Background and Objective Clinicians have difficulty assessing and monitoring early occlusal caries. Traditional clinical exam and radiographs are unable to detect the subtle alterations in enamel indicative of de- or re-mineralization, particularly under dental sealants. Although clinicians have used laser fluorescence (LF) to address this gap, this modality has demonstrated weak correlation with histology. The International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS-II) has demonstrated high sensitivity and specificity for caries detection, but since it is based on visual assessment, it is of no use in areas beneath the most commonly used dental sealants which are opaque. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an emergent assessment tool which has demonstrated great promise in detecting and quantifying caries, including areas beneath commonly used dental sealants and composites. However, OCT has not yet been widely integrated into clinical dental practice, perhaps because OCT imaging does not provide an easily accessible diagnostic outcome for clinicians. The objective of this ex vivo study was to use OCT-images of sound and carious occlusal surfaces in combination with a simple algorithm to compare the caries detection ability of OCT with tools clinicians may be more familiar with (LF and radiography), and with an established valid and reliable clinical assessment tool (ICDAS-II). Study Design/Materials and Methods One hundred twenty extracted teeth with sound or naturally carious occlusal surfaces were imaged with OCT, LF, radiography, and examined clinically with the ICDAS-II. Teeth were randomized to one of two dental sealants recommended for use with LF. A novel simple algorithm was used to interpret OCT-based images. The accuracy of caries severity assessments of the OCT-based diagnosis, LF, ICDAS-II, and digital radiography were compared to the 4-point histological analysis gold standard. Results OCT and ICDAS-II caries severity assessments demonstrated high sensitivity (94.0%; 92.3%) and specificity (85.0%; 83.3%), LF demonstrated low sensitivity (65.2%) but high specificity (97.6%), and digital radiography demonstrated low sensitivity (67.1%) with moderate specificity (79.5%) on unsealed occlusal surfaces. OCT-based caries severity assessments of sealed teeth demonstrated high specificity (97.6%), sensitivity (89.9%), excellent positive predictive value (98.6%), and negative predictive value (83.3%). Despite our use of LF recommended dental sealants, in the presence of sealants, LF assessment of caries severity demonstrated high sensitivity (95.1%), but extremely low specificity (10.3%), positive predictive value (68.8%), and negative predictive value (50.0%). Conclusion This study found that OCT-based imaging combined with a simple diagnostic algorithm accurately assessed the severity of natural early caries on occlusal surfaces in extracted teeth both in the absence and presence of dental sealant. The findings of this study support the clinical use of OCT imaging for assessment and monitoring progression of early non-cavitated caries lesions on occlusal surfaces including areas under dental sealants. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Birth cohorts are those among observational studies that provide understanding of the natural history and causality of diseases since early in life. Discussions during an International Association for Dental Research symposium in London, United Kingdom, in 2018, followed by a workshop in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2019, concluded that there are few birth cohort studies that consider oral health and that a broader discussion on similarities and differences among those studies would be valuable. This article aims to 1) bring together available long-term data of oral health birth cohort studies from the low, middle, and high-income countries worldwide and 2) describe similarities and differences among these studies. This work comprises 15 studies from all 5 continents. The most studied dental conditions and exposures are identified; findings are summarized; and methodological differences and similarities among studies are presented. Methodological strengths and weaknesses are also highlighted. Findings are summarized in 1) the negative impact of detrimental socioeconomic status on oral health changes over time, 2) the role of unfavorable patterns of dental visiting on oral health, 3) associations between general and oral health, 4) nutritional and dietary effects on oral health, and 5) intergenerational influences on oral health. Dental caries and dental visiting patterns have been recorded in all studies. Sources of fluoride exposure have been documented in most of the more recent studies. Despite some methodological differences in the way that the exposures and outcomes were measured, some findings are consistent. Predictive models have been used with caries risk tools, periodontitis occurrence, and permanent dentition orthodontic treatment need. The next steps of the group's work are as follows: 1) establishing a consortium of oral health birth cohort studies, 2) conducting a scoping review, 3) exploring opportunities for pooled data analyses to answer pressing research questions, and 4) promoting and enabling the development of the next generation of oral health researchers.

Motivated by the success of the flavour physics programme carried out over the last decade at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), we characterize in detail the physics potential of its High-Luminosity and High-Energy upgrades in this domain of physics. We document the extraordinary breadth of the HL/HE-LHC programme enabled by a putative Upgrade II of the dedicated flavour physics experiment LHCb and the evolution of the established flavour physics role of the ATLAS and CMS general purpose experiments. We connect the dedicated flavour physics programme to studies of the top quark, Higgs boson, and direct high-$p_T$ searches for new particles and force carriers. We discuss the complementarity of their discovery potential for physics beyond the Standard Model, affirming the necessity to fully exploit the LHC's flavour physics potential throughout its upgrade eras.

An angular analysis of the decay J/ψ→μ⁺μ^- is performed to measure the polarization of prompt J/ψ mesons produced in pp collisions at [Formula: see text]. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 0.37 fb^-1 collected with the LHCb detector. The measurement is presented as a function of transverse momentum, p_T, and rapidity, y, of the J/ψ meson, in the kinematic region 2<p_T<15 GeV/c and 2.0<y<4.5.

The B0s and B0 mixing frequencies, Δms and Δmd, are measured using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 collected by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at a centre of mass energy of 7 TeV during 2011. Around 1.8 × 106 candidate events are selected of the type B0(s) → D−(s)μ+ (+ anything), where about half are from peaking and combinatorial backgrounds. To determine the B decay times, a correction is required for the momentum carried by missing particles, which is performed using a simulation-based statistical method. Associated production of muons or mesons allows us to tag the initialstate flavour and so to resolve oscillations due to mixing. We obtain Δms = (17.93 ± 0.22 (stat) ± 0.15 (syst)) ps−1, Δmd = (0.503 ± 0.011 (stat) ± 0.013(syst)) ps−1. The hypothesis of no oscillations is rejected by the equivalent of 5.8 standard deviations for B0s and 13.0 standard deviations for B0. This is the first observation of B0s mixing to be made using only semileptonic decays.

The relative rates of B-meson decays into J/ψ and ψ(2S) mesons are measured for the three decay modes in pp collisions recorded with the LHCb detector. The ratios of branching fractions ([Formula: see text]) are measured to be [Formula: see text] where the third uncertainty is from the ratio of the ψ(2S) and J/ψ branching fractions to μ⁺μ^-.

The energy flow created in pp collisions at [Formula: see text] is studied within the pseudorapidity range 1.9<η<4.9 with data collected by the LHCb experiment. The measurements are performed for inclusive minimum-bias interactions, hard scattering processes and events with an enhanced or suppressed diffractive contribution. The results are compared to predictions given by Pythia-based and cosmic-ray event generators, which provide different models of soft hadronic interactions.

The B s0→J/ψK S0 branching fraction is measured in a data sample corresponding to 0.41fb -1 of integrated luminosity collected with the LHCb detector at the LHC. This channel is sensitive to the penguin contributions affecting the sin2β measurement from B 0→J/ψK S0. The time-integrated branching fraction is measured to be B(B S0→J/ψK S0)=(1.83±0.28)×10 -5. This is the most precise measurement to date. © 2012 CERN.