Stepping into the Right Shoes: The Effects of User-Matched Avatar Ethnicity and Gender on Sense of Embodiment in Virtual Reality.

In many consumer virtual reality (VR) applications, users embody predefined characters that offer minimal customization options, frequently emphasizing storytelling over user choice. We explore whether matching a user's physical characteristics, specifically ethnicity and gender, with their virtual self-avatar affects their sense of embodiment in VR. We conducted a $2\times 2$ within-subjects experiment ($\mathrm{n}=32$) with a diverse user population to explore the impact of matching or not matching a user's self-avatar to their ethnicity and gender on their sense of embodiment. Our results indicate that matching the ethnicity of the user and their self-avatar significantly enhances sense of embodiment regardless of gender, extending across various aspects, including appearance, response, and ownership. We also found that matching gender significantly enhanced ownership, suggesting that this aspect is influenced by matching both ethnicity and gender. Interestingly, we found that matching ethnicity specifically affects self-location while matching gender specifically affects one's body ownership.

Prevalence of Teaching Apical Patency and Various Instrumentation and Obturation Techniques in United States Dental Schools: Two Decades Later.

INTRODUCTION: Maintaining apical patency has been advocated to minimize canal transportation, ledge formation, and loss of working length, despite increasing debris extrusion. A previous study in 1997 by Cailleteau and Mullaney reported 50% of United States dental schools taught patency. This present study aimed to evaluate recent trends in endodontic education in United States dental schools, in relation to the prevalence of maintaining apical patency and examining the primary methods of working length determination, instrumentation, obturation, and temporization. METHODS: A survey of 20 questions was distributed to 65 schools via e-mail and was available from July 2021 to September 2021. RESULTS: Seventy-three percent of the 46 responding schools reported that they teach patency, with 8% of this number reporting that they do so exclusively to endodontic residents. Notably, a significantly lower number of schools reported teaching patency exclusively to endodontic students compared with the Cailleteau and Mullaney study despite a significantly higher percentage of schools teaching patency overall. The most common method used to determine working length was an electronic apex locator at the 0.5 reading. Vortex Blue was the most commonly used file system used by both predoctoral and postdoctoral programs. Lateral condensation was the primary obturation technique taught in predoctoral programs, whereas warm vertical condensation was the primary obturation technique in postdoctoral programs. The study also found that 57% of schools reported using intraorifice barriers, and the most common temporary filling was glass ionomer. CONCLUSIONS: A greater portion of schools teaches patency compared with the previous study in 1997. The data collected in this survey may serve as a baseline for similar studies in the future regarding changes in endodontic education over time.

Airflow dynamics in obese minipigs with obstructive sleep apnea.

OBJECTIVES: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with anatomical restrictions of pharyngeal airway, but the mechanism of airflow dynamics in OSA is largely unknown. This study utilized computational flow dynamics (CFD) to build a 3D model of the pharynx and to test the hypothesis that an increased restriction in the pharynx in OSA/obese minipigs leads to higher resistance, which in turn creates turbulence to induce temporary blockage of pharyngeal airway patency. DESIGN: Of five 9-11-months-old Yucatan minipigs, 3 were non-obese (BMI<35) and two obese (BMI>51). After natural sleep monitoring using BioRadio system, pigs were sedated to collect MRI images and airflow parameters. The MRI images were processed to create 3D configurations of pharynx. These 3D configurations were meshed to create finite element models (FEM) of CFD. The obtained airflow parameters were input into the configurations to identify turbulent airflow and its location. RESULTS: Heavy snoring and multiple >5s hypopnea/apnea episodes (AHI = 32-35) were identified in both obese minipigs during sleep. Compared to the non-obese/non-OSA controls, obese/OSA minipigs showed much lower respiratory tidal volumes and inspiratory airflow speed. FEM simulation found that turbulence was not present in the pharynx in either model. However, a 25% increase of airflow velocity was observed at the narrowest part of the nasal pharynx in the obese/OSA minipig model. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the narrower pharyngeal airway and the higher velocity of airflow, FEM simulation indicated that turbulence was not produced in the obese/OSA minipigs.

Prolonged linezolid use is associated with the development of linezolid-resistant Enterococcus faecium.

We assessed risk factors for and outcomes of linezolid-resistant vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (LRVREF) bacteremia over 7 years. Thirty-four LRVREF cases were matched to 68 linezolid-susceptible VREF controls. The odds of bacteremia with LRVREF increased by 7% for each additional day of prior linezolid exposure.