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We explored the possibility of predicting student emotions (boredom, flow/engagement, confusion, and frustration) by analyzing the text of student and tutor dialogues during interactions with an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) with conversational dialogues. After completing a learning session with the tutor, student emotions were judged by the students themselves (self-judgments), untrained peers, and trained judges. Transcripts from the tutorial dialogues were analyzed with four methods that included 1) identifying direct expressions of affect, 2) aligning the semantic content of student responses to affective terms, 3) identifying psychological and linguistic terms that are predictive of affect, and 4) assessing cohesion relationships that might reveal student affect. Models constructed by regressing the proportional occurrence of each emotion on textual features derived from these methods yielded large effects (R[squared] = 38%) for the psychological, linguistic, and cohesion-based methods, but not the direct expression and semantic alignment methods. We discuss the theoretical, methodological, and applied implications of our findings toward text-based emotion detection during tutoring. (Contains 5 tables and 1 footnote.)

Byline: S. Nair, J. Schensul, S. Bilgi, V. Kadam, S. D'Mello, B. Donta Background: The Maharashtra government has banned the production, sale, distribution and storage of gutka, and pan masala [...]

Background: To increase uptake of implementation science (IS) methods by researchers and implementers, many have called for ways to make it more accessible and intuitive. The purpose of this paper is to describe the iPRISM webtool (Iterative, Practical, Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model) and how this interactive tool operationalizes PRISM to assess and guide a program's (a) alignment with context, (b) progress on pragmatic outcomes, (c) potential adaptations, and (d) future sustainability across the stages of the implementation lifecycle., Methods: We used an iterative human-centered design process to develop the iPRISM webtool., Results: We conducted user-testing with 28 potential individual and team-based users who were English and Spanish speaking from diverse settings in various stages of implementing different types of programs. Users provided input on all aspects of the webtool including its purpose, content, assessment items, visual feedback displays, navigation, and potential application. Participants generally expressed interest in using the webtool and high likelihood of recommending it to others. The iPRISM webtool guides English and Spanish-speaking users through the process of iteratively applying PRISM across the lifecycle of a program to facilitate systematic assessment and alignment with context. The webtool summarizes assessment responses in graphical and tabular displays and then guides users to develop feasible and impactful adaptations and corresponding action plans. Equity considerations are integrated throughout., Conclusions: The iPRISM webtool can intuitively guide individuals and teams from diverse settings through the process of using IS methods to iteratively assess and adapt different types of programs to align with the context across the implementation lifecycle. Future research and application will continue to develop and evaluate this IS resource., (© 2023. BioMed Central Ltd.)

Objective: To describe and synthesise studies of SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence by occupation prior to the widespread vaccine roll-out., Methods: We identified studies of occupational seroprevalence from a living systematic review (PROSPERO CRD42020183634). Electronic databases, grey literature and news media were searched for studies published during January-December 2020. Seroprevalence estimates and a free-text description of the occupation were extracted and classified according to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2010 system using a machine-learning algorithm. Due to heterogeneity, results were synthesised narratively., Results: We identified 196 studies including 591 940 participants from 38 countries. Most studies (n=162; 83%) were conducted locally versus regionally or nationally. Sample sizes were generally small (median=220 participants per occupation) and 135 studies (69%) were at a high risk of bias. One or more estimates were available for 21/23 major SOC occupation groups, but over half of the estimates identified (n=359/600) were for healthcare-related occupations. 'Personal Care and Service Occupations' (median 22% (IQR 9-28%); n=14) had the highest median seroprevalence., Conclusions: Many seroprevalence studies covering a broad range of occupations were published in the first year of the pandemic. Results suggest considerable differences in seroprevalence between occupations, although few large, high-quality studies were done. Well-designed studies are required to improve our understanding of the occupational risk of SARS-CoV-2 and should be considered as an element of pandemic preparedness for future respiratory pathogens., Competing Interests: Competing interests: RA was previously a Technical Consultant for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund, is a minority shareholder of Alethea Medical and was a former Senior Policy Advisor at Health Canada. Each of these relationships is unrelated to the present work. JP reports grants to his institution from MedImmune, Sanofi Pasteur, Merck and AbbVie, and personal fees for lectures from AbbVie and Astra-Zeneca, all outside of the submitted work. MPC reports grants from McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity, grants from Canadian Institutes of Health Research, during the conduct of the study; personal fees from GEn1E Lifesciences, personal fees from nplex biosciences, personal fees from Kanvas biosciences, personal fees from AstraZeneca, non-financial support from Cidara therapeutics, non-financial support from Scynexis, non-financial support from Amplyx Pharmaceutics, outside the submitted work. In addition, MPC has a patent for methods detecting tissue damage, graft versus host disease, and infections using cell-free DNA profiling pending, a patent for methods assessing the severity and progression of SARS-CoV-2 infections using cell-free DNA pending, a patent for rapid identification of antimicrobial resistance and other microbial phenotypes using highly multiplexed fluorescence in situ hybridisation pending, and a patent highly multiplexed detection of gene expression with hybridisation chain reaction pending, all outside the submitted work., (© World Health Organization 2023. Licensee BMJ.)

There is growing policy interest in identifying contexts that cultivate self-regulation. Doing so often entails comparing groups of individuals (e.g., from different schools). We show that self-report questionnaires-the most prevalent modality for assessing self-regulation-are prone to reference bias, defined as systematic error arising from differences in the implicit standards by which individuals evaluate behavior. In three studies, adolescents (N = 229,685) whose peers performed better academically rated themselves lower in self-regulation and held higher standards for self-regulation. This effect was not observed for task measures of self-regulation and led to paradoxical predictions of college persistence 6 years later. These findings suggest that standards for self-regulation vary by social group, limiting the policy applications of self-report questionnaires., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Background: Stress can have adverse effects on health and well-being. Informed by laboratory findings that heart rate variability (HRV) decreases in response to an induced stress response, recent efforts to monitor perceived stress in the wild have focused on HRV measured using wearable devices. However, it is not clear that the well-established association between perceived stress and HRV replicates in naturalistic settings without explicit stress inductions and research-grade sensors., Objective: This study aims to quantify the strength of the associations between HRV and perceived daily stress using wearable devices in real-world settings., Methods: In the main study, 657 participants wore a fitness tracker and completed 14,695 ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) assessing perceived stress, anxiety, positive affect, and negative affect across 8 weeks. In the follow-up study, approximately a year later, 49.8% (327/657) of the same participants wore the same fitness tracker and completed 1373 EMAs assessing perceived stress at the most stressful time of the day over a 1-week period. We used mixed-effects generalized linear models to predict EMA responses from HRV features calculated over varying time windows from 5 minutes to 24 hours., Results: Across all time windows, the models explained an average of 1% (SD 0.5%; marginal R 2 ) of the variance. Models using HRV features computed from an 8 AM to 6 PM time window (namely work hours) outperformed other time windows using HRV features calculated closer to the survey response time but still explained a small amount (2.2%) of the variance. HRV features that were associated with perceived stress were the low frequency to high frequency ratio, very low frequency power, triangular index, and SD of the averages of normal-to-normal intervals. In addition, we found that although HRV was also predictive of other related measures, namely, anxiety, negative affect, and positive affect, it was a significant predictor of stress after controlling for these other constructs. In the follow-up study, calculating HRV when participants reported their most stressful time of the day was less predictive and provided a worse fit (R 2 =0.022) than the work hours time window (R 2 =0.032)., Conclusions: A significant but small relationship between perceived stress and HRV was found. Thus, although HRV is associated with perceived stress in laboratory settings, the strength of that association diminishes in real-life settings. HRV might be more reflective of perceived stress in the presence of specific and isolated stressors and research-grade sensing. Relying on wearable-derived HRV alone might not be sufficient to detect stress in naturalistic settings and should not be considered a proxy for perceived stress but rather a component of a complex phenomenon., (©Gonzalo J Martinez, Ted Grover, Stephen M Mattingly, Gloria Mark, Sidney D’Mello, Talayeh Aledavood, Fatema Akbar, Pablo Robles-Granda, Aaron Striegel. Originally published in JMIR Human Factors (https://humanfactors.jmir.org), 04.08.2022.)

Background: Studies that use ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) or wearable sensors to track numerous attributes, such as physical activity, sleep, and heart rate, can benefit from reductions in missing data. Maximizing compliance is one method of reducing missing data to increase the return on the heavy investment of time and money into large-scale studies., Objective: This paper aims to identify the extent to which compliance can be prospectively predicted from individual attributes and initial compliance., Methods: We instrumented 757 information workers with fitness trackers for 1 year and conducted EMAs in the first 56 days of study participation as part of an observational study. Their compliance with the EMA and fitness tracker wearing protocols was analyzed. Overall, 31 individual characteristics (eg, demographics and personalities) and behavioral variables (eg, early compliance and study portal use) were considered, and 14 variables were selected to create beta regression models for predicting compliance with EMAs 56 days out and wearable compliance 1 year out. We surveyed study participation and correlated the results with compliance., Results: Our modeling indicates that 16% and 25% of the variance in EMA compliance and wearable compliance, respectively, could be explained through a survey of demographics and personality in a held-out sample. The likelihood of higher EMA and wearable compliance was associated with being older (EMA: odds ratio [OR] 1.02, 95% CI 1.00-1.03; wearable: OR 1.02, 95% CI 1.01-1.04), speaking English as a first language (EMA: OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.05-1.80; wearable: OR 1.39, 95% CI 1.05-1.85), having had a wearable before joining the study (EMA: OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.04-1.51; wearable: OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.23-1.83), and exhibiting conscientiousness (EMA: OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.04-1.51; wearable: OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.14-1.58). Compliance was negatively associated with exhibiting extraversion (EMA: OR 0.74, 95% CI 0.64-0.85; wearable: OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.57-0.78) and having a supervisory role (EMA: OR 0.65, 95% CI 0.54-0.79; wearable: OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.54-0.81). Furthermore, higher wearable compliance was negatively associated with agreeableness (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.56-0.83) and neuroticism (OR 0.85, 95% CI 0.73-0.98). Compliance in the second week of the study could help explain more variance; 62% and 66% of the variance in EMA compliance and wearable compliance, respectively, was explained. Finally, compliance correlated with participants' self-reflection on the ease of participation, usefulness of our compliance portal, timely resolution of issues, and compensation adequacy, suggesting that these are avenues for improving compliance., Conclusions: We recommend conducting an initial 2-week pilot to measure trait-like compliance and identify participants at risk of long-term noncompliance, performing oversampling based on participants' individual characteristics to avoid introducing bias in the sample when excluding data based on noncompliance, using an issue tracking portal, and providing special care in troubleshooting to help participants maintain compliance., (©Gonzalo J Martinez, Stephen M Mattingly, Pablo Robles-Granda, Koustuv Saha, Anusha Sirigiri, Jessica Young, Nitesh Chawla, Munmun De Choudhury, Sidney D'Mello, Gloria Mark, Aaron Striegel. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (https://mhealth.jmir.org), 12.11.2021.)

Negative life events, such as the death of a loved one, are an unavoidable part of life. These events can be overwhelmingly stressful and may lead to the development of mental health disorders. To mitigate these adverse developments, prior literature has utilized measures of psychological responses to negative life events to better understand their effects on mental health. However, psychological changes represent only one aspect of an individual's potential response. We posit measuring additional dimensions of health, such as physical health, may also be beneficial, as physical health itself may be affected by negative life events and measuring its response could provide context to changes in mental health. Therefore, the primary aim of this work was to quantify how an individual's physical health changes in response to negative life events by testing for deviations in their physiological and behavioral state (PB-state). After capturing post-event, PB-state responses, our second aim sought to contextualize changes within known factors of psychological response to negative life events, namely coping strategies. To do so, we utilized a cohort of professionals across the United States monitored for 1 year and who experienced a negative life event while under observation. Garmin Vivosmart-3 devices provided a multidimensional representation of one's PB-state by collecting measures of resting heart rate, physical activity, and sleep. To test for deviations in PB-state following negative life events, One-Class Support Vector Machines were trained on a window of time prior to the event, which established a PB-state baseline. The model then evaluated participant's PB-state on the day of the life event and each day that followed, assigning each day a level of deviance relative to the participant's baseline. Resulting response curves were then examined in association with the use of various coping strategies using Bayesian gamma-hurdle regression models. The results from our objectives suggest that physical determinants of health also deviate in response to negative life events and that these deviations can be mitigated through different coping strategies. Taken together, these observations stress the need to examine physical determinants of health alongside psychological determinants when investigating the effects of negative life events., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Faust, Feldman, Lin, Mattingly, D'Mello and Chawla.)

Objective: Can having too much self-control make people unhappy? Researchers have increasingly questioned the unilateral goodness of self-control and proposed that it is beneficial only up to a certain point, after which it becomes detrimental. The little empirical research on the issue shows mixed results. Hence, we tested whether a curvilinear relationship between self-control and subjective well-being exists., Method: We used multiple metrics (questionnaires, behavioral ratings), sources (self-report, other-report), and methods (cross-sectional measurement, dayreconstruction method, experience sampling method) across six studies (N total  = 5,318)., Results: We found that self-control positively predicted subjective well-being (cognitive and affective), but there was little evidence for an inverted U-shaped curve. The results held after statistically controlling for demographics and other psychological confounds., Conclusion: Our main finding is that self-control enhances subjective well-being with little to no apparent downside of too much self-control., (© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

When reading, we frequently find ourselves thinking about something other than the text. These attentional lapses, known as mind wandering (MW), are negatively correlated with text comprehension. Previous studies have shown that more syntactically and semantically difficult texts elicit more MW, because textual difficulty impedes the construction of a mental model of the text, which makes it more difficult to suppress off-task thoughts. But is it possible to reduce MW without altering the content of the text itself? We hypothesized that reading a perceptually disfluent text might require more attentional resources, even if the content remained the same, leaving fewer resources available for MW. To test this idea, we manipulated the typefaces (fluent [Arial] or disfluent [ ]) of two instructional texts on scientific research methods (each about 1,490 words long), and found that MW was less frequent when participants read the disfluent text. There were no comprehension differences between the fluent and disfluent groups. However, we did find an indirect effect of disfluency on comprehension through MW, suggesting that disfluency influences comprehension by enhancing attention. These findings provide insights into how processing difficulty and attention interact during reading comprehension.

Interactions of a natural stilbene compound, resveratrol with two DNA sequences containing AATT/TTAA segments have been studied. Resveratrol is found to interact with both the sequences. The mode of interaction has been studied using absorption, steady state fluorescence and circular dichroism spectroscopic techniques. UV-visible absorption and fluorescence studies provided the information regarding the binding constants and the stoichiometry of binding, whereas circular dichroism studies depicted the structural changes in DNA upon resveratrol binding. Our results evidenced that, though resveratrol showed similar affinity to both the sequences, the mode of interactions was different. The binding constants of resveratrol to AATT/TTAA sequences were found to be 7.55×10 5 M -1 and 5.42×10 5 M -1 respectively. Spectroscopic data evidenced for a groove binding interaction. Melting studies showed that the binding of resveratrol induces differential stability to the DNA sequences d(CGTTAACG) 2 and d(CGAATTCG) 2 . Fluorescence data showed a stoichiometry of 1:1 for d(CGAATTCG) 2 -resveratrol complex and 1:4 for d(CGTTAACG) 2 -resveratrol complex. Molecular docking studies demonstrated that resveratrol binds to the minor groove region of both the sequences to form stable complexes with varied atomic contacts to the DNA bases or backbone. Both the complexes are stabilized by hydrogen bond formation. Our results evidenced that modulation of DNA sequence within the same bases can greatly alter the binding geometry and stability of the complex upon binding to small molecule inhibitor compounds like resveratrol., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

It is generally acknowledged that engagement plays a critical role in learning. Unfortunately, the study of engagement has been stymied by a lack of valid and efficient measures. We introduce the advanced, analytic, and automated (AAA) approach to measure engagement at fine-grained temporal resolutions. The AAA measurement approach is grounded in embodied theories of cognition and affect, which advocate a close coupling between thought and action. It uses machine-learned computational models to automatically infer mental states associated with engagement (e.g., interest, flow) from machine-readable behavioral and physiological signals (e.g., facial expressions, eye tracking, click-stream data) and from aspects of the environmental context. We present15 case studies that illustrate the potential of the AAA approach for measuring engagement in digital learning environments. We discuss strengths and weaknesses of the AAA approach, concluding that it has significant promise to catalyze engagement research.

Gene delivery to bone is a potential therapeutic strategy for directed, sustained, and regulated protein expression. Tissue engineering strategies for bone regeneration include delivery of proteins, genes (viral and non-viral-mediated delivery), and/or cells to the bone defect site. In addition, biomimetic scaffolds and scaffolds incorporating bone anabolic agents greatly enhance the bone repair process. Regional gene therapy has the potential of enhancing bone defect healing and bone regeneration by delivering osteogenic genes locally to the osseous lesions, thereby reducing systemic toxicity and the need for using supraphysiological dosages of therapeutic proteins. By implanting gene-activated matrices (GAMs), sustained gene expression and continuous osteogenic protein production in situ can be achieved in a way that stimulates osteogenesis and bone repair within osseous defects. Critical parameters substantially affecting the therapeutic efficacy of gene therapy include the choice of osteogenic transgene(s), selection of non-viral or viral vectors, the wound environment, and the selection of ex vivo and in vivo gene delivery strategies, such as GAMs. It is critical for gene therapy applications that clinically beneficial amounts of proteins are synthesized endogenously within and around the lesion in a sustained manner. It is therefore necessary that reliable and reproducible methods of gene delivery be developed and tested for their efficacy and safety before translating into clinical practice. Practical considerations such as the age, gender, and systemic health of patients and the nature of the disease process also need to be taken into account in order to personalize the treatments and progress towards developing a clinically applicable gene therapy for healing bone defects. This review discusses tissue engineering strategies to regenerate bone with specific focus on non-viral gene delivery systems.

Re-reading has been shown to have a minimal benefit on text comprehension, in comparison to reading only once or other types of study techniques (e.g., testing; self-explanation). In two experiments we examined the effect of re-reading on mind wandering. Participants read two texts, during which they responded to intermittent mind wandering probes. One text was read once and the other twice. Consistent with previous findings, there was no effect of re-reading on comprehension even though participants reported feeling more competent when they re-read the text. Critically, participants mind wandered more while re-reading. Furthermore, the effect of re-reading on mind wandering was specific to intentional forms of mind wandering rather than unintentional. The implications of these results for understanding mind wandering and the limited effectiveness of re-reading as a mnemonic are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a non-viral gene delivery system that can be employed to deliver genes of interest into a pre-osteoblastic cell line. Human embryonic palatal mesenchymal (HEPM 1486) cells were transfected with vector-plasmid DNA (pDNA) complexes. We explored calcium phosphate and polyethylenimine (PEI) as non-viral vectors and compared their respective in vitro transfection efficacies. Plasmid DNA encoding luciferase protein (LUC) was complexed with PEI (with differing N:P ratios) and calcium phosphate (with differing Ca:P ratios), using established protocols. The complexes prepared were then characterized for size and surface charge, using a Malvern Zetasizer Nano-ZS. The transfection efficiency and cytotoxicity of the prepared complexes were evaluated in HEPM cells. The PEI-pDNA complexes over the whole range of N:P ratios were found to be < 160 nm in size, while the calcium phosphate-pDNA complexes were relatively bigger. The PEI-pDNA complexes prepared at a N:P ratio of 10 were found to have maximum transfection efficiency at 4 h of treatment, with minimal cytotoxicity. The highest transfection efficiency obtained with calcium phosphate-pDNA complexes (Ca:P 200) was nearly 12-fold lower than that obtained with PEI-pDNA complexes (N:P 10). Following this, transgene expression in the HEPM cells treated with complexes prepared at a N:P ratio of 10 was further examined, using pDNA coding for enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP-N1) or therapeutically relevant platelet-derived growth factor B (PDGF-B). In conclusion, PEI was a more effective vector for delivering genes of interest to pre-osteoblasts than calcium phosphate. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., (Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Introduction: Myotonia is found in a number of muscle diseases, including myotonic dystrophy and non-dystrophic myotonia. The resulting symptoms of myotonia can interfere with daily activities such as walking or climbing the stairs. Due to the rarity of both these conditions, pharmacological treatment of myotonia is largely anecdotal and is led by specialist clinicians who tend to favour the use of mexiletine, a class 1b antiarrhythmic sodium antagonist., Objective: To identify and review randomised controlled trials in order to assess the efficacy and safety of use of mexiletine in myotonic dystrophy and non-dystrophic myotonia for two different patient cases., Search Methods: The literature search was conducted using MEDLINE, EMBASE and The Cochrane Library (from January 1990 to December 2014). Specialist neurology centres were also contacted., Selection Criteria: All randomised controlled trials between January 1990 and December 2014 which compared the use of mexiletine for the treatment of myotonia in patients who suffer from myotonic dystrophy and non-dystrophic were included in this review. Primary outcome: reduction of clinical myotonia., Results: Two randomised controlled trials were included for review. Both studies are underpowered; however, there is evidence to support the use of mexiletine for the improvement of clinical myotonia., Conclusions: Larger randomised controlled trials are required, which look at the functional effect of myotonia as a primary outcome (ie, stair test) and the long-term use of mexiletine. This is needed to establish the ongoing efficacy and safety of the long-term use of mexiletine in the management of myotonia., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared.

This study assessed the occurrence and factors that influence mind wandering (MW) in the domain of film comprehension. The cascading model of inattention assumes that a stronger mental representation (i.e., a situation model) during comprehension results in less MW. Accordingly, a suppression hypothesis suggests that MW would decrease as a function of having the knowledge of the plot of a film prior to viewing, because the prior-knowledge would help to strengthen the situation model during comprehension. Furthermore, an interest-moderation hypothesis would predict that the suppression effect of prior-knowledge would only emerge when there was interest in viewing the film. In the current experiment, 108 participants either read a short story that depicted the plot (i.e., prior-knowledge condition) or read an unrelated story of equal length (control condition) prior to viewing the short film (32.5 minutes) entitled The Red Balloon. Participants self-reported their interest in viewing the film immediately before the film was presented. MW was tracked using a self-report method targeting instances of MW with metacognitive awareness. Participants in the prior-knowledge condition reported less MW compared with the control condition, thereby supporting the suppression hypothesis. MW also decreased over the duration of the film, but only for those with prior-knowledge of the film. Finally, prior-knowledge effects on MW were only observed when interest was average or high, but not when interest was low.

Background and Objectives: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common head and neck carcinomas and corresponds to 95% of all oral cancers with an increasing morbidity and mortality. Its prognosis is affected by several clinicopathologic factors, one of which is pattern of invasion (POI). The histological features of OSCC may differ widely, but there is general agreement that the most useful prognostic information can be deduced from the invasive front of the tumor. In this retrospective study, our aim was to compare the POI, the status of connective tissue and the status of inflammation at the tumor-host interface in primary and recurrent (secondary) OSCC and test the validity of POI, to serve as a potential marker to assess the prognosis of the patient., Materials and Methods: Differentiation of tumors, POI, status of connective tissue and inflammation was assessed in 168 cases of primary and recurrent cases of OSCC., Statistical Analysis: Fisher's exact test was used to determine the statistical significance and P < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant., Results: Our study showed that majority of the primary and secondary tumors were well differentiated, 117 [95.9%] and 34 [73.9%], respectively. Predominant POI in the primary and secondary tumor group was Pattern II and least was Pattern V. Worst pattern in primary tumor and highest distribution was seen for Pattern III (53.3%), and least for Pattern V (0.00%). In secondary tumors, the predominant worst pattern was Pattern IV (50.0%) and least distribution was seen for Pattern I (0.00%). Connective tissue status for both primary and secondary tumors showed the predominance of loose type (85.2% and 79.2%) and least was variable type (0.8% and 0.6%), respectively. Status of inflammation in the primary tumor group showed a predominance of moderate grade of inflammation (50.0%) and very mild grade of inflammation (6.6%) was the least type. In the secondary tumor group, moderate grade (43.5%) of inflammation was predominant and very mild grade (5.4%) was the least. All the parameters showed a statistically significant difference on the application of Fisher's exact test between the two groups., Conclusion: Our study showed that POI could serve as an individual prognostic marker irrespective of the histologic differentiation of tumor. Tumor desmoplasia could be considered as an important reflection of the tumor-host interaction, especially in aggressive cancers. Host immune defense, especially tumor infiltrating lymphocytes must be noted as critical factors related to survival rate in OSCC patients. Assessment of mentioned parameters may lead to sound prognostic assessment and appropriate treatment planning thus reducing the possibility of recurrence or relapse. Hence, the parameters evaluated in our study could serve as independent or interdependent prognostic markers.

Introduction: Oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF) is graded according to various histological factors which include the epithelial changes and the connective tissue changes. These features though could be identified in routine hematoxylin and eosin (H and E) staining; they could be better appreciated in special stains. This pilot study is an attempt to identify a single special stain that can act as an adjunct to H and E stain to help grade this potentially malignant disease., Aims and Objectives: To assess if special stains can improvise on differentiating the various histological changes seen in OSMF and to accordingly grade OSMF cases., Materials and Methods: Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections of OSMF-10 cases of each grade (n = 30). Three special stains: Van-Gieson, Mallory's trichrome and Masson trichrome., Statistical Analysis: The results obtained were tabulated and statistically analyzed using Chi-square test., Observations and Results: The thickness and degree of keratinization were best detected in Mallory's stain (100%) and were statistically significant; the subepithelial changes were better detected using special stains, especially Mallory's stain (100%). The changes in collagen fibers were better visualized in all three special stains but were not statistically significant. The changes in blood vessels were better detected in Van-Gieson's and Mallory's stain; the obtained results were statistically significant. The degree of fibrosis between muscle bundles could be detected in all the three special stains, but when compared the results were not statistically significant. The questionable areas of muscle degeneration, especially in deeper connective tissue were better detected in Mallory's (43%) and Masson's stain (43%) as compared to Van-Gieson stain (14%) and the results obtained were statistically significant. The inflammatory cells and dysplastic features are better visualized in routine H and E stains., Conclusion: Pathogenesis of OSMF is related to fibro-elastic and muscle degenerative changes in the connective tissue followed by secondary changes in epithelium. Routine H and E, stains all the connective tissue components in various shades of pink, use of special stains bestows contrast between different components of connective tissue, thus improvising grading of OSMF. Mallory's stain can be used as a single adjunct to H and E stain as both pattern of keratinization in the epithelium and changes in the superficial and deeper connective tissue could be ascertained.

Background: In this study, we report on the results from the development and early in vitro testing of a gene activated matrix encoding basic human fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) in bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs)., Methods: Polyethylenimine (PEI), a cationic polymer, was utilized as a gene delivery vector and collagen scaffolds were used as the carrier to deliver the PEI-pDNA nano-sized complexes (nanoplexes) encoding the FGF2 protein. Initially, the BMSCs were transfected in vitro with the PEI-pFGF2 nanoplexes, prepared at a N/P ratio of 10, with cells alone and naked DNA as controls. This was followed by transfection experiments using collagen scaffold containing complexes, with the scaffold alone as a control. The transfection efficacy of the nanoplexes was assessed using ELISA for the determination of FGF2 protein expressed by the transfected cells. The functionality of transfection was assessed by evaluating cellular recruitment, attachment, and proliferation of BMSCs on the scaffold using imaging techniques., Results: BMSCs transfected with the PEI-pFGF2 nanoplexes (either alone or within the scaffold) led to higher expression of FGF2, compared to controls. Scanning electron microscopy and confocal imaging confirmed the recruitment and attachment of BMSCs to scaffolds containing the PEI-pFGF2 nanoplexes. Confocal microscopy showed a significantly higher number of proliferating cells within PEI-pFGF2 nanoplex-loaded scaffolds than with empty scaffolds., Conclusions: This first in vitro evaluation in BMSCs provides evidence that gene activated matrices (GAMs) encoding the FGF2 protein may have strong translational potential for clinical applications that require enhanced osseous and periodontal tissue regeneration., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)