The Level of Evidence in Two Leading Endodontic Journals

Introduction: The successful practice of dentistry, including endodontics, relies on a wide spectrum of dental research. The quantity and quality of research evidence in endodontics have seldom been evaluated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of evidence in current leading endodontic journals. Materials and Methods: All the articles published in 2000, 2006 and 2010 in two major endodontic journals (Journal of Endodontics and International Endodontic Journal) were evaluated. These articles were classified according to the level of evidence (LOE) using Oxford Scale from 0 to 5 and type of the study. Results: Of the articles assessed, 3.2% were clinical trials, 47.8% were experimental, 5.6% were animal studies and 43.4% were of other types. Subdivisions according to LOE were 4.3% as level 1, 0.9 % level 2, 7.3% level 3, 0.4% level 4 and 3.5% level 5. Overall, 83.6% of the articles were classified as “non-evidence-based”. There was a marginally significant increase in the percentage of articles with high level of evidence in recent years. Conclusion: There is a substantial shortage of articles with high level of evidence in clinical endodontics. However, there was a gradual increase in the number of high LOE articles published in both journals

Modeling, Analysis, and Design of a PV-Based Grid-Tied Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Battery Pack Charger

Ever-increasing fossil fuels consumption in recent decades has emitted tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases, a big part of which cannot be absorbed by natural processes happening in nature. These gases have increased earth temperature by absorbing extra radiations from sunlight and turning them into heat. Global warming has had terrible effects for all creatures around the world and can threat life on Earth in future. Utilization of green or renewable energies during the recent years is getting more popular and can be a solution to this serious problem. A big source of these pollutants is transportation sector. Electrification of transportation can noticeably reduce greenhouse gasses if the electricity is obtained using renewable energy sources. Otherwise, it will just shift the problem from streets to fossil fuel power plants. Electric vehicles (EVs) were introduced around one century ago; however, they were replaced by internal combustion engine cars over time. Nevertheless, recently they are getting more interest because of their superior performance and clean operation. Solar electricity which can be obtained using photovoltaic panels is one of the easiest ways as long as sun is available. They can be easily mounted on the roofs of buildings or roof tops of parking slots generating electric power to charge the battery pack of the EVs while providing shade for the cars. Since solar energy is intermittent and variable, power grid should be involved to ensure enough power is available. Conventional solar chargers inject power to the grid and use grid as the main source because of its reliability and being infinite. Hence, they use grid as a kind of energy storage system. This approach can lead to problems for grid stability if solar panels are utilized in large scales and comparable to the grid. In this work, a solar powered grid-tied EV/PHEV charger is introduced which uses all the available power from PV panels as the main energy source and drains only the remaining required power from the grid. The proposed configuration provides great flexibility and supports all the possible power flows. To design an efficient system the load should be known well enough first. A comprehensive study has been done about behavior, characteristics and different models of different chemistries of batteries. Specific phenomena happening in battery packs are outlined. A novel maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique has been proposed specifically for battery charging applications. A specific configuration involving DC link coupling technique has been proposed to connect different parts of the system. Different possible topologies for different parts of the proposed configuration have been considered and the suitable ones have been selected. Dual active bridge topology is the heart of this configuration which acts as the bidirectional charger. A detailed state space modeling process has been followed for the power converters and various small signal transfer functions have been derived. Controllers have been designed for different power converters using SISO design tool of Matlab/Simulink. Different modes of operation for the charger including constant current mode (CCM) and constant voltage mode (CVM) have been analyzed and appropriate cascade controllers have been designed based on required time domain and frequency domain characteristics. Finally, simulation tests have been conducted and test results have been graphed and analyzed for different modes of operation, all possible power flows and various voltage and current set points

Effects of Postbiotics from Food Probiotic and Protective Cultures on Proliferation and Apoptosis in HCT-116 Colorectal Cancer Cells

Background and Objective: Postbiotics are microbial-derived soluble products, which are released during the growth and fermentation process of beneficial microorganisms in gastrointestinal tract, food and complex microbiological culture systems (cell-free supernatant or extracellular extract) or after cell lysis (intracellular extract). Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers within the leading causes of cancer mortality worldwide, which can be associated with a defeated gastrointestinal barrier. In this study, potential functionality of the extracellular and intracellular extracts of probiotics (Latilactobacillus sakei, LS) and protective culture (FreshQ®, FQ) on proliferation and cell survival of HCT-116 colon cancer epithelial cells was investigated. Material and Methods: Probiotic bacteria were cultivated in de Man, Rogosa and Sharpe broth and then postbiotics was isolated by centrifugation and sonication. The achieved solutions were lyophilized and stored until use. Moreover, HCT-116 cells were exposed to various concentrations of Latilactobacillus sakei and FreshQ® extracts (1.25-40 mg ml-1) for 24 h and then effects of these products on cell cytotoxicity, proliferation and apoptosis were investigated using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide, wound healing and AO/EB assays. Results and Conclusion: Extracellular and intracellular extracts of Latilactobacillus sakei and FreshQ the decreased in cell viability based on the postbiotic concentrations (p≤0.05), while cell proliferation was inhibited by extracellular and intracellular extracts of Latilactobacillus sakei and FreshQ® in wound healing assay. Results showed that postbiotics could induce apoptosis evidenced by acridine orange/ethidium bromide staining. In summary, Latilactobacillus sakei and FreshQ® postbiotics are able to decrease cell viability and proliferation and enhance apoptosis in HCT-116 colorectal cancer cells. In addition, FreshQ® postbiotics seemed more potent than that Latilactobacillus sakei postbiotics did. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest

RDF: Un modèle de calcul flot de données reconfigurable

Dataflow Models of Computation (MoCs) are widely used in embedded systems, including multimedia processing, digital signal processing, telecommunications, and automatic control. In a dataflow MoC, an application is specified as a graph of actors connected by FIFO channels. One of the first and most popular dataflow MoCs, Synchronous Dataflow (SDF), provides static analyses to guarantee boundedness and liveness, which are key properties for embedded systems. However, SDF and most of its variants lacks the capability to express the dynamism needed by modern streaming applications. In particular, the applications mentioned above have a strong need for reconfigurability to accommodate changes in the input data, the control objectives, or the environment. We address this need by proposing a new MoC called Reconfigurable Dataflow (RDF). RDF extends SDF with transformation rules that specify how and when the topology and actors of the graph may be reconfigured. Starting from an initial RDF graph and a set of transformation rules, an arbitrary number of new RDF graphs can be generated at runtime. A key feature of RDF is that it can be statically analyzed to guarantee that all possible graphs generated at runtime will be consistent and live. We introduce the RDF MoC, describe its associated static analyses, and present its implementation and some experimental results.Les modèles de calcul (MoCs) flot de données synchrones sont très utilisés dans les systèmes embarqués et les applications multimédia, de traitement du signal, de télécommunication et de contrôle automatique. Dans ce style de modèle, une application est spécifiée par un graphe d’acteurs connectés par des liens FIFO de communication. Un des MoCs les plus connus, SDF (pour Synchronous Dataflow), permet des analyses statiques qui garantissent l’exécution en mémoire bornée et l’absence d’interblocage, propriétés clés pour les systèmes embarqués. Néanmoins, SDF (et la plupart de ses variantes) ne permet pas d’exprimer la dynamicité requise par les applications embarquées modernes. En particulier, ces applications ont souvent besoin de se reconfigurer pour s’adapter aux changements (par ex., de débit ou de qualité) du flot d’entrée, des objectifs de contrôle ou de l’environnement. Afin de répondre à ce besoin, nous proposons RDF (pour Reconfigurable DataFlow) un MoC qui étend SDF avec des règles de transformations spécifiant comment la topologie du graphe flot de données peut être reconfiguré dynamiquement. En considérant un graphe SDF initial et un ensemble de règles de transformation, un nombre arbitraire de nouveaux graphes peuvent être produits. La principale qualité de RDF est qu’il peut être analysé statiquement pour garantir que tous les graphes générés dynamiquement s’exécuteront en mémoire bornée et sans interblocage. Nous présentons le modèle RDF, les analyses statiques associées, sa mise en oeuvre et quelques expérimentations

RDF : un modèle flot de données reconfigurable(version étendue)

Dataflow Models of Computation (MoCs) are widely used in embedded systems, including multimedia processing, digital signal processing, telecommunications, and automatic control. In a dataflow MoC, an application is specified as a graph of actors connected by FIFO channels. One of the most popular dataflow MoCs, Synchronous Dataflow (SDF), provides static analyses to guarantee boundedness and liveness, which are key properties for embedded systems. However, SDF (and most of its variants) lacks the capability to express the dynamism needed by modern streaming applications. In particular, the applications mentioned above have a strong need for reconfigurability to accommodate changes in the input data, the control objectives, or the environment.We address this need by proposing a new MoC called Reconfigurable Dataflow (RDF). RDF extends SDF with transformation rules that specify how the topology and actors of the graph may be reconfigured. Starting from an initial RDF graph and a set of transformation rules, an arbitrary number of new RDF graphs can be generated at runtime. A key feature of RDF is that it can be statically analyzed to guarantee that all possible graphs generated at runtime will be consistent and live. We introduce the RDF MoC, describe its associated static analyses, and outline its implementation.Les modèles de calcul (MoCs) flot de données synchrones sont très utilisés dans les systèmes embarqués pour les applications multimédia, de traitement du signal, de télécommunication et de contrôle automatique. Dans ce style de modèle, une application est spécifiée par un graphe d’acteurs connectés par des liens FIFO de communication. Un des MoCs les plus connus, SDF (pour Synchronous Dataflow), permet des analyses statiques qui garantissent l’exécution enmémoire bornée et l’absence d’interblocage, propriétés clés pour les systèmes embarqués. Néanmoins, SDF (et la plupart de ses variantes) ne permet pas d’exprimer la dynamicité requise par les applications embarquées modernes. En particulier, ces applications ont souvent besoin de se reconfigurer pour s’adapter aux changements (par ex., de débit ou de qualité) du flot d’entrée, des objectifs de contrôle ou de l’environnement.Afin de répondre à ce besoin, nous proposons le MoC RDF (pour Reconfigurable DataFlow) qui étend SDF avec des règles de transformations spécifiant comment la topologie et les acteurs du graphe peuvent être reconfigurés dynamiquement. En considérant un graphe SDF initial et un ensemble de règles de transformation, un nombre arbitraire de nouveaux graphes peuvent être produits. La principale qualité de RDF est qu’il peut être analysé statiquement pour garantir que tous les graphes générés dynamiquement s’exécuteront en mémoire bornée et sans interblocage.Nous présentons le modèle RDF, décrivons les analyses statiques associées et décrivons brièvementson implémentation

RDF: A Reconfigurable Dataflow Model of Computation

International audienceDataflow Models of Computation (MoCs) are widely used in embedded systems, including multimedia processing, digital signal processing, telecommunications, and automatic control. In a dataflow MoC, an application is specified as a graph of actors connected by FIFO channels. One of the first and most popular dataflow MoCs, Synchronous Dataflow (SDF), provides static analyses to guarantee boundedness and liveness, which are key properties for embedded systems. However, SDF and most of its variants lack the capability to express the dynamism needed by modern streaming applications. In particular, the applications mentioned above have a strong need for reconfigurability to accommodate changes in the input data, the control objectives, or the environment. We address this need by proposing a new MoC called Reconfigurable Dataflow (RDF). RDF extends SDF with transformation rules that specify how and when the topology and actors of the graph may be reconfigured. Starting from an initial RDF graph and a set of transformation rules, an arbitrary number of new RDF graphs can be generated at runtime. A key feature of RDF is that it can be statically analyzed to guarantee that all possible graphs generated at runtime will be consistent and live. We introduce the RDF MoC, describe its associated static analyses, and present its implementation and some experimental results

Predicting number of traumas using the seasonal time series model

Background: Road accidents and casualties resulted are among the current challenges of human societies, which have imposed a high cost on the economies of countries. Objectives: Prediction of accidents caused by driving incidents helps planners achieve a suitable model to reduce the occurrence of traumas resulted from the driving accidents. Materials and Methods: In this study, a seasonal time series model was used for predicting the number of road accident traumas. Data related to the patients referring to Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ilam Province were evaluated from March 2012 to June 2017. Results: The results showed that during November and October in 2015 and 2016, we had the highest number of accidents due to high traffic during New Year's Vacation, summer trips, and religious pilgrimages including the Arbaeen. Moreover, the results depicted that the seasonal Arima model was effective in predicting the number of traumas due to accidents. Furthermore, forecasting the model showed an ascending trend in the number of accidents in the following 3 years. Conclusion: The number of accident traumas in the forthcoming months can be predicted through time series models. Of course, these models can be used by managers as appropriate tools for traffic analysis. Furthermore, the increasing trend in the number of traumas indicates that serious consideration for planning and managing such events seems necessary for the administrators in the near future

A comparison of difficulties in emotional regulations of patients with mild traumatic brain injury and normal controls

Background: Many individuals with traumatic brain injury experience difficulties with social behavior, some of which are attributed to difficulties in regulation of emotions. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the difficulties in emotional regulations of patients with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) and normal controls. Patients and Methods: In this cohort study, 72 patients with MTBI and 72 normal controls with similar gender were selected. Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) questionnaires were completed for both the study groups at the beginning of the study and 6 months later. The data were analyzed using multiple linear regression, Chi-square, and paired t-test. Results: The results showed that there was a significant difference between MTBI patients and normal controls in all subscales 6 months after MTBI, and in the total score of DERS, except for the nonaccepted scale and PANAS (P = 0.001), in which no significant difference was observed. In addition, the results of multivariate regression showed that trauma (β = 0.493), age (β = 0.196), familial history of mental disorders (β = 0.185), and financial status could predict emotional regulation (β = 0.148). Conclusions: It seems that mild traumatic brain injuries may be the cause of problems in social behaviors

A finite element model for the thermo-elastic analysis of functionally graded porous nanobeams

In this study, for the first time, a nonlocal finite element model is proposed to analyse thermo-elastic behaviour of imperfect functionally graded porous nanobeams (P-FG) on the basis of nonlocal elasticity theory and employing a double-parameter elastic foundation. Temperature-dependent material properties are considered for the P-FG nanobeam, which are assumed to change continuously through the thickness based on the power-law form. The size effects are incorporated in the framework of the nonlocal elasticity theory of Eringen. The equations of motion are achieved based on first-order shear deformation beam theory through Hamilton's principle. Based on the obtained numerical results, it is observed that the proposed beam element can provide accurate buckling and frequency results for the P-FG nanobeams as compared with some benchmark results in the literature. The detailed variational and finite element procedure are presented and numerical examinations are performed. A parametric study is performed to investigate the influence of several parameters such as porosity volume fraction, porosity distribution, thermal loading, material graduation, nonlocal parameter, slenderness ratio and elastic foundation stiffness on the critical buckling temperature and the nondimensional fundamental frequencies of the P-FG nanobeams. Based on the results of this study, a porous FG nanobeam has a higher thermal buckling resistance and natural frequency compared to a perfect FG nanobeam. Also, uniform distributions of porosity result in greater critical buckling temperatures and vibration frequencies, in comparison with functional distributions of porosities