To make a direct biomechanical comparison between the sandblasted and acid-etched surface (SLA) and the machined and acid-etched surface (MA), a well-established animal model for implant removal torque testing was employed, using a split-mouth experimental design. All implants had an identical cylindrical solid-screw shape with the standard ITI thread configuration, without any macroscopic retentive structures. After 4, 8, and 12 weeks of bone healing, removal torque testing was performed to evaluate the interfacial shear strength of each surface type. Results showed that the SLA surface was more powerful in enhancing the interfacial shear strength of implants in comparison with the MA surface. Removal torque values of the SLA-surfaced implants were about 30% higher than those of the MA-surfaced implants (p = 0.002) except at 4 weeks, when the difference was at the threshold of statistical significance (p = 0.0519). The mean removal torque values for the SLA implants were 1.5074 Nm at 4 weeks, 1.8022 Nm at 8 weeks, and 1.7130 Nm at 12 weeks; and correspondingly, 1.1924 Nm, 1.3092 Nm, and 1.3226 Nm for the MA implants. It can be concluded that the SLA surface achieves a better bone anchorage than the MA surface, and that sandblasting before acid etching has a beneficial effect on the interfacial shear strength. As regards the bone-implant interfacial stiffness calculated from the torque-rotation curve, the SLA implants showed an overall more than 5% higher stiffness compared with the MA implants, although the difference did not reach the statistical significance level.

The effects of acupuncture as adjunctive treatment to antianginal therapies for patients with chronic stable angina are uncertain. OBJECTIVE To investigate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture as adjunctive therapy to antianginal therapies in reducing frequency of angina attacks in patients with chronic stable angina. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In this 20-week randomized clinical trial conducted in outpatient and inpatient settings at 5 clinical centers in China from October 10, 2012, to September 19, 2015, 404 participants were randomly assigned to receive acupuncture on the acupoints on the disease-affected meridian (DAM), receive acupuncture on the acupoints on the nonaffected meridian (NAM), receive sham acupuncture (SA), and receive no acupuncture (wait list [WL] group). Participants were 35 to 80 years of age with chronic stable angina based on the criteria of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, with angina occurring at least twice weekly. Statistical analysis was conducted from December 1, 2015, to July 30, 2016. INTERVENTIONS All participants in the 4 groups received antianginal therapies as recommended by the guidelines. Participants in the DAM, NAM, and SA groups received acupuncture treatment 3 times weekly for 4 weeks for a total of 12 sessions. Participants in the WL group did not receive acupuncture during the 16-week study period. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Participants used diaries to record angina attacks. The primary outcome was the change in frequency of angina attacks every 4 weeks from baseline to week 16. RESULTS A total of 398 participants (253 women and 145 men; mean [SD] age, 62.6 [9.7] years) were included in the intention-to-treat analyses. Baseline characteristics were comparable across the 4 groups. Mean changes in frequency of angina attacks differed significantly among the 4 groups at 16 weeks: a greater reduction of angina attacks was observed in the DAM group vs the NAM group (difference, 4.07; 95% CI, 2.43-5.71; P < .001), in the DAM group vs the SA group (difference, 5.18; 95% CI, 3.54-6.81; P < .001), and in the DAM group vs the WL group (difference, 5.63 attacks; 95% CI, 3.99-7.27; P < .001). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Compared with acupuncture on the NAM, SA, or no acupuncture (WL), acupuncture on the DAM as adjunctive treatment to antianginal therapy showed superior benefits in alleviating angina. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01686230

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The preliminary results of this retrospective study indicate that ridge expansion alone or in combination with GBR can be considered an effective and safe procedure for treatment of width insufficiency of alveolar ridges on the purpose of implant application.

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The detection of the community structure in networks is beneficial to understand the network structure and to analyze the network properties. Based on node similarity, a fast and efficient method for detecting community structure is proposed, which discovers the community structure by iteratively incorporating the community containing a node with the communities that contain the nodes with maximum similarity to this node to form a new community. The presented method has low computational complexity because of requiring only the local information of the network, and it does not need any prior knowledge about the communities and its detection results are robust on the selection of the initial node. Some real-world and computer-generated networks are used to evaluate the performance of the presented method. The simulation results demonstrate that this method is efficient to detect community structure in complex networks, and the ZLZ metrics used in the proposed method is the most suitable one among local indices in community detection.

Double-layer graphene epitaxially grown on silicon carbide was used to Q-switch a Tm:YAG laser. Stable Q-switched laser pulses at the central wavelength of 2.01 μm were obtained. The maximum average output power, pulse repetition rate, and single pulse energy were 38 mW, 27.9 kHz, and 1.74 μJ, respectively. Our results illustrate that graphene can be used as a saturable absorber at the 2 μm region.

The incidence of retrograde peri-implantitis may reduce by increasing the distance between the implant and adjacent tooth, and/or the duration from endodontically treated adjacent tooth-to-implant placement. Although preliminary, these data might orient the practitioner to avoid retrograde peri-implantitis.