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This study explored possible associations between treatment duration, initial complexity, outcomes in Invisalign therapy, and the number of refinements.Three-dimensional models (initial, final, and refinements) of 355 Invisalign patients (114 males and 241 females; 33.8 ± 17.1 years) were analyzed using the Peer Assessment Rating (PAR) index questionnaire tool in the Ortho Analyzer software (version 2.0; 3Shape, Copenhagen, Denmark) to calculate the weighted total and individual PAR index scores for each component of the PAR index. Data related to demographics, treatment duration, and the number of refinements were collected.Treatment duration increased as the number of refinements increased. Percent of improvement was higher in PAR ≥22 group than PAR 22 with an increase in the number of refinements: 83.3% vs 73.8% for 2 refinements; 94.7% vs 91.2% for 3 refinements; and 100% vs 85.7% for ≥4 refinements. Those who achieved great improvement or improvement and those who did not were significantly different in treatment duration (P 0.001 and P = 0.027), number of refinements (≥3 refinements; P 0.001), initial occlusal severity (PAR ≥22; P 0.01 and P = 0.031). Most subjects achieved improvement after the first refinement (64.5% for PAR 22 and 78.5% for PAR ≥22). Few had ≥4 refinements, and if they did, none achieved improvement with additional refinements.Initial complexity for an Invisalign case is associated with treatment duration, achieved outcomes, and the number of refinements. Treatment duration increased with an increased number of refinements. Great improvement or improvement for the first time dropped to 0 if additional refinements were carried out after 3. Therefore, performing additional refinements does not necessarily mean better occlusal outcomes.

Cells use transition metal ions as structural components of biomolecules and cofactors in enzymatic reactions, making transition metals vital cellular components. The buildup of a particular metal ion in certain stress conditions becomes harmful to the organism due to the misincorporation of the excess ion into biomolecules, resulting in perturbed enzymatic activity or metal-catalyzed formation of reactive oxygen species. Organisms optimize metal concentration by regulating the expression of proteins that import and export that metal, often in a metal concentration-dependent manner. One such regulation mechanism is via riboswitches, which are 5’-untranslated regions (UTR) of an mRNA that undergo conformational changes to promote or inhibit the expression of the downstream gene, commonly in response to a ligand. TheyybP-ykoYfamily of bacterial riboswitches shares a conserved aptamer domain that binds manganese (Mn2+). InE. coli, theyybP-ykoYriboswitch precedes and regulates the expression of two genes:mntP, which based on extensive genetic evidence encodes an Mn2+exporter, andalx, which encodes a putative metal ion transporter whose cognate ligand is currently in question. Expression ofalxis upregulated by both elevated intracellular concentrations of Mn2+and alkaline pH. With metal ion measurements and gene expression studies, we demonstrate that the alkalinization of media increases cytoplasmic Mn2+content, which in turn enhancesalxexpression. Alx then exports excess Mn2+to prevent toxic buildup of the metal inside the cell, with the export activity maximal at alkaline pH. Using mutational and complementation experiments, we pinpoint a set of acidic residues in the predicted transmembrane segments of Alx that play a crucial role in its Mn2+export. We propose that Alx-mediated Mn2+export provides a primary protective layer that fine-tunes the cytoplasmic Mn2+levels, especially during alkaline stress.

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the ramus bone parameters (ramus thickness and ramus depth) for miniscrew placement. An additional aim was to compare and contrast the ramus bone parameters in growing and nongrowing male and female subjects with hyperdivergent, normodivergent, hypodivergent facial types.Cone-beam computed tomography scans of 690 subjects were evaluated. They were classified in terms of growth status, gender, and facial type. Ramus thickness was measured as the distance from the outer (buccal) to the inner (lingual) aspects of the mandibular ramus. Ramus depth was measured as the distance from the anterior border of the ramus to the inferior alveolar nerve canal. The measurements for ramus thickness and ramus depth were performed at 3 different levels bilaterally: (1) occlusal plane (OP), (2) 5 mm above the occlusal plane (5OP), and (3) 10 mm above the occlusal plane (10OP).Males showed a significantly higher ramus thickness than females (P 0.05). Ramus thickness decreased significantly (P 0.05) as we moved superior from the level of OP to 5OP and 10OP in all 3 facial types in both females (growing and nongrowing) and males (growing and nongrowing). Growing females and growing males had significantly higher ramus thickness than nongrowing females and nongrowing males, respectively. Ramus depth increased as we moved higher from the OP to 10OP. Hyperdivergent facial type showed a significantly reduced ramus depth compared with hypodivergent and normodivergent facial type in growing and nongrowing males and females at all 3 locations, namely OP, 5OP, and 10OP (P 0.05).Because of adequate ramus depth and ramus thickness, 5OP was considered the optimal insertion site for the placement of miniscrews. Patients with a hyperdivergent facial type showed significantly reduced ramus depth than hypodivergent and normodivergent facial types. Ramus thickness in males was significantly higher than in females in all facial types.

In This paper presents an application for drone named VIRODRONE- A drone designed for Fighting Viral Diseases. Time and safety are two main factors in such viral diseases to address this both this drone is designed. It has the facility of crowd screening, crowd control and sanitization. If no of people at any place at that instant is more than 5 it will give warning to maintain social distancing and if no of people is 0 it will go and sanitize that place. A drone useful for fighting in such pandemic situation. © 2021 University of Kuwait. All rights reserved.

Recommender Systems (RS) aim to filter relevant items from the huge pool of information available to users and assist users by predicting their future preferences. In traditional item-to-user based RS, items are recommended to user and preferences of the user are considered for generating recommendations. Reciprocal Recommender Systems (RRS) are people-to-people systems which recommend users to each other. Thus, the preferences of both the users should be satisfied in order to produce successful recommendations. In RRS, two unilateral user-to-user preference scores are aggregated to generate reciprocal recommendations that should be accepted by both the users involved. In this paper, we propose a reciprocal recommendation algorithm that computes unilateral preference scores based on multiple aspects including multi-criteria preferences of a user, popularity-awareness, demographic information and availability of users. Experimental study conducted with speed-dating experiment data set demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

In this paper, a new low-voltage low-power circuit is introduced for implementing CMOS-based basic logic functions using the analog current-mode techniques. The logic functions have been realized by using their expansion in Power Series representation, a Squaring circuit and a Geometric Mean circuit. To illustrate the proposed method, simultaneous realization of the basic logic functions NOT, OR, AND, XOR, NOR, NAND and XNOR in a single circuit is considered. Furthermore, these functions have been used to realize various combinational circuits including full-adder, full-subtractor, etc. SPICE simulation results, obtained with 1.5-V supply, are included.

The current review focuses on the studies conducted on the colonization of microorganisms on orthodontic ligatures during orthodontic treatment. The fixed orthodontic appliances have long been associated with an increase in plaque accumulation, bacterial colonization, and resultant enamel decalcification. Voluminous research has been carried out on the microbial colonization of even newer orthodontic materials such as elastomeric ligatures with an evidence of variably increased microbial counts during orthodontic treatment. However, conclusive material-based data for minimal microbial colonization to establish acceptance criteria for the use of elastomeric ligatures are hardly available. Thus, there is a need for further studies with dual emphasis on exploring microbial associations based on surface chemistries of different elastomers and their requisite modifications for hampering microbial biofilms to evolve efficacious oral health friendly orthodontic ligatures.

Background Besides, other factors, the choice of materials used as orthodontic ligatures could be one of the many tools to counter the effects of microbial adhesion, that culminates into dental ailments. Therefore, we assessed bacterial adhesion on elastomeric ligatures with special reference to coloured elastomeric rings during orthodontic treatment. Material and methods A split mouth study, involving 240 samples of different elastomeric ligatures from forty orthodontic patients possessing good oral hygiene was carried out. The archwire was ligated to the brackets on both arches with elastomeric rings (superslick, clear transparent , blue and pink) at predetermined quadrants. After six weeks, ligatures from second premolars were removed and processed for bacterial enumeration using standard techniques. Bacterial counts were also determined for stimulated saliva samples taken at 0 and 6 weeks. Results A statistically significant difference in bacterial counts was obtained amongst different elastomeric modules used. Maximum bacterial counts were found on conventional pigmented elastomeric modules, followed by Superslick module and clear module. More number of bacteria associated with the conventional pink as compared to the conventional blue pigmented modules, however it was not statistically significant. The three bacterial genera Streptococcus Staphylococcus and Aerobic Lactobacilli adhered to elastomeric modules in following predominant pattern i.e. Conventional pink>Conventional Blue>Superslick>Clear. Conclusions The studies evidenced colour and material dependent bacterial colonization on orthodontic modules and could be an indicator of bacterial biofilm forming potential based on surface chemistries and a clinically efficacious tool to redesign conventional and modified elastomeric rings as orthodontic ligation accessories. Key words:Bacterial colonization, biofilm, coloured elastomers, orthodontic ligatures.

Collaborative Filtering (CF) technique has proven to be promising for implementing large scale recommender systems but its success depends mainly on locating similar neighbors. Due to data sparsity of the user-item rating matrix, the process of finding similar neighbors does not often succeed. In addition to this, it also suffers from the new user (cold start) problem as finding possible neighborhood and giving recommendations to user who has not rated any item or rated very few items is difficult. In this paper, our proposed Trust based Ant Recommender System (TARS) produces valuable recommendations by incorporating a notion of dynamic trust between users and selecting a small and best neighborhood based on biological metaphor of ant colonies. Along with the predicted ratings, displaying additional information for explanation of recommendations regarding the strength and level of connectedness in trust graph from where recommendations are generated, items and number of neighbors involved in predicting ratings can help active user make better decisions. Also, new users can highly benefit from pheromone updating strategy known from ant algorithms as positive feedback in the form of aggregated dynamic trust pheromone defines ''popularity'' of a user as recommender over a period of time. The performance of TARS is evaluated using two datasets of different sparsity levels viz. Jester dataset and MovieLens dataset (available online) and compared with traditional Collaborative Filtering based approach for generating recommendations.

The absence of PtsN, the terminal phosphoacceptor of the phosphotransferase system comprising PtsP-PtsO-PtsN, in Escherichia coli confers a potassium-sensitive (K s ) phenotype as the external K + concentration ([K + ] e ) is increased above 5 mM. A growth-inhibitory increase in intracellular K + content, resulting from hyperactivated Trk-mediated K + uptake, is thought to cause this K s . We provide evidence that the K s of the Δ ptsN mutant is associated with K + limitation. Accordingly, the moderate K s displayed by the Δ ptsN mutant was exacerbated in the absence of the Trk and Kup K + uptake transporters and was associated with reduced cellular K + content. Conversely, overproduction of multiple K + uptake proteins suppressed the K s . Expression of PtsN variants bearing the H73A, H73D, and H73E substitutions of the phosphorylation site histidine of PtsN complemented the K s . Absence of the predicted inner membrane protein YcgO (also called CvrA) suppressed the K s , which was correlated with elevated cellular K + content in the Δ ptsN mutant, but the Δ ptsN mutation did not alter YcgO levels. Heterologous overexpression of ycgO also led to K s that was associated with reduced cellular K + content, exacerbated by the absence of Trk and Kup and alleviated by overproduction of Kup. Our findings are compatible with a model that postulates that K s in the Δ ptsN mutant occurs due to K + limitation resulting from activation of K + efflux mediated by YcgO, which may be additionally stimulated by [K + ] e , implicating a role for PtsN (possibly its dephosphorylated form) as an inhibitor of YcgO activity. IMPORTANCE This study examines the physiological link between the phosphotransferase system comprising PtsP-PtsO-PtsN and K + ion metabolism in E. coli . Studies on the physiological defect that renders an E. coli mutant lacking PtsN to be growth inhibited by external K + indicate that growth impairment results from cellular K + limitation that is mediated by YcgO, a predicted inner membrane protein. Additional observations suggest that dephospho-PtsN may inhibit and external K + may stimulate K + limitation mediated by YcgO. It is speculated that YcgO-mediated K + limitation may be an output of a response to certain stresses, which by modulating the phosphotransfer capacity of the PtsP-PtsO-PtsN phosphorelay leads to growth cessation and stress tolerance.

Analysis of data on road accidents collected from different sources brings forth important characteristics related to the nature of accidents. Based on this, the fatality index (FI) is defined as the ratio of fatalities to injuries in accidents. An increase in FI is indicative of fatalities in accidents. High FI is observed to correlate positively with difficult terrain, slow response and poor medical facilities. FI therefore represents an important indicator for planning initiatives to reduce fatalities related to road accidents.

Routing in MANets is a challenging task due to its dynamic topology. The best and reliable path for routing is one which is more trustworthy and less loaded. This paper proposes an Ant-based Trusted Routing (MPG_AbTR) in MANets using the framework of Mobile Process Groups. The trust on a node is calculated using mobility rate,group membership time and number of overlapping groups the node is part of. As the number of overlapping groups of a node increases, confidence and trust on that node also increases. Consequently, the load on that node also increases as it becomes most trustworthy and reliable for data forwarding. This leads to its selfish and unreliable behavior in future,other nodes and routes being underutilized and unexplored. Therefore,to exploit the most trustworthy node for forwarding and side-by-side balancing the load on the node, ant-based pheromone updating strategy is used in our proposed approach.

Background: Cancer data from Rajasthan are limited. Only two studies, one from Western Rajasthan, and the other from Eastern Rajasthan have been published by Sharma et al. in 1992 and 1996. Aims: To put the cancer profile from this region in proper perspective, we conducted the present study on the patterns of various malignancies in Jaipur region, i.e., Eastern Rajasthan. Setting and Design and Material and Methods: The study spans over one and half decade (1990-2004) and is based on a retrospective six-year sample analysis of approximately 200,000 histopathological and cytological reports for the years 1990, 1991, 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2004. Results: A total of 21,868 cancers were recorded in the six sample years. There were 59.11% (12,926) males and 40.89% (8942) females, with the male to female ratio being 1.45:1. Organ wise, lung (8.45%), prostate (7.12%), brain (6.04%), urinary bladder (5.31%), esophagus (4.67%) and tongue (4.60%) are most common sites involved in males with regard to frequency, whereas breast (20.44%), cervix (14.99%), ovary (4.35%), brain (3.80%), esophagus (3.67%), uterus (3.01%) and rectum (2.80%) are common sites for malignancies in females. Conclusions: Significant findings were a higher frequency of cancers of the prostate, urinary bladder, and brain in males along with gall bladder cancers in females. Our figures have been compared with the national data.

Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a meta-heuristic based on colony of artificial ants which work cooperatively, building solutions by moving on the problem graph and by communicating through artificial pheromone trails mimicking real ants. One of the active research directions is the application of ACO algorithms to solve dynamic shortest path problems. Solving traffic jams is one such problem where the cost i.e. time to travel increases during rush hours resulting in tremendous strain on daily commuters and chaos. This paper describes a new approach-DSATJ (Dynamic System for Avoiding Traffic Jam) which aims at choosing an alternative optimum path to avoid traffic jam and then resuming that same path again when the traffic is regulated. The approach is inspired by variants of ACO algorithms. Traffic jam is detected through pheromone values on edges which are updated according to goodness of solution on the optimal tours only. Randomness is introduced in the probability function to ensure maximum exploration by ants. Experiments were carried out with the partial road map of North-West region of Delhi, India, to observe the performance of our approach.

The aim of this paper is to estimate the channel characteristics of OFDM communication system by using enhanced Hinfin approach and comparing the result with existing Kalman channel estimator. This estimation criterion is different with Kalman filter. These two algorithms fail when high data is to be transmitted. In general, blind channel estimation method cannot handle multimedia services (high data rate). In order to estimate these high data rate, we are proposing this improved H-infinity approach. This improved H-infinity approach is proposed to overcome the drawback of kalman and H-infinity at overall SNR environment. At very Low SNR the characteristics of both H-infinity and Kalman gives the same performance. In order to improve this performance we are proposing this new estimation process, for handling High Data rates (multimedia services).

This paper presents an ant-based trusted routing algorithm with load-balancing for mobile ad hoc networks within the framework of mobile process groups MPGs. The proposed algorithm uses a hybrid approach as it proactively forms the group views of mobile processes agents in initialisation phase and maintains and updates these group views reactively in accordance with the topology change in maintenance phase. Route is discovered reactively on-demand when a source node sends a route request for routing. Reactive path setup is instigated by sending ant packets on the trusted paths. These ant packets update the routing path with a pheromone value which is computed using trust on that node and the node's load taking capability. Therefore, ant packets always follow the path which is most trustworthy and has low traffic load density. The proposed approach was implemented in JADE and the results show that the nodes having high trust and less traffic load density were always chosen as forwarding nodes forming the trusted path with less load.

15662 Background: Carcinoma of the Gall Bladder has a particularly high incidence in Northern India. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the pattern of diseases of gall bladder in referenc...