This study aimed to assess the dental caries and erosion status of 12-year-old Hong Kong children and study the determinants of dental caries and dental erosion of these children.
The survey was ...performed from 2011 to 2012 with ethics approval. Stratified random sampling was adopted to select 12-year-old children in 7 primary schools in Hong Kong. The participating parents were asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire concerning their children's diet and oral health habits. The children were examined for caries status with WHO criteria by 3 calibrated examiners. Detection of dental erosion followed Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE) criteria.
A total of 704 children were recruited and 600 (316 boys, 53%) participated in the survey. There were 124 children (21%) with caries experience (DMFT > 0) and their DMFT was 0.34 ± 0.76. About half of their decay was unfilled (DT = 0.16 ± 0.52) The DMFT of girls and boys were 0.45 ± 0.89 and 0.23 ± 0.61, respectively (p = 0.001). Girls also had a higher DT (0.21 ± 0.62 compared with 0.11 ± 0.41, p = 0.013) and FT than boys (0.23 ± 0.63 compared with 0.12 ± 0.44, p = 0.016). Most children (75%) had at least some sign of erosion (BEWE > 0), but no severe erosion (BEWE = 3). Logistic regression showed girls who consumed soft drinks and took vitamin C supplements had higher caries risk. Dental erosion was more severe among the children who had caries experience and consumed fruit juice.
The 12-year-old Hong Kong children had low caries experience, and almost half of the decay was left untreated. Although severe erosion was not found, many children had early signs of erosion.
The present study was initiated to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Haemate-P (Humate-P in North America) (anti-hemophilic FVIII/VWF complex human dried, pasteurized) dosed in ristocetin cofactor ...units (VWF:RCo) in the treatment of von Willebrand disease (VWD) patients in Canada. This retrospective data collection reviewed the medical records of VWD patients treated under the Canadian Emergency Drug Release Program from November 22, 1991, to April 30, 1996. Data collection was accomplished by on-site retrieval from source data for 97 patients. Dosing was based on the German package insert, which lists only Factor VIII:C (FVIII:C) units, which were converted in the study analysis to VWF:RCo units based on the analysis of the individual manufactured lots of product used in these patients (average ratio of 2.6 IU VWF:RCo per IU FVIII:C). Twenty five different lots of Haemate-P/Humate-P were used to treat 437 different events in the 97 study patients (344 hemorrhagic events, 73 surgical interventions and 20 prophylactic infusion cycles). Overall, the median dose of concentrate per infusion used to treat surgical events was 69.1 IU VWF:RCo/kg (range 11.9-222.8); bleeding events 55.3 IU VWF:RCo/kg (range 17.1-227.5) and prophylaxis 41.6 IU VWF:RCo/kg (range 34.6-81.0). Treatment periods varied, with the majority of events treated for < or = 10 days (91%). Fifty percent of events that were treated longer than 10 days were given for prophylactic reasons. Efficacy was determined in a standardized manner by the physician, based on dosing in VWF:RCo activity. An overall clinical result of "excellent" or "good" was reported in 97% (424/437) of treatment events. A pediatric sub-population analysis of the patient population reported "excellent/good" efficacy in 100% (17/17) of treatment events in infants, 95% (155/164) in children, and 94% (76/81) in adolescent patients. Related adverse events (AEs) were observed in only 4 (4%) patients and were not deemed to be serious. The findings in this study confirm the safety and efficacy of Haemate-P/Humate-P using VWF:RCo dosing in pediatric and adult patients with various types of VWD.
Germanium materials are a class of unique semiconductor materials with widespread technological applications because of their valuable semiconducting, electrical, optical, and thermoelectric power ...properties in the fields of macro/mesoscopic materials and micro/nanodevices. In this review, we describe the efforts toward understanding the microstructures and various properties of the fractal germanium micro/nanoclusters induced by gold prepared by high vacuum thermal evaporation techniques, highlighting contributions from our laboratory. First, we present the integer and non-integer dimensional germanium micro/nanoclusters such as nanoparticles, nanorings, and nanofractals induced by gold and annealing. In particular, the nonlinear electrical behavior of a gold/germanium bilayer film with the interesting nanofractal is discussed in detail. In addition, the third-order optical nonlinearities of the fractal germanium nanocrystals embedded in gold matrix will be summarized by using the sensitive and reliable Z-scan techniques aimed to determine the nonlinear absorption coefficient and nonlinear refractive index. Finally, we emphasize the thermoelectric power properties of the gold/germanium bilayer films. The thermoelectric power measurement is considered to be a more effective method than the conductivity for investigating superlocalization in a percolating system. This research may provide a novel insight to modulate their competent performance and promote rational design of micro/nanodevices. Once mastered, germanium thin films with a variety of fascinating micro/nanoclusters will offer vast and unforeseen opportunities in the semiconductor industry as well as in other fields of science and technology.
The Pd/Ge bilayer films with interesting fractal Ge nanojoints were successfully prepared by high-vacuum thermal evaporation techniques. It was found that Ge nanojoints embedded in Pd matrix showed ...fascinating fractal morphologies with average size of fractal clusters at 3.5μm and fractal dimension at 1.77 when the films were annealed at 550°C for 15min. The fractal clusters formed Ge nanojoints with average size at 80nm in width and 450nm in length. The annealing-dependent growth model responsible for the fractal Ge nanojoints is discussed reasonably. The electrical measurements confirmed that the annealed Pd/Ge film with interesting fractal clusters showed a nonlinear voltage–current behavior.
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•Annealing Pd/Ge bilayer films showed fascinating fractal morphologies.•The fractal clusters consisted of Ge nanojoints.•The annealed Pd/Ge film with fractal clusters showed a nonlinear voltage–current behavior.
In this paper, a microstrip bandpass filter with a wide and deep stopband by using the modified stepped-impedance resonator (SIR) was designed and implemented. The modified SIR is formed by properly ...folding the conventional SIR to be a square open-loop SIR. By analyzing the admittance
of the even and odd mode, the transmission zero of the modified SIR can be easily found, thus having a wide and deep stopband simultaneously. Bandpass filter (BPF) can have high performances with a wide and deep stopband as well as good selectivity by using the proposed SIR, compared to the
conventional SIR. A filter example centered at f
0
of 1.26 GHz has been implemented to verify the design concept. The results showed that the |S
21
| was greater than 65 dB at the spurious response of 2f
0
and a wide stopband with a rejection
level over 50 dB is extended from 1.5f
0
to 3.5f
0
. Moreover, experimental results have a good agreement with the simulated results.
Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major health problem. HBV genotypes may be associated with progression of liver disease. The distribution and clinical implications of HBV genotypes ...in southern Taiwan are evaluated. Methods: We used a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism genotyping method to determine HBV genotypes. Results: The genotype distribution for 265 patients with chronic HBV infection was as follows: A, 3 (1%); B, 158 (60%); C, 90 (34%); D, 7 (2.5%); E, 0; F, 0; and unclassified, 7 (2.5%). Compared with genotype B patients, genotype C patients had a higher hepatitis B e antigen positive rate and higher fibrosis score. There was no significant difference in the mean age between genotype B and genotype C patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, when patients were stratified by age, the prevalence of genotype C was significantly higher in young HCC patients (around 50 years of age) than in age-matched asymptomatic carriers (40% versus 10%, P ≺ 0.001). Using multivariate analysis, the significant risk factors for advanced liver disease (cirrhosis or HCC) for patients with chronic HBV infection were old age, male gender and genotype C. Conclusions: These results suggest that genotype C is associated with more severe liver diseases than the B variant.
We have already generalized the techniques from active control theory, and applied them to synchronize two different systems. In this Letter, we demonstrate these techniques by period-system, Lorenz ...and Rossler systems. Moreover, the effect of external noise is also included in our discussion.
Highlights • Morphologic descriptions of PVs in transition from DD to HF have been lacking. • We observed a graded enlargement of PV orifice areas from DD to HF. • Maximum LSPV and LIPV areas ...significantly increased clinical diagnosis of HFpEF. • CT-based PV measurements may help to identify subjects at risk for HF.
Etiologic variations of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) exist in different geographic areas of the world. Hepatitis B virus infection is associated with HCC. However, hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection ...plays an increasingly more important role in the development of HCC and is associated with more than 30% of HCC in Taiwan. The prevalence of HCV infection and HCV genotypes vary in different geographic areas. The prevalence of HCV genotype 1b (HCV-1b) was around 50-70% in Taiwan and even varied in different townships. In addition to host factors, HCV genotypes may be associated with the development of HCC. In our study, the prevalence of HCV-1b in patients with HCC was significantly higher than in those with liver cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis; multivariate analysis revealed that the disease severity was significantly correlated with age and HCV-1b. Furthermore, HCV-1b was associated with a lower response rate to interferon (IFN) therapy than HCV-2. Our study has demonstrated that mutations in the IFN sensitivity-determining region, spanning nucleotides 2,209-2,248 in the NS5A region, correlate with the sustained virological response to combination therapy with IFN and ribavirin in patients with chronic HCV-1b infection in Taiwan. A third-generation enzyme immunoassay for antibody to HCV can be used to predict viremia and monitor the virological response.
: This study presents a wavelet neural network‐based approach to dynamically identifying and modeling a building structure. By combining wavelet decomposition and artificial neural networks (ANN), ...wavelet neural networks (WNN) are used for solving chaotic signal processing. The basic operations and training method of wavelet neural networks are briefly introduced, since these networks can approximate universal functions. The feasibility of structural behavior modeling and the possibility of structural health monitoring using wavelet neural networks are investigated. The practical application of a wavelet neural network to the structural dynamic modeling of a building frame in shaking tests is considered in an example. Structural acceleration responses under various levels of the strength of the Kobe earthquake were used to train and then test the WNNs. The results reveal that the WNNs not only identify the structural dynamic model, but also can be applied to monitor the health condition of a building structure under strong external excitation.
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