Practicing evidence‐based dentistry is a process of lifelong and self‐directed learning. Teaching evidence‐based dentistry to dental students is the key to increasing the uptake of evidence‐based ...treatments and practices in dentistry. This article describes the procedures undertaken to teach undergraduate dental students at the University of Toronto Faculty of Dentistry how to produce systematic reviews as a module in clinical epidemiology. Nine selected reports have been summarized as examples of the outputs of this module. At the end of the module, students are asked to participate in a survey and anonymously fill out a questionnaire to evaluate the module. Students’ evaluation of the module in the 2005–06 (n= 64) and 2006–07 (n=57) academic years were extracted for data analysis. Overall, the majority of students found the module an enjoyable way of learning that has improved their ability to gather information, apply existing evidence to a clinical question, evaluate information, and further develop their communication skills. This module was also effective in raising students’ awareness of the importance of evidence‐based clinical practice. It is essential to establish the fundamentals of evidence‐based practice during the undergraduate curriculum to assist dental students in learning the skills to practice evidence‐based dentistry.
Dental caries is a disease that, although decreasing in the non-Aboriginal child population, remains high for Canadian Aboriginal and Native American children and adolescents. To address dental ...health issues in First Nations in the District of Manitoulin, Noojmowin Teg Health Centre initiated a multiphase collaborative research project with the department of community dentistry at the University of Toronto. The purpose of this paper was to identify the prevalence of dental caries in children 7 or 13 years of age and to compare these data with published data for the same age groups from other First Nations communities in Canada.
All children 7 or 13 years of age who were in elementary schools on a reserve in 7 First Nations communities were eligible for a dental health examination as part of the survey. Children attending school off the reserve in 6 of the communities were also eligible.
A total of 66 children (56% 7-year-old children, 62% girls) were examined. The mean caries score (deft+ DMFT) for 7-year-old children was 6.2; the mean decayed, extracted, filled permanent teeth (DMFT) score for 13-year-old children was 4.1. Overall, 96% of children had 1 or more past or active carious lesion.
Results indicate that dental caries is highly prevalent and increasing in severity in this population.
Several quantum many-body models in one dimension possess exact solutions via the Bethe ansatz method, which has been highly successful for understanding their behavior. Nevertheless, there remain ...physical properties of such models for which analytic results are unavailable and which are also not well described by approximate numerical methods. Preparing Bethe ansatz eigenstates directly on a quantum computer would allow straightforward extraction of these quantities via measurement. We present a quantum algorithm for preparing Bethe ansatz eigenstates of the spin-1/2 XXZ spin chain that correspond to real-valued solutions of the Bethe equations. The algorithm is polynomial in the number of T gates and the circuit depth, with modest constant prefactors. Although the algorithm is probabilistic, with a success rate that decreases with increasing eigenstate energy, we employ amplitude amplification to boost the success probability. The resource requirements for our approach are lower than for other state-of-the-art quantum simulation algorithms for small error-corrected devices and thus may offer an alternative and computationally less demanding demonstration of quantum advantage for physically relevant problems.
The maxillary first molar crowns of 48 male and 38 female Canadian Inuit (Eskimos) were analyzed three-dimensionally by using moiré contourography methods. Cusp heights were significantly higher in ...males while the mesial and distal marginal ridges were more proximally placed in males. The metacone and the oblique ridge appeared to be better developed in the males. Comparison of the present results with published results for Dutch and Japanese indicated that the Japanese and Inuit had lower cusps that were more widely spaced than the Dutch. Correlation coefficients suggest that height measurements were positively correlated as were linear measurements. However, there were few significant correlations between height and linear determinations, suggesting that the development of the "width" of a crown is nearly independent of the development of the height of the cusps and crown.
Inuit (Eskimos) from the Foxe Basin region of the Northwest Territories, Canada, were studied to ascertain the amount of dimensional and morphological asymmetry in their dentitions. The results ...indicate that dimensional asymmetry does not appear to be greater on either the maxillary or mandibular teeth. Both types of asymmetry show partial conformity to the model of tooth fields with an increasing amount of asymmetry as one goes distally in each tooth group. The morphological asymmetry exception, the mandibular incisors, follows Dahlberg's "Field Concept." Rank-order correlations between the amount of dimensional asymmetry and morphological asymmetry reveal no detectable patterns. There appear to be no associations between the presence or absence of morphological asymmetry and the size of the tooth. This lack of association might be explained by differences in developmental timing of tooth dimensions and morphological traits; however, such a hypothesis requires experimental testing. In this population and those for which published results are available, it is practically impossible to overcome the "noise" level and test recent hypotheses regarding random dental asymmetry.
Adaptive variational quantum simulation algorithms use information from a quantum computer to dynamically create optimal trial wave functions for a given problem Hamiltonian. A key ingredient in ...these algorithms is a predefined operator pool from which trial wave functions are constructed. Finding suitable pools is critical for the efficiency of the algorithm as the problem size increases. Here, we present a technique called operator pool tiling that facilitates the construction of problem-tailored pools for arbitrarily large problem instances. By first performing an Adaptive Derivative-Assembled Problem-Tailored Ansatz Variational Quantum Eigensolver (ADAPT-VQE) calculation on a smaller instance of the problem using a large, but computationally inefficient, operator pool, we extract the most relevant operators and use them to design more efficient pools for larger instances. We demonstrate the method here on strongly correlated quantum spin models in one and two dimensions, finding that ADAPT automatically finds a highly effective ansatz for these systems. Given that many problems, such as those arising in condensed matter physics, have a naturally repeating lattice structure, we expect the pool tiling method to be a widely applicable technique apt for such systems.
Infection associated with the use of central venous catheters can result in serious medical complications and expensive care.
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In prospective, randomized clinical trials, the use of central venous ...catheters impregnated with either minocycline and rifampin
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or chlorhexidine and silver sulfadiazine
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was associated with reduced rates of catheter colonization and catheter-related bloodstream infection, as compared with unimpregnated catheters. In vitro studies
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and studies in animals
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have suggested that catheters impregnated with minocycline and rifampin can resist infection more effectively than catheters impregnated with chlorhexidine and silver sulfadiazine, but the clinical efficacy of these two types of antiinfective catheters has not been . . .