Fracture resistance of 3 types of primary esthetic stainless steel crowns.

Background And Objective: Demand is increasing for esthetic restorations in pediatric dentistry. When full coverage is indicated, one option is to use esthetic stainless steel crowns (SSCs). However, this type of crown is prone to fracture.

Caries prevalence and its association with brushing habits, water availability, and the intake of sugared beverages.

BACKGROUND. With Dental Caries being the most common disease amongst children in the world today, there is a need to fully understand risk factors that may be related to caries prevalence and how they could be best addressed. AIM.

Clinical success of biceps tenodesis with and without release of the transverse humeral ligament.

Background: Multiple methods for biceps tenodesis exist, but long-term studies have demonstrated high failure rates. We hypothesized that tenodesis techniques that do not release the biceps sheath are associated with a higher surgical revision rate than those that do.

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted of 127 biceps surgeries over a 2-year period.

THE FIRST INJECTION EVENT: DIFFERENCES AMONG HEROIN, METHAMPHETAMINE, COCAINE, AND KETAMINE INITIATES.

This article describes how the drug type injected at the first injection event is related to characteristics of the initiate, risk behaviors at initiation, and future drug-using trajectories. A diverse sample (n=222) of young injection drug users (IDUs) were recruited from public settings in New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles during 2004 and 2005. The sample was between 16 and 29 years old, and had injected ketamine at least once in the preceding two years.

Long-distance practical quantum key distribution by entanglement swapping.

We develop a model for practical, entanglement-based long-distance quantum key distribution employing entanglement swapping as a key building block. Relying only on existing off-the-shelf technology, we show how to optimize resources so as to maximize secret key distribution rates. The tools comprise lossy transmission links, such as telecom optical fibers or free space, parametric down-conversion sources of entangled photon pairs, and threshold detectors that are inefficient and have dark counts.

Treatment of a symptomatic forearm muscle herniation with a mesh graft.

Symptomatic muscle herniations are an unusual cause of upper extremity pain in the athlete that is rarely reported in the literature. Out of 18 reported cases of upper extremity herniations, only 3 were caused by strenuous exertion. This article describes a successful repair of a 21-year-old rock climber's ventral forearm herniation with polypropylene mesh.

Transmission coefficients for chemical reactions with multiple states: role of quantum decoherence.

Transition-state theory (TST) is a widely accepted paradigm for rationalizing the kinetics of chemical reactions involving one potential energy surface (PES). Multiple PES reaction rate constants can also be estimated within semiclassical approaches provided the hopping probability between the quantum states is taken into account when determining the transmission coefficient. In the Marcus theory of electron transfer, this hopping probability was historically calculated with models such as Landau-Zener theory.

Environmental fate and transport modeling for perfluorooctanoic acid emitted from the Washington Works Facility in West Virginia.

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has been detected in environmental samples in Ohio and West Virginia near the Washington Works Plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. This paper describes retrospective fate and transport modeling of PFOA concentrations in local air, surface water, groundwater, and six municipal water systems based on estimates of historic emission rates from the facility, physicochemical properties of PFOA, and local geologic and meteorological data beginning in 1951. We linked several environmental fate and transport modeling systems to model PFOA air dispersion, transit through the vadose zone, surface water transport, and groundwater flow and transport.

α-TEA cooperates with chemotherapeutic agents to induce apoptosis of p53 mutant, triple-negative human breast cancer cells via activating p73.

Introduction: Successful treatment of p53 mutant, triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) remains a daunting challenge. Doxorubicin (DOXO) and cisplatin (CDDP) are standard-of-care treatments for TNBC, but eventually fail due to acquired drug resistance and toxicity. New treatments for overcoming drug resistance and toxicity in p53 mutant, TNBC are therefore badly needed.

α-TEA cooperates with MEK or mTOR inhibitors to induce apoptosis via targeting IRS/PI3K pathways.

Background: α-Tocopherol ether-linked acetic acid (α-TEA) is a promising agent for cancer prevention/therapy based on its antitumour actions in a variety of cancers.

Methods: Human breast cancer cells, MCF-7 and HCC-1954, were used to study the effect of α-TEA using Annexin V/PI staining, western blot analyses, and siRNA knockdown techniques.

Results: α-Tocopherol ether-linked acetic acid suppressed constitutively active basal levels of pAKT, pERK, pmTOR, and their downstream targets, as well as induced both cell types to undergo apoptosis.

α-TEA-induced death receptor dependent apoptosis involves activation of acid sphingomyelinase and elevated ceramide-enriched cell surface membranes.

Background: Alpha-tocopherol ether-linked acetic acid (α-TEA), an analog of vitamin E (RRR-alpha-tocopherol), is a potent and selective apoptosis-inducing agent for human cancer cells in vivo and in vitro. α-TEA induces apoptosis via activation of extrinsic death receptors Fas (CD95) and DR5, JNK/p73/Noxa pathways, and suppression of anti-apoptotic mediators Akt, ERK, c-FLIP and survivin in breast, ovarian and prostate cancer cells.

Results: In this study, we demonstrate that α-TEA induces the accumulation of cell surface membrane ceramide, leading to co-localization with Fas, DR5, and FADD, followed by activation of caspases-8 and -9 and apoptosis in human MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells.

Beach boundary layer: a framework for addressing recreational water quality impairment at enclosed beaches.

Nearshore waters in bays, harbors, and estuaries are frequently contaminated with human pathogens and fecal indicator bacteria. Tracking down and mitigating this contamination is complicated by the many point and nonpoint sources of fecal pollution that can degrade water quality along the shore. From a survey of the published literature, we propose a conceptual and mathematical framework, the "beach boundary layer model", for understanding and quantifying the relative impact of beach-side and bay-side sources of fecal pollution on nearshore water quality.

α-TEA induces apoptosis of human breast cancer cells via activation of TRAIL/DR5 death receptor pathway.

Vitamin E derivative RRR-α-tocopherol ether-linked acetic acid analog (α-TEA) induces apoptosis in MCF-7 and HCC-1954 human breast cancer cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. α-TEA induces increased levels of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) and death receptor-5 (DR5) and decreased levels of antiapoptotic factor, cellular FLICE-like inhibitory protein (c-FLIP L). DR5/TRAIL induced apoptosis involves downregulation of c-FLIP (L), caspase-8 activation, activated proapoptotic mediators tBid and Bax, mitochondrial permeability transition, and activation of caspase-9.

Electromagnetically induced transparency with amplification in superconducting circuits.

We show that controlling relative phases of electromagnetic fields driving an atom with a Δ-configuration energy-level structure enables optical susceptibility to be engineered in novel ways. In particular, relative-phase control can yield electromagnetically induced transparency but with the benefit that the transparency window is sandwiched between an absorption and an amplification band rather than between two absorption bands in typical electromagnetically induced transparency. We show that this new phenomenon is achievable for a microwave field interacting with a fluxonium superconducting circuit.

Heterotopic ossification of the deltoid muscle after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.

Heterotopic ossification (HO), a well-known sequela of trauma, burns, head injury, and certain congenital or acquired metabolic conditions, has a predilection for the hip and the elbow. This disease has uncommonly been found after elective open shoulder surgery but extremely seldom after minimally invasive surgery. In our search of the peer-reviewed literature, we found no reports of HO after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.

Role of endoplasmic reticulum stress in alpha-TEA mediated TRAIL/DR5 death receptor dependent apoptosis.

Background: Alpha-TEA (RRR-alpha-tocopherol ether-linked acetic acid analog), a derivative of RRR-alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) exhibits anticancer actions in vitro and in vivo in variety of cancer types. The objective of this study was to obtain additional insights into the mechanisms involved in alpha-TEA induced apoptosis in human breast cancer cells.

Methodology/principal Findings: alpha-TEA induces endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress as indicated by increased expression of CCAAT/enhancer binding protein homologous protein (CHOP) as well as by enhanced expression or activation of specific markers of ER stress such as glucose regulated protein (GRP78), phosphorylated alpha subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (peIF-2alpha), and spliced XBP-1 mRNA.

BSQA: integrated text mining using entity relation semantics extracted from biological literature of insects.

Text mining is one promising way of extracting information automatically from the vast biological literature. To maximize its potential, the knowledge encoded in the text should be translated to some semantic representation such as entities and relations, which could be analyzed by machines. But large-scale practical systems for this purpose are rare.

Surface residues dynamically organize water bridges to enhance electron transfer between proteins.

Cellular energy production depends on electron transfer (ET) between proteins. In this theoretical study, we investigate the impact of structural and conformational variations on the electronic coupling between the redox proteins methylamine dehydrogenase and amicyanin from Paracoccus denitrificans. We used molecular dynamics simulations to generate configurations over a duration of 40 ns (sampled at 100-fs intervals) in conjunction with an ET pathway analysis to estimate the ET coupling strength of each configuration.

Machine learning for precise quantum measurement.

Adaptive feedback schemes are promising for quantum-enhanced measurements yet are complicated to design. Machine learning can autonomously generate algorithms in a classical setting. Here we adapt machine learning for quantum information and use our framework to generate autonomous adaptive feedback schemes for quantum measurement.

Downregulation of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Expression Contributes to alpha-TEA's Proapoptotic Effects in Human Ovarian Cancer Cell Lines.

RRR-alpha-tocopherol derivative alpha-TEA (RRR-alpha-tocopherol ether-linked acetic acid analog) has been shown to be a potent antitumor agent both in vivo and in vitro. In this study, we investigated the effects of alpha-TEA on the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) family members, ErbB1, 2 and 3, and the role of ErbB 2 and 3 in alpha-TEA-induced apoptosis and suppression of Akt, FLIP and survivin in the cisplatin-sensitive (A2780S) and -resistant (A2780/CP70R) human ovarian cancer cell lines. Data show that alpha-TEA's ability to induced apoptosis was associated with reduced expression of ErbB1 (cisplatin-resistant cells), 2 and 3 (both cell types) and reduced levels of the phosphorylated (active) form of Akt; as well as, reduced levels of FLIP and survivin proteins in both cell types.

Putting in work: qualitative research on substance use and other risk behaviors among gang youth in Los Angeles.

Gang youth are notoriously difficult to access for research purposes. Despite this difficulty, qualitative research about substance use among gang youth is important because research indicates that such youth use more substances than their nongang peers. This manuscript discusses how a small sample of gang youth (n = 60) in Los Angeles was accessed and interviewed during a National Institute of Drug Abuse-funded pilot study on substance use and other risk behaviors.

Recruiting and retaining mobile young injection drug users in a longitudinal study.

Longitudinal studies that research homeless persons or transient drug users face particular challenges in retaining subjects. Between 2005 and 2006, 101 mobile young injection drug users were recruited in Los Angeles into a 2-year longitudinal study. Several features of ethnographic methodology, including fieldwork and qualitative interviews, and modifications to the original design, such as toll-free calls routed directly to ethnographer cell phones and wiring incentive payments, resulted in retention of 78% of subjects for the first follow-up interview.