Factors predisposing 6 to 11-year old children in the first stage of orthodontic treatment to temporomandibular disorders

INTRODUCTION: The etiology of temporomandibular disorders (TMD's) is currently considered multifactorial, involving psychological factors, oral parafunctions, morphological and functional malocclusion. OBJECTIVES: In keeping with this reasoning, we evaluated children who seek preventive orthodontic treatment, to better understand their grievances and to assess the prevalence of TMD signs and symptoms in these patients. METHODS: Two examiners evaluated 65 children aged 6 to 11 years. RESULTS: In our sample, bruxism featured the highest prevalence rate, whereas atypical swallowing displayed the highest rate among predisposing factors. CONCLUSION: We therefore recommend that the evaluation of possible TMD signs and symptoms in children be adopted as routine in the initial clinical examination.INTRODUÇÃO: atualmente, considera-se multifatorial a etiologia da desordem temporomandibular (DTM), na qual fatores psicológicos, parafunções orais, má oclusão morfológica e funcional constituem possíveis causas para o desenvolvimento dessa disfunção. OBJETIVO: avaliar as crianças que procuram por tratamento ortodôntico preventivo, visando compreender melhor suas queixas e avaliar a prevalência de sinais e sintomas de desordem temporomandibular. MÉTODOS: sessenta e cinco crianças, com idades variando entre 6 e 11 anos, foram avaliadas por dois examinadores. RESULTADOS: o bruxismo foi o sintoma que apresentou o maior índice de prevalência na amostra estudada e a deglutição atípica apresentou o maior índice dentre os fatores predisponentes. CONCLUSÃO: recomenda-se que a avaliação dos possíveis sinais e sintomas da DTM em crianças seja adotada como rotina durante o exame clínico inicial.UMESPEPM UNIFESPUNIFESP-EPM Departamento de FonoaudiologiaUniversidade Metodista de São Paulo Faculdade de OdontologiaUNIFESP, EPM, UNIFESP, EPM Depto. de FonoaudiologiaSciEL

Functional Locomotor Consequences of Uneven Forefeet for Trot Symmetry in Individual Riding Horses

ABSTRACT: Left-right symmetrical distal limb conformation can be an important prerequisite for a successful performance, and it is often hypothesized that asymmetric or uneven feet are important enhancing factors for the development of lameness. On a population level, it has been demonstrated that uneven footed horses are retiring earlier from elite level competition, but the biomechanical consequences are not yet known. The objectives of this study were to compare the functional locomotor asymmetries of horses with uneven to those with even feet. Hoof kinetics and distal limb kinematics were collected from horses (n = 34) at trot. Dorsal hoof wall angle was used to classify horses as even or uneven (1.5° difference between forefeet respectively) and individual feet as flat (55°). Functional kinetic parameters were compared between even and uneven forefeet using MANOVA followed by ANOVA. The relative influences of differences in hoof angle between the forefeet and of absolute hoof angle on functional parameters were analysed using multiple regression analysis (P<0.05). In horses with uneven feet, the side with the flatter foot showed a significantly larger maximal horizontal braking and vertical ground reaction force, a larger vertical fetlock displacement and a suppler fetlock spring. The foot with a steeper hoof angle was linearly correlated with an earlier braking-propulsion transition. The conformational differences between both forefeet were more important for loading characteristics than the individual foot conformation of each individual horse. The differences in vertical force and braking force between uneven forefeet could imply either an asymmetrical loading pattern without a pathological component or a subclinical lameness as a result of a pathological development in the steeper foot

Satellite Data-Based Phenological Evaluation of the Nationwide Reforestation of South Korea

Through the past 60 years, forests, now of various age classes, have been established in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula through nationwide efforts to reestablish forests since the Korean War (1950-53), during which more than 65% of the nation&apos;s forest was destroyed. Careful evaluation of long-term changes in vegetation growth after reforestation is one of the essential steps to ensuring sustainable forest management. This study investigated nationwide variations in vegetation phenology using satellite-based growing season estimates for 1982-2008. The start of the growing season calculated from the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) agrees reasonably with the ground-observed first flowering date both temporally (correlation coefficient, r = 0.54) and spatially (r = 0.64) at the 95% confidence level. Over the entire 27-year period, South Korea, on average, experienced a lengthening of the growing season of 4.5 days decade(-1), perhaps due to recent global warming. The lengthening of the growing season is attributed mostly to delays in the end of the growing season. The retrieved nationwide growing season data were used to compare the spatial variations in forest biomass carbon density with the time-averaged growing season length for 61 forests. Relatively higher forest biomass carbon density was observed over the regions having a longer growing season, especially for the regions dominated by young (&lt;30 year) forests. These results imply that a lengthening of the growing season related to the ongoing global warming may have positive impacts on carbon sequestration, an important aspect of large-scale forest management for sustainable development.open2

Widespread impact of horizontal gene transfer on plant colonization of land

In complex multicellular eukaryotes such as animals and plants, horizontal gene transfer is commonly considered rare with very limited evolutionary significance. Here we show that horizontal gene transfer is a dynamic process occurring frequently in the early evolution of land plants. Our genome analyses of the moss Physcomitrella patens identified 57 families of nuclear genes that were acquired from prokaryotes, fungi or viruses. Many of these gene families were transferred to the ancestors of green or land plants. Available experimental evidence shows that these anciently acquired genes are involved in some essential or plant-specific activities such as xylem formation, plant defence, nitrogen recycling as well as the biosynthesis of starch, polyamines, hormones and glutathione. These findings suggest that horizontal gene transfer had a critical role in the transition of plants from aquatic to terrestrial environments. On the basis of these findings, we propose a model of horizontal gene transfer mechanism in nonvascular and seedless vascular plants

A role for the cell-wall protein silacidin in cell size of the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana

Diatoms contribute 20% of global primary production and form the basis of many marine food webs. Although their species diversity correlates with broad diversity in cell size, there is also an intraspecific cell-size plasticity due to sexual reproduction and varying environmental conditions. However, despite the ecological significance of the diatom cell size for food-web structure and global biogeochemical cycles, our knowledge about genes underpinning the size of diatom cells remains elusive. Here, a combination of reverse genetics, experimental evolution and comparative RNA8 sequencing analyses enabled us to identify a previously unknown genetic control of cell size in the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana. In particular, the targeted deregulation of the expression of the cell-wall protein silacidin caused a significant increase in valve diameter. Remarkably, the natural downregulation of the silacidin gene transcript due to experimental evolution under low temperature also correlated with cell-size increase. Our data give first evidence for a genetically controlled regulation of cell size in Thalassiosira pseudonana and possibly other centric diatoms as they also encode the silacidin gene in their genomes

Varieties of living things: Life at the intersection of lineage and metabolism

publication-status: Publishedtypes: Articl

Genome of the facultative scuticociliatosis pathogen Pseudocohnilembus persalinus provides insight into its virulence through horizontal gene transfer

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The attached file is the published version of the article

Trends in parameterization, economics and host behaviour in influenza pandemic modelling: a review and reporting protocol.

BACKGROUND: The volume of influenza pandemic modelling studies has increased dramatically in the last decade. Many models incorporate now sophisticated parameterization and validation techniques, economic analyses and the behaviour of individuals. METHODS: We reviewed trends in these aspects in models for influenza pandemic preparedness that aimed to generate policy insights for epidemic management and were published from 2000 to September 2011, i.e. before and after the 2009 pandemic. RESULTS: We find that many influenza pandemics models rely on parameters from previous modelling studies, models are rarely validated using observed data and are seldom applied to low-income countries. Mechanisms for international data sharing would be necessary to facilitate a wider adoption of model validation. The variety of modelling decisions makes it difficult to compare and evaluate models systematically. CONCLUSIONS: We propose a model Characteristics, Construction, Parameterization and Validation aspects protocol (CCPV protocol) to contribute to the systematisation of the reporting of models with an emphasis on the incorporation of economic aspects and host behaviour. Model reporting, as already exists in many other fields of modelling, would increase confidence in model results, and transparency in their assessment and comparison

Limited role of spatial selfstructuring in emergent trade-offs during pathogen evolution

Pathogen transmission and virulence are main evolutionary variables broadly assumed to be linked through trade-offs. In well-mixed populations, these trade-offs are often ascribed to physiological restrictions, while populations with spatial self-structuring might evolve emergent trade-offs. Here, we reexamine a spatially-explicit, SIR model of the latter kind proposed by Ballegooijen and Boerlijst with the aim of characterising the mechanisms causing the emergence of the trade-off and its structural robustness. Using invadability criteria, we establish the conditions under which an evolutionary feedback between transmission and virulence mediated by pattern formation can poise the system to a critical boundary separating a disordered state (without emergent trade-off) from a self-structured phase (where the trade-off emerges), and analytically calculate the functional shape of the boundary in a certain approximation. Beyond evolutionary parameters, the success of an invasion depends on the size and spatial structure of the invading and invaded populations. Spatial self-structuring is often destroyed when hosts are mobile, changing the evolutionary dynamics to those of a well-mixed population. In a metapopulation scenario, the systematic extinction of the pathogen in the disordered phase may counteract the disruptive effect of host mobility, favour pattern formation and therefore recover the emergent trade-off.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad and FEDER funds of the EU through grants ViralESS (FIS2014-57686-P and FIS2017-84256-P). The internship of VB was financed by the Severo Ochoa Centers of Excellence Program (SEV-2013-0347)