Initial Block Research Articles

Fracture-behavior of CAD/CAM ceramic crowns before and after cyclic fatigue aging.

To evaluate the fracture behavior of monolithic crowns made of lithium disilicate (IPS e.max CAD, Ivoclar Vivadent; and Initial LiSi Block, GC) and zirconia-reinforced lithium silicate (Celtra Duo, Dentsply Sirona; and Suprinity, VITA) materials before and after cyclic fatigue aging. Four groups (n = 22 per group) of CAD/CAM-fabricated maxillary incisor crowns were produced. All crowns were luted on metal dies with an adhesive dual-curing resin cement (G-CEM LinkForce [GC]). Half of the crowns in each group (n = 11) were statically loaded to fracture without aging. The remaining half were subjected to cyclic fatigue aging for 120,000 cycles (Fmax = 220 N) and then loaded statically to fracture. Fracture mode was then visually examined. Scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive spectroscopy were used to evaluate the microstructure of the CAD/CAM ceramic materials. The data were statistically analyzed with two-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey honest significant difference (HSD) test (α = .05). Before cyclic aging, there was no statistically significant difference in load-bearing capacity among the four groups (P = .371). After cyclic aging, the load-bearing capacity significantly decreased for all groups (P = .000). While the e.max CAD blocks had significantly higher load-bearing capacity (1,061 ± 94 N) than both monolithic ceramic crowns (P < .05), no significant difference was obtained compared to the Initial LiSi Block group (920 ± 140 N) (Tukey HSD P = .061). The mechanical performance of monolithic ceramic crowns fabricated from lithium disilicate was better than zirconia-reinforced lithium silicate after cyclic fatigue aging.

Optimal Design and Experimental Verification of Ultrasonic Cutting Horn for Ceramic Composite Material

We developed and optimized a block-type ultrasonic horn that can be used for cutting hard materials. The proposed block-type sonotrode consists of an aluminum horn and a tungsten carbide blade to increase the cutting of hard materials. We designed an initial ultrasonic block horn that has double slots and an exponential stepped profile. We developed a finite element model of the initial model and analyzed the characteristics of natural frequency and displacement. We formulated a DOE table and response surface to perform sensitivity analysis and analyze the correlation between the design variables and characteristics of the proposed block horn. The optimal ultrasonic block horn was derived via a multi-objective optimal design problem to maximize the amplitude uniformity of the proposed horn and frequency separation. We fabricated the optimal block horn and verified it experimentally. An ultrasonic cutting experiment was conducted to find the ultrasonic cutting force with hard ceramic composite materials. A cutting test with a conventional cutting machine under the same condition was also conducted to compare the cutting force. The proposed optimal ultrasonic cutter requires 70% less cutting force than the conventional cutter to cut a ceramic composite material and the cutting surface with the application of the proposed optimal ultrasonic cutter is much cleaner with no crack and delamination than that with the application of the conventional cutter.

Chronic care treatment for smoking cessation in patients with serious mental illness: a pilot randomized trial

BackgroundRates of smoking among those with serious mental illness (SMI) are two to three times higher than for the general population. Smoking is rarely addressed in mental health settings. Innovative outreach and treatment strategies are needed to address these disparities. The current study is a pilot study of the feasibility and acceptability of a chronic care model of tobacco cessation treatment implemented in outpatient psychiatry clinics.MethodsParticipants were recruited from two outpatient psychiatric clinics and randomly assigned to intervention (counseling and nicotine replacement for 8 weeks, plus ongoing proactive outreach calls inviting reengagement in treatment) or control (brief education and referral to the state quit line). Assessments were conducted at 8 weeks (end of initial treatment block) and 6 months (end of window for retreatment). Feasibility was assessed by enrollment rate, treatment engagement, and completion of follow-up assessments. Acceptability was assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Preliminary efficacy was assessed by 7-day and 30-day abstinence rates, rate of quit attempts, and cigarettes per day. Psychological health was measured to assess for changes related to treatment group or attempts to quit smoking.ResultsNineteen participants were randomized to intervention and 19 to control. Recruitment proved feasible, and high rates of treatment engagement (mean of 4.5 sessions completed in initial treatment block, 89.5% uptake of nicotine replacement) and retention (94.7% of follow-up assessments completed) were observed. Treatment acceptability was high. As anticipated, there were no significant differences in abstinence between groups, but results generally favored the intervention group, including bio-verified 7-day abstinence rates of 21.1% in intervention vs. 17.6% in control and self-reported 30-day abstinence rates of 16.1% in intervention vs. 5.1% in control at 8 weeks. Significantly more intervention participants made at least one quit attempt (94.7% vs 52.6%; OR = 16.20, 95% CI: 1.79–147.01). Cigarettes per day decreased significantly more in the intervention group at 8 weeks (b = − 13.19, SE = 4.88, p = .02).ConclusionsIt was feasible to recruit and retain SMI patients in a smoking cessation trial in the context of outpatient psychiatry. The novel chronic care model treatment was acceptable to patients and showed promise for efficacy. If efficacious, a chronic care model could be effective at reducing smoking among SMI patients.Trial registrationClinicalTrial.gov #: NCT03822416 (registered January 30th 2019).

An efficient medical image encryption using hybrid DNA computing and chaos in transform domain.

In this growing era, a massive amount of digital electronic health records (EHRs) are transferred through the open network. EHRs are at risk of a myriad of security threats, to overcome such threats, encryption is a reliable technique to secure data. This paper addresses an encryption algorithm based on integer wavelet transform (IWT) blended with deoxyribo nucleic acid (DNA) and chaos to secure the digital medical images. The proposed work comprises of two phases, i.e. a two-stage shuffling phase and diffusion phase. The first stage of shuffling starts with initial block confusion followed by row and column shuffling of pixels as the second stage. The pixels of the shuffled image are circularly shifted bitwise at the first stage of diffusion to enhance the security of the system against differential attack. The second stage of diffusion operation is based on DNA coding and DNA XOR operations. The experimental analyses have been carried out with 100 DICOM test images of 16-bit depth to evaluate the strength of the algorithm against statistical and differential attacks. By the results, the maximum entropy has been obtained an average of 15.79, NPCR of 99.99, UACI of 33.31, and larger keyspace of 10140, which infer that our technique overwhelms various other state-of-the-art techniques.

Is Cooled Radiofrequency Genicular Nerve Block and Ablation a Viable Option for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis?

BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to determine demographic and psychosocial factors that influence the effectiveness of cooled radiofrequency genicular nerve ablation (C-RFA) and block in patients with chronic knee pain secondary to osteoarthritis (OA).MethodsA retrospective review was completed including patients with knee OA who underwent genicular nerve ablation or block or both. Patient information collected included opioid use, psychological comorbidities, smoking history, body mass index, and medical comorbidities. Success was defined using the Osteoarthritis Research Society International criterion of greater than or equal to 50% reported pain relief from the procedure. Patients without a diagnosis of knee OA and patients with ipsilateral total knee arthroplasty were excluded. Patient factors were compared between (1) those that did or did not respond to the initial block and (2) those that did or did not respond to C-RFA.ResultsOf the 176 subjects that underwent genicular nerve block, 31.8% failed to respond to the procedure. Subjects that failed the initial block were significantly more likely to have psychological comorbidities, smoking history, and diabetes. Of the subjects that proceeded to genicular nerve ablation, 53.7% reported less than 50% pain relief, and 46.3% reported pain relief greater than or equal to 50% at the first follow-up visit. While the presence of psychological comorbidities, smoking, and diabetes were associated with first-stage block failures, these patient factors were not associated with second-stage ablation failures.ConclusionsC-RFA may be an effective adjunct therapy as part of a multimodal pain regimen; however, individual patient characteristics must be considered.

HeartNetEC: a deep representation learning approach for ECG beat classification.

One of the most crucial and informative tools available at the disposal of a Cardiologist for examining the condition of a patient's cardiovascular system is the electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG). A major reason behind the need for accurate reconstruction of ECG comes from the fact that the shape of ECG tracing is very crucial for determining the health condition of an individual. Whether the patient is prone to or diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), this information can be gathered through examination of ECG signal. Among various other methods, one of the most helpful methods in identifying cardiac abnormalities is a beat-wise categorization of a patient's ECG record. In this work, a highly efficient deep representation learning approach for ECG beat classification is proposed, which can significantly reduce the burden and time spent by a Cardiologist for ECG Analysis. This work consists of two sub-systems: denoising block and beat classification block. The initial block is a denoising block that acquires the ECG signal from the patient and denoises that. The next stage is the beat classification part. This processes the input ECG signal for finding out the different classes of beats in the ECG through an efficient algorithm. In both stages, deep learning-based methods have been employed for the purpose. Our proposed approach has been tested on PhysioNet's MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database, for beat-wise classification into ten important types of heartbeats. As per the results obtained, the proposed approach is capable of making meaningful predictions and gives superior results on relevant metrics.

Real-time measurements and performance analysis of closed-loop MIMO service for mobile operators

As fifth generation (5G) networks are starting to become commercial, user expectations in terms of new services become high as well. This signifies that mobile communications service providers need to build robust 5G new services as quickly and cost-efficiently as possible. Many new technologies rely on closed-loop (CL) and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technologies due to emerging cooperation between nodes in next generation networks. In this paper, we first compare different multiantenna transmission modes namely: transmit diversity, open-loop (OL), and CL MIMO spatial multiplexing strategies to provide mobile network operator (MNO) services in terms of their characteristics, ,limitations and benefits. Later we investigate how launching a large-scale CL MIMO deployment strategy can affect the various key performance indicators (KPIs) of the existing services provided by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in real-operational network infrastructure in Turkey. Our practical experimental results indicate that, compared to OL MIMO system, CL MIMO can achieve large performance on a practical setup, where up to 3% improvement in cell average throughput, 9% in user throughput, 6% in spectrum efficiency, and 9% in channel quality indicator (CQI) and modulation coding scheme (MCS) are obtained, while reduction by 25% and 17% on sum delay and initial block error rates (IBLER) are observed.

Longitudinal Follow‐up of Superior Laryngeal Nerve Block for Chronic Neurogenic Cough

ObjectiveTo demonstrate longitudinal follow-up for patients who underwent in-office superior laryngeal nerve (SLN) block with lidocaine and steroids for chronic neurogenic cough.Study DesignLongitudinal follow-up study over 10 months.SettingClinical.MethodsA retrospective review of 30 patients who underwent in-office nerve block to the SLN for neurogenic cough, including the 10 patients whose outcomes were originally published in 2019.ResultsThirty patients in this study who underwent a series of SLN blocks showed significant improvement in cough severity index (CSI). The average number of blocks was 3 (range, 2-8). Twelve patients underwent initial SLN block to the left side and 18 patients underwent initial SLN block to the right side. The mean follow-up from the first SLN block was 5.3 months. The mean pretreatment and posttreatment CSI scores were 27 and 11, respectively, for all 30 patients who underwent an SLN block. A Wilcoxon signed rank test shows that there is a significant effect on CSI (W = 2, z = −4.659, P < .05). The mean longitudinal follow-up for the original 10 patients was 10 months from the first SLN block, with none of these patients receiving any further treatment for their cough.ConclusionSuperior laryngeal nerve block is an effective long-term treatment for neurogenic cough. No additional treatment was required within 10 months of the SLN block.Level of EvidenceLevel IV.

Woven Blocks: A Tectonic/Typological Investigation into the Potential of FDM Printing

3D printing, or additive manufacturing (AM), marks the latest in a series of technological and societal revolutions that span from the printing press to the personal computer and beyond. A key asset of this technology is that it aligns the architect with the manufacturing process, integrating the design and fabrication. Additive manufacturing, particularly fused deposition modeling (FDM), can further weave construction typologies like Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block system by controlling the deposition process to create lightweight stressed-skin blocks with the potential for multiple functions. The research and creation of an initial prototype Woven Block module using FDM printing will be discussed.

Widths of imbricate thrust blocks and the strength of the front of accretionary wedges and fold-and-thrust belts

Besides the large-scale wedge shape itself, the most prominent structural feature of accretionary wedges and fold-and-thrust belts is the common pattern of imbricate thrust faults. This study illuminates the fundamental mechanical processes and material properties controlling the width of the crustal blocks bounded by major thrusts using analytical solutions of stress as well as two-dimensional finite-difference models. The numerical models predict that the initial width w0 of a thrust block is set when that block first forms at the very front of the wedge. The width is found to subsequently decreases approximately in proportion to the mean horizontal strain needed for an ideally triangular-shaped Coulomb wedge with a critical taper. Block width is proportional to the thickness H of the incoming, accreting sediment. A key quantity that influences the normalized initial block width w0/H is the distance L forward of the frontal thrust needed for the net horizontal force from shear on the base of the incoming sediment to balance the net force on the frontal thrust. It is within this distance where stress in the incoming sediment is substantially elevated and thus where the new frontal thrust forms. Results show that L/H and, correspondingly, w0/H increase with increasing sediment friction angle ϕ, cohesive strength C0 and pore-fluid pressure ratio λ, and decrease with increasing basal friction angle ϕb and basal dip β. Normalized width is sensitive to ϕ and relatively insensitive to ϕb and λ. Results for submarine and subaerial wedges follow the same scaling law. The scaling law relates the observables, w0/H and β, to the material properties, ϕ, ϕb, λ, and therefore provides a theoretical relation that can be used independent of, or together with critical Coulomb wedge theory (CWT) to constrain these properties.

Structural, Electrical, and Magnetic Versatility of the Oxalate-Based [CuFe] Compounds Containing 2,2':6',2″-Terpyridine: Anion-Directed Synthesis.

The heterodimetallic [CuFe] compounds [CuII4(terpy)4Cl5][FeIII(C2O4)3]·10H2O (1;terpy = 2,2':6',2''-terpyridine), [CuII2(H2O)2(terpy)2(C2O4)][CuIIFeIII(CH3OH)(terpy)(C2O4)3]2 (2), and {[Cu2IIFeIII(H2O)(terpy)2(C2O4)7/2]·6H2O}n (3) were obtained using building block approach, from reaction of aqueous solution of [Fe(C2O4)3]3- and a methanol solution containing Cu2+ ions and terpy by the layering technique. Interestingly, by changing only the anion of the starting salt of copper(II), Cu(NO3)2·3H2O instead of CuCl2·2H2O, an unexpected change in the type of bridge, oxalate (2 and 3) versus chloride (1), was achieved, thus affecting the overall structural architecture. Two polymorphs of 3D coordination polymer [CuIIFeII2(H2O)(terpy)(C2O4)3]n (4), crystallizing in the triclinic (a) and monoclinic (b) space groups, were formed hydrothermally, depending on whether CuCl2·2H2O or Cu(NO3)2·3H2O was added to the water, besides K3[Fe(C2O4)3]·3H2O and terpy, respectively. Under hydrothermal conditions iron(III) from initial building block is reduced to the divalent state, creating 2D honeycomb [FeII2(C2O4)3]n2n- layers, which are bridged by [Cu(H2O)(terpy)]2+ cations. Compounds were investigated by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, IR, and impedance spectroscopies, magnetization measurements, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. In compounds 1 and 2, 0D magnetism is observed, with 1 having a ground-state spin of 1 due to different interactions through chloride bridges of Cu2+ ions in tetramer [CuII4(terpy)4Cl5]3+ and 2 showing strong antiferromagnetic coupling of Cu2+ ions mediated by oxalate ligand in [CuII2(H2O)2(terpy)2(C2O4)]2+ and weak ones between Cu2+ and Fe3+ ions through oxalate bridge in [CuIIFeIII(CH3OH)(terpy)(C2O4)3]-. Polymer 4 exhibits antiferromagnetic phase transition at 25 K: The [FeII2(C2O4)3]n2n- layers are antiferromagnetically ordered, and a small amount of interlayer interaction is transferred through [Cu(H2O)(terpy)]2+ cations via Oox-Cu-Oox bridges. Additionally, compounds 1 and 2 are electrical insulators, while 4a and 4b show proton conductivity.

PSIII-12 The effect of sodium butyrate and benzoic acid on nutrient digestibility and fecal volatile fatty acid concentrations in nursery pigs

Abstract A total of 270 weaned pigs (21-d age) were used to evaluate the effects of administering benzoic acid (BA) alone or with sodium butyrate (SB) on nutrient digestibility, fecal VFA concentrations and growth performance. At weaning (age 21-d), pigs were blocked by initial BW (4.7 ± 0.21 kg) and allotted to 1 of 5 treatments with 9 replicate pens per treatment. Pigs remained on the same treatment through three feeding phases: Phase 1 (d 0-7), Phase 2 (d 7-21), and Phase 3 (d 21-40). The treatments were the Control diet without acidifier (C), C with 0.5% BA, and BA with 0.05%, 0.1% or 0.15% of SB to form SBA0.05, SBA0.1, and SBA0.15, respectively. Titanium dioxide was added in phase 3 diets (d21-40). Diets were fed in meal form and sampled at manufacturing and pen fecal samples were collected for two consecutive days at the end (d40). Samples were analyzed for the concentration of DM, GE, N, ash, NDF, ADF, calcium, and phosphorus and the ATTD for each nutrient was calculated. Additionally, fecal VFAs were quantified via gas chromatographic technique. Data were analyzed using Mixed procedure of SAS, with treatment as a fixed effect and initial BW block as a random effect. Level of sodium butyrate was used in IML procedure to generate coefficients for orthogonal contrast for BA, SBA0.05, SBA0.1, and SBA0.15. In feces, absolute butyrate (mM) and total VFA (mM) tended (P&amp;lt; 0.10) to increase quadratically with increasing SB supplementation. Similar to G:F ratio, pigs fed the BA diet had higher ATTD of DM, GE, N, ash, NDF, ADF, and P than pigs fed other treatments. Results suggest that the mechanism on improving growth performance differs among acidifiers.

An Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program's Approach to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 on residency training nationwide has been substantial, and adapting to this unprecedented event has proven challenging for program directors throughout the United States. Here, the authors presented their initial experiences with restructuring an obstetrics and gynecology residency program during the pandemic. The authors outlined their strategies to maximize resident safety and address clinical care in outpatient and inpatient settings, resident education curriculum, resident wellness and consider the ethical dilemmas of health care providers during a pandemic. With perspectives from other residency programs, the authors hope this review will serve as an initial building block for developing an effective strategic response for programs to implement during a disaster.

VDAC

We introduce carvable volume decomposition for efficient 3-axis CNC machining of 3D freeform objects, where our goal is to develop a fully automatic method to jointly optimize setup and path planning. We formulate our joint optimization as a volume decomposition problem which prioritizes minimizing the number of setup directions while striving for a minimum number of continuously carvable volumes, where a 3D volume is continuously carvable, or simply carvable, if it can be carved with the machine cutter traversing a single continuous path. Geometrically, carvability combines visibility and monotonicity and presents a new shape property which had not been studied before. Given a target 3D shape and the initial material block, our algorithm first finds the minimum number of carving directions by solving a set cover problem. Specifically, we analyze cutter accessibility and select the carving directions based on an assessment of how likely they would lead to a small carvable volume decomposition. Next, to obtain a minimum decomposition based on the selected carving directions efficiently, we narrow down the solution search by focusing on a special kind of points in the residual volume, single access or SA points, which are points that can be accessed from one and only one of the selected carving directions. Candidate carvable volumes are grown starting from the SA points. Finally, we devise an energy term to evaluate the carvable volumes and their combinations, leading to the final decomposition. We demonstrate the performance of our decomposition algorithm on a variety of 2D and 3D examples and evaluate it against the ground truth, where possible, and solutions provided by human experts. Physically machined models are produced where each carvable volume is continuously carved following a connected Fermat spiral toolpath.

Building Hierarchical Martensite

AbstractMartensitic materials show a complex, hierarchical microstructure containing structural domains separated by various types of twin boundaries. Several concepts exist to describe this microstructure on each length scale, however, there is no comprehensive approach bridging the whole range from the nano‐ up to the macroscopic scale. Here, it is described for a Ni‐Mn‐based Heusler alloy how this hierarchical microstructure is built from scratch with just one key parameter: the tetragonal distortion of the basic building block at the atomic level. Based on this initial block, five successive levels of nested building blocks are introduced. At each level, a larger building block is formed by twinning the preceding one to minimize the relevant energy contributions locally. This naturally explains the coexistence of different types of twin boundaries. The scale‐bridging approach of nested building blocks is compared with experiments in real and reciprocal space. The approach of nested building blocks is versatile as it can be applied to the broad class of functional materials exhibiting diffusionless transformations.

Examining the effect of mid-test warnings on factor structure of personality scores: A field experiment

Warning messages delivered in the middle of a personality test (i.e., mid-test warnings) have emerged as a promising method to mitigate applicant faking in terms of lowering personality mean scores. However, little is known about whether mid-test warnings might also affect personality factor structure. The present study investigated this prominent issue through a field experiment. Participants were applicants for graduate programs at a large public university in China, who were instructed to complete an online Big-Five personality test as part of the selection procedure. During the personality test, three messages (control, mid-test warning with accusation, and mid-test warning without accusation) were randomly delivered to applicants. Our analysis focused on the ten personality subscales included in both the initial block (before the mid-test messages) and the main block (after the mid-test messages). Results indicated that (a) the control message did not lead to the violation of configural, metric, and scalar invariance, and (b) the two mid-test warnings did not result in the violation of configural and metric invariance but led to scalar non-invariance. These findings suggest that mid-test warnings reduce faking by lowering intercepts, but do not adversely affect the configural and metric aspects of personality factor structure.

The University of Kansas School of Medicine.

The University of Kansas School of Medicine.

Stanislavski and The Theatre of The Absurd

ABSTRACT This paper is based on a lecture/workshop I gave at the S-Word Symposium, held at the University of Malta in April 2019. The original lecture comprised of a PowerPoint presentation, outlining some of the most common problems faced by my BA Hons Acting and Actor Musician students at Rose Bruford College at the beginning of their second year of training. During this initial block of work in semester one they find themselves grappling with a variety of texts written by those playwrights, grouped together by Martin Esslin in his seminal study of 1961, as the key representatives of what he famously termed The Theatre of The Absurd. 1 Opening with an introductory summation of my developing practice at RBC, followed by an outline of some of the theory involved – and some contextual framing relating to the philosophical underpinning that runs through Esslin’s interpretation of these plays 2 – I worked with a trio of Theatre Studies students from the University of Malta, in an attempt to demonstrate some of the key ideas I have been exploring in practice over the past few years. My premise is that, while an attempt to apply certain foundational aspects of Stanislavski’s “system” to these Absurdist texts is clearly problematic – particularly any attempt to create a psychologically coherent through-line-of-action, rooted in a detailed backstory or character biography – other Stanislavskian concepts, such as the magic if for example, when utilized discretely, can still prove useful. Key terminology is written in italics.

A randomized controlled clinical trial on press and block lithium disilicate partial crowns: a pilot study

Aim Lithium disilicate is available in two formulations: press and block. The first requires an analog workflow, the latter a full digital workflow. The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical performance of two lithium disilicate systems by means of the novel Functional Index for Teeth (FIT) after one year of clinical service. Materials and methods Partial adhesive crowns on posterior teeth were made on 60 patients, who were randomly divided into two groups: Group 1 Initial LiSi Press and Group 2 Initial LiSi Block (GC Co., Tokyo, Japan), which therefore followed full analog and digital workflows respectively. The restorations were followed-up for 1 year, and the FIT evaluation was performed at baseline and at last recall. The FIT includes 7 variables: Interproximal, Occlusion, Design, Mucosa, Bone, Biology and Margins, that are investigated using an intraoral radiograph and occlusal and buccal pictures and evaluated using a 0-1-2 score as follows. The presence or not of major, minor or no discrepancy (‘Interproximal’, ‘Occlusion’ and ‘Design’), presence or not of keratinized and attached gingiva (‘Mucosa’), presence of bone loss >1.5 mm, <1.5 mm or not detectable (‘Bone’), presence or not of Bleeding on Probing and or Plaque Index (‘Biology’), presence of detectable gap and marginal stain or not (‘Margins’). The Mann-Whitney ‘U’ test was used and a level of significance at p<0.05. Also, “success” of the crowns (restoration in place without any biological or technical complication) and “survival” (restoration still in place with biological or technical complication) were evaluated. Results All FIT parameters had high scores, between 1.85 and 2, and no statistically significant differences between the two groups were found (p>0.05). No statistically significant difference was found between baseline and recall scores. All FIT scores were compatible with the clinical success and not one restoration was replaced or repaired. The success rate at 1 year was 100%. Conclusions The FIT can be a viable standardized evaluation of the quality of prosthodontic therapy. The two materials showed similar results at 1 year. Longer observation times are needed to confirm these preliminary results.

Japanese parturient body mass index and the role in initial nerve block height of women undergoing cesarean delivery with spinal anesthesia.

The present retrospective cohort study was designed to determine body mass index (BMI) at the delivery in women undergoing cesarean section in a Japanese urban area, and whether the nerve block height after spinal anesthesia upon the cesarean delivery relates to the lower maternal BMI, less gestational age, or underweight fetus at birth in the population.A total of 401 pregnant women undergoing cesarean delivery with spinal anesthesia were evaluated retrospectively. We examined background differences, including BMI at the delivery, gestational age, and fetal birth weight between the cases with and without the adequate initial nerve block height less than the sixth thoracic vertebral level (Th6) after the spinal dose administration.The data demonstrated advanced maternal age pregnancy (median 35.5 years) and normal BMI (median 24.7) at the delivery in the population. The patients with the inadequate initial nerve block height immediately after the spinal dose administration documented significantly lower block height compared with those with adequate block height (Th8 [n = 55] vs Th4 [n = 346], P < 0.001). There was a risk of the low initial block height caused by either preoperative BMI <23, gestational age <37 weeks, or fetal birth weight <2500 g in the population.In a Japanese urban area, parturient median BMI undergoing cesarean delivery is in the normal range. Such lower BMI, in addition to less gestational age or underweight fetus, seems one of the factors causing the low initial block height upon spinal anesthesia.