Inequalities in the dental health needs and access to dental services among looked after children in Scotland: a population data linkage study

Background: There is limited evidence on the health needs and service access among children and young people who are looked after by the state. The aim of this study was to compare dental treatment needs and access to dental services (as an exemplar of wider health and well-being concerns) among children and young people who are looked after with the general child population. Methods: Population data linkage study utilising national datasets of social work referrals for ‘looked after’ placements, the Scottish census of children in local authority schools, and national health service’s dental health and service datasets. Results: 633 204 children in publicly funded schools in Scotland during the academic year 2011/2012, of whom 10 927 (1.7%) were known to be looked after during that or a previous year (from 2007–2008). The children in the looked after children (LAC) group were more likely to have urgent dental treatment need at 5 years of age: 23%vs10% (n=209/16533), adjusted (for age, sex and area socioeconomic deprivation) OR 2.65 (95% CI 2.30 to 3.05); were less likely to attend a dentist regularly: 51%vs63% (n=5519/388934), 0.55 (0.53 to 0.58) and more likely to have teeth extracted under general anaesthesia: 9%vs5% (n=967/30253), 1.91 (1.78 to 2.04). Conclusions: LAC are more likely to have dental treatment needs and less likely to access dental services even when accounting for sociodemographic factors. Greater efforts are required to integrate child social and healthcare for LAC and to develop preventive care pathways on entering and throughout their time in the care system

Selective lesions of the cholinergic neurons within the posterior pedunculopontine do not alter operant learning or nicotine sensitization

Cholinergic neurons within the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus have been implicated in a range of functions, including behavioral state control, attention, and modulation of midbrain and basal ganglia systems. Previous experiments with excitotoxic lesions have found persistent learning impairment and altered response to nicotine following lesion of the posterior component of the PPTg (pPPTg). These effects have been attributed to disrupted input to midbrain dopamine systems, particularly the ventral tegmental area. The pPPTg contains a dense collection of cholinergic neurons and also large numbers of glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons. Because these interdigitated populations of neurons are all susceptible to excitotoxins, the effects of such lesions cannot be attributed to one neuronal population. We wished to assess whether the learning impairments and altered responses to nicotine in excitotoxic PPTg-lesioned rats were due to loss of cholinergic neurons within the pPPTg. Selective depletion of cholinergic pPPTg neurons is achievable with the fusion toxin Dtx-UII, which targets UII receptors expressed only by cholinergic neurons in this region. Rats bearing bilateral lesions of cholinergic pPPTg neurons (>90 % ChAT+ neuronal loss) displayed no deficits in the learning or performance of fixed and variable ratio schedules of reinforcement for pellet reward. Separate rats with the same lesions had a normal locomotor response to nicotine and furthermore sensitized to repeated administration of nicotine at the same rate as sham controls. Previously seen changes in these behaviors following excitotoxic pPPTg lesions cannot be attributed solely to loss of cholinergic neurons. These findings indicate that non-cholinergic neurons within the pPPTg are responsible for the learning deficits and altered responses to nicotine seen after excitotoxic lesions. The functions of cholinergic neurons may be related to behavioral state control and attention rather than learning

Unsteady flow of a thixotropic fluid in a slowly varying pipe

We analyse the unsteady axisymmetric flow of a thixotropic or antithixotropic fluid in a slowly varying cylindrical pipe. We derive general perturbation solutions in regimes of small Deborah numbers, in which thixotropic or antithixotropic effects enter as perturbations to generalised Newtonian flow. We present results for the viscous Moore–Mewis–Wagner model and the viscoplastic Houška model, and we use these results to elucidate what can be predicted in general about the behaviour of thixotropic and antithixotropic fluids in lubrication flow. The range of behaviour we identify casts doubt on the efficacy of model reduction approaches that postulate a generic cross-pipe flow structure

Commentary on rainbow-ladder truncation for excited states and exotics

Ground-state, radially-excited and exotic scalar-, vector- and flavoured-pseudoscalar-mesons are studied in rainbow-ladder truncation using an interaction kernel that is consonant with modern DSE- and lattice-QCD results. The inability of this truncation to provide realistic predictions for the masses of excited- and exotic-states is confirmed and explained. On the other hand, its application does provide information that is potentially useful in proceeding beyond this leading-order truncation, e.g.: assisting with development of projection techniques that ease the computation of excited state properties; placing qualitative constraints on the long-range behaviour of the interaction kernel; and highlighting and illustrating some features of hadron observables that do not depend on details of the dynamics.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 2 table

Board Changes and the Director Labor Market: The Case of Mergers

We provide benchmarks for board changes over time and in response to the evolution of firm structure. Boards are more stable in the modern era. At the same time, shifts made around mergers are substantial and significantly different than those at non-merging firms. Changes to acquiring boards reflect firm needs, increased demand for executive and merger experience and bargaining between targets and acquirers, rather than agency motives. Conversely, director selection at non-merging firms is driven by general skills and diversity. Our analyses provide insight into the dynamic nature of board structure and characteristics demanded in the director labor market

Structural associations of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis

Objective Structural changes of osteoarthritis (OA) may occur in the absence of pain. In this study, we aimed to identify histopathologic features that are associated with symptomatic knee OA. Methods Medial tibial plateaus and synovium samples were obtained at the time of total knee replacement (TKR) surgery for OA (advanced OA group) or were obtained postmortem from subjects who had not sought medical attention for knee pain during the last year of life (non-OA control group). To identify features of OA, we compared the patients with advanced OA with the age-matched non-OA controls (n = 26 per group). To identify OA features associated with symptoms, we compared two additional groups of subjects who were matched for severity of chondropathy (n = 29 per group): patients undergoing TKR for symptomatic OA (symptomatic chondropathy group) and postmortem subjects with similar severity of chondropathy who were asymptomatic during the last year of life (asymptomatic chondropathy group). The histologic features of the samples were graded, and immunoreactivities for macrophages (CD68) and nerve growth factor (NGF) in the synovium were quantified. The cellular localization of synovial NGF was determined by double immunofluorescence analysis. Results Advanced OA cases displayed more severe changes in the synovium (synovitis, increased synovial NGF, and CD68-immunoreactive macrophages) and cartilage (loss of cartilage surface integrity, loss of proteoglycan, tidemark breaching, and alterations in chondrocyte morphology) than did the non-OA controls. Synovial NGF was localized predominantly to fibroblasts and to some macrophages. The symptomatic chondropathy group displayed greater levels of synovitis, synovial NGF, and loss of cartilage integrity, in addition to alterations in chondrocyte morphology, than did the asymptomatic chondropathy group (P < 0.05 for each comparison). Conclusion Synovitis, increased synovial NGF, alterations in chondrocyte morphology, and loss of cartilage integrity are features of knee OA that may be associated with symptoms

Auditory sequence processing reveals evolutionarily conserved regions of frontal cortex in macaques and humans.

An evolutionary account of human language as a neurobiological system must distinguish between human-unique neurocognitive processes supporting language and evolutionarily conserved, domain-general processes that can be traced back to our primate ancestors. Neuroimaging studies across species may determine whether candidate neural processes are supported by homologous, functionally conserved brain areas or by different neurobiological substrates. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging in Rhesus macaques and humans to examine the brain regions involved in processing the ordering relationships between auditory nonsense words in rule-based sequences. We find that key regions in the human ventral frontal and opercular cortex have functional counterparts in the monkey brain. These regions are also known to be associated with initial stages of human syntactic processing. This study raises the possibility that certain ventral frontal neural systems, which play a significant role in language function in modern humans, originally evolved to support domain-general abilities involved in sequence processing

Substellar Companions to Main Sequence Stars: No Brown Dwarf Desert at Wide Separations

We use three field L and T dwarfs which were discovered to be wide companions to known stars by the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) to derive a preliminary brown dwarf companion frequency. Observed L and T dwarfs indicate that brown dwarfs are not unusually rare as wide (Delta >1000 A.U.) systems to F-M0 main-sequence stars (M>0.5M_sun, M_V<9.5), even though they are rare at close separation (Delta <3 A.U.), the ``brown dwarf desert.'' Stellar companions in these separation ranges are equally frequent, but brown dwarfs are >~ 10 times as frequent for wide than close separations. A brown dwarf wide-companion frequency as low as the 0.5% seen in the brown dwarf desert is ruled out by currently-available observations.Comment: ApJL, in pres

Molecular genetics and pathophysiology of 17 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 3 deficiency.

Autosomal recessive mutations in the 17 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 3 gene impair the formation of testosterone in the fetal testis and give rise to genetic males with female external genitalia. Such individuals are usually raised as females, but virilize at the time of expected puberty as the result of increases in serum testosterone. Here we describe mutations in 12 additional subjects/families with this disorder. The 14 mutations characterized to date include 10 missense mutations, 3 splice junction abnormalities, and 1 small deletion that results in a frame shift. Three of these mutations have occurred in more than 1 family. Complementary DNAs incorporating 9 of the 10 missense mutations have been constructed and expressed in reporter cells; 8 of the 9 missense mutations cause almost complete loss of enzymatic activity. In 2 subjects with loss of function, missense mutations testosterone levels in testicular venous blood were very low. Considered together, these findings strongly suggest that the common mechanism for testosterone formation in postpubertal subjects with this disorder is the conversion of circulating androstenedione to testosterone by one or more of the unaffected 17 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase isoenzymes

Association of cognition with temporal discounting in community based older persons

Background: The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that cognitive function is negatively associated with temporal discounting in old age. Methods Participants were 388 community-dwelling older persons without dementia from the Rush Memory and Aging Project, an ongoing longitudinal epidemiologic study of aging in the Chicago metropolitan area. Temporal discounting was measured using standard questions in which participants were asked to choose between an immediate, smaller payment and a delayed, larger one. Cognition was measured using a detailed battery including 19 tests. The association between cognition and temporal discounting was examined via mixed models adjusted for age, sex, education, income, and the number of chronic medical conditions. Results: Descriptive data revealed a consistent pattern whereby older persons with lower cognitive function were more likely to discount greater but delayed rewards compared to those with higher cognitive function. Further, in a mixed effect model adjusted for age, sex, education, income, and chronic medical conditions, global cognitive function was negatively associated with temporal discounting (estimate = −0.45, SE = 0.18, p = 0.015), such that a person with lower cognition exhibited greater discounting. Finally, in subsequent models examining domain specific associations, perceptual speed and visuospatial abilities were associated with temporal discounting, but episodic memory, semantic memory and working memory were not. Conclusion: Among older persons without dementia, a lower level of cognitive function is associated with greater temporal discounting. These findings have implications regarding the ability of older persons to make decisions that involve delayed rewards but maximize well-being.Economic