Evaluation of design parameters of eight dental implant designs: A two‑dimensional finite element analysis

Aim: Implants could be considered predictable tools for replacing missing teeth or teeth that are irrational to treat. Implant macrodesign includes thread, body shape and thread design. Implant threads should be designed to maximize the delivery of optimal favorable stresses. The aim of this finite element model study was to determine stresses and strains in bone by using various dental implant thread designs.Materials and Methods: A two‑dimensional finite element model of an implant–bone system is developed by using Ansys. An oblique load of 100 N 45° to the vertical axis of implant as well as a vertical load was considered in the analyses. The study evaluated eight types of different thread designs to evaluate stresses and strains around the implants placed in D1 bone quality.Results: Forty‑five‑degree oblique von Mises stresses and strains were the highest for the filleted and rounded square thread with an angulation of 30° (216.70 MPa and 0.0165, respectively) and the lowest for the trapezoidal thread (144.39 MPa and 0.0015, respectively).Conclusions: The findings in this study suggest that the filleted and rounded square thread with an angulation of 30° showed highest stresses and strains at the implant–bone interface. The trapezoidal thread transmitted least amount of stresses and strains to the cortical bone than did other models

Gendered violence and India's body politic

The paradox of rape is that it has a long history and occurs across all countries, yet its meaning can best be grasped through an analysis of specific social, cultural and political environments. Feminist writing on citizenship and the state has long noted the relevance of women’s bodies as reproducers of the nation; it is equally important to think about the uses of the sexed body in a political context. A consideration of gendered violence as part of a continuum of embodied assertions of power can not only tell us how masculine supremacy is perpetuated through tolerated repertoires of behaviour, but also help us to understand how forms of class, kinship and ethnic domination are secured—and what happens when they are disrupted. Rape, Joanna Bourke has observed, is a form of social performance, the ritualized violation of another sexed body. This is no less true for such apparently depoliticized though grievous forms of violence as the now infamous gang rape of Jyoti Singh, a young woman returning from a night out in New Delhi in December 2012. In a country where complacency about sexual assault has been the norm, the uproar that followed suggested that an unspoken limit had been crossed. Mass protests across India expressed a very political and public anger with the institutional apathy and impunity of the establishment. The mobilization of feminist groups and youth during this episode succeeded in generating a momentum for change, not least by challenging the stigma associated with reporting rape. After 2012, reported rape increased, although that appears to have reached a plateau. A raft of laws, drafted in consultation with feminist lawyers and women’s groups, has expanded the definition of rape to include other forms of violence and harassment, such as stalking and acid-throwing. Yet the best law in the world cannot solve the problem without adequate institutional and cultural reform. In a country where, it is said, many women experience a ‘continuum of violence . . . from the womb to the tomb’, evidence of the systemic character of assaults ‘widely tolerated by the state and community’ suggests we need an understanding of the institutional conditions that normalize this violence. What locations do women’s bodies occupy within India’s systems of caste, kinship and state domination? How have neoliberalization and consumerism transformed older practices of sexual coercion and patriarchal norms? Given the highly ideological nature of Western representations of sexual violence in the Global South, what might we learn by placing India in a comparative frame

A Combined Approach For Private Indexing Mechanism

Private indexing is a set of approaches for analyzing research data that are similar or resemble similar ones. This is used in the database to keep track of the keys and their values. The main subject of this research is private indexing in record linkage to secure the data. Because unique personal identification numbers or social security numbers are not accessible in most countries or databases, data linkage is limited to attributes such as date of birth and names to distinguish between the number of records and the real-life entities they represent. For security reasons, the encryption of these identifiers is required. Privacy-preserving record linkage, frequently used to link private data within several databases from different companies, prevents sensitive information from being exposed to other companies. This research used a combined method to evaluate the data, using classic and new indexing methods. A combined approach is more secure than typical standard indexing in terms of privacy. Multibit tree indexing, which groups comparable data in many ways, creates a scalable tree-like structure that is both space and time flexible, as it avoids the need for redundant block structures. Because the record pair numbers to compare are the Cartesian product of both the file record numbers, the work required grows with the number of records to compare in the files. The evaluation findings of this research showed that combined method is scalable in terms of the number of databases to be linked, the database size, and the time required

Online Secure Payment system using Steganography and Cryptography

Internet has now provided the means for us to establish communication like never before ranging right from accurate representations to high speed data transmission. With the new technological innovations arriving everyday, one that reached the users is online shopping but it came with its own share of boon and bane. One of the imminent threat is that of intrusion and leak. Secret information can be hidden into sources of information. These information files like audio, video,text or image helps us to set up an invisible type of communication known as Steganography. In our project, we have used image steganography where we hide data inside stego image. Identity theft needs to be prevented, hence we propose a new approach by providing information that's only necessary for transaction while shopping online. This ensures privacy and personal data safeguarding for the user

Biomedical prevention: state of the science.

Preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and treatment as prevention (TasP) involve the use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative and -positive individuals to reduce HIV acquisition and transmission, respectively. Clinical science has delivered a consistently high effect size for TasP and a range from 0%-73% reduction in incidence across placebo-controlled PrEP trials. However, the quality of evidence for PrEP compares favorably with evidence for postexposure prophylaxis (PEP). It is clear from treatment programs and PrEP trials that daily adherence presents challenges to a large proportion of the population. Although there are factors associated with inconsistent use (ie, younger age), they do not assist clinicians at the point of care. There are additional provider concerns about PrEP (covering cost of drug and delivery, undermining condom promotion, and facilitating resistant strains) that have delayed widespread acceptance. These issues need to be addressed in order to realize the full public health potential of antiretrovirals

Normalized Healthcare Utilization Among Refugees Resettled in Philadelphia, 2007-2016

Background/Purpose: About 70,000 new refugees are resettled in the United States each year, of which approximately 600 are resettled in Philadelphia. This project seeks to better understand the patterns of healthcare utilization, including primary care, emergency, and hospitalization, among refugees resettled in Philadelphia, PA, between 2007 and 2016. Methods: Demographic and healthcare utilization data for 1,144 refugees seen at Jefferson Family Medical Associates were compiled from the Jefferson Longitudinal Refugee Health Registry. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the demographic characteristics of the refugee population. Negative binomial count regressions were used to test for significant correlations between major demographic variables and healthcare utilization. Results: Refugees had an average of 7.24 (SD = 9.35) and a median of 4 primary care visits. Visits rates were highest during the first eight months post resettlement and declined significantly after expiration of Refugee Medical Assistance. Country of origin and year of arrival were significantly associated with differing rates of healthcare utilization. Discussion: Overall, refugees utilized primary healthcare services at a slightly higher rate than the U.S. average. There are differences in utilization among various sub-populations within the refugee community. Future studies should further explore these differences in healthcare utilization patterns among recently resettled refugees

BLM and RMI1 alleviate RPA inhibition of topoIIIα decatenase activity

RPA is a single-stranded DNA binding protein that physically associates with the BLM complex. RPA stimulates BLM helicase activity as well as the double Holliday junction dissolution activity of the BLM-topoisomerase IIIα complex. We investigated the effect of RPA on the ssDNA decatenase activity of topoisomerase IIIα. We found that RPA and other ssDNA binding proteins inhibit decatenation by topoisomerase IIIα. Complex formation between BLM, TopoIIIα, and RMI1 ablates inhibition of decatenation by ssDNA binding proteins. Together, these data indicate that inhibition by RPA does not involve species-specific interactions between RPA and BLM-TopoIIIα-RMI1, which contrasts with RPA modulation of double Holliday junction dissolution. We propose that topoisomerase IIIα and RPA compete to bind to single-stranded regions of catenanes. Interactions with BLM and RMI1 enhance toposiomerase IIIα activity, promoting decatenation in the presence of RPA

Patterns of primary care and mortality among patients with schizophrenia or diabetes: a cluster analysis approach to the retrospective study of healthcare utilization

Abstract Background Patients with schizophrenia have difficulty managing their medical healthcare needs, possibly resulting in delayed treatment and poor outcomes. We analyzed whether patients reduced primary care use over time, differentially by diagnosis with schizophrenia, diabetes, or both schizophrenia and diabetes. We also assessed whether such patterns of primary care use were a significant predictor of mortality over a 4-year period. Methods The Veterans Healthcare Administration (VA) is the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States. Administrative extracts of the VA's all-electronic medical records were studied. Patients over age 50 and diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2002 were age-matched 1:4 to diabetes patients. All patients were followed through 2005. Cluster analysis explored trajectories of primary care use. Proportional hazards regression modelled the impact of these primary care utilization trajectories on survival, controlling for demographic and clinical covariates. Results Patients comprised three diagnostic groups: diabetes only (n = 188,332), schizophrenia only (n = 40,109), and schizophrenia with diabetes (Scz-DM, n = 13,025). Cluster analysis revealed four distinct trajectories of primary care use: consistent over time, increasing over time, high and decreasing, low and decreasing. Patients with schizophrenia only were likely to have low-decreasing use (73% schizophrenia-only vs 54% Scz-DM vs 52% diabetes). Increasing use was least common among schizophrenia patients (4% vs 8% Scz-DM vs 7% diabetes) and was associated with improved survival. Low-decreasing primary care, compared to consistent use, was associated with shorter survival controlling for demographics and case-mix. The observational study was limited by reliance on administrative data. Conclusion Regular primary care and high levels of primary care were associated with better survival for patients with chronic illness, whether psychiatric or medical. For schizophrenia patients, with or without comorbid diabetes, primary care offers a survival benefit, suggesting that innovations in treatment retention targeting at-risk groups can offer significant promise of improving outcomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78274/1/1472-6963-9-127.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78274/2/1472-6963-9-127.pdfPeer Reviewe

Optimality of mutation and selection in germinal centers

The population dynamics theory of B cells in a typical germinal center could play an important role in revealing how affinity maturation is achieved. However, the existing models encountered some conflicts with experiments. To resolve these conflicts, we present a coarse-grained model to calculate the B cell population development in affinity maturation, which allows a comprehensive analysis of its parameter space to look for optimal values of mutation rate, selection strength, and initial antibody-antigen binding level that maximize the affinity improvement. With these optimized parameters, the model is compatible with the experimental observations such as the ~100-fold affinity improvements, the number of mutations, the hypermutation rate, and the "all or none" phenomenon. Moreover, we study the reasons behind the optimal parameters. The optimal mutation rate, in agreement with the hypermutation rate in vivo, results from a tradeoff between accumulating enough beneficial mutations and avoiding too many deleterious or lethal mutations. The optimal selection strength evolves as a balance between the need for affinity improvement and the requirement to pass the population bottleneck. These findings point to the conclusion that germinal centers have been optimized by evolution to generate strong affinity antibodies effectively and rapidly. In addition, we study the enhancement of affinity improvement due to B cell migration between germinal centers. These results could enhance our understandings to the functions of germinal centers.Comment: 5 figures in main text, and 4 figures in Supplementary Informatio