a very large number of binary indicators based on parametric anomaly scores designed by experts, complemented by simple aggregations of those scores. The best indicators are selected via a classical forward scheme, leading to a much reduced number of indicators that are tuned to a data set. We illustrate the interest of the method on simulated data which contain realistic early signs of anomalies.Comment: Proceedings of the 14th Industrial Conference, ICDM 2014, St. Petersburg : Russian Federation (2014