Oral hygiene, dentition, sexual habits and risk of oral cancer

In an Italian case-control study of oral cancer, number of missing teeth and other aspects of dental care were similar, but the general condition of the mouth, as indicated by gum bleeding, tartar deposits and mucosal irritation, was worse among oral cancer cases than controls. No differences were detected in sexual practices (including oral sex) and (previous) sexually transmitted infections. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Role of paan chewing and dietary habits in cervical carcinoma in Chennai, India

/=5 paan day(-1)=4.0; 95% CI 1.2-13.3). Among dietary habits, the highest vs lowest intake tertile for vegetables and fruit was associated with an OR of 0.5 (95% CI 0.2-1.0). Low education level and low body weight were also risk factors for ICC, but they did not account for the associations of paan chewing and low vegetable and fruit intake. In the analyses restricted to HPV-positive cases and controls, the inverse association with vegetable and fruit intake was confirmed. Conversely, the adverse influence of paan chewing on ICC risk seemed to be attributable to a higher prevalence of cervical HPV infection in women who chewed

Robot ontologies for sensor- and Image-guided surgery

Robots and robotics are becoming more com- plex and flexible, due to technological advancement, improved sensing capabilities and machine intelligence. Service robots target a wide range of applications, relying on advanced Human–Robot Interaction. Medical robotics is becoming a leading application area within, and the number of surgical, rehabilitation and hospital assistance robots is rising rapidly. However, the complexity of the medical environment has been a major barrier, preventing a wider use of robotic technology, thus mostly teleoperated, human-in-the-loop control solutions emerged so far. Providing smarter and better medical robots requires a systematic approach in describing and translating human processes for the robots. It is believed that ontologies can bridge human cognitive understanding and robotic reasoning (machine intelligence). Besides, ontologies serve as a tool and method to assess the added value robotic technology brings into the medical environment. The purpose of this paper is to identify relevant ontology research in medical robotics, and to review the state-of-the art. It focuses on the surgical domain, fundamental terminology and interactions are described for two example applications in neurosurgery and orthopaedics

Fractional ac Josephson effect in unconventional superconductors

For certain orientations of Josephson junctions between two p_x-wave or two d-wave superconductors, the subgap Andreev bound states produce a 4pi-periodic relation between the Josephson current I and the phase difference phi: I ~ sin(phi/2). Consequently, the ac Josephson current has the fractional frequency eV/h, where V is the dc voltage. In the tunneling limit, the Josephson current is proportional to the first power (not square) of the electron tunneling amplitude. Thus, the Josephson current between unconventional superconductors is carried by single electrons, rather than by Cooper pairs. The fractional ac Josephson effect can be observed experimentally by measuring frequency spectrum of microwave radiation from the junction.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, RevTEX 4; v2. - minor typos corrected in proof

Phase Fluctuations and Vortex Lattice Melting in Triplet Quasi-One-Dimensional Superconductors at High Magnetic Fields

Assuming that the order parameter corresponds to an equal spin triplet pairing symmetry state, we calculate the effect of phase fluctuations in quasi-one-dimensional superconductors at high magnetic fields applied along the y (b') axis. We show that phase fluctuations can destroy the theoretically predicted triplet reentrant superconducting state, and that they are responsible for melting the magnetic field induced Josephson vortex lattice above a magnetic field dependent melting temperature Tm.Comment: 4 pages (double column), 1 eps figur

Josephson effect in quasi one-dimensional unconventional superconductors

Josephson effect in junctions of quasi one-dimensional triangular lattice superconductors is discussed, where the theoretical model corresponds to organic superconductors (TMTSF)_2PF_6. We assume the quarter-filling electron band and p, d and f wave like pairing symmetries in organic superconductors. To realize the electronic structures in organic superconductors, we introduce the asymmetric hopping integral, (t') among second nearest lattice sites. At t'=0, the Josephson current in the d wave symmetry saturates in low temperatures, whereas those in the p and the f wave symmetries show the low-temperature anomaly due to the zero-energy state at the junction interfaces. The low-temperature anomaly appears even in the d wave symmetry in the presence of t', whereas the anomaly is suppressed in the f wave symmetry. The shape of the Fermi surface is an important factor for the formation of the ZES in the quarter-filling electron systems.Comment: 10 page

SkyMapper and the Southern Sky Survey

This paper presents the design and science goals for the SkyMapper telescope. SkyMapper is a 1.3m telescope featuring a 5.7 square degree field-of-view Cassegrain imager commissioned for the Australian National University's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. It is located at Siding Spring Observatory, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia and will see first light in late 2007. The imager possesses 16kx16k 0.5 arcsec pixels. The primary scientific goal of the facility is to perform the Southern Sky Survey, a six colour and multi-epoch (4 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year sampling) photometric survey of the southerly 2pi steradians to g~23 mag. The survey will provide photometry to better than 3% global accuracy and astrometry to better than 50 mas. Data will be supplied to the community as part of the Virtual Observatory effort. The survey will take five years to complete