Evaluation of Block Allograft Efficacy in Lateral Alveolar Ridge Augmentation.

AIM: The research was performed for the clinical and computerized tomography (CT) assessment of cortico-cancellous block allograft in the reconstruction of lateral alveolar ridge width deficiency prior to placement of dental implants. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten patients who had atrophic mandibular ridge necessitating bone augmentation prior to implant placement were randomly selected, and corticocancellous block allografts were used to augment the lateral ridge deficiency. The grafted site was assessed clinically and with CT preoperatively and 6 months postoperatively. Surgical re-entry was done after 6 months for dental implant placement. RESULTS: During the 6-month evaluation period, all the block allografts had integrated well with the host tissue. Clinically, all the grafts were found to be firm in consistency, well-incorporated, and vascularized. Both the clinical and CT measurements showed increase in bone width. The dental implants had good primary stability. CONCLUSION: Bone-block allografts can be employed as a marked graft material for the management of lateral ridge defects. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: During precise and accurate surgical methods, this type of bone graft can be safely used in regions of implant placement as a convenient alternative to autogenous grafts.

Effect of Nicotine on the Thickness of Gingiva: A Pilot Study.

INTRODUCTION: Gingival thickness plays a very important role in framing the protocol in various dental treatments such as implantology, prosthodontics, and more importantly in periodontics. During periodontal management, it is important to consider the gingival thickness of the patient, which can result in more satisfactory treatment outcomes. Smoking has its effect on periodontium, affecting the physical and functional properties. Assessing the relation between these two entities is becoming important. This clinical study is sought to compare the thickness of gingiva in systemically healthy smokers and nonsmokers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 180 periodontally healthy patients were divided into smokers and nonsmokers, and subdivided into Group 1 (18-25 years), Group 2 (26-39 years), and Group 3 (>40 years). Gingival thickness was assessed 6 mm from the gingival margin in the midbuccal area between maxillary central and lateral incisor. Statistical analysis was performed to assess the difference in gingival thickness among smokers and nonsmokers and correlated with age. RESULTS: The results showed the presence of changes in gingival thickness for all the age groups. But, a significant P value was not obtained for the age groups 18-25 and 26-39 years. In >40 years of age group, there was a statistically significant change in the P value (0.008) of the mean and standard deviation in smokers and nonsmokers ( significance: P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: On the basis of the results of this study, gingival thickness was decreased with age among smokers and nonsmokers. This study also proved that smoking has a negative influence on the gingival thickness.

The accuracy vs. coverage trade-off in patient-facing diagnosis models.

A third of adults in America use the Internet to diagnose medical concerns, and online symptom checkers are increasingly part of this process. These tools are powered by diagnosis models similar to clinical decision support systems, with the primary difference being the coverage of symptoms and diagnoses. To be useful to patients and physicians, these models must have high accuracy while covering a meaningful space of symptoms and diagnoses. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first in studying the trade-off between the coverage of the model and its performance for diagnosis. To this end, we learn diagnosis models with different coverage from EHR data. We find a 1% drop in top-3 accuracy for every 10 diseases added to the coverage. We also observe that complexity for these models does not affect performance, with linear models performing as well as neural networks.

Fibrotic encapsulation of orthodontic appliance in palate.

Iatrogenic trauma though not serious is very common in dental practice. Orthodontic treatment can inflict such injuries as they are prolonged over a long period of time. Ill-fabricated orthodontic appliances, such as wires and brackets, or the patients' habits such as application of constant pressure over the appliance can traumatize the adjacent oral soft tissues. In rare cases, these appliances can get embedded into the mucosa and gingival tissues. This case report describes one such case of iatrogenic trauma to the palatal mucosa due to entrapment of a tongue spike appliance and its surgical management.

Efficacy of combination therapy using anorganic bovine bone graft with resorbable GTR membrane vs. open flap debridement alone in the management of grade II furcation defects in mandibular molars - A comparative study.

CONTEXT: Invasion of the bifurcation and trifurcation of the multi-rooted teeth resulting in furcation involvement is one of the serious complications of periodontitis. AIM: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of combination therapy using anorganic bovine bone graft and resorbable guided tissue regeneration (GTR) membrane versus open flap debridement alone in the management of Grade II furcation defects in mandibular molars. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study included a total number of 20 sites in 10 patients with bilateral mandibular furcation defects, out of which 10 sites were treated as test group and 10 as control group. The test group was treated with combination therapy and the control group with open flap debridement alone. The parameters were recorded on 0 day (baseline), 90th day, and 180th day, which included vertical probing depth and horizontal probing depth of the furcation defect, clinical attachment level, and defect fill. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Mean and standard deviation were calculated for different variables in each study group at different time points. Mean values were compared by using Wilcoxon signed ranks test, after adjusting the P values for multiple comparison by using Bonferroni correction method. RESULTS: Both the test and control groups showed a definitive improvement in clinical parameters, which was statistically significant. On comparison, the vertical probing depth showed significant reduction in the test group with a mean reduction of 3.1 ± 0.7 mm, when compared to the control group which showed a mean reduction of 1.5 ± 0.5 mm. The horizontal probing depth of furcation defects was also significantly reduced in the test group with a mean reduction of 2.2 ± 0.6 mm, when compared to the control group in which the mean reduction was 0.9 ± 0.3 mm. There was also significant gain in attachment level in the test group which showed a mean gain of 3.2 ± 0.6 mm, when compared to the control group which showed a gain of 1.2 ± 0.6 mm. Radiographic defect fill was found to be more in the test group with a mean gain of 2.0 ± 0.1 mm, when compared to the control group which showed a defect fill of 0.2 ± 0.1 mm. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study demonstrated that the combined use of anorganic bovine bone graft and resorbable GTR membrane is effective than open flap debridement alone in the treatment of mandibular grade II furcation defects.

Development and Evaluation of an iPad App for Measuring the Cost of a Nutritious Diet.

BACKGROUND: Monitoring food costs informs governments of the affordability of healthy diets. Many countries have adopted a standardized healthy food basket. The Victorian Healthy Food Basket contains 44 food items necessary to meet the nutritional requirements of four different Australian family types for a fortnight. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to describe the development of a new iPad app as core to the implementation of the Victorian Healthy Food Basket. The app significantly automates the data collection. We evaluate if the new technology enhanced the quality and efficacy of the research. METHODS: Time taken for data collection and entry was recorded. Semi-structured evaluative interviews were conducted with five field workers during the pilot of the iPad app. Field workers were familiar with previous manual data collection methods. Qualitative process evaluation data was summarized against key evaluation questions. RESULTS: Field workers reported that using the iPad for data collection resulted in increased data accuracy, time savings, and efficient data management, and was preferred over manual collection. CONCLUSIONS: Portable digital devices may be considered to improve and extend data collection in the field of food cost monitoring.

Interferome v2.0: an updated database of annotated interferon-regulated genes.

Interferome v2.0 (http://interferome.its.monash.edu.au/interferome/) is an update of an earlier version of the Interferome DB published in the 2009 NAR database edition. Vastly improved computational infrastructure now enables more complex and faster queries, and supports more data sets from types I, II and III interferon (IFN)-treated cells, mice or humans. Quantitative, MIAME compliant data are collected, subjected to thorough, standardized, quantitative and statistical analyses and then significant changes in gene expression are uploaded. Comprehensive manual collection of metadata in v2.0 allows flexible, detailed search capacity including the parameters: range of -fold change, IFN type, concentration and time, and cell/tissue type. There is no limit to the number of genes that can be used to search the database in a single query. Secondary analysis such as gene ontology, regulatory factors, chromosomal location or tissue expression plots of IFN-regulated genes (IRGs) can be performed in Interferome v2.0, or data can be downloaded in convenient text formats compatible with common secondary analysis programs. Given the importance of IFN to innate immune responses in infectious, inflammatory diseases and cancer, this upgrade of the Interferome to version 2.0 will facilitate the identification of gene signatures of importance in the pathogenesis of these diseases.

The proteome browser web portal.

In 2010, the Human Proteome Organization launched the Human Proteome Project (HPP), aimed at identifying and characterizing the proteome of the human body. To support complete coverage, one arm of the project will take a gene- or chromosomal-centric strategy (C-HPP) aimed at identifying at least one protein product from each protein-coding gene. Despite multiple large international biological databases housing genomic and protein data, there is currently no single system that integrates updated pertinent information from each of these data repositories and assembles the information into a searchable format suitable for the type of global proteomics effort proposed by the C-HPP. We have undertaken the goal of producing a data integration and analysis software system and browser for the C-HPP effort and of making data collections from this resource discoverable through metadata repositories, such as Australian National Data Service's Research Data Australia. Here we present our vision and progress toward the goal of developing a comprehensive data integration and analysis software tool that provides a snapshot of currently available proteomic related knowledge around each gene product, which will ultimately assist in analyzing biological function and the study of human physiology in health and disease.

Epitomic location recognition.

This paper presents a novel method for location recognition, which exploits an epitomic representation to achieve both high efficiency and good generalization. A generative model based on epitomic image analysis captures the appearance and geometric structure of an environment while allowing for variations due to motion, occlusions, and non-Lambertian effects. The ability to model translation and scale invariance together with the fusion of diverse visual features yields enhanced generalization with economical training. Experiments on both existing and new labeled image databases result in recognition accuracy superior to state of the art with real-time computational performance.

Comparative proteomics profiling of a phospholamban mutant mouse model of dilated cardiomyopathy reveals progressive intracellular stress responses.

Defective mobilization of Ca2+ by cardiomyocytes can lead to cardiac insufficiency, but the causative mechanisms leading to congestive heart failure (HF) remain unclear. In the present study we performed exhaustive global proteomics surveys of cardiac ventricle isolated from a mouse model of cardiomyopathy overexpressing a phospholamban mutant, R9C (PLN-R9C), and exhibiting impaired Ca2+ handling and death at 24 weeks and compared them with normal control littermates. The relative expression patterns of 6190 high confidence proteins were monitored by shotgun tandem mass spectrometry at 8, 16, and 24 weeks of disease progression. Significant differential abundance of 593 proteins was detected. These proteins mapped to select biological pathways such as endoplasmic reticulum stress response, cytoskeletal remodeling, and apoptosis and included known biomarkers of HF (e.g. brain natriuretic peptide/atrial natriuretic factor and angiotensin-converting enzyme) and other indicators of presymptomatic functional impairment. These altered proteomic profiles were concordant with cognate mRNA patterns recorded in parallel using high density mRNA microarrays, and top candidates were validated by RT-PCR and Western blotting. Mapping of our highest ranked proteins against a human diseased explant and to available data sets indicated that many of these proteins could serve as markers of disease. Indeed we showed that several of these proteins are detectable in mouse and human plasma and display differential abundance in the plasma of diseased mice and affected patients. These results offer a systems-wide perspective of the dynamic maladaptions associated with impaired Ca2+ homeostasis that perturb myocyte function and ultimately converge to cause HF.

Bayesian association of haplotypes and non-genetic factors to regulatory and phenotypic variation in human populations.

MOTIVATION: With the recent availability of large-scale data sets profiling single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and quantitative traits data across different human subpopulations, there has been much attention directed towards discovering patterns of genetic variation and their connection to gene regulation and the onset/progression of disease. While previous work has focused primarily on correlating individual SNP markers with gene expression and disease, it has been suggested that using haplotype blocks instead of individual markers can significantly increase statistical power. RESULTS: We present BlockMapper, a probabilistic generative model for genotype data and quantitative traits data, such as gene expression or phenotype measurements. BlockMapper discovers the block structure of genotype data and associates these inferred blocks to patterns of variation in quantitative traits data, whilst accounting for non-genetic factors. Our model achieves high accuracy for predicting Crohn's disease phenotype in Chromosome 5q31 and reveals novel cis-associations between two haplotype blocks in the ENm006 genomic region and GDI1, a gene implicated in X-linked mental retardation. Our results underscore the importance of accounting for the influence of large sets of SNPs on patterns of regulatory/phenotypic variation and represent a step towards an understanding of human genetic variation.

Integrated proteomic and transcriptomic profiling of mouse lung development and Nmyc target genes.

Although microarray analysis has provided information regarding the dynamics of gene expression during development of the mouse lung, no extensive correlations have been made to the levels of corresponding protein products. Here, we present a global survey of protein expression during mouse lung organogenesis from embryonic day E13.5 until adulthood using gel-free two-dimensional liquid chromatography coupled to shotgun tandem mass spectrometry (MudPIT). Mathematical modeling of the proteomic profiles with parallel DNA microarray data identified large groups of gene products with statistically significant correlation or divergence in coregulation of protein and transcript levels during lung development. We also present an integrative analysis of mRNA and protein expression in Nmyc loss- and gain-of-function mutants. This revealed a set of 90 positively and negatively regulated putative target genes. These targets are evidence that Nmyc is a regulator of genes involved in mRNA processing and a repressor of the imprinted gene Igf2r in the developing lung.

Global survey of organ and organelle protein expression in mouse: combined proteomic and transcriptomic profiling.

Organs and organelles represent core biological systems in mammals, but the diversity in protein composition remains unclear. Here, we combine subcellular fractionation with exhaustive tandem mass spectrometry-based shotgun sequencing to examine the protein content of four major organellar compartments (cytosol, membranes [microsomes], mitochondria, and nuclei) in six organs (brain, heart, kidney, liver, lung, and placenta) of the laboratory mouse, Mus musculus. Using rigorous statistical filtering and machine-learning methods, the subcellular localization of 3274 of the 4768 proteins identified was determined with high confidence, including 1503 previously uncharacterized factors, while tissue selectivity was evaluated by comparison to previously reported mRNA expression patterns. This molecular compendium, fully accessible via a searchable web-browser interface, serves as a reliable reference of the expressed tissue and organelle proteomes of a leading model mammal.