Search

The aim of direct pulp caping (DPC) is to support the formation of mineralized tissue and encourage pulp healing by placing a dental biomaterial directly over the exposed pulp. The era of vital pulp therapy has been influenced by the introduction of various pulp-capping materials. Emphasis has shifted from the “doomed” organ concept of an exposed pulp to one of hope and recovery; this comprehensive review thus discusses the ability of different direct pulp-capping materials to form a dentin bridge. Furthermore, this review will discuss the quality and quantity of dentinal bridge formation by different pulp-capping agents.

The demand for accurate, faster, and inexpensive sequencing of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is increasing and is driving the emergence of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. NGS can provide useful insights to help researchers and clinicians to develop the right treatment options. NGS has wide applications in novel fields in biology and medicine. These technologies are of great aid to decode mysteries of life, to improve the quality of crops to detect the pathogens, and also useful in improving life qualities. Thousands to millions of molecules can be sequenced simultaneously in parallel using various NGS methods. NGS can identify and characterize the microbial species more comprehensively than culture-based methods. Recently, the NGS approach has been used for oral microbial analysis.

Nanotechnology has become integral in the improvement of methodology used to identify and treat various cancers. Nanoparticles (NPs) exhibit unique features that enhance sensitivity and selectivity and subsequently reduce the time required to detect early-stage cancer through biomarkers. NPs improve the therapeutic efficiency of anticancer agents when compared with conventional methods, such as chemotherapy, and thereby eliminate toxicity and side effects, which helps improve the stability, solubility, half-life, and tumor aggregation of an anticancer drug. This also helps expedite the treatment cycle by enabling a real-time assessment, quickly circumventing various biological barriers, improving vectorization and delivery, overcoming drug resistance, and developing various paths for the manufacturing of new synthetic vaccines. Nanomedicine has usually involved studies on solid-state cancers because it can increase the cell permeability and retention effect experienced within the tumor areas to improve regional accumulation and efficacy. Nanomedicine for leukemia and lymphoma is addressed differently from solid-state cancers because of the absence of the enhanced permeability and retention effect.Nevertheless, nanomedicine has enabled the development of various modern innovative techniques for simple and noninvasive procedures for prior analysis of cancers with subsequent diffuse tumor treatment. In this assessment, we consider various unique constructs on NPs that can predominantly enhance therapeutic treatment over diffused tumors by increasing control, from preclinical testing to medicinal trials. Nanotechnology combines nanodiagnostics, nanotherapeutics, and nanotheranostics for improved imaging and diagnoses of early stage cancers. Furthermore, the primacy of nanoplatforms has been discussed for an invaluable position in this blended method. There are many types of NPs, such as organic, inorganic, and hybrid NPs. The minute size of NPs makes them ideal for intracellular uptake, and the large surface area ratio allows functional interactions with various compounds. This review also covers targeting cancerous cells via inducing lysosomal autophagy using gold NPs.

Background and Aims: Cancer pain guidelines remain confined due to implementation barriers, preventing them from attaining a global perspective. The guidelines must be robust in development and inculcate high-quality content to achieve practical utility. Quality indicators related to safe opioid practice empower effective guideline implementation. Methods: The protocol was registered prospectively in PROSPERO (CRD42021244823). Guidelines published over the last decade providing insights into cancer pain management and incorporating safe opioid practice were evaluated. The review's primary outcome was to evaluate the quality of cancer pain guidelines. Appraisal of guidelines for research and evaluation II (AGREE II) instrument was used to assess a guideline's quality. The ADAPTE collaboration-guideline adaptation resource tool kit (ADAPTE) provided insights into its adaptation based on specific questions within the guideline. Results: Fourteen cancer pain guidelines met the eligibility criteria and were included for quality evaluation. Eight guidelines were evaluated with combined AGREE II and ADAPTE process, attaining >66.7% in the rigour of development domain score, summated scaled domain score, and specific ADAPTE tools to evaluate the quality of each guideline. The intra-class correlation coefficient was utilised for resolving inter-rater agreement. 'Safe opioid practice' within a guideline was assessed for quality content implementation. Conclusion: Combined AGREE II and ADAPTE identified four cancer pain guidelines, namely Ministry of Health Malaysia, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, NCEC-National Clinical Guideline, and World Health Organization, which were of the highest quality and incorporated safe opioid practice effectively.

In the era of globalization, student placement is very challenging issue for all educational institutions. For engineering institutions, placement is a key factor to maintain good ranking in the university as well as in other national and international ranking agencies. In this paper, we have proposed a few supervised machine learning classifiers which may be used to predict the placement of a student in the IT industry based on their academic performance in class Tenth, Twelve, Graduation, and Backlog till date in Graduation. We also compare the results of different proposed classifiers. Various parameters used to compare and analyze the results of different developed classifiers are accuracy score, percentage accuracy score, confusion matrix, heatmap, and classification report. Classification report generated by developed classifiers consists of parameters precision, recall, f1-score, and support. The classification algorithms Support Vector Machine, Gaussian Naive Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbor, Random Forest, Decision Tree, Stochastic Gradient Descent, Logistic Regression, and Neural Network are used to develop the classifiers. All the developed classifiers are also tested on new data which are excluded from the dataset used in the experiment.

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a major source of disability owing to pain and loss of function. Intra-articular (IA) injection is the last nonoperative modality that can be used. We compared the efficacy of IA steroids and prolotherapy for relieving pain in patients of knee OA. Materials and Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blind comparative study on 56 patients of OA knee assigned into two groups: steroid and prolotherapy group. Injections were given at 0, 1, and 2 months. During 6-month follow-up, patients were evaluated for pain relief by visual analog scale (VAS) score, quality of life (QOL) score, and requirement of rescue analgesic. Results: At baseline, mean VAS score of prolotherapy group (6.71 ± 0.94) and steroid group (6.36 ± 0.99) were comparable (P = 0.166). After 6 months, mean VAS score in prolotherapy group was 4.07 ± 1.44 as compared to 3.14 ± 0.89 in steroid group, and difference was statistically significant (P = 0.009). Furthermore, at baseline, QOL score of prolotherapy group (81.75 ± 4.69) and steroid group (79.29 ± 3.89) were comparable. After 6 months, it was found to be 70.43 ± 4.97 in prolotherapy group and 67.36 ± 2.74 in steroid group, the difference being highly significant (P = 0.007). Number of patients requiring rescue analgesia (P = 0.280) and the mean number of doses of rescue analgesic consumed (P = 0.538), both were slightly higher in prolotherapy group. Conclusion: Intra-articular steroid was better than prolotherapy in relieving pain of OA knee.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to compare the canal transportation, centering ability, canal curvature, dentin removal, the volume of the curved root canals, and time taken during and after instrumentation with Wave One, Reciproc, F360, and One shape (OS) by using cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Materials and Methods: According to the file systems used for canal preparation, eighty mesiobuccal canals of mandibular molars were distributed into four groups (20 samples each): OS (Group 1), F360 (Group 2), Wave One (Group 3), and reciproc (Group 4). According to the manufacturer's instructions, all groups were prepared until size 25 taper. Canals were scanned using CS three-dimensional CBCT scanner (Carestream) before and after preparation at 2 mm, 5 mm, and 8 mm from the apex. The data collected were evaluated using SPSS software with ANOVA and post hoc for a significant difference. Results: Significant difference was found between the entire group at 2 mm and 5 mm (P = 0.021) and at 8 mm (P = 0.037), where F360 showed the least canal transportation. The mean values for centering ability were not found significant at 2 mm and 5 mm. OS proved to remain more centered than the other groups. Curved canals were instrumented better with minor canal straightening by using Reciproc. The dentin was removed more by using Wave One, whereas least dentin was removed by F360. During pre- and post-instrumentation scans the change in volume of the root canal were not found statistically significant. Wave One showed the maximum increase in the volume of the canal after instrumentation. For the preparation of the canal, the time taken was less with reciproc as compared to other groups. Conclusion: Therefore, according to the study single-file rotary instrument like F360 used in the continuous rotation is suitable instrument for the root canal preparation followed by Reciproc, OS, and Wave One.

Dentistry as a profession is quite demanding and challenging and is also associated with occupational hazards like musculoskeletal disorders and stress-related problems. The practice of yoga has been proven to be efficacious in management of quite a lot of stress and lifestyle disorders. It strengthens one physically, mentally, and emotionally. Moreover, yoga can also be used in the management of dental patients for stress-related oral conditions like lichen planus, burning mouth syndrome, aphthous ulcers, etc., Yoga has also been found to have antiinflammatory, antianxiety effect, and also a lot of other beneficial effects. This review emphasizes on the relevance of yoga in the dental profession, from the practitioners, students, and patients viewpoint. Data pertaining to the subject was obtained after a thorough search of the PubMed literature and Google search engine.

Phytases are enzyme capable of hydrolysing phytic acid to myo-inositol and inorganic phosphorus. The aim of the present study was the screening and isolation of efficient phytase producing bacteria from soil samples. 14 bacterial isolates were found to produce clear zone of hydrolysis on PSM containing 0.5% ca-phytate. Out of all phytase positive isolates, five bacterial isolates 100A, 9H, 14A, 4D, and 2B showed significant phytase production in submerged fermentation. The isolate 14A was found to be the best among all with the maximum production of 89.09 U/ml after 72 h of incubation at 30 ºC. Colony morphology and microscopic examination (Gram’s staining) of maximal phytase producer suggested that the isolate 14A is gram negative rod. Further on molecular analysis the bacterial isolate showed closest similarity with Pseudomonas sp. 16S rDNA sequencing and sequence similarity search using BLAST showed that it matches 97 % with Pseudomonas pulluriniana, while 3% was found to be unique sequence and named as Pseudomonas sp. aazad. The crude phytase from the isolate showed optimum activity at pH 6 and temperature 50 ºC.

Introduction: The repair of oesophageal atresia by thoracotomy (or thoracoscopy) is one of the most common neonatal surgical emergencies. Peri-operative pain management in these patients is challenging due to fear of respiratory depression, post-opioid administration. The morbidity of inadequately treated pain is significant and may result in physiological instability, altered mental development and inappropriate stress response. Efficacy of use of fentanyl by the epidural route has been compared with intravenous routes often; no clear-cut consensus exists in literature. However, it has been suggested that epidural fentanyl reduces the needs for intraoperative analgesics, improves the quality of post-operative analgesia and shortens the recovery time. However, the same phenomenon has not been studied in neonates with oesophageal atresia undergoing primary repair by the thoracotomy route. Aim: To compare the analgesic efficacy of fentanyl via epidural vs. intra-venous routes of administration during thoracotomy for primary repair of oesophageal atresia in neonates. Materials and Methods: This was a randomised controlled trial for a span of over two years, on neonates (n=60) undergoing thoracotomy under general anaesthesia, for primary repair of oesophageal atresia. The participants were randomised into two groups to receive thoracic epidural analgesia with fentanyl and bupivacaine (Group A, n=30) and intravenous fentanyl (Group B, n=30) respectively. The monitoring and pain assessment was done in first 24 hours, adequacy of respiration was assessed by respiratory rate and oxygen saturation. Data were represented as Mean (Range±SD). Independent sample t-test and Mann Whitney U test were used to compare the heart rate and total fentanyl consumption respectively between the two groups. Results: Patients in Group A were hemodynamically more stable (post-incision heart rate (mean±SD) was 179.4±10.9 beats per minute in Group A vis-à-vis 186±9 beats per minute in Group B, p-value=0.01) and required less analgesia (need for intraoperative fentanyl boluses: n=2 of 30 in Group A vis-à-vis 9 of 30 in Group B, p-value=0.02); total fentanyl consumption: median (IQR) 1.2 (0-2.5) mcg in Group A vis-à-vis 7.75 (6-12) mcg in Group B; p

Construction of a focused library of polycyclic ether-benzopyrans was undertaken in order to discover new therapeutic compounds that affect Leishmania growth and infectivity. This is especially of interest since there are few drug therapies for leishmaniasis that do not have serious drawbacks such high cost, side effects, and emerging drug resistance. The construction of these polycyclic ether-benzopyrans utilized an acetoxypyranone-alkene [5+2] cycloaddition and the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling. The multi-gram quantity of the requisite aryl bromide was obtained followed by effective Pd-catalyzed coupling with boronic acid derivatives. Compounds were tested in vitro using the parasitic protozoan, Leishmania tarentolae. Effects of concentration, time, and exposure to light were evaluated. In addition, the effects on secreted acid phosphatase activity and nitric oxide production were investigated, since both have been implicated in parasite infectivity. The data presented herein are indicative of disruption of the Leishmania tarentolae and thus provide impetus for the development and testing of a more extensive library.

Context: Celiac plexus block (CPB) (is an effective way to reduce cancer-associated pain in upper abdominal malignancies. Aims: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of different volumes of 70% alcohol in CPB. Settings and Design: Prospective, randomized, controlled clinical study. Subjects and Methods: Thirty patients of carcinoma gall bladder were randomly divided into three groups (n = 10) to receive 20, 30, and 40 ml of 70% alcohol in CPB. Statistical Analysis Used: All the continuous data were assessed analysis of variance followed by post-hoc tests (Tukey′s Honestly Significant Difference test). Ordinal data were compared using Kruskal-Wallis H-test followed by Mann-Whitney U-test. Categorical comparisons were performed using Chi-square test. Results: A significant difference in visual analog scale (VAS) score of Group I, Group I and Group III was observed from week 6 onward until the end of the study. At all these time intervals, VAS scores in Group I was higher than both Groups II and III during this time interval. VAS scores in Group III were significantly lower as compared to Group II from week 10 onward until the end of the study. As compared to baseline, at all the follow-up intervals, mean morphine requirement was significantly lower in Group II and Group III. A quality of life (QOL) score of Group III were higher as compared to Group I. Between Group II and Group III, significant difference was observed at week 16 only when Group III had a higher score as compared to Group II. Conclusions: VAS score, QOL, and reduction in morphine consumption were increased on increasing the volume of alcohol in CPB, 40 ml being most effective.

Introduction: Root canal preparation leads to deviation of the canal anatomy causing canal transportation which affects the success of the treatment. Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) is a non invasive imaging technique to analyse the shape of the root canal before and after the preparation. Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate and evaluate the canal transportation in curved mandibular molar root canals and centering ability of Reciproc and One Shape file systems after instrumentation using CBCT. Materials and Methods: Twenty mandibular molars were taken and allocated into two groups (n=10): Group 1-One Shape and Group 2-Reciproc. The canals were then scanned using CS 3D CBCT scanner (Carestream) before and after preparation, to assess the transportation and centering values at different levels respectively from the apex. The data gathered were then assessed statistically with Mann-Whitney test. Results: Analysis revealed that Reciproc and One Shape showed statistically no significant difference in terms of canal transportation and centering ability (p>0.05). Conclusion: One shape and Reciproc performed similar in terms of canal transportation & centering ability.

Preventing maternal death associated with pregnancy and child birth is one of the greatest challenges for India. Approximately 55,000 women die in India due to pregnancy- and childbirth- related conditions each year. Increasing the coverage of maternal and newborn interventions is essential if Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 4 and 5 are to be reached. With a view to accelerate the reduction in maternal and neonatal mortality through institutional deliveries, Government of India initiated a scheme in 2005 called Janani Suraksha Yojna (JSY) under its National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). In Jharkhand the scheme is called the Mukhya Mantri Janani Shishu Swasthya Abhiyan (MMJSSA). This paper focuses on community perspectives, for indentifying key areas that require improvement for proper implementation of the MMJSSA in Jharkhand. Qualitative research method was used to collect data through in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) in six districts of Jharkhand- Gumla, West Singhbhum, Koderma, Deoghar, Garhwa, and Ranchi. Total 300 IDIs (24 IDIs each from mother given birth at home and institution respectively; two IDIs each with members of Village Health and Sanitation Committees (VHSC) / Rogi Kalyan Samitis (RKS) from each district) and 24 FGDs (four FGDs were conducted from pools of husbands, mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law in each district) were conducted. Although people indicated willingness for institutional deliveries (generally perceived to be safe deliveries), several barriers emerged as critical obstacles. These included poor infrastructure, lack of quality of care, difficulties while availing incentives, corruption in disbursement of incentives, behavior of the healthcare personnel and lack of information about MMJSSA. Poor (and expensive) transport facilities and difficult terrain made geographical access difficult. The level of utilization of maternal healthcare among women in Jharkhand is low. There was an overwhelming demand for energizing sub-centers (including for deliveries) in order to increase access to maternal and child health services. Having second ANMs will go a long way in achieving this end. The MMJSSA scheme will thus have to re-invent itself within the overall framework of the NRHM.

The absence o!!f a hypocalcemic effect of calcitonin (CT) in fishes has been suggested due to exceedingly high plasma levels of CT; the fish may be saturated with respect of circulating CT and therefore unable to respond to exogenously administered CT. Earlier it has been suggested that a hypocalcemic action of injected CT may be obscured by changes in the release of endogenous CT and other calcium regulating hormones. In this study we have used artificial freshwater, calcium-deficient freshwater and calcium-rich freshwater and injected the fish with CT. The aim behind selecting these media were (i) in calcium-deficient medium there would be reduced circulating levels of CT, (ii) in calcium-rich medium there would be diminished secretion of prolactin (this hormone is hypercalcemic in fish), and (iii) by keeping the fish in calcium-rich medium we can test the antihypercalcemic action of CT. Moreover, the present study would reveal the changes in the ultimobranchial gland (UBG) after keeping the fish in all the above three media and/or injecting the fish with CT. Freshwater catfish, Heteropneustes fossilis, were administered intraperitoneally daily with vehicle or 0.5 U/100g body wt of salmon calcitonin (CT) and kept in artificial freshwater, calcium-rich freshwater and calcium-deficient freshwater for 10 days. Blood samples were collected on 1, 3, 5, and 10 days following the treatment and analyzed for serum calcium levels. The ultimobranchial gland (UBG) was also fixed for histological studies on these intervals. In artificial freshwater there was no change in the serum calcium levels of calcitonin-injected fish. The ultimobranchial gland of calcitonin-injected fish exhibited a progressive decrease in the nuclear volume from day 5 onwards. On day 10 vacuolization in the gland was also noticed. In vehicle-injected fish (control) kept in calcium-rich freshwater hypercalcemia has been noticed which persists till the end of the experiment. In calcitonin-treated fish maintained in calcium-rich freshwater there is no change in serum calcium level as compared to vehicle-injected fish. In vehicle-injected fish the UBG depicts decreased staining response and increased nuclear volume at day 5. On day 10 the nuclear volume is further increased and few degenerating cells have been noticed. Calcitonin fails to induce any histological change in the UBG as compared to control. In vehicle-injected fish kept in calcium-deficient freshwater the serum calcium levels decrease from day 1 to day 3. The levels exhibit hypercalcemia on day 10. CT treatment to the fish kept in calcium-deficient freshwater evokes a decrease in the calcium levels on day 1 and day 3. A significant hypercalcemia has been noticed on day 5 and day 10. In vehicle-injected fish kept in calcium-deficient freshwater the UBG reveals a decreased staining response on day 10. In CT-injected fish maintained in calcium-deficient freshwater the UBG depicts an increased nuclear volume and few exhausted cells on day 10. It can be concluded that CT can provoke hypocalcemia only when the fish is kept in medium which reduces the circulating levels of this hormone. The UBG of the fish kept in different calcemic media responded in a manner to indicate that it produces hypocalcemic factor - CT.

In mobile ad hoc networks the congestion is a major issue, which affects the overall performance of the networks. The load balancing in the network alongside the congestion is another major problem in mobile ad hoc network (MANET) routing due to difference in link cost of the route. Most of the existing routing protocols provide solutions to load balancing or congestion adaptivity separately. In this paper, a congestion adaptive routing along with load balancing, that is, load balanced congestion adaptive routing (LBCAR), has been proposed. Transferring of load from congested nodes to less busy nodes and involvement of other nodes in transmission that can take part in route can improve the overall network life. In the proposed protocol two metrics, traffic load density and link cost associated with a routing path, have been used to determine the congestion status. The route with low traffic load density and maximum life time is selected for packet transmission using this protocol. Performance of the network using LBCAR has been analyzed and compared with congestion adaptive routing protocol (CRP) for packet delivery ratio, average end-to-end delay, and normalized routing overhead.

In this paper, an implicit logarithmic finite difference method (I-LFDM) is implemented for the numerical solution of one dimensional coupled nonlinear Burgers’ equation. The numerical scheme provides a system of nonlinear difference equations which we linearise using Newton's method. The obtained linear system via Newton's method is solved by Gauss elimination with partial pivoting algorithm. To illustrate the accuracy and reliability of the scheme, three numerical examples are described. The obtained numerical solutions are compared well with the exact solutions and those already available.

This article describes a new implicit finite-difference method: an implicit logarithmic finite-difference method (I-LFDM), for the numerical solution of two dimensional time-dependent coupled viscous Burgers’ equation on the uniform grid points. As the Burgers’ equation is nonlinear, the proposed technique leads to a system of nonlinear systems, which is solved by Newton's iterative method at each time step. Computed solutions are compared with the analytical solutions and those already available in the literature and it is clearly shown that the results obtained using the method is precise and reliable for solving Burgers’ equation.

In this paper, an implicit exponential finite-difference scheme (Expo FDM) has been proposed for solving two dimensional nonlinear coupled viscous Burgers’ equations (VBEs) with appropriate initial and boundary conditions. The accuracy of the method has been illustrated by taking two numerical examples. Results are compared with exact solution and those already available in the literature by finding the L1, L2, L∞ and ER errors. Excellent numerical results indicate that the proposed scheme is efficient, reliable and robust technique for the numerical solutions of Burgers’ equation.