Gate-Tunable Critical Current of the Three-Dimensional Niobium Nanobridge Josephson Junction.

Recent studies have shown that the critical currents of several metallic superconducting nanowires and Dayem bridges can be locally tuned by using a gate voltage (Vg). Here, we report a gate-tunable Josephson junction structure constructed from a three-dimensional (3D) niobium nanobridge junction (NBJ) with a voltage gate on top. Measurements up to 6 K showed that the critical current of this structure can be tuned to zero by increasing Vg. The critical gate voltage was reduced to 16 V and may possibly be reduced further by reducing the thickness of the insulation layer between the gate and the NBJ. Furthermore, the flux modulation generated by Josephson interference of two parallel 3D NBJs can also be tuned by using Vg in a similar manner. Therefore, we believe that this gate-tunable Josephson junction structure is promising for superconducting circuit fabrication at high integration levels.

Implant survival rate and marginal bone loss with the all-on-4 immediate-loading strategy: A clinical retrospective study with 1 to 4 years of follow-up.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM: Assessing peri-implant marginal bone loss (MBL) and its risk factors with cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) may clarify the risk factors for the all-on-4 (5 or 6) strategy and further improve its survival rate. PURPOSE: The purpose of this retrospective clinical study was to evaluate the implant survival rate, MBL, and associated risk factors of all-on-4 (5 or 6) prostheses after 1 to 4 years of follow-up with CBCT. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A total of 56 participants rehabilitated with 325 implants by using the all-on-4 (5 or 6) concept between October 2015 and December 2019 were included. Outcome measures were cumulative implant survival (life-table analysis) and MBL. Four CBCT scans, a scan immediately after surgery (T0), a scan 1 year after surgery (T1), a scan 2 years after surgery (T2), and a scan 3 to 4 years after treatment (T3), were obtained to evaluate the MBL. The Pearson correlation coefficient analysis and linear mixed models were performed to assess the potential risk factors for MBL (α=.05). RESULTS: The implant survival rate was 99.38%, and the prosthesis survival rate was 100%. The reductions in the vertical buccal bone height (△VBBH) were 0.74 ±0.10 mm (T0-T1), 0.37 ±0.12 mm (T1-T2), and 0.15 ±0.14 mm (T2-T3). Except for T2-T3, the △VBBH showed a significant difference at T0-T1 and T1-T2 (P≤.05). The alterations in vertical mesial bone height (VMBH), vertical distal bone height (VDBH), and vertical lingual bone height (VLBH) were similar to the trend observed in VBBH. The △VBBH (T0-T3) was negatively correlated with the horizontal buccal bone thickness (HBBT) (T0) (r=-.394, P<.001). Linear mixed models revealed that factors such as smoking (P=.001), mandible implant site (P<.001), immediate implant (P=.026), tilted implant (P<.001), female sex (P=.003), systemic disease (P=.025), and bruxism (P=.022) negatively affected MBL. The cantilever length (CL) also had a negative effect on MBL around the implants at the distal extension (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: The high implant and prosthesis survival rates and low MBL confirmed the predictability of the all-on-4 (5 or 6) concept. Smoking, mandible implant site, systemic disease, bruxism, female sex, immediate implant, tilted implant, and CL were identified as potential risk factors for MBL.

The correlation between periodontitis and uncontrolled hypertension is mediated by inflammatory markers: results from a cross-sectional study of urban elderly population in southeast China.

BACKGROUND: Periodontal diseases is considered the most important global oral health burden according to the world health organization (WHO) (Oral health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/oral-health#Overviewth (who.int). Accessed 21 Sep 2023). It is a common local inflammatory disease associated with hypertension, this study aims to explore the relationship between periodontitis and uncontrolled hypertension and whether inflammation indication such as white blood cell (WBC) count or neutrophil count is a mediator of this relationship. METHODS: One thousand four hundred eighty-eight elders attending annual physical and oral examinations in Zhejiang province were included in this study. The staging of Periodontitis was classified as none, mild-moderate and severe. Participants are categorized into two groups based on blood pressure: hypertensive( positive high blood pressure( HBP) history or underwent HBP medication or blood pressure( BP) ≥ 140/90 mmHg) and uncontrolled hypertensive (systolic blood pressure( SBP) ≥ 140 mmHg or distolic blood pressure( DBP) ≥ 90 mmHg). Peripheral blood samples were collected, information on hypertension history and potential confounders (age, sex, smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise frequency, diabetes) was collected in questionnaires. The correlation between periodontitis and hypertension was investigated using logistics regression analyses, mediation analysis was assessed for the effect of inflammation on hypertension. RESULTS: The study population includes 1,488 participants aged 55-90 years. Odds of uncontrolled hypertension increased significantly along with periodontitis in the regression models both in unadjusted model (odds ratio( OR): 1.407, 95% confidence intervals( CI): 1.037 ~ 1.910) and fully adjusted model (OR: 1.950, 95% CI: 1.127 ~ 3.373). Mediation analysis confirmed that WBC and neutrophic count function as a full mediator of the association between periodontitis and uncontrolled hypertension either in the unadjusted or the adjusted model. CONCLUSIONS: In a study of urban elderly population in southeast China, periodontitis is found to be significantly associated with uncontrolled hypertension, such relation is mediated by WBC and neutrophil count. Periodontitis can increase the difficulty of controlling hypertension. Promotion of periodontal health strategies in the dental setting could help reduce the burden of hypertension and its complications.

Identification of key module and hub genes in pulpitis using weighted gene co-expression network analysis.

BACKGROUND: Pulpitis is a common disease mainly caused by bacteria. Conventional approaches of diagnosing the state of dental pulp are mainly based on clinical symptoms, thereby harbor deficiencies. The accurate and rapid diagnosis of pulpitis is important for choosing the suitable therapy. The study aimed to identify pulpits related key genes by integrating micro-array data analysis and systems biology network-based methods such as weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). METHODS: The micro-array data of 13 inflamed pulp and 11 normal pulp were acquired from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). WGCNA was utilized to establish a genetic network and categorize genes into diverse modules. Hub genes in the most associated module to pulpitis were screened out using high module group members (MM) methods. Pulpitis model in rat was constructed and iRoot BP plus was applied to cap pulp. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used for validation of hub genes. RESULTS: WGCNA was established and genes were categorized into 22 modules. The darkgrey module had the highest correlation with pulpitis among them. A total of 5 hub genes (HMOX1, LOX, ACTG1, STAT3, GNB5) were identified. RT-qPCR proved the differences in expression levels of HMOX1, LOX, ACTG1, STAT3, GNB5 in inflamed dental pulp. Pulp capping reversed the expression level of HMOX1, LOX, ACTG1. CONCLUSION: The study was the first to produce a holistic view of pulpitis, screen out and validate hub genes involved in pulpitis using WGCNA method. Pulp capping using iRoot BP plus could reverse partial hub genes.

Relationship between time to hemostasis and outcomes of pulpotomy using iRoot BP Plus in symptomatic young permanent teeth: a prospective study.

The aim was to investigate the relationship between time to hemostasis and pulpotomy outcomes with the use of iRoot BP Plus (Innovative Bioceramics, Vancouver, Canada) for young permanent teeth of patients aged from 7 to 12 with symptomatic irreversible pulpitis and evaluate the outcomes of pulpotomy. The present study was a prospective cohort study. Two hundred and six young permanent teeth with symptomatic irreversible pulpitis underwent pulpotomy with the use of iRoot BP Plus. All patients underwent pulpotomy in accordance with a standardized protocol. Patients were postoperatively re-called after 3, 6, 12 months. Successful cases were defined according to clinical and radiographic evaluations. Main outcome measures included tooth position, cave shape, previous restoration, preoperative symptoms, time to hemostasis and outcomes. On the basis of univariate linear regression model, the relationships between time to hemostasis was evaluated, and p < 0.05 indicated a difference that achieved statistical significance. One hundred and ninety-three teeth can be evaluated after a follow-up for 6 to 36 months. The mean age of subjects was 9.43 ± 1.51 years. The overall clinical and radiographic success rate of pulpotomy reached 71.5% (138/193). After adjusting potential confounders (age, sex, previous restoration), non-linear relationship was detected between time to hemostasis and pulpotomy outcomes whose point was 4 minutes. The relationship between time to hemostasis and pulpotomy outcomes is non-linear. Pulpotomy outcomes was negatively related with time to hemostasis when time to hemostasis is more than 4 minutes.

Assessment of life support skills of resident dentists using OSCE: cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this cross-sectional survey was to apply the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) to evaluate the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and endotracheal intubation skills of resident dentists for stage assessment in standardized training. METHODS: A total of 146 third-year resident dentists were recruited and randomly assigned to perform either CPR or endotracheal intubation. Their performance was scored by experienced anesthesiologists with standardized scoring criteria. Participants were also asked to rated their self-assessed competence, willingness, and perceptions on training status using Likert-type scales in a questionnaire. Student's ttest was applied to compare scores for CPR and endotracheal intubation performed by resident dentists with different characteristics. The results of the questionnaires were analyzed and visualized by the R package 'Likert'. Significance was set at the P < 0.05 level. RESULTS: The mean OSCE score for endotracheal intubation (59.1 ± 12.5) was lower than that of CPR (72.4 ± 8.8). Participants with Master's degrees scored higher than those with Bachelor's degrees and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees in the assessment of CPR and endotracheal intubation. Low scores of self-assessed competence and willingness were observed, especially for endotracheal intubation. Resident dentists showed poor satisfaction on training volume and frequency of CPR and endotracheal intubation. CONCLUSION: Resident dentists showed poor performance on CPR and endotracheal intubation assessed by the OSCE. Relatively low self-assessed competence and willingness were reported in endotracheal intubation. The medical emergency curriculum for resident dentists should be more consistent and standardized to help resident dentists enhance the proficiency of life support skills.

Application of WeChat-based flipped classroom on root canal filling teaching in a preclinical endodontic course.

BACKGROUND: This study was aimed to evaluate the application of WeChat-based flipped classroom in root canal filling teaching in a preclinical endodontic course. METHODS: A two-group comparative study was designed. The pre-class test, on-site quiz, and root canal filling on extracted premolars were performed by students from a lecture-based classroom group (LG, n = 30) and a WeChat-based flipped classroom group (WFG, n = 30). Results of the Pre-class test and on-site quiz were analyzed by independent samples t-test. Post-filling radiographs were taken and evaluated by a specialist in oral radiology who was blinded to grouping. Results of root canal fillings were analyzed by the Pearson chi-square test. Student responses in questionnaires were analyzed by Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: The students in WFG could get significantly higher scores in the on-site test and make better performances in root canal filling than those in LG. In terms of questionnaires, students from WFG were perceived to be more motivated to learn, better to understand the knowledge, better to improve communication and clinical skills, easier to perform root canal filling but spending more time. CONCLUSION: The WeChat-based flipped classroom teaching can have a better effect than lecture-based teaching on root canal filling learning for students with limited endodontic experiences.

Captopril inhibits matrix metalloproteinase activity and improves dentin bonding durability.

OBJECTIVES: We investigated the inhibitory effects of captopril on matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and its effect as a primer on dentin bonding durability. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred fifty human third molars were selected. Flat surfaces of the middle dentin were exposed, etched 15 s, and followed by pretreatment with a primer for 60 s, including distilled water (control, the negative control primer), 2% chlorhexidine digluconate (CHD, the positive control primer), and captopril solution. Inhibitory effects of primers on MMPs were evaluated by hydroxyproline and gelatinase activity tests. All primers were applied on dentin followed by bonding. Some of the samples were sliced into slabs, placed in a fluorescent solution containing gelatin, and incubated for in situ zymography. Some were cut into sticks, and after aging for 1 day, 12 months, or 24 months, microtensile bonding strength was tested. Some were cut into slabs, aged for 1 day, 12 months, or 24 months, and taken out for nanoleakage tests to reveal interface defects. RESULTS: Hydroxyproline and gelatinase activity analyses showed that captopril exerted better inhibitory effects on MMPs, relative to 2% CHD (p < 0.05). A 0.2% captopril aqueous solution (0.2% CapW) was chosen to apply to the dentin. In situ zymography showed that inhibitory effects of captopril on gelatinase were significantly higher compared to 2% CHD (p < 0.01). Microtensile strength revealed that the bonding effects of the 0.2% CapW group lasted longer, compared to the control and 2% CHD groups (p < 0.05). Interface defects, detected by nanoleakage, were significantly reduced in the 0.2% CapW group, compared to the control and 2% CHD groups (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Captopril inhibits dentin MMP activities and effectively improves dentin bonding durability. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Captopril is a promising dentin bonding primer for improving bonding durability.

Osteopontin in Bone Metabolism and Bone Diseases.

Osteopontin (OPN), a secreted phosphoprotein, is a member of the small integrin-binding ligand N-linked glycoprotein (SIBLING) family of cell matrix proteins and participates in many biological activities. Studies have shown that OPN plays a role in bone metabolism and homeostasis. OPN not only is an important factor in neuron-mediated and endocrine-regulated bone mass, but also is involved in biological activities such as proliferation, migration, and adhesion of several bone-related cells, including bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, hematopoietic stem cells, osteoclasts, and osteoblasts. OPN has been demonstrated to be closely related to the occurrence and development of many bone-related diseases, such as osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteosarcoma. As expected, the functions of OPN in the bone have become a research hotspot. In this article, we try to decipher the mechanism of OPN-regulated bone metabolism and bone diseases.

Dental Caries Status and Caries Risk Factors in Students Ages 12-14 Years in Zhejiang, China.

BACKGROUND An accurate and valid caries prevention policy is absent in Zhejiang because of insufficient data. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate oral health status and related risk factors in 12- to 14-year-old students in Zhejiang, China. MATERIAL AND METHODS Using multi-stage, stratified, random sampling, we recruited a total of 4860 students aged 12 to 14 years old from 6 regions in Zhejiang in this cross-sectional study. Dental caries was measured using the Decayed, Missing and Filled Teeth (DMFT) index and the Significant Caries Index (SiC). Information concerning family background and relevant behaviors was collected in a structured questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to study risk factors related to dental caries. RESULTS The overall prevalence of dental caries was 44% and the mean DMFT and SiC scores were 1.14 and 3.11, respectively. Female students had a higher level of dental caries than male students (P<0.01). The annual increase in caries prevalence was 3% with increasing age, and the DMFT score was 0.15. The results of logistic regression analysis showed that female sex, older age, snacks consumption once or more per day, fair or poor self-assessment of dental health, toothache experience, and dental visits were the most significant risk factors for dental caries, with odds ratios ranging from 1.24 to 2.25 (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of dental caries in 12- to 14-year-old students in Zhejiang was low, with a tendency to increase compared with previous oral surveys. Female sex, older age, increased sugar intake, poor oral health self-assessment, and bad dental experience were the most important factors increasing dental caries risks.

Effect of duration and infection control barriers of light curing unit on hardness of Bulk Fill composite resin.

Background: This study aimed to investigate the impact of the duration of light curing unit (LCU) usage and the use of infection control barriers on the hardness of Bulk Fill composite resin after curing. The hypotheses were that extended usage of the LCU would not reduces its output power and resin hardness, and that the presence of polyethylene film barriers exacerbates the reduction in resin hardness. Methods: Based on the absence or presence of polyethylene film (PE) and the number of layers used, a 3M LED curing light (EliparTM DeepCure-S; 3M ESPE, St Paul, MN, USA) was divided into three groups: PE0, PE1, and PE3. The curing light was used 30 times daily for 20 s per exposure, at frequencies of 0, 6, and 12 months. Maximum output power tests were conducted for each group of curing lights. Custom-made plastic modules were used to stack Bulk Fill composite resin (Filtek Bulk Fill Posterior Restorative; 3M ESPE) to a thickness of 4 mm. Each group of curing lights was used to cure the modules in a direct contact manner for 20 s. Vickers hardness measurements were taken at the top and bottom surfaces of the resin specimens using a digital microhardness tester. A one-way or two-way ANOVA analyzed the power of LCUs, Vickers hardness of Bulk Fill composite resin, and hardness decrease percentage across groups. Pairwise comparisons used the Tukey test (α = 0.05). Results: As the duration of usage increased, both the power of the curing light and the hardness of the resin significantly decreased. Significant differences were observed in power and resin hardness among the PE0, PE1, and PE3 groups. When the duration of usage was 6 months or less, only multi-layered PE films led to a significant increase in the percentage decrease of hardness of cured resin from top to bottom. However, at 12 months, both single-layer and multi-layered PE films resulted in a significant increase in the percentage decrease of hardness of cured resin from top to bottom. Conclusion: The output power of the light curing unit decreases with prolonged usage, thereby failing to meet the curing requirements of Bulk Fill composite resin. The use of single-layer PE as an infection control barrier is recommended.

Early diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease based on multi-attention mechanism.

Alzheimer's Disease is a neurodegenerative disorder, and one of its common and prominent early symptoms is language impairment. Therefore, early diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease through speech and text information is of significant importance. However, the multimodal data is often complex and inconsistent, which leads to inadequate feature extraction. To address the problem, We propose a model for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease based on multimodal attention(EDAMM). Specifically, we first evaluate and select three optimal feature extraction methods, Wav2Vec2.0, TF-IDF and Word2Vec, to extract acoustic and linguistic features. Next, by leveraging self-attention mechanism and cross-modal attention mechanisms, we generate fused features to enhance and capture the inter-modal correlation information. Finally, we concatenate the multimodal features into a composite feature vector and employ a Neural Network(NN) classifier to diagnose Alzheimer's Disease. To evaluate EDAMM, we perform experiments on two public datasets, i.e., NCMMSC2021 and ADReSSo. The results show that EDAMM improves the performance of Alzheimer's Disease diagnosis over state-of-the-art baseline approaches on both datasets.

The prevalence and common risk indicators of root caries and oral health service utilization pattern among adults, a cross-sectional study.

Background: Root caries is a prevalent oral health concern among adults, yet there remains a need for a comprehensive understanding of its occurrence and associated risk indicators. The present study was aimed to investigate the prevalence of root caries and to determine significantly associated indicators with it among adults. Methods: The residents aged 35-74 years old were enrolled in a cross-sectional study in which dental examination were taken and structured questionnaires were collected in Zhejiang Province, China. All data were recorded in an electronic system and analyzed. Results: The prevalence of decayed and filled root caries in 1,076 respondents was 31.9%. Elder age, greater attachment loss, and exposed root surface were associated with higher odds of incidence for decayed/filled roots and decayed roots. In the last 12 months, 27.4% of adults with decayed or filled roots and 23.2% of others utilized oral health services. Carious adults who had a very poor/poor oral health status were 2.905 times likely to report dental visits. People with sound roots who were female (OR = 2.103, P < 0.001), perceived their oral health status as moderate (OR = 1.802, P = 0.015), or poor/very poor (OR = 4.103, P < 0.001) were more likely to visit a dentist in the past 12 months. Conclusions: Age, attachment loss and root exposure were most significantly associated with the prevalence of root caries. Individuals who recognize their poor or very poor oral health status should feel encouraged to make use of oral health services.

Multi-Resolution Wavelet Fractal Analysis and Subtask Training for Enhancing Few-Shot Noisy Brainwave Recognition.

The integration of healthcare monitoring with Internet of Things (IoT) networks radically transforms the management and monitoring of human well-being. Portable and lightweight electroencephalography (EEG) systems with fewer electrodes have improved convenience and flexibility while retaining adequate accuracy. However, challenges emerge when dealing with real-time EEG data from IoT devices due to the presence of noisy samples, which impedes improvements in brainwave detection accuracy. Moreover, high inter-subject variability and substantial variability in EEG signals present difficulties for conventional data augmentation and subtask learning techniques, leading to poor generalizability. To address these issues, we present a novel framework for enhancing EEG-based recognition through multi-resolution data analysis, capturing features at different scales using wavelet fractals. The original data can be expanded many times after continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and recombination, alleviating insufficient training samples. In the transfer stage of deep learning (DL) models, we adopt a subtask learning approach to train the recognition model to generalize efficiently. This incorporates wavelets at various scales instead of exclusively considering average prediction performance across scales and paradigms. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that our proposed DL-based method excels at extracting features from small-scale and noisy EEG data. This significantly improves healthcare monitoring performance by mitigating the impact of noise introduced by the external environment.

CeLNet: a correlation-enhanced lightweight network for medical image segmentation.

Objective. Convolutional neural networks have been widely adopted for medical image segmentation with their outstanding feature representation capabilities. As the segmentation accuracy gets constantly updated, the complexity of networks increases as well. Complex networks can achieve better performance but require more parameters and are hard to train with limited resources, while lightweight models are faster but cannot fully utilize the contextual information of medical images. In this paper, we focus on better balancing the efficiency and accuracy.Approach. We propose a correlation-enhanced lightweight network (CeLNet) for medical image segmentation, which adopts a siamese structure for weight sharing and parameter saving. Through the feature reuse and feature stacking of parallel branches, a point-depth convolution parallel block (PDP Block) is proposed to reduce the model parameters and computational cost while improving the feature extraction capability of encoder. A relation module is also designed to extract feature correlations of input slices, which utilizes global and local attention to enhance feature connections, while reducing feature differences through element subtraction, and finally obtains contextual information of associated slices to improve the segmentation performance.Main results. We conduct extensive experiments on the LiTS2017, MM-WHS and ISIC2018 datasets, and the proposed model consumes merely 5.18M parameters but achieves excellent segmentation performance, specifically, a DSC of 0.9233 in LiTS2017 dataset, an average DSC of 0.7895 on MM-WHS dataset and an average DSC of 0.8401 on ISIC2018 dataset.Significance. CeLNet achieves state-of-the-art performance in multiple datasets while ensuring lightweight.

Geometric Scaling of the Current-Phase Relation of Niobium Nanobridge Junctions.

The nanobridge junction (NBJ) is a type of Josephson junction that is advantageous for the miniaturization of superconducting circuits. However, the current-phase relation (CPR) of the NBJ usually deviates from a sinusoidal function, which has been explained by a simplified model with correlation only to its effective length. Here, we investigated both measured and calculated CPRs of niobium NBJs of a cuboidal shape with a three-dimensional bank structure. From a sine-wave to a sawtooth-like form, we showed that deviated CPRs of NBJs can be described quantitatively by its skewness Δθ. Furthermore, the measured dependence of Δθ on the critical current I0 from 108 NBJs turned out to be consistent with the calculated dependence derived from the change in geometric dimensions. This suggested that the CPRs of NBJs can be tuned by their geometric dimensions. In addition, the calculated scaling behavior of Δθ versus I0 in 3D space was provided for the future design of superconducting circuits of a high integration level by using niobium NBJs.

Fine mapping of the yellow seed locus in Brassica juncea L.

The yellow mustard plant in Northern Shaanxi is a precious germplasm, and the yellow seed trait is controlled by a single recessive gene. In this report, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) techniques were used to identify markers linked to the brown seed locus in an F(2) population consisting of 1258 plants. After screening 256 AFLP primer combinations and 456 pairs of SSR primers, we found 14 AFLP and 2 SSR markers that were closely linked to the brown seed locus. Among these markers, the SSR marker CB1022 showed codominant inheritance. By integrating markers previously found to be linked to the brown seed locus into the genetic map of the F(2) population, 23 markers were linked to the brown seed locus. The two closest markers, EA02MC08 and P03MC08, were located on either side of the brown seed locus at a distance of 0.3 and 0.5 cM, respectively. To use the markers for the breeding of yellow-seeded mustard plants, two AFLP markers (EA06MC11 and EA08MC13) were converted into sequence-characterized amplified region (SCAR) markers, SC1 and SC2, with the latter as the codominant marker. The two SSR markers were subsequently mapped to the A9/N9 linkage group of Brassica napus L. by comparing common SSR markers with the published genetic map of B. napus. A BLAST analysis indicated that the sequences of seven markers showed good colinearity with those of Arabidopsis chromosome 3 and that the homolog of the brown seed locus might exist between At3g14120 and At3g29615 on this same chromosome. To develop closer markers, we could make use of the sequence information of this region to design primers for future studies. Regardless, the close markers obtained in the present study will lay a solid foundation for cloning the yellow seed gene using a map-based cloning strategy.

A QR code-based user-friendly visual cryptography scheme.

Benefiting from the development of the Internet and smart devices, it is now convenient to transmit images anywhere and anytime, which poses a new challenge for image security. The Visual Cryptography Scheme (VCS) is a secret sharing method for protecting an image without a key, the merit of VCS is the human visual system (HVS) can restore the secret image by simply superimposing qualified shares, without any computation. To eliminate noise-like shares in traditional VCS, this paper presents a novel QR code-based expansion-free and meaningful visual cryptography scheme (QEVCS), which generates visually appealing QR codes for transmitting meaningful shares. When distributing on public networks, this scheme does not attract the attention of potential attackers. By limiting the gray-level of a halftoned image, QEVCS both keep the computation-free of visual cryptography and the size of recovery image same as the secret images. The experimental results show the effectiveness of QEVCS when preserving the privacy of images.

A New Data Model for the Privacy Protection of Medical Images.

Benefiting from the intelligent Medical Internet of Things (IoMT), the medical industry has dramatically improved its quality and productivity. The transmission of biomedical data in an open and untrusted network poses a new challenge to the privacy protection of patient information. The low processing power of IoMT limited the application of traditional encryption to protect sensitive data. In this paper, we developed a new data protection model for medical images. The model uses visual cryptography (VC) to store biomedical data in a separate database, which can transfer the sensitive data of patients simply and securely. To alleviate the degradation of biomedical recognition performance caused by VC-based noise, we further use transfer learning to train an optimized neural network. The experimental results show that this proposed method provides privacy in the IoMT environment and maintains the high accuracy of biomedical recognition.

Vital Pulp Therapy in Permanent Teeth with Irreversible Pulpitis Caused by Caries: A Prospective Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: When a tooth is diagnosed with irreversible pulpitis, root canal therapy (RCT) is generally performed to completely remove pulp tissue, which might lead to a higher risk of loss of vascularity, and teeth being more prone to fracture. Vital pulp therapy (VPT) is a personalized method of treating irreversible pulpitis, which conforms to the trend of minimally invasive endodontics. The remaining vital pulp could promote the physiological development of the roots of young permanent teeth with incomplete apical foramen. However, clear guidelines for VPT indication are still missing. OBJECTIVE: This prospective cohort study evaluated the outcomes of vital pulp therapy (VPT) using iRoot BP Plus (Innovative Bioceramix Inc, Vancouver, BC, Canada) in permanent teeth of 6- to 20-year-old patients with irreversible pulpitis caused by caries and analyzed the preoperative factors affecting VPT prognosis. METHODS: Fifty-nine permanent teeth in 59 patients with irreversible pulpitis caused by caries were treated with VPT using iRoot BP Plus. All patients received VPT under a standardized protocol. After informed consent, teeth were isolated with a dental dam, then operators performed VPT with iRoot BP Plus and restored the teeth with composite resin or stainless steel crown. Patients were postoperatively recalled after 3, 6 and 12 months and then recalled annually. Successful cases were defined as successful in both clinical and radiographic evaluations. A statistical analysis was performed using the Fisher exact test, and the level of significant difference was p < 0.05. RESULTS: After 6-36 months of follow-up, a total of 57 teeth from 57 patients were accessible for evaluation. The mean age of subjects was 11.75 ± 3.81 years. The overall clinical and radiographic success rate of VPT was 91.2% (52/57). With an observation time of one year or more, the success rate was 90.5% (38/42). All the symptoms and physical examination findings showed no significant effect on VPT prognosis (p > 0.05) using a binary logistic regression model. CONCLUSIONS: Permanent teeth in 6- to 20-year-old patients diagnosed as irreversible pulpitis caused by caries can be successfully treated with VPT using iRoot BP Plus.