Toothbrushes as a Source of DNA for Gender and Human Identification—A Systematic Review

Background: Few studies have reported the use of toothbrushes as a reliable source of DNA for human or gender identification. The present systematic review with the available information was conducted to answer the focus question “Is a toothbrush a reliable source of DNA for human or gender identification?”. Methods: The keyword combination “Toothbrush” and “DNA” was used to search databases including MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science along with a manual search of reference lists of relevant articles. Duplicates and irrelevant articles were excluded, and the remaining articles were fully read for the final selection of articles. The risk of bias of the included studies was evaluated using the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (AXIS tool). Results: Of the 130 articles obtained, 122 duplicates or irrelevant articles were eliminated. Following the full-text reading of eight articles, five articles were selected based on eligibility criteria. The five studies reported that a toothbrush is a good source of DNA irrespective of the time interval. In a few studies some samples were not sufficient for complete DNA profiling due to factors such as the method of DNA extraction. Conclusion: Although a toothbrush is an excellent source of DNA for human and gender identification, future studies with a larger sample size, appropriate control group, and standardized technique of DNA extraction need to be conducted. Additionally, factors influencing the quantity and quality of DNA in toothbrushes need to be determined with standardized techniques.

Influence of Reinforcing Agents on the Mechanical Properties of Denture Base Resin: A Systematic Review

Knowledge about the influence of fillers in denture base resin is vague. This systematic review aimed to report the reinforcing effect of fillers on the mechanical properties of denture base resin by following PRISMA guidelines. Two electronic databases (Pubmed/Medline & Web of Science) were searched for articles using the keywords: fibers in denture base, fillers in denture base, and reinforcement of denture base. Laboratory studies complying with the inclusion criteria were reviewed according to the set protocol. The established focus question was: “Do reinforcing fillers positively influence the mechanical properties of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) heat polymerized denture base material?” A total of twenty-nine relevant papers qualified for final inclusion. Of these, 24 were determined to have a moderate risk of bias. Micron or nano-sized metal/metal oxides particles and glass fibers were the frequently used reinforcing agents. The trend of evaluating fractural strength (FS) was common. Most of the studies limited the use of reinforcing agents up to 5 wt.%. FS, fracture toughness (FT), and impact strength (IS) tend to increase if the fillers are chemically bonded and well-dispersed in denture base resin. Though fillers with a higher elastic modulus increase the hardness of the reinforced denture base resin, they compromise other mechanical properties. Well-dispersed lower filler loading PMMA denture base resin can enhance the FS, FT, and other related mechanical properties.

Adhesion to Zirconia: A Systematic Review of Surface Pretreatments and Resin Cements

This systematic review aims to evaluate the different pretreatments of the zirconia surface and resin cement in order to determine a valid operative protocol for adhesive cementation. Methodologies conducted for this study followed the Prisma (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) guidelines. An electronic search was performed in four databases. The established focus question was: “What type of surface conditioning method is the one that obtains the best adhesion values to zirconia over time by applying a resin cement?” Forty-five relevant papers were found to qualify for final inclusion. In total, 260 different surface pretreatment methods, mainly combinations of air-abrasion protocols and adhesive promoters, were investigated. Altogether, the use of two artificial aging methods, three types of cement and four testing methods was reported. The results showed that mechanicochemical surface pretreatments offered the best adhesive results. Self-adhesive cement and those containing 10-MDP obtained the best results in adhesion to zirconia. Artificial aging reduced adhesion, so storage in water for 30 days or thermocycling for 5000 cycles is recommended. A standardized adhesive protocol has not been established due to a lack of evidence

The Indian Subcontinent

This chapter provides brief descriptions of the basic intonational tunes and phrasing properties of some of the Indo-Aryan languages, including Bengali, Marathi, and Assamese, and also touches upon Dravidian languages such as Tamil and Telugu. The crucial issues governing the basic morphology of tunes include the expression of focus, question prosody, the possibilities of neutral prosody, and phrasing, including its role in the expression of focus. One of the crucial cross-linguistic issues that is addressed relates to the presence or absence of H toned pitch accents and boundary tones related to questions. Some Indian languages show a mixture of H and L tones as well as critical phrasing patterns which suggest that phrasing may play a bigger role than one might be led to think on the basis of other Indo-European prosodic systems.

TAX MORALE AND SOCIAL BUSINESS IN MEXICO

This research presents empirical results about the importance of tax morale in the probability of tax compliance in social businesses. It highlights the relevance of increasing the intrinsic value to the social business owner on paying taxes, instead of the traditional approach of increasing punishment, to reduce non-compliance. The paper suggests changing the focus question from “Why don’t they pay taxes?” to “Why, despite the low probability of being punished for not paying taxes, do some social business owners comply with their tax contribution?”. The main results of the research point out that factors such as public expenditure in economic development increases the probability of tax compliance in social businesses, whereas public expenditure in social programs decreases this probability.

AN INVESTIGATION OF MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES USED BY ENGLISH TEACHERS IN TEACHING EFL IN SECONDARY ISLAMIC SCHOOLS IN TANGERANG

The study aims to investigate the motivational strategies used by English teachers in teaching EFL in secondary Islamic schools in Tangerang and analysed it based on four motivational aspects as proposed by Zoltan Dornyei (2001). The focus question of the study was the way of motivational strategies used by English teachers in teaching EFL in secondary Islamic schools in Tangerang. The sub-focus questions of the study were the frequency of motivational strategies used by English teachers in teaching EFL in secondary Islamic schools in Tangerang and the implementation of motivational strategies that the English teachers used in teaching EFL in secondary Islamic schools in Tangerang. To answer the questions, the study employed a qualitative approach that applied a case study design through questionnaire, semi-structured interview and observation to collect the data. The participants of this study were twenty-five English teachers. Six English teachers were selected for individual interviews and classroom observations based on the resulted of the questionnaire which had been filled in by twenty-five English teachers. Those six interviewees were selected according to the result of the questionnaire. Two were from good category, other two interviewees were selected as the moderate, while the other two were from poor category.

Measuring Lung Vessel Tree Growth During Development in Pediatric Patients

Premature babies are often put on respirators due to their lack of lung development and functionality. However, there is not much data that specifically pinpoints when it is safe to take a child off a respirator. Therefore, the main focus question is: how does the pulmonary vasculature develop as the child grows and can we determine the exact time-point to take him/her off a respirator. In this study, Chest CT scans were retrospectively gathered from pediatric patients at different follow-up times from the UF Shands Pulmonary Care Pediatric Center from 2005-2012. In-house software built upon the NIH ImageJ platform was used to count blood vessels as a function of size in each patient’s lungs. Nine datasets were analyzed from subjects 1 week to 22 years of age. It was observed that the number of vessels increased as a patient aged however the data points were spread greatly, preventing our being able to make additional inferences. Limitations of this initial work include that often patients were scanned only in instances of lung infections which hinders the assessment of lung vasculature; the number of repeated scans per patient was low; and the image slice thickness and in-plane pixel resolution varied across scans, which affects vessels count. Future extensions of this work include selecting a larger cohort of subjects with multiple follow-ups and similar imaging parameters, along with an age-matched control group.

Penerapan Model Pembelajaran Learning Cycle 7e untuk Meningkatkan Kemampuan Berpikir Kritis Siswa (Implementation of Learning Cycle 7e to Improve Students' Critical Thinking)

The purpose of this study was to analyze students' critical thinking skills through the application of learning cycle type 7E at SMPN 1 Krembung. This research is a quan- titative research type of quasi-experiment with one-group pretest-posttest design. Data were collected using pretest and posttest to measure students' critical thinking skills with critical thinking indicators from Robert H. Ennis. Data were then analyzed using N-Gain to determine the improvement of students' critical thinking skills. The results showed that the indicator of critical thinking skills "determines actions" gained the highest N-gain score of 0.8 and the lowest N-gain value is the "focus question" indicator of 0.167.

Antiplatelet therapy and exodontia: far away from a definite conclusion

Dear Editor;We read a review article about antiplatelet therapy and dental management in your journal (1). Kumar concluded that patients taking dual antiplatelet therapy has an increased risk for post-operative bleeding complications.The focus question of this article contains many other smeller questions. We recently answered one of these questions in our study; one tooth extraction is safe in patients taking aspirin and clopidogrel during one year after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with stenting (2). But many questions remained without answer. Is two teeth extraction safe in these patients? What about more than two teeth extraction or in patients taking other antiplatelet drugs for other indications? What about other dental interventions? For answering each of these specific questions we need to design a prospective original study, with enough sample size, and comparing the results with a matched control group.Also there are many confounders for bleeding after exodontia (e.g. dentist's skill, type of antiplatelet drug and its manufacturing company, indication and duration of taking antiplatelet therapy, number and kind of extracted teeth, and dentist's skill) (2, 3). Controlling these confounders needs prospective studies focusing on specific group of patients. For example, patients taking unique dose and type of antiplatelet drug for a unique indication and duration, undergoing unique dental intervention by unique dentist. Then this result could be compared with a group of healthy subjects undergoing same dental intervention by the same dentist. So we do not have enough evidences to make a definite conclusion about what we should do in case of dental intervention for patients taking antiplatelet therapy.