Comparison Between the Sonic-Sys System and Inlay in II Class

In everyday dental practice we often face the problem of class II restorations. Large caries create serious problems with regard to obtaining correct contact points, marginal fit (expecially in the gingival area) and good resin polymerisation. In such cases usage of the Sonic-Sys system and inlays seems to be the best solution. The aim of this poster is to present a manual of the Sonic-Sys system, as well as comparison of the Empress II and Sonic-Sys system inlays in class II restorations. The color, marginal fit, contouring and articulating points were evaluated in clinical tests. The surfaces of the preparation were examined in SEM differences between those made by means of Sonic- Sys and standard diamond burs. The results present advantages and disadvantages of both methods. The best choice is to consider the appropriate method after clinical examination and treatment planning in each individual case

Evaluation of the role of downregulation of SNF5/INI1 core subunit of SWI/SNF complex in clear cell renal cell carcinoma development

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is characterized by stabilization of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF1), and mutations in von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) gene. Additionally, in about 40% of ccRCC cases the mutation in PBRM1 (POLYBROMO1) gene coding for a non-core subunit of SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex was found suggesting potential impairment of this complex function in ccRCC. In this study we assessed the extent to which the core SWI/SNF complex subunit - INI1 (hSNF5/SMARCB1) is affected in ccRCC and whether it has any consequences on the development of this type of cancer. The evaluation of INI1 protein level in samples from 50 patients with diagnosed ccRCC, including three displaying rhabdoid features, showed the INI1 positive staining in rhabdoid cells while the conventional ccRCC cells exhibited reduced INI1 level. This indicated the rhabdoid component of ccRCC as distinct from other known rhabdoid tumors. The reduced INI1 protein level observed in all conventional ccRCC cases used in this study correlated with decreased SMARCB1 gene expression at the transcript level. Consistently, the overexpression of INI1 protein in A498 ccRCC cell line resulted in the elevation of endogenous SMARCB1 transcript level indicating that the INI1-dependent regulatory feedback loop controlling expression of this gene is affected in ccRCC Moreover, the set of INI1 target genes including i.e. CXCL12/CXCR7/CXCR4 chemokine axis was identified to be affected in ccRCC. In summary, we demonstrated that the inactivation of INI1 may be of high importance for ccRCC development and aggressiveness

The acquisition of Sign Language: The impact of phonetic complexity on phonology

Research into the effect of phonetic complexity on phonological acquisition has a long history in spoken languages. This paper considers the effect of phonetics on phonological development in a signed language. We report on an experiment in which nonword-repetition methodology was adapted so as to examine in a systematic way how phonetic complexity in two phonological parameters of signed languages — handshape and movement — affects the perception and articulation of signs. Ninety-one Deaf children aged 3–11 acquiring British Sign Language (BSL) and 46 hearing nonsigners aged 6–11 repeated a set of 40 nonsense signs. For Deaf children, repetition accuracy improved with age, correlated with wider BSL abilities, and was lowest for signs that were phonetically complex. Repetition accuracy was correlated with fine motor skills for the youngest children. Despite their lower repetition accuracy, the hearing group were similarly affected by phonetic complexity, suggesting that common visual and motoric factors are at play when processing linguistic information in the visuo-gestural modality

Identification of amino acid residues responsible for von Willebrand factor binding to sulfatide by charged-to-alanine-scanning mutagenesis

von Willebrand factor (VWF) performs its hemostatic functions through binding to various proteins. The A1 domain of VWF contains binding sites of not only physiologically important ligands, but also exogenous modulators that induce VWF-platelet aggregation. Sulfatides, 3-sulfated galactosyl ceramides, that are expressed on oligodendrocytes, renal tubular cells, certain tumor cells and platelets, have been suggested to interact with VWF under some pathological conditions. The binding of VWF to sulfatide requires the A1 domain, but its binding sites have not been precisely identified. Here, we report that alanine mutations at Arg1392, Arg1395, Arg1399 and Lys1423 led to decreased VWF–sulfatide binding. These sites have been reported to be the binding sites for platelet membrane glycoprotein (GP) Ib and/or snake venom botrocetin, and, interestingly, are identical to the monoclonal antibody (mAb) NMC4 epitope previously reported to inhibit the VWF-GPIb interaction. We observed that NMC4 also inhibited VWF interaction with sulfatides in a dose-dependent manner. Thus, we conclude that VWF binding sites of sulfatide overlap those of platelet GPIb and botrocetin

Home-based music therapy - a systematic overview of settings and conditions for an innovative service in healthcare

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Almost every Western healthcare system is changing to make their services more centered around out-patient care. In particular, long-term or geriatric patients who have been discharged from the hospital often require home-based care and therapy. Therefore, several programs have been developed to continue the therapeutic process and manage the special needs of patients after discharge from hospital. Music therapy has also moved into this field of healthcare service by providing home-based music therapy (HBMT) programs. This article reviews and summarizes the settings and conditions of HBMT for the first time.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The following databases were used to find articles on home-based music therapy: AMED, CAIRSS, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, and PSYNDEX. The search terms were "home-based music therapy" and "mobile music therapy". Included articles were analyzed with respect to participants as well as conditions and settings of HBMT. Furthermore, the date of publication, main outcomes, and the design and quality of the studies were investigated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 20 international publications, 11 clinical studies and nine reports from practice, mainly from the United States (n = 8), were finally included in the qualitative synthesis. Six studies had a randomized controlled design and included a total of 507 patients. The vast majority of clients of HBMT are elderly patients living at home and people who need hospice and palliative care. Although settings were heterogeneous, music listening programs played a predominant role with the aim to reduce symptoms like depression and pain, or to improve quality of life and the relationship between patients and caregivers as primary endpoints.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We were able to show that HBMT is an innovative service for future healthcare delivery. It fits with the changing healthcare system and its conditions but also meets the therapeutic needs of the increasing number of elderly and severely impaired people. Apart from music therapists, patients and their families HBMT is also interesting as a blueprint for home based care for other groups of caregivers.</p

Recommendations on the management of prostate cancer - a round table conference

Rak gruczołu krokowego jest jednym z najczęściej rozpoznawanych nowotworów u mężczyzn w wielu krajach Europy i w Ameryce Północnej. W ostatnich latach obserwuje się istotny wzrost liczby zachorowań, co w pierwszej kolejności można wiązać z wydłużeniem średniej długości życia i wprowadzeniem pod koniec lat 80. powszechnego oznaczania stężenia swoistego antygenu sterczowego (PSA) w surowicy. Podstawowymi metodami leczenia chorych na wczesnego raka gruczołu krokowego są zabieg chirurgiczny i radioterapia. U wybranych chorych o krótkim spodziewanym czasie przeżycia i niskim stopniu złośliwości histologicznej można rozważyć jedynie ścisłą obserwację. Leczenie chorych na zaawansowanego raka gruczołu krokowego polega na zmniejszeniu wpływu stymulującego działania androgenów na komórki raka w wyniku tak zwanej ablacji androgenowej. Pozwala ona na osiągnięcie poprawy subiektywnej, obniżenie stężenia PSA w surowicy oraz obiektywną regresję nowotworu (guza pierwotnego i/lub przerzutów w tkankach miękkich) u około 80% chorych. Wysoka zachorowalność na raka gruczołu krokowego i wciąż niezadowalające wyniki leczenia tego nowotworu stały się przyczyną potrzeby sformułowania jednolitych zasad postępowania diagnostyczno- -terapeutycznego opartego na dowodach o charakterze naukowym i wykorzystującego możliwość ścisłej współpracy lekarzy urologów oraz onkologów. Przedstawione w obecnym opracowaniu zalecenia stanowią wspólne stanowisko grupy ekspertów w dziedzinie urologii, onkologii i patomorfologii, które przyjęto podczas spotkania okrągłego stołu oraz uaktualniono na podstawie późniejszych doniesień.Prostate cancer is one of the most common male malignancies in most European countries and the US. A significant increase in the number of new cases has been observed over the last years, most probably due to increase in the life span and introduction of PSA in the 1980s. Two main treatment modalities of early prostate cancer are surgery and radiotherapy. In selected patients with short life expectancy and low histological grade of the tumor, watchful waiting is acceptable. Treatment of advanced prostate cancer is based on inhibition of stimulatory effect of androgens on prostate cancer cells. Androgen ablation allows for subjective improvement, PSA decrease and objective tumor regression in 80% of patients. High incidence of prostate cancer and unsatisfactory results of its treatment created a demand for uniform, evidence-based diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines. Recommendations presented in this paper were prepared during a round table meeting of experts in urology, oncology and pathology, and updated with most current literature data

Modeled Effect of Coastal Biogeochemical Processes, Climate Variability, and Ocean Acidification on Aragonite Saturation State in the Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is highly vulnerable to ocean acidification (OA) due to naturally cold, poorly buffered waters and ocean mixing processes. Harsh weather conditions within this rapidly changing, geographically remote environment have limited the quantity of carbon chemistry data, thereby hampering efforts to understand underlying spatial-temporal variability and detect long-term trends. We add carbonate chemistry to a regional biogeochemical model of the Bering Sea to explore the underlying mechanisms driving carbon dynamics over a decadal hindcast (2003–2012). The results illustrate that coastal processes generate considerable spatial variability in the biogeochemistry and vulnerability of Bering Sea shelf water to OA. Substantial seasonal biological productivity maintains high supersaturation of aragonite on the outer shelf, whereas riverine freshwater runoff loaded with allochthonous carbon decreases aragonite saturation states (ΩArag) to values below 1 on the inner shelf. Over the entire 2003–2012 model hindcast, annual surface ΩArag decreases by 0.025 – 0.04 units/year due to positive trends in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) in surface waters and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). Variability in this trend is driven by an increase in fall phytoplankton productivity and shelf carbon uptake, occurring during a transition from a relatively warm (2003–2005) to cold (2010–2012) temperature regime. Our results illustrate how local biogeochemical processes and climate variability can modify projected rates of OA within a coastal shelf system

How Can Selection of Biologically Inspired Features Improve the Performance of a Robust Object Recognition Model?

Humans can effectively and swiftly recognize objects in complex natural scenes. This outstanding ability has motivated many computational object recognition models. Most of these models try to emulate the behavior of this remarkable system. The human visual system hierarchically recognizes objects in several processing stages. Along these stages a set of features with increasing complexity is extracted by different parts of visual system. Elementary features like bars and edges are processed in earlier levels of visual pathway and as far as one goes upper in this pathway more complex features will be spotted. It is an important interrogation in the field of visual processing to see which features of an object are selected and represented by the visual cortex. To address this issue, we extended a hierarchical model, which is motivated by biology, for different object recognition tasks. In this model, a set of object parts, named patches, extracted in the intermediate stages. These object parts are used for training procedure in the model and have an important role in object recognition. These patches are selected indiscriminately from different positions of an image and this can lead to the extraction of non-discriminating patches which eventually may reduce the performance. In the proposed model we used an evolutionary algorithm approach to select a set of informative patches. Our reported results indicate that these patches are more informative than usual random patches. We demonstrate the strength of the proposed model on a range of object recognition tasks. The proposed model outperforms the original model in diverse object recognition tasks. It can be seen from the experiments that selected features are generally particular parts of target images. Our results suggest that selected features which are parts of target objects provide an efficient set for robust object recognition