INTRODUCTION The Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), like almost all countries, is faced with a shortage of qualified health workers in rural and remote areas. The situation has worsened due to the unbalanced distribution of the health workforce, resulting from a tendency to gravitate to more central areas. METHODS This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the proportion and associated f...

BACKGROUND A child's sleep pattern is important in defining his or her mental and physical well-being. Although we have reported previously on the utility of collecting 2 weeks of daily sleep logs, this type of record keeping is often onerous for the parents. Therefore, we established a new questionnaire, called the Japan Children's Study Sleep Questionnaire (JCSSQ), which is used to collect sl...

Some concerns exist, however, regarding bulk-fill composites. One proposed rationale for limiting composite increments to 2 mm is to allow the curing light to penetrate to the resin farthest away from the light source.1,2 A second reason for using 2-mm increments is to minimize the shrinkage and shrinkageinduced stress associated with composite polymerization. Contraction stresses that exceed t...

Sonication technology has recently been touted to decrease composite viscosity during delivery and may allow better cavity preparation adaptation and minimize voids. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the difference between conventional, hand-placed, incremental application of a standard hybrid resin-based composite (RBC) and sonicated application of a bulk-fill RBC in box-type a...