Measuring Hydraulic Conductivity to Wilting Point Using Polymer Tensiometers in an Evaporation Experiment

The polymer tensiometer is a novel instrument to measure soil water pressure heads from saturation to permanent wilting conditions. We used tensiometers of this type in an experiment to determine the hydraulic properties of evaporating soil samples in the laboratory. Relative errors in the hydraulic conductivity function in the wet part were high due to the relatively low accuracy of the pressure transducers, resulting in a large uncertainty in the hydraulic gradient and therefore in the calculated hydraulic conductivity. In the dry part, the error related to this accuracy was on the same order of magnitude as the error related to balance accuracy. Therefore, the method can be assumed adequate for measuring soil hydraulic properties except under very wet conditions. In our experiments, relative error and bias increased significantly at pressure heads less negative than -1 m.

Hand and ultrasonic instrumentation for orthograde root canal treatment of permanent teeth

Root canal treatment is a frequently performed dental procedure and is carried out on teeth in which irreversible pulpitis has led to necrosis of the dental pulp. Removal of the necrotic tissue remnants and cleaning and shaping of the root canal are important phases of root canal treatment. Treatment options include the use of hand and rotary instruments and methods using ultrasonic or sonic equipment. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this systematic review of randomized controlled trials were to determine the relative clinical effectiveness of hand instrumentation versus ultrasonic instrumentation alone or in conjunction with hand instrumentation for orthograde root canal treatment of permanent teeth. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The search strategy retrieved 226 references from the Cochrane Oral Health Group Trials Register (7), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (12), MEDLINE (192), EMBASE (8) and LILACS (7). No language restriction was applied. The last electronic search was conducted on December 13th, 2007. Screening of eligible studies was conducted in duplicate and independently. RESULTS: Results were to be expressed as fixed-effect or random-effects models using mean differences for continuous outcomes and risk ratios for dichotomous outcomes with 95% confdence intervals. Heterogeneity was to be investigated including both clinical and methodological factors. No eligible randomized controlled trials were identifed. CONCLUSIONS: This review illustrates the current lack of published or ongoing randomized controlled trials and the unavailability of high-level evidence based on clinically relevant outcomes referring to the effectiveness of ultrasonic instrumentation used alone or as an adjunct to hand instrumentation for orthograde root canal treatment. In the absence of reliable research-based evidence, clinicians should base their decisions on clinical experience, individual circumstances and in conjunction with patients' preferences where appropriate. Future randomized controlled trials might focus more closely on evaluating the effectiveness of combinations of these interventions with an emphasis on not only clinically relevant, but also patient-centered outcomes.

Analysis of contamination of endodontic absorbent paper points

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to assess the contamination status of endodontic absorbent paper points from sterilized or not sterilized commercial packs, as well as paper points exposed to the dental office environment. METHODS: Twenty absorbent paper points were evaluated for contamination status packed under different conditions: commercial/sterilized pack, commercial/non-sterilized pack, exposed to the clinical environment, and intentionally contaminated (positive control). Contamination was determined qualitatively and quantitatively by aerobiosis, capnophilic growth, and pour plate. The Petri dishes were analyzed with a colony counter, and the results were expressed as colony-forming units. The data were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis test (α=0.05). RESULTS: No difference in colony-forming units was found among the groups of endodontic absorbent paper points. All groups were contaminated by fungi and bacteria. CONCLUSION: It can be concluded that the sterilization of absorbent endodontic paper points before clinical use should be recommended regardless of commercial presentation

Microbiological indicators for the assessment of performance in the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) system in meat lasagna production

The HACCP system is being increasingly used to ensure food safety. This study investigated the validation of the control measures technique in order to establish performance indicators of this HACCP system in the manufacturing process of Lasagna Bolognese (meat lasagna). Samples were collected along the manufacturing process as a whole, before and after the CCPs. The following microorganism s indicator (MIs) was assessed: total mesophile and faecal coliform counts. The same MIs were analyzed in the final product, as well as, the microbiological standards required by the current legislation. A significant reduction in the total mesophile count was observed after cooking (p < 0.001). After storage, there was a numerical, however non-significant change in the MI count. Faecal coliform counts were also significantly reduced (p < 0.001) after cooking. We were able to demonstrate that the HACCP system allowed us to meet the standards set by both, the company and the Brazilian regulations, proved by the reduction in the established indicators

Revised criteria for the assessment and interpretation of occlusal deviations in the deciduous dentition: a public health perspective

Dados secundários de uma amostra aleatória de pré-escolares brasileiros foram analisados com o objetivo de avaliar a prevalência de desvios oclusais na dentição decídua, que podem adversamente afetar a dentição permanente, com base em critérios revisados. Overjet e overbite apresentaram pontos de corte descritos na literatura para a remoção dos casos de má oclusão leve. Overjet > 3mm e overbite > 3mm afetaram 16% e 7% das crianças, respectivamente. No plano sagital foram consideradas apenas as taxas de desvios bilaterais: relação molar em degrau distal (9,7%) e mesial (6,0%); relação dos caninos Classe 2 (11,0%) e Classe 3 (2,9%). Para os demais desvios não foram relatados na literatura critérios de severidade. Valores brutos de mordida aberta anterior (27,9%); mordida cruzada posterior (11,3%); apinhamento dentário maxilar (7,0%) e mandibular (11,3%) foram registrados. A avaliação da má oclusão na dentição decídua deve considerar a severidade dos desvios para a identificação de casos e não-casos de relevância em saúde pública. Enfatiza-se a necessidade de maior consenso e melhora na interpretação de dados epidemiológicos sobre a má oclusão nesse estágio de desenvolvimento

A simplified minimal residual disease polymerase chain reaction method at early treatment points can stratify children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia into good and poor outcome groups

Background Minimal residual disease is an important independent prognostic factor in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The classical detection methods such as multiparameter flow cytometry and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis are expensive, time-consuming and complex, and require considerable technical expertise. Design and Methods We analyzed 229 consecutive children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated according to the GBTLI-99 protocol at three different Brazilian centers. Minimal residual disease was analyzed in bone marrow samples at diagnosis and on days 14 and 28 by conventional homo/heteroduplex polymerase chain reaction using a simplified approach with consensus primers for IG and TCR gene rearrangements. Results At least one marker was detected by polymerase chain reaction in 96.4%, of the patients. By combining the minimal residual disease results obtained on days 14 and 28, three different prognostic groups were identified: minimal residual disease negative on days 14 and 28, positive on day 14/negative on day 28, and positive on both. Five-year event-free survival rates were 85%, 75.6%,, and 27.8%, respectively (p<0.0001). The same pattern of stratification held true for the group of intensively treated children. When analyzed in other subgroups of patients such as those at standard and high risk at diagnosis, those with positive B-derived CD10, patients positive for the TEL/AML1 transcript, and patients in morphological remission on a day 28 marrow, the event-free survival rate was found to be significantly lower in patients with positive minimal residual disease on day 28. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the detection of minimal residual disease on day 28 is the most significant prognostic factor. Conclusions This simplified strategy for detection of minimal residual disease was feasible, reproducible, cheaper and simpler when compared with other methods, and allowed powerful discrimination between children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with a good and poor outcome.

FLOWS WITHOUT WANDERING POINTS ON COMPACT CONNECTED SURFACES

Given a compact 2 dimensional manifold M we classify all continuous flows phi without wandering points on M. This classification is performed by finding finitely many pairwise disjoint open phi-invariant subsets {U(1), U(2), ..., U(n)} of M such that U(i=1)(n) (U(i)) over bar = M and each U(i) is either a suspension of an interval exchange transformation, or a maximal open cylinder made up of closed trajectories of phi.

Character of magnetic excitations in a quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet near the quantum critical points: Impact on magnetoacoustic properties

We report results of magnetoacoustic studies in the quantum spin-chain magnet NiCl(2)-4SC(NH(2))(2) (DTN) having a field-induced ordered antiferromagnetic (AF) phase. In the vicinity of the quantum critical points (QCPs) the acoustic c(33) mode manifests a pronounced softening accompanied by energy dissipation of the sound wave. The acoustic anomalies are traced up to T > T(N), where the thermodynamic properties are determined by fermionic magnetic excitations, the ""hallmark"" of one-dimensional (1D) spin chains. On the other hand, as established in earlier studies, the AF phase in DTN is governed by bosonic magnetic excitations. Our results suggest the presence of a crossover from a 1D fermionic to a three-dimensional bosonic character of the magnetic excitations in DTN in the vicinity of the QCPs.

Precise determination of quantum critical points by the violation of the entropic area law

Finite-size scaling analysis turns out to be a powerful tool to calculate the phase diagram as well as the critical properties of two-dimensional classical statistical mechanics models and quantum Hamiltonians in one dimension. The most used method to locate quantum critical points is the so-called crossing method, where the estimates are obtained by comparing the mass gaps of two distinct lattice sizes. The success of this method is due to its simplicity and the ability to provide accurate results even considering relatively small lattice sizes. In this paper, we introduce an estimator that locates quantum critical points by exploring the known distinct behavior of the entanglement entropy in critical and noncritical systems. As a benchmark test, we use this new estimator to locate the critical point of the quantum Ising chain and the critical line of the spin-1 Blume-Capel quantum chain. The tricritical point of this last model is also obtained. Comparison with the standard crossing method is also presented. The method we propose is simple to implement in practice, particularly in density matrix renormalization group calculations, and provides us, like the crossing method, amazingly accurate results for quite small lattice sizes. Our applications show that the proposed method has several advantages, as compared with the standard crossing method, and we believe it will become popular in future numerical studies.

Permanent Genetic Resources added to Molecular Ecology Resources Database 1 August 2010-30 September 2010

This article documents the addition of 229 microsatellite marker loci to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Acacia auriculiformis x Acacia mangium hybrid, Alabama argillacea, Anoplopoma fimbria, Aplochiton zebra, Brevicoryne brassicae, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, Bucorvus leadbeateri, Delphacodes detecta, Tumidagena minuta, Dictyostelium giganteum, Echinogammarus berilloni, Epimedium sagittatum, Fraxinus excelsior, Labeo chrysophekadion, Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi, Paratrechina longicornis, Phaeocystis antarctica, Pinus roxburghii and Potamilus capax. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Acacia peregrinalis, Acacia crassicarpa, Bruguiera cylindrica, Delphacodes detecta, Tumidagena minuta, Dictyostelium macrocephalum, Dictyostelium discoideum, Dictyostelium purpureum, Dictyostelium mucoroides, Dictyostelium rosarium, Polysphondylium pallidum, Epimedium brevicornum, Epimedium koreanum, Epimedium pubescens, Epimedium wushanese and Fraxinus angustifolia.

Parametric correlation functions to model the structure of permanent environmental (co)variances in milk yield random regression models

The objective of the present study was to estimate milk yield genetic parameters applying random regression models and parametric correlation functions combined with a variance function to model animal permanent environmental effects. A total of 152,145 test-day milk yields from 7,317 first lactations of Holstein cows belonging to herds located in the southeastern region of Brazil were analyzed. Test-day milk yields were divided into 44 weekly classes of days in milk. Contemporary groups were defined by herd-test-day comprising a total of 2,539 classes. The model included direct additive genetic, permanent environmental, and residual random effects. The following fixed effects were considered: contemporary group, age of cow at calving (linear and quadratic regressions), and the population average lactation curve modeled by fourth-order orthogonal Legendre polynomial. Additive genetic effects were modeled by random regression on orthogonal Legendre polynomials of days in milk, whereas permanent environmental effects were estimated using a stationary or nonstationary parametric correlation function combined with a variance function of different orders. The structure of residual variances was modeled using a step function containing 6 variance classes. The genetic parameter estimates obtained with the model using a stationary correlation function associated with a variance function to model permanent environmental effects were similar to those obtained with models employing orthogonal Legendre polynomials for the same effect. A model using a sixth-order polynomial for additive effects and a stationary parametric correlation function associated with a seventh-order variance function to model permanent environmental effects would be sufficient for data fitting.

Conservation of dual-targeted proteins in Arabidopsis and rice points to a similar pattern of gene-family evolution

Gene duplication followed by acquisition of specific targeting information and dual targeting were evolutionary strategies enabling organelles to cope with overlapping functions. We examined the evolutionary trend of dual-targeted single-gene products in Arabidopsis and rice genomes. The number of paralogous proteins encoded by gene families and the dual-targeted orthologous proteins were analysed. The number of dual-targeted proteins and the corresponding gene-family sizes were similar in Arabidopsis and rice irrespective of genome sizes. We show that dual targeting of methionine aminopeptidase, monodehydroascorbate reductase, glutamyl-tRNA synthetase, and tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase was maintained despite occurrence of whole-genome duplications in Arabidopsis and rice as well as a polyploidization followed by a diploidization event (gene loss) in the latter.

Correlation between macular and retinal nerve fibre layer Fourier-domain OCT measurements and visual field loss in chiasmal compression

Purpose The aim of this study was to test the correlation between Fourier-domain (FD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) macular and retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) thickness and visual field (VF) loss on standard automated perimetry (SAP) in chiasmal compression. Methods A total of 35 eyes with permanent temporal VF defects and 35 controls underwent SAP and FD-OCT (3D OCT-1000; Topcon Corp.) examinations. Macular thickness measurements were averaged for the central area and for each quadrant and half of that area, whereas RNFL thickness was determined for six sectors around the optic disc. VF loss was estimated in six sectors of the VF and in the central 16 test points in the VF. The correlation between VF loss and OCT measurements was tested with Spearman`s correlation coefficients and with linear regression analysis. Results Macular and RNFL thickness parameters correlated strongly with SAP VF loss. Correlations were generally stronger between VF loss and quadrantic or hemianopic macular thickness than with sectoral RNFL thickness. For the macular parameters, we observed the strongest correlation between macular thickness in the inferonasal quadrant and VF loss in the superior temporal central quadrant (rho=0.78; P<0.001) whereas for the RNFL parameters the strongest correlation was observed between the superonasal optic disc sector and the central temporal VF defect (rho=0.60; P<0.001).

Neutrophils recruitment during sepsis: Critical points and crossroads

The mechanisms that initiate an inflammatory systemic response to a bacterial infection lead to a high mortality and constitute the first cause of death in Critical Care Units (ICU`s). Sepsis is a poorly understood disease and despite life support techniques and the administration of antibiotics, not much more can be done to improve its diagnosis and treatment. The present article has as main objective to discuss the role of neutrophils recruitment in sepsis, dissecting the molecular mechanisms implicated in this complex process and its importance to the pathogenesis of this outstanding cause of death.

Clinical End Points and Response Criteria in Mycosis Fungoides and Sezary Syndrome: A Consensus Statement of the International Society for Cutaneous Lymphomas, the United States Cutaneous Lymphoma Consortium, and the Cutaneous Lymphoma Task Force of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer

Mycosis fungoides (MF) and Sezary syndrome (SS), the major forms of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, have unique characteristics that distinguish them from other types of non-Hodgkin`s lymphomas. Clinical trials in MF/SS have suffered from a lack of standardization in evaluation, staging, assessment, end points, and response criteria. Recently defined criteria for the diagnosis of early MF, guidelines for initial evaluation, and revised staging and classification criteria for MF and SS now offer the potential for uniform staging of patients enrolled in clinical trials for MF/SS. This article presents consensus recommendations for the general conduct of clinical trials of patients with MF/SS as well as methods for standardized assessment of potential disease manifestations in skin, lymph nodes, blood, and visceral organs, and definition of end points and response criteria. These guidelines should facilitate collaboration among investigators and collation of data from sponsor-generated or investigator-initiated clinical trials involving patients with MF or SS. J Clin Oncol 29:2598-2607. (C) 2011 by American Society of Clinical Oncology