Periodontal Health in Sickle Cell Disease - A Case Control Study

Introduction: A hereditary autosomal recessive condition goes by the name of sickle cell disease. Hemoglobin S polymerization in red blood cells under hypoxic circumstances results in vascular blockage, which is the pathophysiology of sickle cell disease. For the sake of maintaining group homogeneity, participants in the healthy group were either related to or friends of those with sickle cell disease, whereas those in the sickle cell trait group were related to those with sickle cell illness. Materials and Methods: A total of 150 participants were recruited for this research, 43 percent of them were female and 57 percent male. Patients in the control group were on average 30 years old, whereas those in the SCT group were 33 years old, and the average age of patients with SCD was 26. Those with sickle cell trait (SCT) and those with sickle cell disease (SCD) were divided into three categories. Patients were screened and diagnosed with chronic periodontitis using clinical criteria developed at the 1999 International World Workshop for Classification of Periodontal Diseases and Conditions. Results: The SCD, ST, and healthy groups did not vary significantly in terms of clinical indicators such as gastrointestinal (GI), peritoneal (PPD), and caloric (CAL). SCT group PI-1.550.45, GI 1.540.43, PPD-2.170.72 was greater than the mean and standard deviation of the SCD and control groups, but the chi square test revealed it to be non-significantly different. Conclusion: It is possible that patients with the Indian haplotype of SCD, albeit having milder symptoms of the illness, contributed to our conclusion that SCD, SCT patients had no significantly greater periodontal breakdown than healthy people. Although SCD's fundamental pathophysiology raises issues about our knowledge of periodontitis, additional study is needed.

The Effect of First-Hand and Second-Hand Knowledge on Perceived Group Homogeneity and Certainty About Stereotype-Based Inferences

Stereotypes are often used to make inferences about others, yet can lead to problematic consequences, which get exacerbated when people are more confident in these inferences. The current research examines whether biases in people's first-hand and second-hand information about groups make groups appear overly homogeneous, leading to more confident inferences about group members. Supporting this, across two studies, groups appeared more homogeneous when people lacked first-hand information from personal experience with a group, as well as when stereotypes were based on second-hand information from the media or other people. However, only second-hand information increased confidence about group members, as lacking first-hand information reduced confidence about what groups and group members were like. Biases in homogeneity also had greater impact for typical rather than atypical group members. Thus, people may be especially confident in stereotype-based inferences when stereotypes are based on second-hand information and when group members appear typical of their group.

Temporal stability of chimpanzee social culture

Culture is a hallmark of the human species, both in terms of the transmission of material inventions (e.g. tool manufacturing) and the adherence to social conventions (e.g. greeting mannerisms). While material culture has been reported across the animal kingdom, indications of social culture in animals are limited. Moreover, there is a paucity of evidencing cultural stability in animals. Here, based on a large dataset spanning 12 years, I show that chimpanzees adhere to arbitrary group-specific handclasp preferences that cannot be explained by genetics or the ecological environment. Despite substantial changes in group compositions across the study period, and all chimpanzees having several behavioural variants in their repertoires, chimpanzees showed and maintained the within-group homogeneity and between-group heterogeneity that are so characteristic of the cultural phenomenon in the human species. These findings indicate that human culture, including its arbitrary social conventions and long-term stability, is rooted in our evolutionary history.

Beyond the average patient: how neuroimaging models can address heterogeneity in dementia

Dementia is a highly heterogeneous condition, with pronounced individual differences in onset age, clinical presentation, progression rates and neuropathological hallmarks, even within a specific diagnostic group. However, the most common statistical designs used in dementia research studies and clinical trials overlook this heterogeneity, instead relying on the comparison of group average differences (e.g., patient versus control, treatment versus placebo), implicitly assuming within-group homogeneity. This one-size-fits-all approach potentially limits our understanding of dementia aetiology, hindering the identification of effective treatments. Neuroimaging has enabled characterisation of the average neuroanatomical substrates of dementias; however, the increasing availability of large open neuroimaging datasets provides the opportunity to examine patterns of neuroanatomical variability in individual patients. In this Update review we outline the causes and consequences of heterogeneity in dementia and discuss recent research which aims to directly tackle heterogeneity, rather than assume that dementia affects everyone in the same way. We introduce spatial normative modelling as an emerging data-driven technique which can be applied to dementia data to model neuroanatomical variation, capturing individualised neurobiological “fingerprints”. Such methods have the potential to detect clinically relevant subtypes, track an individual’s disease progression or evaluate treatment responses, with the goal of moving towards precision medicine for dementia.

Comparison of the effectiveness of supplementary prescribing the chonodoprotector Mucosat in the oral and parenteral dosage forms during the acute exacerbation of osteoarthritis

The study aims to compare the methods of Mucosat drug use and administration for achieving the desired therapeutic effect in the treatment of osteoarthritis. Despite extensive evidence base, improving complex therapy schemes for the use of successive and complementary dosage forms with the appropriate drug administration and use in order to achieve the desired therapeutic effect is still a valid aim. In the course of the study, 50 knee osteoarthritis patients were examined and treated during the period from November, 2019 to April, 2020. A clinical trial was carried out to assess Mucosat oral and parental administration effectiveness in the patients comparing their physical activity, functional ability and quality of life. The number of undesired side effects identified the degree of therapeutic tolerance against the comorbid diseases identified. A comparison of the therapeutic efficacy and tolerability of Musocat intramuscular and capsule administration, patient compliance, the need to take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) was drawn. Statistica 12 and Excel 2016 were used to carry out the statistical analysis of the data obtained. The study was generally marked by diagnostic accuracy with the use of modern methods, group homogeneity, prospective observational design. By the time of pharmacotherapy completion, physical activity has become optimal in the study groups. However, parental therapy had significantly higher effectiveness than the oral one on all the subscales. As a result, articular syndrome severity has been reduced and the functional state of the joints expanded. The study has shown that Mucosat demonstrates high efficacy both in injectable solution and capsule dosage forms as a basic chondroprotective drug. Mucosat pharmacotherapy course has contributed to permanent discontinuation of NSAIDs before completion of the therapy. The superiority of Mucosat parenteral administration over the oral one has been proven.

Ethnic Inequality and Coups d’État

A coup d’état is an all-around consequential event, and coups remain frequent in sub-Saharan Africa. Historically, ethnic inequality—the measure of income disparities at the level of ethnic groups—has been paid little attention as a potential cause of coups and other types of regime breakdown. More work exists on the relationship between ethnicity broadly construed and coup d’état, and in particular the role of unequal access to the military for different ethnic groups and the role of ethnic exclusion from political power. Our own work presents a theory that links “between” and “within” ethnic group income inequality to coup d’état initiated by ethnic groups. The argument is that high income and wealth inequality between ethnic groups, coupled with within-group homogeneity, increases the salience of ethnicity and solidifies within-group preferences vis-à-vis the preferences of other ethnic groups, increasing the appeal and feasibility of a coup. Empirical findings from sub-Saharan Africa support the main theoretical claim linking ethnic inequality to coup d’état. Additional evidence from sub-Saharan Africa and a larger global sample are consistent with the causal mechanisms. More remains to be researched in this area, however. Directions for future research include looking at the access of ethnic groups to the military, the intervening role of natural resources in the calculus of ethnic groups, and the role of ethnic inequality in incumbent takeovers.

Self-categorization and autism: Exploring the relationship between autistic traits and group homogeneity

The Integrated Self-Categorization model of Autism (ISCA: Skorich & Haslam, under review; Bertschy et al., 2019) argues that the theory of mind differences seen in autism arise from Enhanced Perceptual Functioning/Weak Central Coherence, via a dysfunctional self-categorization mechanism. The ISCA model also makes the novel prediction that phenomena that arise from self-categorization should also be affected in autistic people. In this paper, we report three studies exploring this prediction in the context of one such phenomenon: group homogeneity. We first measure participants’ autistic traits, then ask them to make homogeneity judgments of their ingroup alone or their outgroup alone (in Study 1, and in the Alone conditions of Studies 2a and 2b); or of their ingroup in comparison to their outgroup or their outgroup in comparison to their ingroup (in the Compare conditions of Studies 2a and 2b). As predicted, we find that: the degree of autistic traits negatively predicts ratings of group homogeneity; this relationship is mediated by social identification/self-categorization; and typical comparison-related homogeneity effects are strengthened at higher relative to lower levels of autistic traits. These studies provide convergent evidence for the ISCA model and suggest important avenues for well-being and social skills interventions for autistic people.

Graded, multidimensional intra- and intergroup variations in primary progressive aphasia and post-stroke aphasia

Language impairments caused by stroke (post-stroke aphasia, PSA) and neurodegeneration (primary progressive aphasia, PPA) have overlapping symptomatology, nomenclature and are classically divided into categorical subtypes. Surprisingly, PPA and PSA have rarely been directly compared in detail. Rather, previous studies have compared certain subtypes (e.g. semantic variants) or have focused on a specific cognitive/linguistic task (e.g. reading). This study assessed a large range of linguistic and cognitive tasks across the full spectra of PSA and PPA. We applied varimax-rotated principal component analysis to explore the underlying structure of the variance in the assessment scores. Similar phonological, semantic and fluency-related components were found for PSA and PPA. A combined principal component analysis across the two aetiologies revealed graded intra- and intergroup variations on all four extracted components. Classification analysis was used to test, formally, whether there were any categorical boundaries for any subtypes of PPA or PSA. Semantic dementia formed a true diagnostic category (i.e. within group homogeneity and distinct between-group differences), whereas there was considerable overlap and graded variations within and between other subtypes of PPA and PSA. These results suggest that (i) a multidimensional rather than categorical classification system may be a better conceptualization of aphasia from both causes; and (ii) despite the very different types of pathology, these broad classes of aphasia have considerable features in common.