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Abstract Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of oral/maxillofacial surgeons (OMFSs) and orthodontists to predict third molar eruption by examining a simple panoramic radiograph in cases where full spontaneous eruption occurred. Methods Panoramic radiographs of 17 patients, 13–16 years of age, were obtained just after orthodontic treatment (T1), when the third molars were intraosseous. The radiographs at T1 were presented to 28 OMFSs and 28 orthodontists—who were asked to give a prognosis for the lower third molars on both sides (n = 34). The full spontaneous eruption of all third molars was clinically observed when patients were older than 18 years (T2). These teeth were clinically asymptomatic at T1 and T2. Results OMFSs decided by extractions in 49.6 % of cases while orthodontists in 37.8 % (p

Starting from the early years of the 21st century, the problem of monitoring the physical–chemical–mechanical conditions of structures and infrastructures for civil use began to be thought in a significantly different way than in the last century [...]

This study evaluated systemic bacteremia caused by chewing in a 42-year-old male with chronic severe periodontitis and uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus. Aerobic and anaerobic Gram-positive bacilli were detected by culture, and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans and Porphyromonas gingivalis by real time polymerase chain reaction in blood samples. Keywords: Bacteremia, Periodontitis, Diabetes type 2

Mushrooms can be considered a valuable source of natural bioactive compounds with potential polypharmacological effects due to their proven antimicrobial, antiviral, antitumor, and antioxidant activities. In order to identify new potential anticancer compounds, an in-house chemical database of molecules extracted from both edible and non-edible fungal species was employed in a virtual screening against the isoform 7 of the Histone deacetylase (HDAC). This target is known to be implicated in different cancer processes, and in particular in both breast and ovarian tumors. In this work, we proposed the ibotenic acid as lead compound for the development of novel HDAC7 inhibitors, due to its antiproliferative activity in human breast cancer cells (MCF-7). These promising results represent the starting point for the discovery and the optimization of new HDAC7 inhibitors and highlight the interesting opportunity to apply the “drug repositioning” paradigm also to natural compounds deriving from mushrooms.

The tumor-associated isoenzymes hCA IX and hCA XII catalyze the hydration of carbon dioxide to bicarbonate and protons. These isoforms are highly overexpressed in many types of cancer, where they contribute to the acidification of the tumor environment, promoting tumor cell invasion and metastasis. In this work, in order to identify novel dual hCA IX and XII inhibitors, virtual screening techniques and biological assays were combined. A structure-based virtual screening towards hCA IX and XII was performed using a database of approximately 26,000 natural compounds. The best shared hits were submitted to a thermodynamic analysis and three promising best hits were identified and evaluated in terms of their hCA IX and XII inhibitor activity. In vitro biological assays were in line with the theoretical studies and revealed that syringin, lithospermic acid, and (-)-dehydrodiconiferyl alcohol behave as good hCA IX and hCA XII dual inhibitors.

Increasingly, the web produces massive volumes of texts, alone or associated with images, videos, photographs, together with some metadata, indispensable for their finding and retrieval. Keywords/keyphrases that characterize the semantic content of documents should be, automatically or manually, extracted, and/or associated with them. The paper presents a novel method to address the problem of the automatic unsupervised extraction of keywords/phrases from texts, expressed both in English and in Italian. The main feature of this approach is the integration of two methods that have given interesting results: word embedding models, such as Word2Vec or GloVe able to capture the semantics of words and their context, and clustering algorithms, able to identify the essence of the terms and choose the more significant one(s), to represent the contents of a text. In the paper, the datasets used are presented, together with the method implemented and the results obtained. These results will be discussed, commented, and compared with those obtained in previous experimentations, using TextRank, Rapid Automatic Keyword Extraction (RAKE), and TF-IDF.

Essential oils (EOs) are popular in aromatherapy, a branch of alternative medicine that claims their curative effects. Moreover, several studies reported EOs as potential anti-cancer agents by inducing apoptosis in different cancer cell models. In this study, we have considered EOs as a potential resource of new kinase inhibitors with a polypharmacological profile. On the other hand, computational methods offer the possibility to predict the theoretical activity profile of ligands, discovering dangerous off-targets and/or synergistic effects due to the potential multi-target action. With this aim, we performed a Structure-Based Virtual Screening (SBVS) against X-ray models of several protein kinases selected from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) by using a chemoinformatics database of EOs. By evaluating theoretical binding affinity, 13 molecules were detected among EOs as new potential kinase inhibitors with a multi-target profile. The two compounds with higher percentages in the EOs were studied more in depth by means Induced Fit Docking (IFD) protocol, in order to better predict their binding modes taking into account also structural changes in the receptor. Finally, given its good binding affinity towards five different kinases, cinnamyl cinnamate was biologically tested on different cell lines with the aim to verify the antiproliferative activity. Thus, this work represents a starting point for the optimization of the most promising EOs structure as kinase inhibitors with multi-target features.

This work presents a methodology to monitor the dynamic behaviour of tall metallic towers based on ground-based radar interferometry, and apply it to the case of telecommunication towers. Ground-based radar displacement measurements of metallic towers are acquired without installing any Corner Reflector (CR) on the structure. Each structural element of the tower is identified based on its range distance with respect to the radar. The interferometric processing of a time series of radar profiles is used to measure the vibration frequencies of each structural element and estimate the amplitude of its oscillation. A methodology is described to visualize the results and provide a useful tool for the real-time analysis of the dynamic behaviour of metallic towers.

In the framework of the activities aimed to acquire knowledge and to monitor landslides, an important role is played by geomatics. Topographic surveying is generally used to describe the external surface, to measure the displacements of selected points and to evaluate morphological evolutions. Monitoring is generally extended to the structures located near the crown and the ridges of the landslide. In case of great landslides, a large number of activities (geological, geotechnical, etc...) is performed, and the need to coordinate all of the studies is felt. Presently, the topographic monitoring of some great landslides is in progress in Calabria, performed by the Geomatics Lab of the University of Calabria, Civil Engineering Dept. The paper deals with the support given by geomatics for monitoring operations of a large landslide, filmed in real time. It affects an entire hill at the edge of the city of Maierato, southern Italy, whose main access road has been bisected. To understand the event, the geophysical and geotechnical methods of investigation have been integrated with geomatic methods. The geophysical and geotechnical measurements in the area were performed by using inclinometers, seismic testing and tomography; some piezometers have been also installed. The geomatic methods used are: GNSS surveys, laser scanner, digital photogrammetry, total station (continuously operating). GNSS receivers were used in static mode for the reference points. Kinematic and RTK surveys have been performed to obtain the cross sections, useful to correctly interpret the tomography. Laser scanner has been used to obtain a 3D model of the area and to evaluate the volume of the landslide. The total station controls and transmits continuously the position of 20 points. The design of the control network and the data acquired during the first periodare discussed, with a peculiar attention to the influence of the atmospheric parameters. The first months of monitoring show, on the one hand, an excellent repeatability of the measures, on the other, they confirm what has been obtained with other punctual techniques (inclinometers, etc...) and areal surveys. The integration of the investigations and their results will allow the development of a model of the landslide, also useful for the early warning.

The contribution regards the surveying of two statues of famous contemporary sculptors that have been placed in the central zone of Cosenza, which has been transformed in an open air museum. To realize a 3-D representation of the museum, different methodologies have been used, based on classical surveying (total stations and GNSS), image data and range data. The increasing performances of the new models of Time Of Flight (T.O.F.) laser scanners allow to build accurate models also for medium-size objects; on the other hand, the recent techniques of 3D modeling enable the processing of large amount of data and the effective removal of noises. Thus, if an extreme accuracy is not required, one can think to use the T.O.F. laser scanner, also for the surveying of statues. For the acquisition of the surfaces of the statues, two different types of laser scanning have been used: the Leica Scan StationC10, based on Time Of Flight, and the Minolta VIVID 300 triangulation scanner. In the paper, the comparison between the results obtained by using the different techniques is described.

INTRODUÇÃO: dentre as más oclusões, a mordida aberta anterior é considerada uma das anomalias de mais difícil correção, sobretudo no que se refere à sua estabilidade. A literatura possui inúmeros trabalhos sobre o tema, porém com informações controversas e conflitantes. As discordâncias ocorrem desde a definição do que é a mordida aberta, passando por seus fatores etiológicos, até os possíveis tipos de tratamentos. Provavelmente, a falta de consenso sobre a etiologia da mordida aberta anterior originou tratamentos diversificados, o que pode explicar o alto índice de instabilidade pós-tratamento dessa má oclusão. OBJETIVO: rever os conceitos de etiologia, tratamento e estabilidade da mordida aberta anterior e apresentar critérios para o diagnóstico e tratamento dessa má oclusão, baseados em sua etiologia, e exemplificados por casos tratados e estáveis em longo prazo.INTRODUCTION: Anterior open bite is considered a malocclusion that still defies correction, especially in terms of stability. The literature reports numerous studies on the subject but with controversial and conflicting information. Disagreement revolves around the definition of open bite, its etiological factors and available treatments. It is probably due to a lack of consensus over the etiology of anterior open bite that a wide range of treatments has emerged, which may explain the high rate of instability following the treatment of this malocclusion. OBJECTIVE: Review the concepts of etiology, treatment and stability of anterior open bite and present criteria for diagnosing and treating this malocclusion based on its etiology, and provide examples of treated cases that have remained stable in the long term.