Oral cancer screening: knowledge is not enough.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to investigate whether dental hygienists are transferring their knowledge of oral cancer screening into practice. This study also wanted to gain insight into the barriers that might prevent dental hygienists from performing these screenings. METHODS: A 27-item survey instrument was constructed to study the oral cancer screening practices of licensed dental hygienists in Nova Scotia. A total of 623 practicing dental hygienists received the survey. The response rate was 34% (n = 212) yielding a maximum margin of error of 5.47 at a 95% confidence level. Descriptive statistics were calculated using IBM SPSS Statistics v21 software (Armonk, NY:IBM Corp). Qualitative thematic analysis was performed on any open-ended responses. RESULTS: This study revealed that while dental hygienists perceived themselves as being knowledgeable about oral cancer screening, they were not transferring this knowledge to actual practice. Only a small percentage (13%) of respondents were performing a comprehensive extra-oral examination, and 7% were performing a comprehensive intra-oral examination. The respondents identified several barriers that prevented them from completing a comprehensive oral cancer screening. CONCLUSIONS: Early detection of oral cancer reduces mortality rates so there is a professional responsibility to ensure that comprehensive oral cancer screenings are being performed on patients. Dental hygienists may not have the authority in a dental practice to overcome all of the barriers that are preventing them from performing these screenings. Public awareness about oral cancer screenings could increase the demand for screenings and thereby play a role in changing practice norms.

On-chip optical lattice for cold atom experiments.

An atom-chip-based integrated optical lattice system for cold and ultracold atom applications is presented. The retroreflection optics necessary for forming the lattice are bonded directly to the atom chip, enabling a compact and robust on-chip optical lattice system. After achieving Bose-Einstein condensation in a magnetic chip trap, we load atoms directly into a vertically oriented 1D optical lattice and demonstrate Landau-Zener tunneling. The atom chip technology presented here can be readily extended to higher dimensional optical lattices.

Protein phase behavior and crystallization: effect of glycerol.

Glycerol is widely used as an additive to stabilize proteins in aqueous solution. We have studied the effect of up to 40 wt % glycerol on the crystallization of lysozyme from brine. As the glycerol concentration increased, progressively larger amounts of salt were needed to crystallize the protein. Like previous authors, we interpret this as evidence for glycerol changing the interaction between lysozyme molecules. We quantitatively model the interprotein interaction using a Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek potential. We find that the effect of glycerol can be entirely accounted for by the way it modifies the dielectric constant and refractive index of the solvent. Quantifying the interprotein interaction by the second virial coefficient, B(2), we find a universal crystallization boundary for all glycerol concentrations.

Lack of evidence for local immune activity in oral hairy leukoplakia and oral wart lesions.

BACKGROUND: Oral warts, caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), and oral hairy leukoplakia (OHL) caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), are common oral manifestations in HIV-infected persons. Although both conditions occur most often with reduced blood CD4+ T-cell numbers, oral warts and OHL rarely occur simultaneously, suggesting that dysfunctions in other secondary local immune parameters are also involved. The present study evaluated tissue-associated proinflammatory and T-helper cytokine and chemokine mRNA expression and the presence of T cells in each lesion. METHODS: Biopsies were taken from lesion-positive and adjacent lesion-negative sites of HIV+ persons with oral warts or OHL and lesion-negative sites from HIV+ persons who were oral HPV or EBV DNA-positive (matched controls). Cytokine/chemokine mRNA expression was quantified by real-time polymerase chain reaction. CD3, CD4, and CD8 cells were identified by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: No differences were detected in tissue-associated cytokine/chemokine mRNA expression in warts or OHL when compared to lesion-negative sites. Immunohistochemical analysis of T cells showed CD8+ cells exclusively, but few cells were present in either lesion. No differences were detected between lesion-positive and -negative control sites of each pathologic condition. CONCLUSION: Little evidence was found for local immune reactivity to either oral warts and OHL, suggesting that CD4+ T cells are a primary host defense against both oral warts and OHL, but with nonimmune factors potentially responsible for the divergent prevalence of each.

Social identification and gender-related ideology in women and men.

The nature of women's and men's gender-derived social identification was examined with a focus on the relationships between aspects of identity and gender-related ideology. Measures of social identification, sex-role ideology, and the perception of women's collective disadvantage were completed by 171 women and 91 men who categorized themselves as either traditional, non-traditional or feminist. Factor analysis provided support for a multidimensional conception of gender-derived social identification, with viable subscales reflecting in-group ties, cognitive centrality, and in-group affect. For self-identified non-traditional and feminist women, the cognitive centrality of gender was greater, and more consistently related to gender-related ideology, than for traditional women. Traditional men reported stronger in-group ties and more positive gender-linked affect than did non-traditional men, but men's levels of identification were generally weakly related to gender-related ideology. The utility of considering both multiple dimensions and ideological correlates of group identification is discussed with reference to social identity theory.

The relationship between collective self-esteem and self-construal in Japan and Canada.

The study examined the relationship between various facets of collective self-esteem (R. Luhtanen & J. Crocker, 1992) and independent and interdependent self-construals (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, 1991) among students in Japan and Canada. The results suggested that individuals with highly interdependent self-construals regarded social group memberships as self-defining, regardless of culture. Individuals with independent self-construals judged their groups positively and felt they were worthy members of their groups and that others evaluated their groups positively. Canadians who evaluated their social groups favorably may be members of groups that permitted them to be independent. In contrast, individuals in Japan who judged their groups favorably may be members of groups that promoted interdependence in addition to independence.

Aflatrem: a tremorgenic mycotoxin with acute neurotoxic effects.

Tremorgenic mycotoxins induce neurologic symptoms ranging from mental confusion to tremors, seizures and death, and are apparently the only class of mycotoxins with significant central nervous system activity. Tremorgens have been implicated in a number of neurologic diseases of cattle collectively known as staggers syndromes, and pose significant agricultural and health problems for both cattle and humans. Although the effects of tremorgens are thought to result from transient perturbations of amino acid neurotransmitter release mechanisms, there is reason to believe that acute exposures to toxins with such synaptic effects may result in degeneration of neuronal fiber processes. To test this hypothesis, rats were given a single tremorgenic (3 mg/kg, IP) dose of aflatrem, and kinetics of amino acid neurotransmitter uptake was assessed in isolated hippocampal nerve terminals at 1 day, 1 week, and 2 weeks after injection. Results indicate a decrease in the capacity of the GABA and glutamate uptake systems, which was interpreted as a loss of nerve terminals. The affinity constants suggest a decrease in release of these transmitters as well. In addition to its transient influence on transmitter release, a single low dose of aflatrem is able to induce degeneration of neuronal processes in hippocampal neurotransmitter systems and therefore represents a long-term health threat.