BACKGROUND The antimicrobial peptide LL-37 is a significant molecule of innate immunity and recent studies indicate that it plays an important role in maintaining oral health. Yet limited knowledge exists on its role in oral diseases and oral lichen planus (OLP) in particular. OBJECTIVE The study aimed to examine: 1) the salivary concentration of LL-37 in patients with OLP and healthy subject...

Periodontal diseases are inflammatory conditions that affect the supporting tissues of teeth and can lead to destruction of the bone support and ultimately tooth loss if untreated. Progression of periodontitis is usually site specific but not uniform, and currently there are no accurate clinical methods for distinguishing sites where there is active disease progression from sites that are quies...

Recent work in supervised learning has shown that a surprisingly simple Bayesian classiier with strong assumptions of independence among features, called naive Bayes, is competitive with state-of-the-art classiiers such as C4.5. This fact raises the question of whether a classiier with less restrictive assumptions can perform even better. In this paper we evaluate approaches for inducing classi...

Here we report the development of a gene-synthesis technology, circular assembly amplification. In this approach, we first constructed exonuclease-resistant circular DNA via simultaneous ligation of oligonucleotides. Exonucleaseand subsequent mismatch cleaving endonuclease–mediated degradation of the resulting ligation mixture eliminated error-rich products, thereby substantially improving gene...

Decision-making about innovative change in high-risk networks is exceptionally difficult because system failure may result in catastrophe. We adopt a historical method to compare the US and Soviet choices in their nuclear attack submarine programs between 1970 and 1996 and to surface their complex political, technological, and operational relations. One program achieved high reliability in the ...

Paulus WE, Zhang M, Strehler E, El Danasouri I, Sterzik K. Influence of acupuncture on the pregnancy rate in patients who undergo assisted reproduction therapy. Fertil Steril 2002;77(4):721-4. Summary The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of acupuncture on the pregnancy rate in assisted reproduction therapy (ART) by comparing a group of patients receiving acupuncture treatment ...

Introduction Acupuncture is a traditional technique that originated in China more than 3000 years ago, whereby diseases are either controlled or cured by inserting needles in various parts of the body. Until recently the professional community was sceptical about its value, but its use in pain management is now well established. It has also been suggested that acupuncture might improve the immu...

Introduction Myofascial Trigger Points (TrPs) are a common source of musculoskeletal pain presenting in primary care. General practitioners frequently refer these patients to physiotherapy departments for treatment. Identifying TrPs requires training and clinical expertise. Whilst British undergraduate medical and physiotherapy training does not include TrP identification, substantial literatur...