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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused much anxiety and confusion in the community and affected the delivery of vital health care services, including dental care. We reviewed current evidence related to the impact of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 on dental care and oral health with the aim to help dental professionals better understand the risks of disease transmission in dental settings, strengthen protection against nosocomial infections, and identify areas of COVID-19–related oral health research. When compared with other recent pandemics, COVID-19 is less severe but spreads more easily, causing a significantly higher number of deaths worldwide. Protection of dental patients and staff during COVID-19 is challenging due to the existence of patients who are infectious yet asymptomatic. Dental professionals are ill prepared for the pandemic, as they are not routinely fitted for the N95 respirators now required for preventing contagion during dental treatments. Biological and clinical evidence supports that oral mucosa is an initial site of entry for SARS-CoV-2 and that oral symptoms, including loss of taste/smell and dry mouth, might be early symptoms of COVID-19, presenting before fever, dry cough, fatigue, shortness breath, and other typical symptoms. Oral health researchers may play a more active role in early identification and diagnosis of the disease through deciphering the mechanisms of dry mouth and loss of taste in patients with COVID-19. Rapid testing for infectious diseases in dental offices via saliva samples may be valuable in the early identification of infected patients and in disease progress assessment.Knowledge Transfer Statement: This commentary provides a timely evidence-based overview on the impact of COVID-19 on dental care and oral health and identifies gaps in protection of patients and staff in dental settings. Oral symptoms are prominent before fever and cough occur. Dental professionals may play an important role in early identification and diagnosis of patients with COVID-19.

The development of the relativistic all-order method where all single, double, and partial triple excitations of the Dirac-Hartree-Fock wave function are included to all orders of perturbation theory led to many important results for the study of fundamental symmetries, development of atomic clocks, ultracold atom physics, and others, as well as provided recommended values of many atomic properties critically evaluated for their accuracy for a large number of monovalent systems. This approach requires iterative solutions of the linearized coupled-cluster equations leading to convergence issues in some cases where correlation corrections are particularly large or lead to an oscillating pattern. Moreover, these issues also lead to similar problems in the configuration-interaction (CI)+all-order method for many-particle systems. In this work, we have resolved most of the known convergence problems by applying two different convergence stabilizer methods, namely, reduced linear equation and direct inversion of iterative subspace. Examples are presented for B, Al, Zn+, and Yb+. Solving these convergence problems greatly expands the number of atomic species that can be treated with the all-order methods and is anticipated to facilitate many interesting future applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 2-armed, double-blind, randomized clinical study, the efficacy in the treatment of recurrent herpes labialis of 5% acyclovir in a novel liposomal carrier (ethosome) was evaluated in comparison with that of a commercial 5% acyclovir cream (Zovirax cream) and that of a drug-free vehicle. Data were based on 61 herpetic episodes in 40 subjects. In a crossover arm in which the 2 active preparations were compared, the time to crusting of lesions was significantly shorter (P< .025) with the ethosomal acyclovir (1.8 days) than with the cream (3.5 days). Time to loss of crust was also significantly shorter (4.2 vs 5.9 days; P< .05). In a parallel arm in which all 3 preparations were compared, the time to crusting with the ethosomal acyclovir (1.6 days) was significantly shorter than the time with the acyclovir cream (4.3 days; P< .02) and the time with the drug-free vehicle (4.8 days; P< .005); in this arm, the shorter time to loss of crust for the ethosome (3.5 days), in comparison with the times for the cream (6.4 days) and the drug-free vehicle (6.1 days), did not reach statistical significance. Approximately 30% of all episodes treated with the ethosome were clinically abortive; this compared with 10% of those treated with the cream or the drug-free vehicle. No adverse effects were reported, other than minor burning sensations at the application site that lasted a few seconds after application and were evenly distributed between the investigated preparations. This pilot study suggests the improved clinical efficacy of the new liposomal preparation in comparison with Zovirax cream in the treatment of recurrent herpes labialis. (Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod 1999;87:700-5)

The ionization potentials, excitation energies, and electron affinity of superheavy element 120 and the polarizabilities of its neutral and ionized states are calculated. Relativity is treated within the four-component Dirac-Coulomb formalism; Breit or Gaunt terms are added in some cases. Electron correlation is included via the intermediate Haniiltonian Fock-space coupled cluster method for the spectra and ionization potentials and via the single reference coupled cluster singles and doubles with perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] approach for the electron affinities and polarizabilities. To assess the accuracy of the results, the atomic properties of the lighter homologues, Ba and Ra, are also calculated. Very good agreement with available experimental values is obtained, lending credence to the predictions for element 120. The atomic properties in group 2 are largely determined by the valence ns orbital, which experiences relativistic stabilization and contraction in the heavier group-2 elements. As a result, element 120 is predicted to have a relatively high ionization potential (5.851 eV), similar to that of Sr, and rather low electron affinity (0.021 eV) and polarizability (163 a.u.), comparable to those of Ca. The adsorption enthalphy of element 120 on Teflon, which is important for possible future experiments on this atom, is estimated as 35.4 kJ/mol, the lowest among the elements considered here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calculations of the first and second ionization potentials and electron affinities of superheavy elements 115-117 are presented. The calculations are performed in the framework of the Dirac-Coulomb Hamiltonian, and the results are corrected for the Breit and QED contributions. Correlation is treated by the relativistic coupled cluster approach with single, double, and perturbative triple excitations [CCSD(T)]. The same approach is used to calculate the ionization potentials and electron affinities of the lighter homologues, Bi, Po, and At. Comparison of the available experimental values for these atoms, namely, the first ionization potentials (IPs) of Bi, Po, and At and the second IP and EA of Bi, with our results shows excellent agreement, within a few hundredths of an eV, lending credence to our predictions for their superheavy homologues. High-accuracy predictions are also made for the second ionization potentials and electron affinities of Po and At, where no experiment is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple approximate version of the Fock-space relativistic coupled-cluster method is developed and applied for modeling the spin-orbit-coupling effect in the A¹S(u)+ and b³-(u) states of the heavy alkali diatomics RbCs and Cs2. Numerical stability in a wide range of molecular geometries is achieved at the cost of a very moderate loss of accuracy for low-lying states and negligibly small deviations of the computational scheme from strict size consistency. The adiabatic potential energy curves computed for the (2,3)0+ (RbCs) and (1,2)0u+ (Cs2) states are converted into "quasidiabatic" potentials and effective spin-orbit-coupling functions via projection of the scalar relativistic states onto the subsets of fully relativistic states. A detailed comparison of the present ab initio results with their experimental and preceding theoretical counterparts is performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We experimentally re-evaluate the fine structure of Sn11+-Sn14+ ions. These ions are essential in bright extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) plasma-light sources for next-generation nanolithography, but their complex electronic structure is an open challenge for both theory and experiment. We combine optical spectroscopy of magnetic dipole M1 transitions, in a wavelength range covering 260 to 780 nm, with charge-state selective ionization in an electron beam ion trap. Our measurements confirm the predictive power of ab initio calculations based on Fock space coupled cluster theory. We validate our line identification using semiempirical cowan calculations with adjustable wave-function parameters. Available Ritz combinations further strengthen our analysis. Comparison with previous work suggests that line identifications in the EUV need to be revisited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]