Background:
Anthropometric measurements serve as indicators of nutritional status and physical development, which can influence sleep patterns.
Aim:
To investigate the incidence of sleep disturbances by polysomnography in adolescents, with special focus on correlation with anthropometric parameters and gender differences.
Materials and Methods:
It is an analytical cross-sectional study conducted at the paediatric department at Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Thandalam, during January–December 2023. However, 90 children constituted the study population.
Results:
Polysomnography findings indicated that 37% of the teenagers encountered sleep disruptions, with a greater occurrence and intensity observed among boys.
Conclusion:
The significance of using anthropometric data, including neck circumference, BMI, waist to-hip ratio, and skin fold thickness in regular evaluations for sleep disorders in adolescents.
Sneha Suresh, Sandeep Kashyap, Treena Kabiraj
et al.
Background:
Endodontic-periodontal lesions present an open wound that might need surgical management using the GTR (guided tissue regeneration) to be managed using a combined approach.
Aim:
To assess the survival rate and clinical and radiological changes following regenerative periodontal therapy in endodontic-periodontal lesions.
Methods:
The study assessed 104 cases in 82 subjects with a minimum 2-year follow-up. Following scaling and root planning with/without endodontic management, regenerative procedures using DBBM with 10% collagen (Group I) or DBBM with collagen membrane (Group II) were done. radiographic bone gain, mobility, relative clinical attachment levels, gingival recession, probing pocket depth, bleeding on probing, and plaque index changes were assessed.
Results:
In both groups, radiographic bone gains and improved clinical parameters were seen. Greater, but statistically nonsignificant probing depth reduction was seen in the DBBM + 10% collagen group compared to the DBBM + collagen membrane group with 4.54 ± 1.04 mm and 4.06 ± 0.80 mm respectively. Comparable radiographic bone gain was seen in Groups I and II with 5.13 ± 1.52 mm and 5.33 ± 1.82 mm. A 92.33% 5-year survival rate was reported following the regenerative surgery.
Conclusions:
Improved radiographic bone and clinical attachment levels are seen following regenerative procedures with DBBM with 10% collagen in endodontic-periodontal lesions. Strict supportive periodontal therapy and oral hygiene can help maintain the successful results of regenerative medicine.
Solid‐state batteries represent a new approach to energy storage, offering superior safety, higher energy density, and extended cycle life compared to conventional liquid electrolyte‐based lithium‐ion batteries. However, the practical application of solid‐state batteries is hindered by degradation phenomena, particularly on interfaces between components, compromising their long‐term performance. In this work, the kinetics of the state‐of‐charge‐dependent electrolyte degradation at the LiNi0.83Co0.11Mn0.06O2│Li6PS5Cl interface, as well as its influence on cycling performance, are systematically studied electrochemically in solid‐state battery half cells. Combining cycling and C‐rate experiments with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy reveals that half cells charged to higher cutoff potentials (≥3.8 V versus In/InLi; ≥4.4 V versus Li+/Li) exhibit significantly faster degradation kinetics. These influence the cycling performance leading to a plateau in the charge capacity at ≥3.8 V versus In/InLi, while the electrolyte degradation does not affect the bulk electrode transport. Overall, this work emphasizes the importance to investigate state‐of‐charge‐dependent decomposition kinetics in composite electrodes to better understand cycling behavior.
Kirill V. Voronin, Iker Herrero León, Rainer Hillenbrand
et al.
Scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) is a versatile technique in nanooptics, enabling local probing of optical responses beyond the diffraction limit from vis to THz frequencies. Its theoretical modeling based on tip-sample interactions typically relies on computationally intensive numerical methods or phenomenological models with empiric fitting parameters, complicating spectral analysis and interpretation. Developing a rigorous quantitative analytical model remains a significant challenge in near-field microscopy. Here, we introduce an accurate analytical solution for the prolate spheroid model of s-SNOM in the quasi-electrostatic limit. We validate our solution through comparisons with numerical simulations and experimental spectra. Due to its higher computational efficiency compared to numerical simulation and higher accuracy compared to phenomenological solutions, our solution for spheroid model facilitates spectrum prediction and interpretation for homogeneous bulk samples, enables systematic exploration of parameter effects, and supports data generation for machine learning applications. Furthermore, the generality of our approach allows straightforward extension to more complex nanostructures.
Tobias M. Dijkhuis, Thanja Lamberts, Serena Viti
et al.
Astrochemical models are essential to bridge the gap between the timescales of reactions, experiments, and observations. Ice chemistry in these models experiences a large computational complexity as a result of the many parameters required for the modeling of chemistry occurring on these ices, such as binding energies and reaction energy barriers. Many of these parameters are poorly constrained, and accurately determining all would be too costly. We aim to find out which parameters describing ice chemistry have a large effect on the calculated abundances of ices for different prestellar objects. Using Monte Carlo sampled binding energies, diffusion barriers, desorption and diffusion prefactors, and reaction energy barriers, we determined the sensitivity of the abundances of the main ice species calculated with UCLCHEM, an astrochemical modeling code, on each of these parameters. We do this for a large grid of physical conditions across temperature, density, cosmic ray ionization rate and UV field strength. We find that, regardless of the physical conditions, the main sensitivities of abundances of the main ice species are the diffusion barriers of small and relatively mobile reactive species such as H, N, O, HCO, and CH$_3$. Thus, these parameters should be determined more accurately to increase the accuracy of models, paving the way to a better understanding of observations of ices. In many cases, accurate reaction energy barriers are not essential due to the treatment of competition between reactions and diffusion.
Idil Karaca Acari, Fatma Kurul, Meryem Beyza Avci
et al.
Abstract Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder, primarily observed in populations around the Mediterranean Sea, linked to MEFV gene mutations. These mutations disrupt inflammatory responses, increasing pyrin-protein production. Traditional diagnosis relies on clinical symptoms, family history, acute phase reactants, and excluding similar syndromes with MEFV testing, which is expensive and often inconclusive due to heterozygous mutations. Here, we present a biosensor platform that detects differences in pyrin-protein levels between healthy and affected individuals, offering a cost-effective alternative to genetic testing. Our platform uses gold nanoparticle-based plasmonic chips enhanced with anti-pyrin antibodies, achieving a detection limit of 0.24 ng/mL with high specificity. The system integrates an optofluidic system and visible light spectroscopy for real-time analysis, with signal stability maintained for up to six months. Our technology will enhance FMF diagnosis accuracy, enabling early treatment initiation and providing a cost-effective alternative to genetic testing, thus improving patient care.
Madhura Pawar, Nilesh Rathi, Avinash Kharat
et al.
Stem cells isolated from human exfoliated deciduous teeth or SHED possess high rate of proliferation along with high osteogenic as well as neurogenic differentiation when compared with dental pulpal stem cells. This stem cell population is an important source for therapeutic regeneration of tissues. Hence, the aim of present review article was to analyze the potential applications of SHED.
Joseph P. Heindel, R. Allen LaCour, Teresa Head-Gordon
In charged water microdroplets, which occur in nature or in the lab upon ultrasonication or in electrospray processes, the thermodynamics for reactive chemistry can be dramatically altered relative to the bulk phase. Here, we provide a theoretical basis for the observation of accelerated chemistry by simulating water droplets of increasing charge imbalance to create redox agents such as hydroxyl and hydrogen radicals and solvated electrons. We compute the hydration enthalpy of OH^- and H^+ that controls the electron transfer process, and the corresponding changes in vertical ionization energy and vertical electron affinity of the ions, to create OH* and H* reactive species. We find that at ~20-50% of the Rayleigh limit of droplet charge the hydration enthalpy of both OH^- and H^+ have decreased by >50 kcal/mol such that electron transfer becomes thermodynamically favorable, in correspondence with the more favorable vertical electron affinity of H^+ and the lowered vertical ionization energy of OH^-. We provide scaling arguments that show that the nanoscale calculations and conclusions extend to the experimental microdroplet length scale. The relevance of the droplet charge for chemical reactivity is illustrated for the formation of H2O2, and has clear implications for other redox reactions observed to occur with enhanced rates in microdroplets.
In this work, we introduce ChemBFN, a language model that handles chemistry tasks based on Bayesian flow networks working on discrete data. A new accuracy schedule is proposed to improve the sampling quality by significantly reducing the reconstruction loss. We show evidence that our method is appropriate for generating molecules with satisfied diversity even when a smaller number of sampling steps is used. A classifier-free guidance method is adapted for conditional generation. It is also worthwhile to point out that after generative training, our model can be fine-tuned on regression and classification tasks with the state-of-the-art performance, which opens the gate of building all-in-one models in a single module style. Our model has been open sourced at https://github.com/Augus1999/bayesian-flow-network-for-chemistry.
Rapid developments of AI tools are expected to offer unprecedented assistance to the research of natural science including chemistry. However, neither existing unimodal task-specific specialist models nor emerging general large multimodal models (LMM) can cover the wide range of chemical data modality and task categories. To address the real demands of chemists, a cross-modal Chemical General Intelligence (CGI) system, which serves as a truly practical and useful research assistant utilizing the great potential of LMMs, is in great need. In this work, we introduce the first Cross-modal Dialogue Foundation Model for Chemistry (ChemDFM-X). Diverse multimodal data are generated from an initial modality by approximate calculations and task-specific model predictions. This strategy creates sufficient chemical training corpora, while significantly reducing excessive expense, resulting in an instruction-tuning dataset containing 7.6M data. After instruction finetuning, ChemDFM-X is evaluated on extensive experiments of different chemical tasks with various data modalities. The results demonstrate the capacity of ChemDFM-X for multimodal and inter-modal knowledge comprehension. ChemDFM-X marks a significant milestone toward aligning all modalities in chemistry, a step closer to CGI.
Craig R. Walton, Jessica K. Rigley, Alexander Lipp
et al.
Earth's surface is deficient in available forms of many elements considered limiting for prebiotic chemistry. In contrast, many extraterrestrial rocky objects are rich in these same elements. Limiting prebiotic ingredients may, therefore, have been delivered by exogenous material; however, the mechanisms by which exogeneous material may be reliably and non-destructively supplied to a planetary surface remains unclear. Today, the flux of extraterrestrial matter to Earth is dominated by fine-grained cosmic dust. Although this material is rarely discussed in a prebiotic context due to its delivery over a large surface area, concentrated cosmic dust deposits are known to form on Earth today due to the action of sedimentary processes. Here we combine empirical constraints on dust sedimentation with dynamical simulations of dust formation and planetary accretion to show that localized sedimentary deposits of cosmic dust could have accumulated in arid environments on early Earth, in particular glacial settings that today produce cryoconite sediments. Our results challenge the widely held assumption that cosmic dust is incapable of fertilizing prebiotic chemistry. Cosmic dust deposits may have plausibly formed on early Earth and acted to fertilize prebiotic chemistry.
Poly(<i>N</i>-isopropylacrylamide) PNIPAAm hydrogels were modified with a new azobenzene-containing co-monomer. In this work, light responsiveness as an additional functionality, is conceptualized to induce two phase transitions in the same material, which can be controlled by light. For a hydrogel with merely 2.5 mol% of this co-monomer, the lower critical solution transition temperature (LCST) was lowered by 12 °C (to 20 °C) compared to PNIPAAm (LCST at 32 °C), as analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The untreated unimodal endotherm split into a bimodal peak upon irradiation with UV-light, giving a second onset due to the switched (<i>Z</i>) isomer-rich regions, LCST*<b><sub>H2.5%</sub></b><sub>-<b>(<i>Z</i>)</b></sub> = 26 °C. On irradiation with 450 nm, leading to the reverse (<i>Z</i>) to (<i>E</i>) isomerization, the endotherm was also reversible. Thus, a photo-switchable hydrogel whose LCST and structure are tunable with the hydrophobicity-hydrophilicity of the (<i>E</i>) and (<i>Z</i>) isomeric state of azobenzene was obtained. The influence of the increase in the mol% of azoacrylate on the LCST was evaluated via DSC, in combination with NMR studies, UV-vis spectroscopy and control experiments with linear polymers. The large light-driven modulation of the LCST adds bistability in thermoresponsive hydrogels, which may open diverse applications in the field of soft robotics actuators.
Early results from the JWST-MIRI guaranteed time programs on protostars (JOYS) and disks (MINDS) are presented. Thanks to the increased sensitivity, spectral and spatial resolution of the MIRI spectrometer, the chemical inventory of the planet-forming zones in disks can be investigated with unprecedented detail across stellar mass range and age. Here data are presented for five disks, four around low-mass stars and one around a very young high-mass star. The mid-infrared spectra show some similarities but also significant diversity: some sources are rich in CO2, others in H2O or C2H2. In one disk around a very low-mass star, booming C2H2 emission provides evidence for a ``soot'' line at which carbon grains are eroded and sublimated, leading to a rich hydrocarbon chemistry in which even di-acetylene (C4H2) and benzene (C6H6) are detected (Tabone et al. 2023). Together, the data point to an active inner disk gas-phase chemistry that is closely linked to the physical structure (temperature, snowlines, presence of cavities and dust traps) of the entire disk and which may result in varying CO2/H2O abundances and high C/O ratios >1 in some cases. Ultimately, this diversity in disk chemistry will also be reflected in the diversity of the chemical composition of exoplanets.
Clinical and forensic toxicology are critically involved in the acquisition of basic skills to correctly suspect intoxication, collect biological and non-biological materials for toxicological analysis, comprehend the complexities inherent to laboratory activity, and understand the fundamentals of toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics that underlie the interpretation of results. This works presents a pedagogical innovation proposal for the teaching of clinical and forensic toxicology based on a compilation of more than 3 000 cases where the image was fulcra for suspicion. The experience in this article follows the model practiced in bachelors, masters, and PhD degrees, as well as in other continuing training courses, where we are teaching toxicology for more than 15 years. All these levels of education are considered fundamental to the sound development of this science. This approach aims also to offer strength to the intervention of the true toxicologist in all the toxicological phases, besides the classic analytical chemistry. Indeed, it is impossible to provide effective clinical and forensic toxicological interpretations without a proper and broad education, and not thinking exclusively in terms of laboratory techniques. In the future, it will be interesting to evaluate knowledge retention and to propose a database of videos of signs related to intoxications.KEY POINTSA pedagogical innovation proposal for the teaching of forensic and clinical toxicology is presented.A universal and never-ending atlas of phtotographs related to signs of intoxications have been compile.Offering to our students an integrated teaching of clinical and forensic toxicology is crucial since both are grounded in analogous toxicological principles and are mutually dependent.
Criminal law and procedure, Public aspects of medicine
This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal(http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).Due to the lack of agreement on affiliation format between authors and the owner of the journal, this article has been retracted at the request of all authors, the Editors-in-Chief and the owner of the journal.