Epidemiology, prevention and control of oral diseases in pediatric subjects

Caries and periodontal diseases are a neglected epidemic by millions of Italians who suffer unnecessarily from them. Both diseases are preventable and the combination of high prevalence, high morbidity and relative inattention from the National Health Service (NHS), makes caries and periodontal disease a significant public health problem. In this perspective, the World Health Organization and the University of Milan have promoted a national epidemiological study aimed at a sample of 4, 6 and 12-years-old students from schools in the North, Central and South of Italy. The study provides for the administration of a questionnaire to parents and a dental examination carried out at school by dentists trained by the WHO. In our town the epidemiological study planning and the survey were carried out by professors of the School of Specialization in "Pediatric Dentistry" (Prof. G. Giuliana and Prof. G. Pizzo) supported by specialist dentists from the same School, calibrated according to the WHO methodology. The survey was carried out between 2017 and 2019 involving 2701 children attending schools in the 8 districts of the town. The parents were sent a letter which explained the nature of the survey and contained a pre-printed form for the issue of informed consent to participate in the survey with a questionnaire regarding the family nuclear, the oral hygiene and eating habits of the minor and the child's previous dental experiences. The ICDAS (International Caries Detection and Assessment System) was used to detect the prevalence of carious lesions. The dentist used for each child visited a dental mirror and the CPI (Community Periodontal Index) index for periodontal assessment. Preliminary results showed that 25.3% of 12-years-old students had gingival bleeding and 41.1% had tartar. The caries index (ICDAS) shows us that as early as 4 years, 20% of children have initial carious lesions, 37% have dentine caries and that 34.38% have highly destructive caries. At 12 years, 34.95% had initial carious lesions, 46% had cavities that already affected dentin and that 42.44% had highly destructive cavities. The exigence to implement a program of prevention / early treatment of caries/gingivitis in pediatric subjects living in Palermo, since the first months of child's life, was born from the data analysis. The project "Un sorriso per 54 tutti i bambini", carried out at the U.O. of "Pediatric Dentistry" of Policlinico Paolo Giaccone in Palermo, was therefore finalised in order to 1) improve efficiency and effectiveness in the promotion of the oral health of minors, through the creation of a preventive / assistance route of significant social health impact; 2) assess the effectiveness of the preventive methodologies adopte

Daytime sensible heat flux estimation over heterogeneous surfaces using multitemporal land‐surface temperature observations

Equations based on surface renewal (SR) analysis to estimate the sensible heat flux (H) require as input the mean ramp amplitude and period observed in the ramp‐like pattern of the air temperature measured at high frequency. A SR‐based method to estimate sensible heat flux (HSR‐LST) requiring only low‐frequency measurements of the air temperature, horizontal mean wind speed, and land‐surface temperature as input was derived and tested under unstable conditions over a heterogeneous canopy (olive grove). HSR‐LST assumes that the mean ramp amplitude can be inferred from the difference between land‐surface temperature and mean air temperature through a linear relationship and that the ramp frequency is related to a wind shear scale characteristic of the canopy flow. The land‐surface temperature was retrieved by integrating in situ sensing measures of thermal infrared energy emitted by the surface. The performance of HSR‐LST was analyzed against flux tower measurements collected at two heights (close to and well above the canopy top). Crucial parameters involved in HSR‐LST, which define the above mentioned linear relationship, were explained using the canopy height and the land surface temperature observed at sunrise and sunset. Although the olive grove can behave as either an isothermal or anisothermal surface, HSR‐LST performed close to H measured using the eddy covariance and the Bowen ratio energy balance methods. Root mean square differences between HSR‐LST and measured H were of about 55 W m−2. Thus, by using multitemporal thermal acquisitions, HSR‐LST appears to bypass inconsistency between land surface temperature and the mean aerodynamic temperature. The one‐source bulk transfer formulation for estimating H performed reliable after calibration against the eddy covariance method. After calibration, the latter performed similar to the proposed SR‐LST method.This research was funded by project CGL2012‐37416‐C04‐01 and CGL2015‐65627‐C3‐1‐R (Ministerio de Ciencia y Innovación of Spain), CEI Iberus, 2014 (Proyecto financiado por el Ministerio de Educación en el marco del Programa Campus de Excelencia Internacional of Spain), and Ayuda para estancias en centros extranjeros (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte of Spain)

Special Section Guest Editorial: Advances in Agro-Hydrological Remote Sensing for Water Resources Conservation

This special section focuses on the use of remote sensing tools in some of these areas, including monitoring the volume and turbidity in lake fresh water resources, retrieving soil organic matter from spectral information with particular attention to abandoned croplands and areas affected by wildfires, and identification and monitoring of natural and agricultural vegetation through emerging techniques such as shallow and deep learning algorithms. These data mining and analysis approaches are particularly promising and include convolutional neural network and the application of back propagation neural network algorithms for soil water content monitoring and the extraction of other canopy information

Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology XX

This proceedings volume contains papers presented during the Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology Conference. The Conference was part of the International Symposium on Remote Sensing sponsored by SPIE\u2014The International Society for Optics and Photonics. The Symposium was held at the ESTREL Congress Centre, Berlin, Germany, from 10th to 13th of September 2018. Approximately 40+ oral and 20 poster papers were presented during this year\u2019s conference, covering a broad range of topics in the field of remote sensing applications for environmental science

Separaxion anxiety in pediatric migraine without aura: A pilot study

Background: Separation anxiety (SA) can be defined as the fear reaction and protest manifested by children when the main caregivers move away from him/her or in front of unfamiliar person. SA near eight months may be considered as an important and normal phase of the correct and typical social neurodevelopment. Aims of the present pilot study is assessing the prevalence of separation anxiety in a population of patients with migraine without aura (MwA). Materials and methods: 119 children (69 males) suffering from MwA (mean age 1.78 ± 7:59) were consecutively recruited. The control population consisted of 231 (114 males) healthy subjects similar for age (7.64 ± 1:34; p = 0.768) and gender (p=0.987) The Screen for child anxiety related emotional disorders (SCARED) test was used to assess the prevalence of separation anxiety among MwA children. Results: Healthy individuals are on average less affected (mean 4.72 ± 0:32) of the Separation Anxiety Disorder respect of MwA children (mean 6.83 ± 0.97; p < 0.001) (Figure 1). Conclusion. MwA presents many psychiatric comorbidities and among ones separation anxiety may be considered in the clinical and therapeutic management of pediatric primary headache

Methuosis Nonapoptotic Cell Death Associated with Vacuolization of Macropinosome and Endosome Compartments

Apoptosis is the most widely recognized form of physiological programmed cell death. During the past three decades, various nonapoptotic forms of cell death have gained increasing attention, largely because of their potential importance in pathological processes, toxicology, and cancer therapy. A recent addition to the panoply of cell death phenotypes is methuosis. The neologism is derived from the Greek methuo (to drink to intoxication) because the hallmark of this form of cell death is displacement of the cytoplasm by large fluid-filled vacuoles derived from macropinosomes. The demise of the cell resembles many forms of necrosis, insofar as there is a loss of metabolic capacity and plasma membrane integrity, without the cell shrinkage and nuclear fragmentation associated with apoptosis. Methuosis was initially defined in glioblastoma cells after ectopic expression of activated Ras, but recent reports have described small molecules that can induce the features of methuosis in a broad spectrum of cancer cells, including those that are resistant to conventional apoptosis-inducing drugs. This review summarizes the available information about the distinguishing morphological characteristics and underlying mechanisms of methuosis. We compare and contrast methuosis with other cytopathological conditions in which accumulation of clear cytoplasmic vacuoles is a prominent feature. Finally, we highlight key questions that need to be answered to determine whether methuosis truly represents a unique form of regulated cell death

A Scan-to-BIM Approach for the Management of Two Arab-Norman Churches in Palermo (Italy)

The paper shows the results of the research activities carried out by the Department of Engineering at the University of Palermo (Italy), which assessed the application of the Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM) methodology through a Scan-to-BIM approach to two local churches belonging to the medieval period. This project was motivated by a renewed interest from the city administrators towards the conservation of cultural heritage dating back to the Arab-Norman domination in Sicily since one of the two buildings was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list in 2015. The morpho-typological style of the churches has been acquired by high-detailed 3D surveys, which provided the base for two HBIM models suited to render the peculiarity of these buildings at their best. The BIM environment allowed both the geometrical representation of all the architectural elements and their further enrichment with the integration of non-geometric data and semantic signification through a knowledge-based workflow. This process led to a hierarchical organization of two high-accuracy digital replicas and to the creation of a database containing all of the architectural items typical of the Arab-Norman style, aimed to share the awareness of its conservation and to match all of the Cultural Heritage requirements. In the future, the features in this database can be shared with other specialists as reference objects for further studies on cultural heritage sites in the UNESCO list

Linguistic prosody and comprehension of idioms and proverbs in subjects of school age

A crucial component of language is represented by the prosodic system because it provides essential elements to speaker about how a sentence should be interpreted or intended (Fodor, 2002). Increasing interest from researchers also relates to the understanding of figurative language (Levorato, & Cacciari, 2002). In the figures of speech that the speaker wants the listener intends something more or different than what is explicitly stated (Glucksberg, 2001).. In particular, prosodic intonation is crucial in the resolution of syntactic ambiguity and structural features that constitute the complex messages, such as idioms and proverbs. A crucial component of language, therefore, is represented by the prosodic system because it provides essential elements to talking about how a sentence should be interpreted or understood . The ability to relate to metalinguistic understanding the cognitive processes that allow you to reflect on language and manipulate its characteristics. These capabilities are essential to recognize and resolve the ambiguities of a complex message, you can control and plan the way we produce and understand language (Levorato, 2007). The study demonstrates that an understanding prosodic correlates with the understanding of idioms and proverbs, which are crucial for the achievement of metalinguistic awareness, are influenced by the level of schooling and socio-cultural