Effect of lab procedures and ultrasonic bath cleaning on customized implant abutment pollution: An in vitro study.

AIM: The aim of this study was to validate the effectiveness of a simplified ultrasonic cleaning protocol to clean customized abutments. The second purpose was to investigate the percentage of pollutants on customized abutments delivered by the implants company and the additional effect of dental laboratory manipulations. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four customized abutments were divided in two groups, 12 returning from the implant company and 12 others returning from the dental laboratory. In each group, there were 6 zirconia (Zr02) abutments and 6 titanium (Ti) abutments. For each conditions, half of the samples were clean with the experimental protocol and the other were left as delivered by the company. The two steps cleaning protocol consisted of mechanical treatment with a sterile compress soaked in a detergent over the transgingival part of the abutment followed by 3 successive ultrasound baths for 2 min/bath. The presence of pollutants was quantified by scanning electron microscopy. RESULTS: The suggested cleaning method allowed to significantly decrease the quantity of pollutants (p=0.0006). The abutments returning from the dental laboratory were significantly more polluted than those coming directly from the implant company (p=0.0043). The cleaning effect was highly significant in both groups (p<0.0001). The quantity of pollutants before cleaning were similar in the titanium and in the zirconia groups and the cleaning effect was highly significant in both groups (p=0.0009). CONCLUSION: The tested cleaning protocol was successful on the customized abutments from each group.

The CTSA Consortium's Catalog of Assets for Translational and Clinical Health Research (CATCHR).

The 61 CTSA Consortium sites are home to valuable programs and infrastructure supporting translational science and all are charged with ensuring that such investments translate quickly to improved clinical care. Catalog of Assets for Translational and Clinical Health Research (CATCHR) is the Consortium's effort to collect and make available information on programs and resources to maximize efficiency and facilitate collaborations. By capturing information on a broad range of assets supporting the entire clinical and translational research spectrum, CATCHR aims to provide the necessary infrastructure and processes to establish and maintain an open-access, searchable database of consortium resources to support multisite clinical and translational research studies. Data are collected using rigorous, defined methods, with the resulting information made visible through an integrated, searchable Web-based tool. Additional easy-to-use Web tools assist resource owners in validating and updating resource information over time. In this paper, we discuss the design and scope of the project, data collection methods, current results, and future plans for development and sustainability. With increasing pressure on research programs to avoid redundancy, CATCHR aims to make available information on programs and core facilities to maximize efficient use of resources.

An academic-health service partnership in nursing: lessons from the field.

PURPOSE: To describe the development of an academic-health services partnership undertaken to improve use of evidence in clinical practice. APPROACH: Academic health science schools and health service settings share common elements of their missions: to educate, participate in research, and excel in healthcare delivery, but differences in the business models, incentives, and approaches to problem solving can lead to differences in priorities. Thus, academic and health service settings do not naturally align their leadership structures or work processes. We established a common commitment to accelerate the appropriate use of evidence in clinical practice and created an organizational structure to optimize opportunities for partnering that would leverage shared resources to achieve our goal. FINDINGS: A jointly governed and funded institute integrated existing activities from the academic and service sectors. Additional resources included clinical staff and student training and mentoring, a pilot research grant-funding program, and support to access existing data. Emergent developments include an appreciation for a wider range of investigative methodologies and cross-disciplinary teams with skills to integrate research in daily practice and improve patient outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: By developing an integrated leadership structure and commitment to shared goals, we developed a framework for integrating academic and health service resources, leveraging additional resources, and forming a mutually beneficial partnership to improve clinical outcomes for patients. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Structurally integrated academic-health service partnerships result in improved evidence-based patient care delivery and in a stronger foundation for generating new clinical knowledge, thus improving patient outcomes.

Curbing the cardiovascular disease epidemic: aligning industry, government, payers, and academics.

Despite decades of progress in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cardiovascular disease, its prevalence continues to grow in both developed and developing countries. We have constructed a model, the "cycle of quality," which connects the innovation of initial scientific discovery with validated methods of translating research into effective delivery. This model can serve as a basis for evaluating proposed efforts to improve interactions among private and public aspects of health care to accelerate development and appropriate adoption of new treatments, and to achieve greater penetration of effective behavioral therapies and established technologies, resulting in major improvements in cardiovascular health.

The measurement and impact of childhood teasing in a sample of young adults.

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Teasing Questionnaire-Revised (TQ-R) and the relationships among recalled childhood teasing and current psychosocial distress in 414 undergraduate students. Participants were administered the TQ-R, Beck Depression Inventory-II, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait Version, Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale, and UCLA Loneliness Scale. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a five-factor model assessing teasing related to performance, academic issues, social behavior, family background, and appearance. Internal consistency of the TQ-R and its factors was acceptable, and intercorrelations among subscales were moderate, suggesting that the factors measure related but conceptually distinct teasing experiences. Defining Pearson product-moment correlations with a magnitude of greater than.25 as conceptually meaningful, we found that the TQ-R Total score was meaningfully related to depressive symptoms, anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and loneliness. Being teased in the Performance and Social domains as a child was moderately related to current psychopathology. Implications of these findings for clinical practice and future research are discussed.

Factor structure, concurrent validity, and internal consistency of the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition in a sample of college students.

We examined the psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition (BDI-II) [Beck et al., 1996, San Antonio: The Psychological Corporation]. Four hundred fourteen undergraduate students at two public universities participated. A confirmatory factor analysis supported the BDI-II two-factor structure measuring cognitive-affective and somatic depressive symptoms. In addition, the internal consistency was high and the concurrent validity of the BDI-II was supported by positive correlations with self-report measures of depression and anxiety. These findings replicate prior research supporting the validity and reliability of the BDI-II in a college sample.

Effects of the presence of others on food intake: a normative interpretation.

The authors review the effect of the presence of others on food intake. In social facilitation studies, people tend to eat more in groups than when alone. In modeling studies, the presence of others may facilitate or inhibit intake, depending on how much these other people eat. Studies of impression management demonstrate that people tend to eat less in the presence of others than when alone. The authors attempt to reconcile these divergent literatures by reference to a model of inhibitory norms that govern eating. In the presence of palatable food, and in the absence of clear signals of satiety, people look outward to cues from the environment to determine when to stop eating. Socially derived inhibitory norms can account for either increased or decreased intake in the presence of others, depending on how much the others eat and the extent to which one is eager to impress them.

Cognitive-behavioral treatment of social phobia: new advances.

Cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) for social phobia is an effective treatment for many patients, but some patients do not benefit from the treatments and many remain symptomatic. Therefore, researchers have been examining techniques that may improve treatment outcome. In this paper, recent psychopathology and treatment outcome research, much of which supports the expectation that a second-generation CBT treatment may further improve outcome, are discussed. Finally, the authors present a number of CBT techniques that are tailored for the individual treatment of patients with social phobia. These methods, based on comprehensive CBT developed by Foa et al. and on cognitive therapy for social phobia developed by Clark et al. include developing an idiographic model for the patient, conducting safety behaviors experiments, providing video feedback after cognitive preparation, developing a hierarchy, conducting in vivo exposures and other behavioral experiments, imaginal exposure, social skills training, assertiveness training, and behavioral activation for depression.

The relationship between memories for childhood teasing and anxiety and depression in adulthood.

This study explored the relationship between memories for childhood teasing and anxiety and depression in adulthood. A Teasing Questionnaire (TQ) was developed that measured the degree to which people recall having been teased about 20 different topics during childhood. The TQ was completed by a sample of 514 undergraduates who also completed established measures of anxiety and depression. A one-factor model best accounted for the variance in TQ scores, and the total score was shown to have strong internal consistency. Scores on the TQ were significantly and positively related to scores on measures of current depression, trait anxiety, social anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity. Tests of dependent correlations showed that remembering having been teased during childhood was not differentially related to depression and trait anxiety in adulthood. However, differential relationships between reports of teasing and specific forms of anxiety were shown. Limitations of the study were discussed, as were suggestions for future research in the more general arena of childhood peer relations and adult psychopathology.