A persisting secular trend for body measurements in Dutch children. The Oosterwolde 11 study

To investigate whether the secular trend for growth in Dutch children still exists, the Oosterwolde I study of 1980 was repeated in 1989. A persisting secular trend was visible for height while the z scores of body proportions show no change during the past 10 years, which suggests that there is no change in the timing of puberty.     

Reconstruction of the alveolar cleft: effect of preoperative extraction of deciduous teeth at the sites of clefts on the incidence of postoperative complications

Our objective was to find out if the extraction of deciduous teeth at the sites of clefts 3-8 weeks before alveolar bone grafting (ABG) would reduce the number of postoperative complications. Chart reviews were reviewed retrospectively of patients who had had ABG from March 2006 to June 2009. To reduce variables only healthy, non-syndromic, cooperative patients were included. Eleven patients had had their deciduous teeth extracted at the cleft sites 3-8 weeks before ABG and 10 patients had had the extractions done intraoperatively at the same time as ABG. There was a single case of postoperative infection and no wound dehiscence in the preoperative extraction group, and there were no delays in postoperative orthodontic treatment. In the intraoperative group there were 3 cases of local wound infection and 6 cases of minor dehiscence, and orthodontic treatment was delayed for 3-6 months in all patients with complications. All patients had successful ABG, eruption of teeth, and orthodontic treatment; but patients who had their deciduous teeth at the cleft sites extracted preoperatively had fewer wound complications than patients whose extractions were done at the same time as the ABG.     

Off-axis microsphere photolithography patterned nanohole array and other structures on an optical fiber tip for glucose sensing

Microsphere photolithography (MPL) using off-axis UV exposure is a technique that uses a layer of self-assembled microspheres as an optical mask to project different periodic nanopatterns. This paper introduces MPL as an alternative fabrication technique to pattern complex metasurfaces on an optical single mode fiber tip as a sensor for measuring refractive index. Based on the hexagonal close packing microsphere array, complicated metasurfaces were successfully created by changing the UV illumination angle. Using the same self-assembled microspheres monolayer, multiple UV illumination jets were projected to create multiple hole group patterns. Fiber sensors with three-hole group and four-hole group patterns were fabricated and tested with different glucose concentrations in water. The different concentration solutions have various refractive indexes, which result in the shift of the metasurface resonant wavelength, represented as sensitivity. The testing results show that the three-hole group and four-hole group have the sensitivity of 906 nm per RIU and 675 nm per RIU, respectively. Finite element analysis was used to model the fiber sensor''s surrounding with different refractive index solutions. These new pattern metasurface coated fibers'' refractive index sensitivity has increased by 40% compared to our previous work, while the technique still provides a cost-effective, flexible, high-throughput fabrication of the fiber sensor.

Off-axis microsphere photolithography (MPL) was used as a method to create a plasmonic fiber-based sensor for glucose sensing. Sensitivity of 906 nm per RIU has been achieved. And multiple nanostructures have been successfully created on a fiber tip.