Safeguarding children in dentistry: 1. Child protection training, experience and practice of dental professionals with an interest in paediatric dentistry

* Few dental professionals with child protection training have experience of making referrals. * There is a wide gap in practice between recognising signs of child abuse and neglect and responding effectively. * This may indicate missed opportunities to save children from continuing abuse. * There is a need for improved child protection information, support and training for dental professionals. Abstract Following several highly publicised inquiries into the deaths of children from abuse and neglect, there has been much recent interest in the role and responsibility of all health professionals to protect children at risk of maltreatment. The findings of a postal questionnaire, sent in March 2005 to 789 dentists and dental care professionals with an interest in paediatric dentistry working in varied settings in the UK, are presented in a two-part report and discussed in the context of current multi-agency good practice in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. This first part explores reported child protection training, experience and practice. There was a significant gap between recognising signs of abuse and responding effectively: 67% of respondents had suspected abuse or neglect of a child patient at some time in their career but only 29% had ever made a child protection referral. The dental profession is alerted to the need to ensure necessary appropriate action to safeguard children is always taken when child abuse or neglect are suspected

Effect of Zinc Supplementation on Growth of Low Birth Weight Infants Aged 1–6 Mo in Ardabil, Iran

Objective To assess the effect of zinc supplementation on growth of low birth weight (LBW) infants aged 1–6 mo. Methods LBW infants were enrolled at birth and randomly assigned to receive 5 mg elemental Zn per day (n=45) or placebo (n=45) until 6 mo of age. They were followed monthly for information on compliance; anthropometric measurements were performed monthly. Results After randomization, 5 infants from zinc group and 9 from placebo group were excluded. At 6 mo of age, significantly greater weight gains were observed in the zinc than in the placebo group (4995±741g in zinc group vs. 3896±865 g in placebo group, p = 0.036). Length gain during the study period improved in zinc group (16.9±8.2 cm vs. 15.1±4.1 cm, p = 0.039); after zinc supplementation head circumference were increased (8.7±1.4 cm vs.7.4± 1.5 cm p<0.001). In male infants, total weight gain and height and head circumference gain were higher in the zinc than in the placebo group. However, only head circumference change was statistically significant. A similar trend was observed among female infants, but these differences were not statistically significant. There was no significant relation between breast-feeding status and the main outcome variables. Conclusions Infants in the present study showed improve¬ments in growth rate, but more studies are required in this field to confirm this fact

Validated outcome of treatment changes according to International League Against Epilepsy criteria in adults with drug-resistant focal epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE: Although many studies have attempted to describe treatment outcomes in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, results are often limited by the adoption of nonhomogeneous criteria and different definitions of seizure freedom. We sought to evaluate treatment outcomes with a newly administered antiepileptic drug (AED) in a large population of adults with drug-resistant focal epilepsy according to the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) outcome criteria. METHODS: This is a multicenter, observational, prospective study of 1053 patients with focal epilepsy diagnosed as drug-resistant by the investigators. Patients were assessed at baseline and 6, 12, and 18 months, for up to a maximum of 34 months after introducing another AED into their treatment regimen. Drug resistance status and treatment outcomes were rated according to ILAE criteria by the investigators and by at least two independent members of an external expert panel (EP). RESULTS: A seizure-free outcome after a newly administered AED according to ILAE criteria ranged from 11.8% after two failed drugs to 2.6% for more than six failures. Significantly fewer patients were rated by the EP as having a "treatment failure" as compared to the judgment of the investigator (46.7% vs 62.9%, P < 0.001), because many more patients were rated as "undetermined outcome" (45.6% vs 27.7%, P < 0.001); 19.3% of the recruited patients were not considered drug-resistant by the EP. SIGNIFICANCE: This study validates the use of ILAE treatment outcome criteria in a real-life setting, providing validated estimates of seizure freedom in patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy in relation to the number of previously failed AEDs. Fewer than one in 10 patients achieved seizure freedom on a newly introduced AED over the study period. Pseudo drug resistance could be identified in one of five cases

Chiral Symmetry and light resonances in hot and dense matter

We present a study of the $\pi\pi$ scattering amplitude in the $\sigma$ and $\rho$ channels at finite temperature and nuclear density within a chiral unitary framework. Meson resonances are dynamically generated in our approach, which allows us to analyze the behavior of their associated scattering poles when the system is driven towards chiral symmetry restoration. Medium effects are incorporated in three ways: (a) by thermal corrections of the unitarized scattering amplitudes, (b) by finite nuclear density effects associated to a renormalization of the pion decay constant, and complementarily (c) by extending our calculation of the scalar-isoscalar channel to account for finite nuclear density and temperature effects in a microscopic many-body implementation of pion dynamics. Our results are discussed in connection with several phenomenological aspects relevant for nuclear matter and Heavy-Ion Collision experiments, such as $\rho$ mass scaling vs broadening from dilepton spectra and chiral restoration signals in the $\sigma$ channel. We also elaborate on the molecular nature of $\pi\pi$ resonances.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures. Contribution to Hard Probes 2008, Illa de A Toxa, Spain, June 8th-14th 200

A new multicompartmental reaction-diffusion modeling method links transient membrane attachment of E. coli MinE to E-ring formation

Many important cellular processes are regulated by reaction-diffusion (RD) of molecules that takes place both in the cytoplasm and on the membrane. To model and analyze such multicompartmental processes, we developed a lattice-based Monte Carlo method, Spatiocyte that supports RD in volume and surface compartments at single molecule resolution. Stochasticity in RD and the excluded volume effect brought by intracellular molecular crowding, both of which can significantly affect RD and thus, cellular processes, are also supported. We verified the method by comparing simulation results of diffusion, irreversible and reversible reactions with the predicted analytical and best available numerical solutions. Moreover, to directly compare the localization patterns of molecules in fluorescence microscopy images with simulation, we devised a visualization method that mimics the microphotography process by showing the trajectory of simulated molecules averaged according to the camera exposure time. In the rod-shaped bacterium _Escherichia coli_, the division site is suppressed at the cell poles by periodic pole-to-pole oscillations of the Min proteins (MinC, MinD and MinE) arising from carefully orchestrated RD in both cytoplasm and membrane compartments. Using Spatiocyte we could model and reproduce the _in vivo_ MinDE localization dynamics by accounting for the established properties of MinE. Our results suggest that the MinE ring, which is essential in preventing polar septation, is largely composed of MinE that is transiently attached to the membrane independently after recruited by MinD. Overall, Spatiocyte allows simulation and visualization of complex spatial and reaction-diffusion mediated cellular processes in volumes and surfaces. As we showed, it can potentially provide mechanistic insights otherwise difficult to obtain experimentally

Neutron structure function and inclusive DIS from H-3 and He-3 at large Bjorken-x

A detailed study of inclusive deep inelastic scattering (DIS) from mirror A = 3 nuclei at large values of the Bjorken variable x is presented. The main purpose is to estimate the theoretical uncertainties on the extraction of the neutron DIS structure function from such nuclear measurements. On one hand, within models in which no modification of the bound nucleon structure functions is taken into account, we have investigated the possible uncertainties arising from: i) charge symmetry breaking terms in the nucleon-nucleon interaction, ii) finite Q**2 effects neglected in the Bjorken limit, iii) the role of different prescriptions for the nucleon Spectral Function normalization providing baryon number conservation, and iv) the differences between the virtual nucleon and light cone formalisms. Although these effects have been not yet considered in existing analyses, our conclusion is that all these effects cancel at the level of ~ 1% for x < 0.75 in overall agreement with previous findings. On the other hand we have considered several models in which the modification of the bound nucleon structure functions is accounted for to describe the EMC effect in DIS scattering from nuclei. It turns out that within these models the cancellation of nuclear effects is expected to occur only at a level of ~ 3%, leading to an accuracy of ~ 12 % in the extraction of the neutron to proton structure function ratio at x ~ 0.7 -0.8$. Another consequence of considering a broad range of models of the EMC effect is that the previously suggested iteration procedure does not improve the accuracy of the extraction of the neutron to proton structure function ratio.Comment: revised version to appear in Phys. Rev. C; main modifications in Section 4; no change in the conclusion

Ultrahigh-energy neutrino follow-up of Gravitational Wave events GW150914 and GW151226 with the Pierre Auger Observatory

On September 14, 2015 the Advanced LIGO detectors observed their first gravitational-wave (GW) transient GW150914. This was followed by a second GW event observed on December 26, 2015. Both events were inferred to have arisen from the merger of black holes in binary systems. Such a system may emit neutrinos if there are magnetic fields and disk debris remaining from the formation of the two black holes. With the surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory we can search for neutrinos with energy above 100 PeV from point-like sources across the sky with equatorial declination from about -65 deg. to +60 deg., and in particular from a fraction of the 90% confidence-level (CL) inferred positions in the sky of GW150914 and GW151226. A targeted search for highly-inclined extensive air showers, produced either by interactions of downward-going neutrinos of all flavors in the atmosphere or by the decays of tau leptons originating from tau-neutrino interactions in the Earth's crust (Earth-skimming neutrinos), yielded no candidates in the Auger data collected within $\pm 500$ s around or 1 day after the coordinated universal time (UTC) of GW150914 and GW151226, as well as in the same search periods relative to the UTC time of the GW candidate event LVT151012. From the non-observation we constrain the amount of energy radiated in ultrahigh-energy neutrinos from such remarkable events.Comment: Published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Added Report Numbe

Combined search for the quarks of a sequential fourth generation

Results are presented from a search for a fourth generation of quarks produced singly or in pairs in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2011. A novel strategy has been developed for a combined search for quarks of the up and down type in decay channels with at least one isolated muon or electron. Limits on the mass of the fourth-generation quarks and the relevant Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements are derived in the context of a simple extension of the standard model with a sequential fourth generation of fermions. The existence of mass-degenerate fourth-generation quarks with masses below 685 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for minimal off-diagonal mixing between the third- and the fourth-generation quarks. With a mass difference of 25 GeV between the quark masses, the obtained limit on the masses of the fourth-generation quarks shifts by about +/- 20 GeV. These results significantly reduce the allowed parameter space for a fourth generation of fermions.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE