Collegiate Athletes With Diabetes: Baseline Medical Comorbidities and Preseason Concussion Testing Performance.

CONTEXT: People with diabetes mellitus (DM) are at increased risk for adverse health events and complications throughout their lifetime. Whether DM significantly affects collegiate athletes' concussion baseline testing performance remains unclear. OBJECTIVES: To (1) describe the prevalence of DM and associated comorbidities and (2) compare concussion baseline testing performance between student-athletes with DM and student-athletes without DM (NoDM). DESIGN: Retrospective, cross-sectional study. SETTING: University. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Using the Concussion, Assessment, Research and Education (CARE) Consortium research database, we matched athletes with self-reported DM (N = 229) by institution, sex, age, sport, position, testing year, and concussion history to athletes with NoDM (N = 229; total sample mean age = 19.6 ± 1.4 years, women = 42%). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Descriptive statistics and χ2 tests of independence with subsequent odds ratios were calculated. Independent-samples t tests compared baseline symptoms, neurocognitive testing, and balance performance between athletes with DM and athletes with NoDM. Effect sizes were determined for significant group differences. RESULTS: At baseline, athletes with DM had higher rates of self-reported pre-existing balance disorders, sleep disorders, seizure disorders, motion sickness, learning disorders, vision and hearing problems, psychiatric disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, nonmigraine headaches, and meningitis than athletes with NoDM (P values < .05). We found balance differences between groups (P = .032, Cohen d = 0.17) such that, on average, athletes with DM had 1 additional error on the Balance Error Scoring System (DM = 13.4 ± 6.5; NoDM = 12.1 ± 5.9). No other comparisons yielded significant results. CONCLUSIONS: Although athletes with DM had high rates of self-reported balance disorders, sleep disorders, seizures, and meningitis, their baseline neurocognitive testing results were largely identical to those of athletes with NoDM. Our findings suggested that nonclinically meaningful differences were present in concussion baseline balance testing but no significant differences were noted in cognitive testing; however, the effect of DM on concussion recovery remains unknown.

Dentinal Tubule Disinfection with Propolis & Two Extracts of Azadirachta indica Against Candida albicans Biofilm Formed on Tooth Substrate.

AIM: This study evaluates the disinfection of dentinal tubules using Propolis, Azadirachta indica (alcoholic and aqueous extracts), 2% chlorhexidine gel and calcium hydroxide against Candida albicans biofilm formed on tooth substrate. MATERIALS & METHOD: One hundred and five human teeth were infected with Candida albicans for 2 days. Samples were divided into 7 groups. Group I- Propolis, Group II- Alcoholic extract of Azadirachta indica, Group III- Aqueous extract of Azadirachta indica, Group IV- 2% Chlorhexidine, Group V- Calcium hydroxide, Group VI- Ethanol and Group VII- Saline (negative control). At the end of 1,3 and 5 days, the antimicrobial efficacy of medicaments against Candida albicans was assessed at the depths of 200 µm and 400 µm. RESULTS: The overall percentage inhibition of fungal growth (at 200 µm and 400 µm depth) was 99.2% with 2% chlorhexidine gel. There was no statistical difference between propolis, alcoholic extract of Azadirachta indica (neem) and 2% chlorhexidine. CONCLUSION: Propolis and alcoholic extract of Azadirachta indica performed equally well as that of 2% Chlorhexidine.

Pulmonary embolism after shoulder arthroscopy.

Deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism events are common complications following lower-extremity orthopedic surgery. Conversely, deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism events are rare following upper-extremity surgery, specifically shoulder arthroscopy. The purpose of this article is to emphasize the necessity of performing a thorough preoperative workup to uncover possible risk factors for deep venous thrombosis/pulmonary embolism despite the rare occurrence of developing a pulmonary embolism following shoulder arthroscopy. This article describes 3 patients who developed a nonfatal pulmonary embolism following elective shoulder arthroscopy. All 3 surgeries were performed with the patient in the lateral decubitus position. No complications were noted intraoperatively. Symptoms appeared at postoperative days 14, 29, and 2, respectively. One patient demonstrated no risk factors for developing a pulmonary embolism, whereas the other 2 exhibited risk factors for deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary embolism is a rare but serious complication following shoulder arthroscopy. Shoulder surgeons should be aware of the presenting signs and symptoms. Mechanical or chemical prophylaxis should be administered for patients with identified coagulopathic risk factors. Although it is rare for patients to develop a pulmonary embolism following upper-extremity shoulder arthroscopy, orthopedic surgeons must be aware of the possibility that a pulmonary embolism can occur after elective, uncomplicated shoulder arthroscopy. Surgeons should consider prophylactic measures for patients with identified coagulopathy disorders.

Accelerating Correlated Quantum Chemistry Calculations Using Graphical Processing Units and a Mixed Precision Matrix Multiplication Library.

Two new tools for the acceleration of computational chemistry codes using graphical processing units (GPUs) are presented. First, we propose a general black-box approach for the efficient GPU acceleration of matrix-matrix multiplications where the matrix size is too large for the whole computation to be held in the GPU's onboard memory. Second, we show how to improve the accuracy of matrix multiplications when using only single-precision GPU devices by proposing a heterogeneous computing model, whereby single- and double-precision operations are evaluated in a mixed fashion on the GPU and central processing unit, respectively. The utility of the library is illustrated for quantum chemistry with application to the acceleration of resolution-of-the-identity second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory calculations for molecules, which we were previously unable to treat. In particular, for the 168-atom valinomycin molecule in a cc-pVDZ basis set, we observed speedups of 13.8, 7.8, and 10.1 times for single-, double- and mixed-precision general matrix multiply (SGEMM, DGEMM, and MGEMM), respectively. The corresponding errors in the correlation energy were reduced from -10.0 to -1.2 kcal mol(-1) for SGEMM and MGEMM, respectively, while higher accuracy can be easily achieved with a different choice of cutoff parameter.