Restoration of 1325 teeth with partial-coverage crowns manufactured from high noble metal alloys: a retrospective case series 18.8 years after prosthetic delivery

Objectives To evaluate long-term survival and success rates of conventionally cemented partial-coverage crowns (PCCs) manufactured from high noble metal alloys (hn). Material and methods Restoration-, periodontal- and tooth-related criteria on patients, restored with a single or multiple conventionally cemented hnPCCs in a private dental office were collected from existing patient records. With regard to semi-annual follow-ups, data of the most recent clinical evaluations were considered. Kaplan–Meier and log-rank tests were used for statistical analyses. Level of significance was set at p ≤ .05. Results Between 09/1983 and 09/2009, 1325 hnPCCs were conventionally cemented on 1325 teeth in 266 patients (mean age: 44.5 ± 10.7 years). Due to various reasons, 81 hnPCCs showed complications, documenting a success rate of 93.9% after a mean observation period of 18.8 ± 5.7 years. Of these, additional 14 restorations were counted as survival, resulting in a survival rate of 94.9%. Most frequent complications were periodontal issues (n = 29, 35.8%). Significantly higher success rates were documented for hnPCCs of patients aged between 37 and 51 years (p = .012). Conclusion Partial-coverage crowns from high noble metal alloys showed excellent survival and success rates after a mean observation period of 18.8 ± 5.7 years. Higher patient age was one of the risk factors. Clinical Relevance According to the results of this study, hnPCCs still represent an excellent therapeutic option—even in modern dentistry.

DETERMINATION OF EFFICIENCY CRITERIA IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEDICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

EHR play an important role in the health care system, so the issue of data efficiency is key in the development of the EHR system. One of the key benefits of EHR is an access to medical information anywhere, anytime. While testing this advantage, it was found that it is performed only privately and does not take into account the dynamics of patients. Therefore, a model for calculating the efficiency of EHR on the basis of full coverage was developed. The study presents a model of the “Element” system, which provides for maximization of the coverage ratio of EHR to provide providers with access to medical records in the form required. The Element system is based on medical information packaging methods such as the dictionary method, the direct matching method and the combined method, and also allows healthcare professionals to be available to users’ medical information in this regard when EHR with customer data arises from EHR medical fund. In this case, if the presented system can be reduced both the time of work with medical documents and the time required for the appointment of drugs, which, accordingly, reduces the time to receive medical care. A set-theoretical model of the information system for improving the quality of medical services is proposed. The study of this model showed the need to measure the effectiveness of medical systems, taking into account their coverage. Medstar, Medkit and Helsi systems, which are part of the eHealth system, were used for the analysis. During the study, such concepts as full and partial coverage of systems were identified, the disadvantages of partial coverage were indicated. It has been found that for maximum efficiency it is necessary to minimize the time required to access medical information, which is achieved through full coverage.

3D UNet with GAN discriminator for robust localisation of the fetal brain and trunk in MRI with partial coverage of the fetal body

In fetal MRI, automated localisation of the fetal brain or trunk is a prerequisite for motion correction methods. However, the existing CNN-based solutions are prone to errors and may require manual editing. In this work, we propose to combine a multi-label 3D UNet with a GAN discriminator for localisation of both fetal brain and trunk in fetal MRI stacks. The proposed method is robust for datasets with both full and partial coverage of the fetal body.

Modelling and analysis of uncertain hub maximal covering location problem in the presence of partial coverage

The hub maximal covering location problem aims to find the best locations for hubs so as to maximize the total flows covered by predetermined number of hubs. Generally, this problem is defined in the framework of binary coverage. However, there are many real-life cases in which the binary coverage assumption may yield unexpected decisions. Thus, the partial coverage is considered by stipulating that the coverage of an origin-destination pair is determined by a non-increasing decay function. Moreover, as this problem contains strategic decisions in long range, the precise information about the parameters such as travel times may not be obtained in advance. Therefore, we present uncertain hub maximal covering location models with partial coverage in which the travel times are depicted as uncertain variables. Specifically, the partial coverage parameter is introduced in uncertain environment and the expected value of partial coverage parameter is further derived and simplified with specific decay functions. Expected value model and chance constrained programming model are respectively proposed and transformed to their deterministic equivalent forms. Finally, a greedy variable neighborhood search heuristic is presented and the efficiency of the proposed models is evaluated through computational experiments.

Procedure time and patient perception for ceramic endocrowns or partial coverage ceramic restorations: a double-blind randomized clinical trial

Objetive: This study aimed to compare procedure time and patient discomfort and satisfaction between endocrowns or partial coverage ceramic restorations with fiber post and filling (PCCR+Post). Materials and Methods: A double-blind RCT was carried out according to eligibility criteria: 1) Endodontic treatment; 2) Molars or premolars; 3) Minimum of one cusp with 3-mm thick; 4) Dental antagonists; 5) Supragingival margins; 6) Good oral hygiene; and 7) Minimum of 18 years. Patients were allocated to two groups: Endocrown or PCCR+Post. Each session was timed; discomfort and satisfaction were assessed. Poisson regression analysis and two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance were performed. Results: Forty patients were selected (20 per group). 90% and 82.5% of participants in the PCCR+Post and Endocrown group, respectively, reported little or no discomfort. There was no association between the explanatory variables and the discomfort reported by patients. The level of satisfaction was 100%. Procedure time in the Endocrown (129.7 min±29.78) was similar to PCCR+Post (134.1 min±29.64). Endocrown and PCCR+Post had similar procedure time and patient perception, however, endocrowns allow less clinical steps. Conclusions: Endocrown and PCCR+Post had similar procedure time and patient perception, however, endocrowns allow less clinical steps.Trial registration- clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03064516). Funding- Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP-2017/24153-1).

Weaknesses in primary health care favor the growth of acquired syphilis

Acquired syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection that affects the general population and has been growing in recent years in many countries. A study was developed aiming to analyze the trends of acquired syphilis associated with sociodemographic aspects and primary health care in Brazil, in the period from 2011 to 2019. This study used secondary data from the national notification systems of the 5570 Brazilian cities and a database of 37,350 primary health care teams, as well as socioeconomic and municipal demographic indicators. The trends of acquired syphilis at the municipal level were calculated from the log-linear regression, crossing them with variables of primary health care and sociodemographic indicators. Finally, a multiple model was built from logistic regression. 724,310 cases of acquired syphilis have been reported. In primary care units, 47.8% had partial coverage and 74.1% had health teams with poor or regular scores. 52.6% had rapid test for syphilis partially available. Male and female condoms are available in 85.9% and 62.9% respectively and 54.4% had penicillin available in the health facility. The increase in trends of acquired syphilis was associated with better availability of the rapid test; lower availability of male condoms; lower availability of female condoms; lower availability of benzathine penicillin; partial coverage of the teams in primary health care; limited application of penicillin in primary health care; higher proportion of teams classified as Poor/Regular in primary health care; higher proportion of women aged 10 to 17 years who had children; higher HDI; higher proportion of people aged 15 to 24 years who do not study, do not work and are vulnerable; and population size with more than 100,000 inhabitants. The following variables remained in the multiple model: not all primary health care teams apply penicillin; higher proportion of primary health care teams with poor/regular scores; population size >100000 inhabitants; partially available female condom. Thus, the weakness of primary health care linked to population size may have favored the growth of the acquired syphilis epidemic in Brazilian cities.

Linked Conservation Data: the Adoption and Use of Vocabularies in the Field of Heritage Conservation for Publishing Conservation Records as Linked Data

One of the fundamental roles of memory organisations is to safe-keep collections and this includes activities around their preservation and conservation. Conservators produce documentation records of their work to assist future interpretation of objects and to explain decision making for conservation. This documentation may exist as structured data or free text and in both cases they require vocabularies that can be understood widely in the domain. This paper describes a survey of conservation professionals which allowed us to compile the vocabularies used in the domain. It includes an analysis of the vocabularies with key findings: a) the overlapping terms with multiple definitions, b) the partial coverage of the domain which is lacking controlled vocabularies for condition types and treatment techniques and c) the limited formats in which vocabularies are published, making them difficult to use within Linked Data implementations. The paper then describes an approach to improve the vocabulary landscape in conservation by providing guidelines for encoding and aligning vocabularies as well as considering third party platforms for sharing vocabularies in a sustainable way. The paper concludes with a summary of our findings and recommendations.

GEO-TAGGED IMAGE RETRIEVAL FROM MAPILLARY STREET IMAGES FOR A TARGET BUILDING

This study aims to investigate the possibility to automate the image selection process for the target building from Mapillary images through a web application where the user only initiates one image of the target building as a query. Using the data provided with Mapillary API and Overpass API, all images having full or partial coverage of the target building were selected. Then the images were segmented by using a pre-trained U-Net model to discard any images having less than 20% building coverage. The experiments showed promising results yielding 0.971 and 0.887 of overall accuracy after segmentation steps for two different target buildings.