I read this book the same weekend that the Packers took on the Rams, and the experience of the latter event, obviously, colored my judgment. Although I abhor anything that smacks of being a handbook (like, \"How to Earn a Merit Badge in Neurosurgery\") because too many volumes in biomedical science already evince a boyscout-like approach, I must confess that parts of this volume are fast, scholarly, and significant, with certain reservations. I like parts of this well-illustrated book because Dr. Sj6strand, without so stating, develops certain subjects on technique in relation to the acquisition of judgment and sophistication. And this is important! So, given that the author (like all of us) is somewhat deficient in some areas, and biased in others, the book is still valuable if the uninitiated reader swallows it in a general fashion, realizing full well that what will be required from the reader is a modulation to fit his vision, propreception, adaptation and response, and the kind of problem he is undertaking. A major deficiency of this book is revealed by comparison of its use of physics and of chemistry to provide understanding and background for the application of high resolution electron microscopy to problems in biology. Since the volume is keyed to high resolution electron microscopy, which is a sophisticated form of structural analysis, but really morphology in a modern guise, the physical and mechanical background of The instrument and its ancillary tools are simply and well presented. The potential use of chemical or cytochemical information as it relates to biological fine structure , however, is quite deficient. I wonder when even sophisticated morphol-ogists will consider fixation a reaction and not a technique; only then will the fundamentals become self-evident and predictable and this sine qua flon will become less mystical. Staining reactions (the most inadequate chapter) ought to be something more than a technique to selectively enhance contrast of morphological elements; it ought to give the structural addresses of some of the chemical residents of cell components. Is it pertinent that auto-radiography gets singled out for more complete coverage than other significant aspects of cytochemistry by a high resolution microscopist, when it has a built-in minimal error of 1,000 A in standard practice? I don't mean to blind-side (in strict football terminology) Dr. Sj6strand's efforts for what is \"routinely used in our laboratory\"; what is done is usually well done. It's just that …

Methods in Enzymology.

http://academic.oup.com/milmed/article-pdf/146/7/506/24126715/milmed-146-7-506.pdf

Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics

: This thesis applies neural network feature selection techniques to multivariate time series data to improve prediction of a target time series. Two approaches to feature selection are used. First, a subset enumeration method is used to determine which financial indicators are most useful for aiding in prediction of the S&P 500 futures daily price. The candidate indicators evaluated include RSI, Stochastics and several moving averages. Results indicate that the Stochastics and RSI indicators result in better prediction results than the moving averages. The second approach to feature selection is calculation of individual saliency metrics. A new decision boundary-based individual saliency metric, and a classifier independent saliency metric are developed and tested. Ruck's saliency metric, the decision boundary based saliency metric, and the classifier independent saliency metric are compared for a data set consisting of the RSI and Stochastics indicators as well as delayed closing price values. The decision based metric and the Ruck metric results are similar, but the classifier independent metric agrees with neither of the other metrics. The nine most salient features, determined by the decision boundary based metric, are used to train a neural network and the results are presented and compared to other published results. (AN)

/pdf/nonlinear-time-series-analysis-1j3a35n4y3.pdf

Nonlinear Time Series Analysis.

Objective  To develop a practical evidence based list of clinical risk factors that can be assessed by a clinician at ≤16 weeks’ gestation to estimate a woman’s risk of pre-eclampsia. Design  Systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies. Data sources  PubMed and Embase databases, 2000-15. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies  Cohort studies with ≥1000 participants that evaluated the risk of pre-eclampsia in relation to a common and generally accepted clinical risk factor assessed at ≤16 weeks’ gestation. Data extraction  Two independent reviewers extracted data from included studies. A pooled event rate and pooled relative risk for pre-eclampsia were calculated for each of 14 risk factors. Results  There were 25 356 688 pregnancies among 92 studies. The pooled relative risk for each risk factor significantly exceeded 1.0, except for prior intrauterine growth restriction. Women with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome had the highest pooled rate of pre-eclampsia (17.3%, 95% confidence interval 6.8% to 31.4%). Those with prior pre-eclampsia had the greatest pooled relative risk (8.4, 7.1 to 9.9). Chronic hypertension ranked second, both in terms of its pooled rate (16.0%, 12.6% to 19.7%) and pooled relative risk (5.1, 4.0 to 6.5) of pre-eclampsia. Pregestational diabetes (pooled rate 11.0%, 8.4% to 13.8%; pooled relative risk 3.7, 3.1 to 4.3), prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) >30 (7.1%, 6.1% to 8.2%; 2.8, 2.6 to 3.1), and use of assisted reproductive technology (6.2%, 4.7% to 7.9%; 1.8, 1.6 to 2.1) were other prominent risk factors. Conclusions  There are several practical clinical risk factors that, either alone or in combination, might identify women in early pregnancy who are at “high risk” of pre-eclampsia. These data can inform the generation of a clinical prediction model for pre-eclampsia and the use of aspirin prophylaxis in pregnancy.

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/353/bmj.i1753.full.pdf

Clinical risk factors for pre-eclampsia determined in early pregnancy: systematic review and meta-analysis of large cohort studies

The classification of malocclusion

In vitro tests continue to be an indispensable method for the initial screening of dental materials. Thermal cycling is one of the most widely used procedures to simulate the physiological aging experienced by biomaterials in clinical practice. Consequently it is routinely employed in experimental studies to evaluate materials' performance. A literature review aimed to elucidate test parameters for in vitro aging of adhesive restorations was performed. This study aims to assess whether or not a standardized protocol of thermal cycling has been acknowledged from a review of the literature. An exhaustive literature search, examining the effect of thermal cycling on restorative dental materials, was performed with electronic database and by hand. The search was restricted to studies published from 1998 to August 2013. No language restrictions were applied. The search identified 193 relevant experimental studies. Only twenty-three studies had faithfully applied ISO standard. The majority of studies used their own procedures, showing only a certain consistency within the temperature parameter (5-55°C) and a great variability in the number of cycles and dwell time chosen. A wide variation in thermal cycling parameters applied in experimental studies has been identified. The parameters selected amongst these studies seem to be done on the basis of convenience for the authors in most cases. A comparison of results between studies would appear to be impossible. The available data suggest that further investigations will be required to ultimately develop a standardized thermal cycling protocol.

Thermal cycling for restorative materials: does a standardized protocol exist in laboratory testing? A literature review.

Background: The combination of Amoxicillin and metronidazole (AMX/MET) as an adjunctive treatment to scaling root planing (SRP) has been proposed for the treatment of chronic periodontitis; however, its effectiveness and clinical safety remain to be defined The purpose of the present meta-analysis is to assess the effectiveness of SRP + AMX/MET compared to SRP aloneMethods: An electronic search of eight databases from their earliest records through October 8, 2011 and a hand search of international dental journals for the last 15 years were conducted Gain in clinical attachment level (CAL), reduction in probing depth (PD), secondary outcomes, and adverse events were analyzed A random-effect model was used to pool the extracted data The weighted mean difference (WMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated for continuous outcomes; heterogeneity was assessed with the Cochrane χ2 and I2 tests The level of significance was set at P <005Results: After the selection process, four randomized cli

Effectiveness of Systemic Amoxicillin/Metronidazole as Adjunctive Therapy to Scaling and Root Planing in the Treatment of Chronic Periodontitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: It was recently suggested that scaling and root planing (SRP) may help to improve glycemic and metabolic control in patients with chronic periodontitis (CP) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2); however, the effectiveness of SRP in this role remains unclear. This meta-analysis assesses the effectiveness of SRP in improving glycemic and metabolic control in patients with CP and DM2.Methods: A literature search of electronic databases was performed for articles published through May 16, 2012, followed by a manual search of several dental journals. A meta-analysis was conducted according to the recommendations of the Cochrane Collaboration and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Weighted mean differences (MDs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated for glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), and high- and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL and LDL, respectively). All out...

Effectiveness of Periodontal Treatment to Improve Metabolic Control in Patients With Chronic Periodontitis and Type 2 Diabetes: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials

Effectiveness of laser in dentinal hypersensitivity treatment: a systematic review.

Objective
The aim of the present systematic review and meta-analysis was to assess the role of periodontal disease as a risk factor for implant loss, peri-implantitis and implant-bone loss.

Materials and methods
Six electronic database and a manual search resulted in 7391 unique publications; after selection only 16 studies were included in systematic review. Dichotomous data were expressed as risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI), while continuous data were expressed as standardized mean difference (SMD). Due to the expected inter-study heterogeneity, a random effect model was used for both type of data. The pooled effect was considered significant for a P < 0.05.

Results
Meta-analysis revealed that an higher and significant risk for implant loss was present in patients affected by PD (RR: 1.69, 95% CI: 1.31–2.17, P < 0.0001). A higher and significant IBL was present in patients with periodontal disease, when compared with patients periodontally healthy (SMD: 0.38, 95% CI: 0.18–0.58, P = 0.0002). Patients periodontally compromised showed an increased risk of PI, when compared with patients without periodontitis (RR: 2.17, 95% CI: 1.51–3.12, P < 0.0001) No evidence of significant heterogeneity was detected for the three outcomes.

Conclusion
Strong evidence suggests that periodontitis is a risk factor for implant loss; moderate evidence revealed that periodontitis is a risk factor for peri-implantitis and that patients with periodontitis have higher implant-bone loss.

Annalisa Monaco

Papers

Thermal cycling for restorative materials: does a standardized protocol exist in laboratory testing? A literature review.

Effectiveness of Systemic Amoxicillin/Metronidazole as Adjunctive Therapy to Scaling and Root Planing in the Treatment of Chronic Periodontitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Effectiveness of Periodontal Treatment to Improve Metabolic Control in Patients With Chronic Periodontitis and Type 2 Diabetes: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials

Effectiveness of laser in dentinal hypersensitivity treatment: a systematic review.

Periodontitis, implant loss and peri‐implantitis. A meta‐analysis