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Shahab Uddin Ahmadi,1 Yahya Fayaz,1 Said Ahmad Sorosh Miri,2,3 Wakil Muhammad Wikins,4 Fareed Ahmad Nazari,5 Ali Naqi Karimi,4 Ismail Yaqubi,4 Naseer Ahmad Nikzad,4 Musa Joya,6 Reza Fahimi7 1Department of Stomatology, Khatam AL Nabieen University, Kabul, Afghanistan; 2Department of Prosthodontics, Khatam AL Nabieen University, Kabul, Afghanistan; 3Department of Stomatology, Kabul University of Medical Science “abu Ali Ibn Sina”, Kabul, Afghanistan; 4Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, National Curative and Specialized Stomatology Hospital, Kabul, Afghanistan; 5Department of Emergency Surgery & Trauma, Kabul University of Medical Science, Kabul, Afghanistan; 6Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK; 7Department of Clinic, Kateb University, Kabul, AfghanistanCorrespondence: Yahya Fayaz, Department of Stomatology, Khatam AL Nabieen University, Kabul, Afghanistan, Tel +93706281798, Email Dr.yahyafayaz@gmail.comBackground: The mandible, a key bone in the lower face, is prone to trauma. Although mandibular fractures are widely recognized as common and costly, there is a research gap on this topic in Afghanistan. This study explores the causes of lower jaw fractures and their link to demographic factors in the Afghan population.Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of 535 medical records from a Kabul tertiary hospital (March 2021 to March 2022) examined lower jaw fractures, patient demographics (age, sex), and injury causes. Statistical methods, including chi-square tests and Pearson’s contingency coefficient, were employed to explore correlations between mandibular fractures and demographic factors.Results: In this study, we analyzed 579 mandibular fractures in 535 patients, with road accidents (33.08%), falls (22.61%), and interpersonal conflicts being the leading causes. Most patients were aged 21– 30, with single fractures being the most common (92.3%) and parasymphyseal fractures being the most prevalent (28.5%). Although certain fracture types were significantly correlated with age, no notable association was found between age and injury cause.Conclusion: This study reveals that road accidents, falls, and interpersonal conflicts are the main causes of lower jaw fractures in Kabul, with the highest incidence in individuals aged 21– 30. These findings highlight the necessity for targeted public health interventions, such as improved road safety campaigns and stricter traffic regulation enforcement, to lower injury rates. Incorporating these insights into clinical practice can also help healthcare providers more effectively manage lower jaw fractures in affected populations.Keywords: lower jaw fracture, fracture patterns, trauma, accidents, Afghanistan

In the present work, we numerically and experimentally study the Co 3 - x Ni x O 4 (spinel-like oxides) system. Using the perturbative density functional theory (p-DFT) method, we start the study from the homogeneous sample ( x = 0 ), obtaining the main electronic properties (band structure (BS), density of states (DOS), and Fermi surface (FS)). Subsequently, we doped (x) with Ni atoms in different proportions (0–7% respectively, taking 56 atoms as 100% and the percentage of doping, on this percentage). As we increase the doping (x ≠ 0) , we have found that the forbidden gap decreases and the Fermi energy (FE) decreases, causing the material to exhibit a transition phase for a particular doping value. In addition, we find that more bands are generated when the system is doped, which would be responsible for the phase transition. The data from the theoretical analysis carried out in this paper was compared with the experimental data of various widely accepted works. Some of the results, when compared with the information available from the experimental ones, show good agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joya M, Aalemi AK, Baryali AT. Infect Drug Resist. 2022;15:4291-4297. Page 4291, Title, “Prevalence and Antibiotic Susceptibility of the Common Bacterial Uropathogen Among UTI Patients in French Medical Institute for Children” should read “Prevalence and Antibiotic Susceptibility of the Common Bacterial Uropathogen Among UTI Patients in French Medical Institute for Mothers and Children”. Page 4292, Materials and Methods section, first sentence, the text “This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the French Medical Institute for Children from January to July 2018” should read “This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Pathology and Clinical Laboratory, French Medical Institute for Mothers and Children (FMIC) from January to July 2018”. Page 4296, an Acknowledgment section was missed and should read as follows. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Dr Jamshid Abdul-Ghafar, Head of Department of Pathology and Clinical Laboratory of FMIC, and all the team of the department for their full support during the data collection in the department. The authors also thank Dr Fariha Kamal for assistance in English editing of the manuscript. The authors apologize for these errors and advise that these corrections have no impact to the findings of the study and do not change any description, results or conclusions of the original paper.

In the present research, the synthesis of cobalt oxide Co3O4 was carried out using the sol-gel technique with subsequent heat treatment at 225 and 235 °C. The final product obtained was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), showing a pure crystalline phase of Co3O4, cell parameters a=b=c=8.071 Å, and a volume of 525.7 ų. The particle size was between 2.37 and 2.77 µm, which indicated that structural transformations from Co to Co3O4 induced an increase in the particle size. Through Rietveld refinement, the interatomic distances and inclination angles of the Co1, Co2, and Co3 polyhedra were analyzed in order to establish the structural behavior of cobalt oxide (II, III) at 235 °C. The UV-vis analysis allowed determining band gap (Eg) with values of 1.6 eV in the first region and 0.97 eV in the second. Scanning electron microscopy images showed that the particles agglomerated with increasing calcination temperature and exhibited larger particles. This work presents a detailed analysis of structural parameters of Co3O4 using the Vesta software with Rietveld refinement data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Premature birth is a traumatic and stressful situation for parents who are immediately separated from their infant because of the newborn's need for specialized care. The staff of these units are in charge of following the principles of family-centred care and practices for neonates at risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, including providing training to the family during their hospital stay and after being discharged., Aims: The aim of this study is to explore the perceptions of parents of premature children at risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in regard to care, interventions and assistance provided during the first months of their child's life., Study Design: A qualitative descriptive study was carried out through individual interviews. The data analysis was conducted through a thematic analysis. The methodology and results were reported following the standards for preparing qualitative research reports and recommendations., Results: Twenty-one parents of premature children were interviewed. From these interviews, three main themes emerged: (i) parents' perspectives on preterm birth risk communication, (ii) navigating parental support and early interventions in preterm birth and (iii) perceptions of preterm birth protective and challenging factors., Conclusions: The parents of premature children need to receive better communication about the care and interventions for their child, and it is necessary that health personnel are better trained in terms of management and administration of public resources. Strategies must be implemented that continuously guide parents on the follow-up and care of their premature child not only during their first moments of life but also after being discharged from the hospital., Relevance to Clinical Practice: This study highlights the need to improve care for parents with premature infants at risk, emphasizing the necessity for health care system reforms and support structures, allowing health care professionals to enhance attention and care., (© 2024 The Author(s). Nursing in Critical Care published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Association of Critical Care Nurses.)

The occurrence of preterm birth is correlated with the potential emergence of disabilities in children. Early intervention programs are designed to promote better developmental outcomes. These interventions employ family-centered methodologies, wherein parents are instructed to facilitate neurodevelopment, thereby promoting heightened involvement of the child in their daily activities. The objective of this investigation was to evaluate the efficacy of early family-based interventions on motor, cognitive, and language development. A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted utilizing the databases PubMed, Medline, PEDro, Scopus, CINAHL Complete, SciELO, and Open Grey. The search terms utilized included NDT (neuro-developmental treatment), Bobath, neurodevelopmental therapy, parents administered, family administered, physical therapy modalities, early intervention (educational), early intervention, premature infant, preterm, and premature. Randomized clinical trials and observational studies written in English or Spanish were taken into consideration. The initial search resulted in 420 articles. After removing duplicates and applying the selection criteria, 12 articles were selected for the systematic review and 5 articles were selected for the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis revealed a significant association between early intervention and enhanced cognitive function (p = 0.01) in this study. Additionally, the meta-analysis indicated improvements resulting from early family-based intervention (p = 0.02) in motor function. Early motor interventions that emphasize parent involvement and education in neurodevelopment show significant outcomes in motor and cognitive areas at 2 years of age in very premature or extremely premature infants. However, inconclusive effects have been found in the language area, which is the least studied domain. Due to the methodological heterogeneity observed, further research is needed to establish conclusive decisions regarding the administration of these interventions and the determination of key evaluation periods., (© 2024. Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This systematic review study aims to provide comprehensive data on different radiobiological models, parameters, and endpoints used for calculating the normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) based on clinical data from head and neck cancer patients treated with conformal radiotherapy. A systematic literature search was carried out according to the PRISMA guideline for the identification of relevant publications in six electronic databases of Embase, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar to July 2022 using specific keywords in the paper's title and abstract. The initial search resulted in 1368 articles for all organs for the review article about the NTCP parameters. One hundred and seventy-eight articles were accepted for all organs with complete parameters for the mentioned models and finally, 20 head and neck cancer articles were accepted for review. Analysis of the studies shows that the Lyman-Kutcher-Burman (LKB) model properly links the NTCP curve parameters to the postradiotherapy endpoints. In the LKB model for esophagus, the minimum, and maximum corresponding parameters were reported as TD 50  = 2.61 Gy with grade ≥3 radiation-induced esophagitis endpoints as the minimum TD 50 and TD 50  = 68 Gy as the maximum ones. n min  = 0.06, n max  = 1.04, m min  = 0.1, and m max  = 0.65, respectively. Unfortunately, there was not a wide range of published articles on other organs at risk like ear or cauda equina except Burman et al. (Fitting of normal tissue tolerance data to an analytic function. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys Ther. 1991;21:123-135). Findings suggest that the validation of different radiobiological models and their corresponding parameters need to be investigated in vivo and in vitro for developing a more accurate NTCP model to be used for radiotherapy treatment planning optimization., (© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Purpose: According to the revised Task Group number 43 recommendations, a brachytherapy source must be validated against a similar or identical source before its clinical application. The purpose of this investigation is to verify the dosimetric data of the high dose rate (HDR) BEBIG 192 Ir source (Ir2.A85-2)., Materials and Methods: The HDR 192 Ir encapsulated seed was simulated and its main dosimetric data were calculated using Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission (GATE) simulation code. Cubic cells were used for the calculation of dose rate constant and radial dose function while for anisotropy function ring cells were used. DoseActors were simulated and attached to the respective cells to obtain the required data., Results: The dose rate constant was obtained as 1.098 ± 0.003 cGy.h - 1 .U - 1 , differing by 1.0% from the reference value reported by Granero et al . Similarly, the calculated values for radial dose and anisotropy functions presented good agreement with the results obtained by Granero et al ., Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the GATE Monte Carlo code is a valid toolkit for benchmarking brachytherapy sources and can be used for brachytherapy simulation-based studies and verification of brachytherapy treatment planning systems., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright: © 2023 Journal of Medical Physics.)

This study aimed to evaluate the dose modulation potential of static and dynamic steel-shielded applicators using the Geant4 Application for Emission Tomography (GATE) Monte Carlo code for the treatment of vaginal cancer. The GATE TOOLKIT (version 9.0) was used to simulate vaginal cancer intensity-modulated brachytherapy (IMBT) in a pelvic water-equivalent phantom. IMBT performance of a multichannel static and single-channel dynamic steel-shielded applicator was compared to that of a conventional multichannel Plexiglas applicator. DoseActors were defined to calculate the absorbed dose and attached to the voxelized target and organs at risk (OARs). 60 Co and 192 Ir high-dose-rate seeds were used as irradiation sources. Dynamic IMBT decreased the D 2cc of the rectum and bladder by 28.67 and 28.11% using the 60 Co source and by 40.00 and 36.34% using the 192 Ir source, respectively. Static IMBT decreased the D 2cc for the rectum and bladder by 11.69 and 9.29% using the 60 Co source and by 22.21 and 17.71% using the 192 Ir source, respectively. In contrast, absorbed dose parameters (D 5 , D 90 , and D 100 ) for the target in the three techniques showed a mean relative variation of 0.96% (0.00-7.49%) for both sources. Static and dynamic IMBT using steel-shielded applicators provided relatively better OAR protection while maintaining similar target coverage in the treatment of vaginal cancer., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Japanese Society of Radiological Technology and Japan Society of Medical Physics.)

Introduction: Genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection is one of the most frequent in the world; about 85 million new cases of this pathology are registered each year, which causes severe complications in women and newborns. Objective: To determine the clinical-epidemiological characteristics of C. trachomatis infection in sexually active Venezuelan women. Materials and methods: Descriptive, cross-sectional, and field study based on the clinical history and physical examination, detection of infection with immunoenzymatic assay with anti-LPS polyclonal antibody and confirmation of results with molecular biology test. The sample consisted of 100 sexually active women over 12 years of age from Carabobo state, Venezuela. Results: The women were mostly between 20 and 45 years old, in 25% of them IgG antibodies to C. trachomatis were detected and in 84% of these the infection was confirmed by PCR, in none of the women IgM antibodies to C. trachomatis were found. Conclusion: Chronic infection characterizes women between 20 and 45 years of age; the immunoenzymatic test yielded false positives corroborated by PCR.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of defining an in vivo dosimetry (IVD) protocol as a patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA) using the bead thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) for point and 3D IVD during brachytherapy (BT) of gynecological (GYN) cancer using 60 Co high-dose-rate (HDR) source., Methods: The 3D in vivo absorbed dose verification within the rectum and bladder as organs-at-risk was performed by bead TLDs for 30 GYN cancer patients. For rectal wall dosimetry, 80 TLDs were placed in axial arrangements around a rectal tube covered with a layer of gel. Ten beads were placed inside the Foley catheter to get the bladder-absorbed dose. Beads TLDs were localized and defined as control points in the treatment planning system (TPS) using CT images of the patients. Patients were planned and treated using the routine BT protocol. The experimentally obtained absorbed dose map of the rectal wall and the point dose of the bladder were compared to the TPSs predicted absorbed dose at these control points., Results: Relative difference between TPS and TLDs results were -8.3% ± 19.5% and -7.2% ± 14.6% (1SD) for rectum- and bladder-absorbed dose, respectively. Gamma analysis was used to compare the calculated with the measured absorbed dose maps. Mean gamma passing rates of 84.1%, 90.8%, and 92.5% using the criteria of 3%/2 mm, 3%/3 mm, and 4%/2 mm were obtained, respectively. Eventually, a "considering level" of at least 85% as pass rate with 4%/2-mm criteria was recommended., Conclusions: A 3D IVD protocol employing bead TLDs was presented to measure absorbed doses delivered to the rectum and bladder during GYN HDR-BT as a reliable PSQA method. 3D rectal absorbed dose measurements were performed. Differences between experimentally measured and planned absorbed dose maps were presented in the form of a gamma index, which may be used as a warning for corrective action., (© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics published by Wiley Periodicals, LLC on behalf of The American Association of Physicists in Medicine.)

Purpose: This study aims to validate the dosimetric characteristics of High Dose Rate (HDR) 60 Co source (Co0.A86 model) using GATE Geant4-based Monte Carlo code. According to the recommendation of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) task group report number 43, the dosimetric parameters of a new brachytherapy source should be verified either experimentally or by Monte Carlo calculation before clinical applications. The validated 60 Co source in this study will be used for the simulation of intensity-modulated brachytherapy (IMBT) of vaginal cancer using the same GATE Geant4-based Monte Carlo code in the future., Materials and Methods: GATE (version 9.0) simulation code was used to model and calculate the required TG-43U1 dosimetric data of the 60 Co HDR source. DoseActors were defined for calculation of dose rate constant, radial dose function, and anisotropy function in a water phantom with an 80 cm radius., Results: The dose rate constant was obtained as 1.070 ± 0.008 cGy . h - 1 . U - 1 which shows a relative difference of 2.01% compared to the consensus value, 1.092  ​cGy . h - 1 . U - 1 . The calculated results of anisotropy and radial dose functions starting from 0.1 cm to 10 cm around the source showed excellent agreement with the results of published studies. The mean variation of the radial dose and anisotropy functions values from the consensus data were 1% and 0.9% respectively., Conclusion: Findings from this investigation revealed that the validation of the HDR 60 Co source is feasible by the GATE Geant4-based Monte Carlo code. As a result, the GATE Monte Carlo code can be used for the verification of the brachytherapy treatment planning system., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)