Elucidating interfacial failure of cervical restorations using damage mechanics: A finite element analysis.

Background/purpose: Although clinical studies have suggested a link between non-axial forces and reduced longevity of cervical restorations, the underlying mechanisms require further numerical investigation. This in-silico study employed a cohesive zone model (CZM) to investigate interfacial damage in a cervical restoration subjected to different load directions.

Materials And Methods: A plane strain model of a maxillary premolar was established, with a wedge-shaped buccal cervical restoration.

Prognostic Factors in Therapy Regimes of Breast Cancer Patients with Brain Metastases: A Retrospective Monocentric Analysis.

Breast cancer patients who develop brain metastases have a high mortality rate and a massive decrease in quality of life. Approximately 10-15% of all patients with breast cancer (BC) and 5-40% of all patients with metastatic BC develop brain metastasis (BM) during the course of the disease. However, there is only limited knowledge about prognostic factors in the treatment of patients with brain metastases in breast cancer (BMBC).

HLA I immunopeptidome of synthetic long peptide pulsed human dendritic cells for therapeutic vaccine design.

Synthetic long peptides (SLPs) are a promising vaccine modality that exploit dendritic cells (DC) to treat chronic infections or cancer. Currently, the design of SLPs relies on in silico prediction and multifactorial T cells assays to determine which SLPs are best cross-presented on DC human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I). Furthermore, it is unknown how TLR ligand-based adjuvants affect DC cross-presentation.

A multilevel social network approach to studying multiple disease-prevention behaviors.

The effective prevention of many infectious and non-infectious diseases relies on people concurrently adopting multiple prevention behaviors. Individual characteristics, opinion leaders, and social networks have been found to explain why people take up specific prevention behaviors. However, it remains challenging to understand how these factors shape multiple interdependent behaviors.

Behind the scenes of EQA-characteristics, capabilities, benefits and assets of external quality assessment (EQA).

The main stakeholders in external quality assessment (EQA) programs are the participants, in whose interests these challenges are ultimately organised. EQA schemes in the medical field contribute to improving the quality of patient care by evaluating the analytical and diagnostic quality of laboratory and point-of-care tests (POCT) by independent third parties and, if necessary, pointing out erroneous measurement results and analytical or diagnostic improvement potential. Other benefits include the option of using EQA samples for other important laboratory procedures, such as the verification or validation of diagnostic medical devices (IVD-MDs), a contribution to the estimation of measurement uncertainty, a means of training and educating laboratory staff through educational EQA programmes or samples, or even for independent and documented monitoring of staff competence, such as on samples with unusual or even exceptional characteristics.