Bacterial Leakage of Mineral Trioxide Aggregate, Calcium-Enriched Mixture and Biodentine as Furcation Perforation Repair Materials in Primary Molars

Introduction: Adequate seal of iatrogenically perforated area within the root canal system can improve the long term treatment prognosis. This in vitro study evaluated the sealing ability of mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA), calcium-enriched mixture (CEM) cement and Biodentine in repair of furcation perforation in primary molars. Methods and Materials: A total of 61 freshly extracted primary mandibular second molars were randomly divided into three groups (n=17) and 10 teeth were put in negative (without perforation, n=5) and positive (perforated without repair, n=5) control groups. Turbidity was used as the criteria of bacterial leakage, when detected in the model of dual-chamber leakage. Data were analyzed using the Chi-Square and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis in SPSS software. The level of significance was set at 0.05. Results: All positive samples showed turbidity, whereas none of the negative samples allowed bacterial leakage. There was no significant difference between the number of turbidity samples in repaired teeth with all test materials (P=0.13). No significant difference was also detected in the mean survival time (P>0.05). Conclusion: CEM cement and Biodentine showed promising results as perforation repair materials and can be recommended as suitable alternatives of MTA for repair of furcation perforation of primary molars.Keywords: Biodentine; Biomaterial; Calcium-Enriched Mixture; Furcation Perforation; Mineral Trioxide Aggregate; Perforation Repair; Sealabilit

Balancing and lot-sizing mixed-model lines in the footwear industry

This report describes the full research proposal for the project \Balancing and lot-sizing mixed-model lines in the footwear industry", to be developed as part of the master program in Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores - Sistemas de Planeamento Industrial of the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto. The Portuguese footwear industry is undergoing a period of great development and innovation. The numbers speak for themselves, Portugal footwear exported 71 million pairs of shoes to over 130 countries in 2012. It is a diverse sector, which covers different categories of women, men and children shoes, each of them with various models. New and technologically advanced mixed-model assembly lines are being projected and installed to replace traditional mass assembly lines. Obviously there is a need to manage them conveniently and to improve their operations. This work focuses on balancing and lot-sizing stitching mixed-model lines in a real world environment. For that purpose it will be fundamental to develop and evaluate adequate effective solution methods. Different objectives may be considered, which are relevant for the companies, such as minimizing the number of workstations, and minimizing the makespan, while taking into account a lot of practical restrictions. The solution approaches will be based on approximate methods, namely by resorting to metaheuristics. To show the impact of having different lots in production the initial maximum amount for each lot is changed and a Tabu Search based procedure is used to improve the solutions. The developed approaches will be evaluated and tested. A special attention will be given to the solution of real applied problems. Future work may include the study of other neighbourhood structures related to Tabu Search and the development of ways to speed up the evaluation of neighbours, as well as improving the balancing solution method

Vesicorectal fistula detected on direct radionuclide cystography — importance of fecal matter imaging

We report an 11 year old male patient with the history of imperforate anus, which was repaired surgically 4 years ago. He has been complaining of intermittent passing of urine into the rectum recently. The vesicorectal fistula in this patient was proven by imaging of the fecal matter post direct radionuclide cystography study. Our case showed that nuclear medicine imaging can be extended to unanimated objects such as patients’ excrements or fluids with important diagnostic yields

Run-time debugging for functional logic languages

This thesis describes the design, implementation and use of a run-time debugging tool for understanding the lazy semantics and locating failures in the functional logic language Curry. We provide a means for programmers to step in the evaluation order of program expressions at a source code level. Every expression evaluated is detected by a program coverage in a layout of the source code. Its run-time value can be represented to the user. The user can stop the execution of a program whenever he or she chooses to do so. A means to backward stepping is also provided. For large programs, we record only partial computations that are generated by evaluating selected expressions from the user. To achieve these means, we suggest and use some annotations in programs. Repre- sentation of intermediate steps of evaluations in a single-step mode is also provided by a distributed programming technique. Stepping in the real order of lazy evaluations could be helpful in searching for failures in simple programs and to beginners in understanding the behavior of functions in functional logic languages

Identification of clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii from Iran and study of their heterogeneity

AbstractBackgroundAcinetobacter baumannii has become one of the most serious causative agents of nosocomial infections due to its significant ability to survive on hospital surfaces. It is mainly an emerging opportunistic pathogen infecting patients in intensive care units. This study was aimed to identify the clinical isolates of A. baumannii and to investigate their heterogeneity using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based typing methods.MethodsA total of 197 nonduplicate isolates recovered from a wide range of clinical samples were subjected to conventional cultural and biochemical tests. For those isolates that were preliminary identified as A. baumannii, rpoB-based PCR with subsequent restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) using two restriction enzymes (TagI and HaeIII) was performed to investigate the genetic diversity of the strains and their presumptive relationships with different clinical presentation of the disease caused by this pathogen.ResultsIn total, 50 isolates (25.4%) were identified as A. baumannii using conventional phenotypic methods with subsequent confirmation by rpoB sequencing. RFLP analysis demonstrated five different restriction enzyme patterns, designated as A–E clusters. Most A. baumannii isolates were categorized under Cluster A (32%). We found no significant relationship between clinical presentation and the clustering of the isolates.ConclusionThis study showed that the rpoB region possesses high discriminatory power to identify the isolates to the species level. This marker showed high interspecies variability that might be useful for strain typing. The results also suggest the possibility of the existence of a predominant clone of A. baumannii among infected patients in Iran

The Mediating Role of Obsessive Beliefs in the Relationship between Sexual Desire and Marital Satisfaction of Women with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating contribution of obsessive beliefs in the relationship between sexual desire and marital satisfaction of women with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The research method was descriptive-correlation. The statistical population of this research was all married women suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder who referred to the outpatient clinic of Hafez hospital and several private clinics in Shiraz in 2021, and 200 of them were selected by available sample. All of whom completed the Hulbert Index of Sexual Desire, Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire, Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire, and Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised. The data were analyzed using correlation matrix, multivariate regression analysis and path analysis test. The main findings indicated that sexual desire had directly significant relation with marital satisfaction. Sexual desire indirectly had a significant relationship through the mediating role of obsessive beliefs with marital satisfaction. It seems that sexual desire directly and indirectly by mediating the role of obsessive beliefs predicted marital satisfaction. This study indicated the necessity of increasing awareness of beliefs, sexual knowledge and facilitating sexual counseling for married women

Molecular Methods for Identification of Acinetobacter Species by Partial Sequencing of the rpoB and 16S rRNA Genes.

BACKGROUND Acinetobacter spp. is a diverse group of Gram-negative bacteria which are ubiquitous in soil and water, and an important cause of nosocomial infections. The purpose of this study was to identify a collection of Acinetobacter spp. clinical isolates accurately and to investigate their antibiotic susceptibility patterns. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 197 non-duplicate clinical isolates of Acinetobacter spp. isolates identified using conventional biochemical tests. The molecular technique of PCR-RFLP and sequence analysis of rpoB and 16S rRNA genes was applied for species identification. Antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed with a disk diffusion assay. RESULTS Based on 16S rRNA and rpoB genes analysis separately, most of clinical isolates can be identified with high bootstrap values. However, the identity of the isolate 555T was uncertain due to high similarity of A. grimontii and A. junii. Identification by concatenation of 16S rRNA and rpoB confirmed the identity of clinical isolates of Acenitobacer to species level confidently. Accordingly, the isolate 555T assigned as A. grimontii due to 100% similarity to A. grimontii. Moreover, this isolate showed 98.64% to A. junii. Besides, the identity of the isolates 218T and 364T was confirmed as Genomic species 3 and A. calcoaceticus respectively. So, the majority of Acinetobacter spp. isolates, were identified as: A. baumannii (131 isolates, 66%), A. calcoaceticus (9 isolates, 4.5%), and A. genomosp 16 (8 isolates, 4%). The rest of identified species showed the lower frequencies. In susceptibility test, 105 isolates (53%), presented high antibiotic resistance of 90% to ceftriaxone, piperacillin, piperacillin tazobactam, amikacin, and 81% to ciprofloxacin. CONCLUSION Sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA and rpoB spacer simultaneously was able to do identification of Acinetobacter spp. to species level. A.baumannii was identified as the most prevalent species with high antibiotic resistance. Other species showed lower frequencies ranged from 4 to 9 strains

Antimicrobial activity of endophytic bacterial populations isolated from medical plants of Iran

Endophytic actinobacteria colonize inside the plant tissues without causing damages to the host plant. Since these microorganisms colonize in the different parts of plants and can stop plant disease, they have been applied as biological agents for controlling human diseases. The aim of this study was molecular identification and measuring the antimicrobial activity of endophytic Actinomycetes isolated from medicinal plants of Iran. Materials and Methods: The total of 23 medicinal plant samples were collected, sterilized, and crushed. Small pieces of the crushed samples were then cultured directly on three selective media. Grown colonies were identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing method. Each isolate was cultured in TSB medium and then antimicrobial compound was extracted using ethyl acetate and tested against the target bacteria. Results: Sixteen out of 23 bacterial isolates (69%) exhibited antimicrobial activity against the selected pathogenic bacteria, such as Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Citrobacter freundii, Proteus mi-rabilis, Shigella flexneri and Escherichia coli. Conclusion: Our Study showed a high phylogenetic diversity and the potent antibiotic activity of endophytic bacteria in medicinal plants of Iran. © 2017, Tehran University of Medical Science. All rights reserved

Involvement of neuronal pathways in the protective effects of hindlimb perconditioning during renal ischemia

Remote ischemic perconditioning (RPEC) is a therapeutic intervention that has been demonstrated to reduce renal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. However, the underlying renal protective mechanism remains unclear. The present study hypothesized that RPEC may utilize neural pathways to transfer the protective signal from the perconditioned hindlimb to the kidney. Following a right nephrectomy, rats were randomly allocated into five groups (n=6). The sham group underwent the surgical protocol only. In all other groups, the left renal pedicle was clamped for 45 min and reperfused for 24 h. The I/R control group then underwent 45 min ischemia and 24 h reperfusion (I/R) with no more intervention but the I/R‑NR control group underwent the ischemia and reperfusion followed by left femoral nerve (FN) and sciatic nerve (SN) resection. The RPEC group underwent ischemia and reperfusion followed by four cycles of 5 min occlusions of the left femoral artery and 5 min reperfusion. Finally, the RPEC‑NR group underwent ischemia and reperfusion followed by left FN and SN resection. Following 24 h, renal functional indices, plasma blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine (Cr) levels, urinary N‑acetyl‑β‑glucosaminidase (NAG) release and histopathological changes were assessed. Compared with the sham group, ischemia and reperfusion in the sham and I/R control groups resulted in renal dysfunction, indicated by significantly increased levels of BUN and Cr. This was accompanied by increased urinary NAG activity and morphological damage observed in control groups. In the RPEC group, renal histology and function were significantly improved compared with the control groups. However, FN and SN resection eliminated the protection of the kidney, which was induced by RPEC. In conclusion, remote hindlimb ischemic perconditioning reduced renal I/R injury in the rat kidney in a manner that potentially involves a neural pathway