Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the masseter muscle by ultrasonography and correlation with whole body health status.

[Purpose] Ultrasonography can be used to non-invasively analyze any cross-section of the human body and to measure tissue elasticity, thickness, and brightness. This study was performed to examine the quantitative and qualitative changes in the masseter muscle at rest and at maximal occlusion, and to evaluate the relationship between these changes and the general health of the individual. [Participants and Methods] The study cohort comprised 30 healthy adults. Correlations between basic participant information (sex, age, height, body weight, body mass index, body fat, maximum bite force, handgrip strength, and tongue pressure) and masseter muscle ultrasonographic data were examined. [Results] Masseter muscle thickness was significantly greater in males than in females. Body weight and body mass index correlated positively with masseter muscle thickness. Body mass index and body fat percentage correlated positively with masseter muscle brightness. Tongue pressure correlated positively with handgrip strength. [Conclusion] Our analyses of muscle thickness and brightness suggest that ultrasonography may be useful in evaluating masseter muscle quantity and quality, and that the condition of the masseter muscle may correlate with the overall health status of the individual.

Verifying Efficacy of Self-Inhalation Training for Velopharyngeal Dysfunction.

Velopharyngeal closure in healthy adults during different tasksObjective: Velopharyngeal dysfunction causes not only resonance problems (so-called "hypernasality") but also dysphagia, particularly in the elderly. In our previous study, we developed a new inhaling training method to objectively improve velopharyngeal function using the measurement of peak inspiratory flow (PIF) rate, which was effective in all patients. In this study, we clarify the degree of velopharyngeal closure to determine the efficacy of our training to improve the closure mechanism. METHODS: Three healthy volunteers performed tasks in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) gantry in the supine position. To confirm velopharyngeal function, volunteers were first asked to distinguish the difference in the velum position between the production of a nonnasal (sustained phonation /shi:/) and a nasal (sustained phonation /n:/) sound. They were then asked to inhale forcefully through the mouth from an empty 500-mL plastic bottle. For comparison, volunteers performed exhaling forcefully, then inhaling and exhaling softly, through a straw. Each task was performed for 30 s, and the MRI images were obtained in sagittal sections. RESULTS: Inhaling forcefully from an empty plastic bottle created the strongest velopharyngeal closure between the posterior surface of the velum (soft palate) and the posterior pharyngeal wall in all volunteers. CONCLUSION: The results of our MRI study supported our training method. Using inhalation through a PIF meter or from a plastic bottle to create resistance strengthens particularly the levator veli palatini muscle for velopharyngeal closure, which may be useful in patients with other acquired velopharyngeal dysfunctions including physiological aging. Also, anyone anywhere can train with plastic bottles.

Accurate prediction of the properties of materials using the CAM-B3LYP density functional.

Density functionals with asymptotic corrections to the long-range potential provide entry-level methods for calculations on molecules that can sustain charge transfer, but similar applications in materials science are rare. We describe an implementation of the CAM-B3LYP range-separated functional within the Vienna Ab-initio Simulation Package (VASP) framework, together with its analytical functional derivatives. Results obtained for eight representative materials: aluminum, diamond, graphene, silicon, NaCl, MgO, 2D h-BN, and 3D h-BN, indicate that CAM-B3LYP predictions embody mean-absolute deviations (MAD) compared to HSE06 that are reduced by a factor of six for lattice parameters, four for quasiparticle band gaps, three for the lowest optical excitation energies, and six for exciton binding energies. Further, CAM-B3LYP appears competitive compared to ab initio G0 W0 and Bethe-Salpeter equation approaches. The CAM-B3LYP implementation in VASP was verified by comparison of optimized geometries and reaction energies for isolated molecules taken from the ACCDB database, evaluated in large periodic unit cells, to analogous results obtained using Gaussian basis sets. Using standard GW pseudopotentials and energy cutoffs for the plane-wave calculations and the aug-cc-pV5Z basis set for the atomic-basis ones, the MAD in energy for 1738 chemical reactions was 0.34 kcal mol-1 , while for 480 unique bond lengths this was 0.0036 Å; these values reduced to 0.28 kcal mol-1 (largest error 0.94 kcal mol-1 ) and 0.0009 Å by increasing the plane-wave cutoff energy to 850 eV.

Kampo Medicine for Essential Voice Tremor.

Voice tremor is a common symptom in the elderly, as well as in patients who have had Parkinson's disease and related disorders, and other neurologic conditions. In this study, we analyzed 26 patients whose essential tremor symptoms involved phonation alone and were treated in our clinic alone as essential voice tremor. Kampo medicine yokukansan was found to be effective in the treatment of essential voice tremor compared with clonazepam. We suggest that yokukansan may be one of the best choices for first-line treatment of essential voice tremor.

The effect of descriptor choice in machine learning models for ionic liquid melting point prediction.

The characterization of an ionic liquid's properties based on structural information is a longstanding goal of computational chemistry, which has received much focus from ab initio and molecular dynamics calculations. This work examines kernel ridge regression models built from an experimental dataset of 2212 ionic liquid melting points consisting of diverse ion types. Structural descriptors, which have been shown to predict quantum mechanical properties of small neutral molecules within chemical accuracy, benefit from the addition of first-principles data related to the target property (molecular orbital energy, charge density profile, and interaction energy based on the geometry of a single ion pair) when predicting the melting point of ionic liquids. Out of the two chosen structural descriptors, ECFP4 circular fingerprints and the Coulomb matrix, the addition of molecular orbital energies and all quantum mechanical data to each descriptor, respectively, increases the accuracy of surrogate models for melting point prediction compared to using the structural descriptors alone. The best model, based on ECFP4 and molecular orbital energies, predicts ionic liquid melting points with an average mean absolute error of 29 K and, unlike group contribution methods, which have achieved similar results, is applicable to any type of ionic liquid.

Feature Engineering for Materials Chemistry-Does Size Matter?

The effects of structural featurizers in the prediction of band gaps have been investigated through machine learning by application to a silver nanoparticle data set and 2254 potential light-harvesting materials with known band gaps. Elemental properties were extended with structural features via Voronoi polyhedra, allowing for neighbor effects and thus presumably giving a better representation of the extended system. However, we did not find any noticeably significant difference in the predictive performance of our model. The biggest improvement in our model was due to inclusion of band gaps calculated using density functional theory. This resulted in a model that could predict the band gaps of the 2254 light-harvesting materials in the data set with an accuracy reflected in a root-mean-square error of 0.232 eV and mean absolute error of 0.142 eV. Furthermore, the good performance of our model was transferable to the prediction of a set of 72 experimental band gaps that were independent of the training set, giving a root-mean-square error of 0.91 eV and mean absolute error of 0.76 eV.

Solvent-Specific Featurization for Predicting Free Energies of Solvation through Machine Learning.

A featurization algorithm based on functional class fingerprints has been implemented within the DeepChem machine learning framework. It is based on descriptors more appropriate for solvation, taking into account intermolecular properties, and has been used in the prediction of free energies of solvation. Tests carried out on solvents with a range of polarity from the FreeSolv and MNSol data sets have shown slightly better accuracy than the commonly used topology-based extended connectivity fingerprint algorithm for hydration free energies. However, improvement was not as significant as hoped and less clear for less polar solvents suggesting that further solvent-specific descriptors may need to be taken into consideration.

Competition between charge migration and charge transfer induced by nuclear motion following core ionization: Model systems and application to Li2.

Attosecond and femtosecond spectroscopies present opportunities for the control of chemical reaction dynamics and products, as well as for quantum information processing; we address the somewhat unique situation of core-ionization spectroscopy which, for dimeric chromophores, leads to strong valence charge localization and hence tightly paired potential-energy surfaces of very similar shape. Application is made to the quantum dynamics of core-ionized Li2 +. This system is chosen as Li2 is the simplest stable molecule facilitating both core ionization and valence ionization. First, the quantum dynamics of some model surfaces are considered, with the surprising result that subtle differences in shape between core-ionization paired surfaces can lead to dramatic differences in the interplay between electronic charge migration and charge transfer induced by nuclear motion. Then, equation-of-motion coupled-cluster calculations are applied to determine potential-energy surfaces for 8 core-excited state pairs, calculations believed to be the first of their type for other than the lowest-energy core-ionized molecular pair. While known results for the lowest-energy pair suggest that Li2 + is unsuitable for studying charge migration, higher-energy pairs are predicted to yield results showing competition between charge migration and charge transfer. Central is a focus on the application of Hush's 1975 theory for core-ionized X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to understand the shapes of the potential-energy surfaces and hence predict key features of charge migration.

Application of the Systematic Molecular Fragmentation by Annihilation Method to ab Initio NMR Chemical Shift Calculations.

NMR is a powerful tool for obtaining information on the structural characterization and dynamics of proteins, and nucleic acids, and their complexes. The complexity of the spectra is such that elucidation through computational simulation is a much desired thing. However, the size of most structures of interest is such that they remain out of reach of accurate quantum chemical techniques. Fragmentation methods have been shown to be a viable means of reducing the cost of ab initio calculations to enable the prediction of molecular properties of large systems to chemical accuracy. We look at the systematic molecular fragmentation by annihilation method for a model peptide system and show that this procedure reproduces the shielding constants of a full calculation at only a fraction of the cost. Discussion of the considerations needed in applying this method is discussed and comparison made with the results of the similar fragment molecular orbital and ONIOM methods.

Cluster approach to the prediction of thermodynamic and transport properties of ionic liquids.

The prediction of physicochemical properties of ionic liquids such as conductivity and melting point would substantially aid the targeted design of ionic liquids for specific applications ranging from solvents for extraction of valuable chemicals to biowaste to electrolytes in alternative energy devices. The previously published study connecting the interaction energies of single ion pairs (1 IP) of ionic liquids to their thermodynamic and transport properties has been extended to larger systems consisting of two ion pairs (2 IPs), in which many-body and same-ion interactions are included. Routinely used cations, of the imidazolium and pyrrolidinium families, were selected in the study coupled with chloride, tetrafluoroborate, and dicyanamide. Their two ion pair clusters were subjected to extensive configuration screening to establish most stable structures. Interaction energies of these clusters were calculated at the spin-ratio scaled MP2 (SRS-MP2) level for the correlation interaction energy, and a newly developed scaled Hartree-Fock method for the rest of energetic contributions to interaction energy. A full geometry screening for each cation-anion combination resulted in 192 unique structures, whose stability was assessed using two criteria-widely used interaction energy and total electronic energy. Furthermore, the ratio of interaction energy to its dispersion component was correlated with experimentally observed melting points in 64 energetically favourable structures. These systems were also used to test the correlation of the dispersion contribution to interaction energy with measured conductivity.

Development of an Oropharyngeal Scope with an Integrated Tongue Depressor: NTOP2013 Study.

The oropharynx is examined with a light source such as an electric light, a penlight, or a forehead mirror based on an acquired visual field using a tongue depressor. However, it is extremely difficult to obtain objective and reproducible images of tissue within the pharynx required in recent years with these methods, and insufficient progress in the examination tools has been made. There is an increasing need to develop a method for display during oropharyngeal examination. We conducted the present study to develop a novel oropharyngeal endoscope as an objective observation method.

Microsolvation within the Systematic Molecular Fragmentation by Annihilation Approach.

We have applied the systematic molecular fragmentation by annihilation (SMFA) fragmentation technique to glycine and DNA base pairs in water clusters, systems for which explicit solvation is believed to be important. The SMFA method was found to be capable of describing the structures, especially in handling the complexity of hydrogen bonding, with energies produced being comparable with those from full molecule results. Thus, the ability to break down large calculations into a manageable time without loss of accuracy shows promise for application to real biological systems for which these effects are relevant.

Independent exercise for glottal incompetence to improve vocal problems and prevent aspiration pneumonia in the elderly: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effect of a self-controlled vocal exercise in elderly people with glottal closure insufficiency. DESIGN: Parallel-arm, individual randomized controlled trial. METHODS: Patients who visited one of 10 medical centers under the National Hospital Organization group in Japan for the first time, aged 60 years or older, complaining of aspiration or hoarseness, and endoscopically confirmed to have glottal closure insufficiency owing to vocal cord atrophy, were enrolled in this study. They were randomly assigned to an intervention or a control group. The patients of the intervention group were given guidance and a DVD about a self-controlled vocal exercise. The maximum phonation time which is a measure of glottal closure was evaluated, and the number of patients who developed pneumonia during the six months was compared between the two groups. RESULTS: Of the 543 patients enrolled in this trial, 259 were allocated into the intervention group and 284 into the control; 60 of the intervention group and 75 of the control were not able to continue the trial. A total of 199 patients (age 73.9 ±7.25 years) in the intervention group and 209 (73.3 ±6.68 years) in the control completed the six-month trial. Intervention of the self-controlled vocal exercise extended the maximum phonation time significantly ( p < 0.001). There were two hospitalizations for pneumonia in the intervention group and 18 in the control group, representing a significant difference ( p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The self-controlled vocal exercise allowed patients to achieve vocal cord adduction and improve glottal closure insufficiency, which reduced the rate of hospitalization for pneumonia significantly. CLINICAL TRIAL: gov Identifier-UMIN000015567.

Ab Initio NMR Chemical Shift Calculations Using Fragment Molecular Orbitals and Locally Dense Basis Sets.

We revisit the NMR shielding constants of a model 10-residue peptide system by investigating the use of Jensen's NMR specialized basis sets and locally dense basis sets within the fragmentation molecular orbital scheme. It is found that this procedure can reproduce the shielding constants of a full calculation at only a fraction of the cost. Strategies for choosing fragments and complications that need to be considered within the method are discussed extensively.

[Technological competencies in cardiovascular nursing education]. / As competências tecnológicas no ensino de enfermagem cardiológica.

OBJECTIVE: To identify the perception of the coordinators of the Specialization Courses in Cardiovascular Nursing about inserting content from Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and analyze them in relation to the technological competencies and regarding its applicability, relevance and importance in assisting, teaching and management. METHOD: Descriptive study with 10 coordinators of the Specialization course in Cardiologic Nursing, who replied to the questionnaire for the development of technological competency adapted from the Technology Initiative Guidelines Education Reforms (TIGER), and analyzed using the Delphi technique for obtaining consensus and scored according to the relevance, pertinence and applicability using Likert scale according to degree of agreement. RESULTS: Six courses developed ICT content. The contents of the TIGER were considered relevant, pertinent and applicable. CONCLUSION: The coordinators recognize the need for technological competencies of the Cardiovascular Nurse for healthcare applicability.

Formation of water-chlorophyll clusters in dilute samples of chlorophyll-a in ether at low temperature.

Simultaneously measured absorption (ABS) and magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) spectra of the Q-bands of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) in ether over 150-186 K reveal that the species that forms at low temperature is a chlorophyll hydrate rather than a diether complex. We have recently proposed a new assignment paradigm for the spectra of chlorophillides which, for the first time, quantitatively accounts for a wide range of observed data. Observations performed at low temperature in ether have historically been very important for the interpretation of the spectra of Chl-a. While our assignment for this system initially anticipated only small spectral changes as the temperature is lowered, significant changes are known to occur. Extensive CAM-B3LYP time-dependent density-functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations verify that the observed spectra of the hydrated species conforms to expectations based on our new assignment, as well as supporting the feasibility of the proposed hydration reactions.

Undiagnosed submucous cleft palate interfering with inhalation therapy and a solution.

Patients with velopharyngeal insufficiency who require inhalation therapy should be advised to hold their noses when inhaling medication to ensure that they receive the dosage prescribed.

Exceptional three- to six-photon absorption at organometallic dendrimers.

The light-intensity dependence of multi-photon absorption (MPA) affords outstanding spatial control. Furthermore, compared to the higher-energy photons needed for analogous linear absorption, the lower-energy photons involved in MPA often correspond to important wavelengths, such as those of the biological and telecommunications "windows". It is therefore of crucial importance to develop molecules that exhibit outstanding MPA cross-sections. However, although progress has been made with two-photon absorption, there is currently a dearth of efficient instantaneous n-photon absorbers (n > 2), a key reason being the scarcity of structure-property studies required to understand higher-order MPA. We herein report systematically-varied metallodendrimers up to third-generation in size, together with their nonlinear absorptive responses over the spectral range 600-2520 nm. We show that the dendrimers exhibit exceptional instantaneous three- to six-photon absorption cross-sections, with maximal values increasing with dendrimer generation and installation of solubilizing group, and we report that changing the groups at the dendrimer periphery can shift the wavelengths of the nPA maxima. We also describe time-dependent DFT studies that have facilitated assignment of the key linear and nonlinear transitions and disclosed the crucial role of the metal in the outstanding MPA performance.

A correlated ab initio quantum chemical study of the interaction of the Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+ and Zn2+ ions with the tautomers of cytosine in the presence of polar solvent.

The interactions of the metal ions Na(+), Mg(2+), Ca(2+) and Zn(2+) with cytosine have been investigated with inclusion of solvent effects. Computations have been performed at the density functional and Møller-Plesset levels of theory within the IEFPCM solvent model. It has been found that the inclusion of the solvent environment is essential for giving more biologically realistic results. Earlier gas-phase findings of the stabilisation of rare tautomeric forms by the metal ions have been reproduced, with the presence of the solvent further affecting the relative stabilities.

[Building a virtual environment for distance learning: an in-service educational strategy]. / A construção de um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem para educação a distância: uma estratégia educativa em serviço.

This study aims to describe the construction of a virtual learning environment (VLE) in a social network for implementing distance learning (DL), developed in a public cardiology hospital by 23 nurses from the Education Group. The construction and implementation were carried out at the workplace, following the structuring phases of the education, development, and evaluation of the VLE for the DL Group from the perspectives of tutors and students. The learningand development of technological knowledge were found to occur alongside an increase in the knowledge of how to constructand utilize a VLE. The difficulties encountered were related to a lack of expertise, time, and infrastructure. Limitations relating to the required tools and internet access were also identified. To make the project possible, the nurses developed up-to-date skills, technological expertise, and creativity, as well as the ability to search for alternative resources to overcome structural difficulties, build team skills, and implement in-service innovative educational processes.