Amidst the COVID-19, the use of technology in the learning environment was no longer a matter of choice. Forced by circumstance, educators had to adapt in order to see the academic year through. While for some, already used to an online modality, it was business as always, for others was the start of a journey through unfamiliar territory. This study inserts itself in such context. It presents and discusses results gathered through an online questionnaire about the perceptions and personal experiences of design educators in Higher Education (HE) caught in this move from in-class face-to-face onto online teaching. Objectively, it portrays how this shift impacted their ability to teach, the compromises made or alternatives sought, and views towards a more technologically enabled future in HE. From a more extensive reliance on Learning Management Systems (LMS), changes in the learning environment, and perspectives of near-future uses of Virtual Reality (VR) in distance education, this study covers uses of technology but also the identification of pain points influencing the overall experience, as well as positive perceptions and significant changes made to the learning environment.

Objective: The goal of this systematic review was to study the relationship between the use of bisphosphonates (oral or intravenous) and its effect on implant osseointegration. Methods: The focused question was “In patients medicated with bisphosphonates and who underwent surgery to place dental implants, what is the influence of that medication (of different generations) on the failure of dental implants (O)?” Following specific eligibility criteria, four databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ) were electronically screened to search the articles. Specific MeSH terms were used in combinations with Boolean Operators “AND” and “OR” for the research. In addition, a manual search was done. The data extracted were the (i) author, (ii) year of publication, (iii) country, (iv) research question, (v) study design, (vi) patient information, (vii) the number of patients included, (viii) patient/implant status, (ix) the number of implants evaluated, (x) type of implant, (xi) risk factors, and (xii) findings obtained. Moreover, the following were also registered: the (i) type, generation, duration, and route for BP administrated; (ii) the presence of any systemic condition and drug treatment; (iii) follow-up (months); and (iv) implant failure rate (%). The quality assessment of the included studies was carried out using the Modified Newcastle–Ottawa scale. Results: A total of 491 articles were found (183 in PubMed/MEDLINE, 171 in Scopus, 65 in Web of Science, and 72 articles in DOAJ), and 17 articles were considered for full-text reading. After the exclusion of 3 articles, 14 were included in this systematic review (11 case reports, 2 retrospective, and 1 prospective study). The reasons for the bisphosphonates intaking included osteoporosis, multiple myeloma, breast cancer, knee cancer, and osteogenesis imperfecta. The oral administration involved Alendronato (eight studies), Risedronate (three studies), and Ibandronate (three studies); whereas the intravenous administrations were Zoledronate (seven studies), Clodronato (one study), and Pamidronato (three studies). The duration of use of bisphosphonates at the time of implant placement was diverse; it ranged from no interruption of bisphosphonate intaking up to its discontinuation for 2, 3, or 6 months before surgery, with respective use being resumed 1, 3, or 8 months after surgery. Antibiotic treatment (amoxicillin + clavulanic acid) was performed before the intervention in two cases and after the intervention in three cases. Finally, the percent of implant failure rate when intaking BPs had an average of 49.96%. Conclusions: Within the limitation of this systematic review, it was possible to conclude that a high mean failure rate of implant osseointegration (49.96%) was found, regardless of the generation of bisphosphonates used. Moreover, the failure rate was lower in patients using second generation bisphosphonates (Alendronate and Pamidronate) and was higher with the IV administration compared to the oral administration of bisphosphonates.

This study aims to understand microorganisms' effect and relevance of aseptic conditions on wear performance of dental materials. Tribocouple zirconia/titanium was submitted to tribological tests in the presence of Streptococcus salivarius biofilm, the most abundant bacteria in the oral cavity. Reciprocating ball‐on‐plate tests were carried out at 37°C, pH 7, 2 N, and 1 Hz, during 2 h, using Ti6Al4V balls as pins and Y‐TZP plates. Simultaneous OCP readings assessed corrosion tendency. Tested lubricants were artificial saliva, artificial saliva plus glucose, and artificial saliva plus glucose and S. salivarius. Wear volume and worn surfaces were analyzed after test. S. salivarius proliferation was enhanced in artificial saliva plus glucose. When a highly populated biofilm was present at the zirconia/titanium interface, titanium wear decreased by ~60% compared to artificial saliva and artificial saliva plus with glucose, respectively, with 0.0060 and 0.0053 mm3 loss. Wear was not observed in zirconia under any tested condition. Presence of S. salivarius also decreased corrosion activity during wear. Lowest free OCP value reached during sliding was −260 mV in artificial saliva, −246 mV in artificial saliva plus glucose, and −196 mV in artificial saliva plus glucose and bacteria. This decreased to −147 mV when a highly‐populated S. salivarius biofilm was present at the interface. Overall, obtained results show that the presence of S. salivarius clearly changes the corrosion‐wear performance of the tested dental materials, confirming that it must be recognized, and that asepsis level and conditions during wear test of dental materials must be clearly established and controlled to ensure reproducible results and supported conclusions. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater 107B: 1393–1399, 2019.

High relief is a sculpture where more than half of 3D figure is attached onto a background plane. The main problem of high relief modeling from 3D object is how to transform the 3D geometry within limited depth range. This paper presents a novel method to generate high reliefs, which benefits from the technique of Laplacian-based mesh deformation. Given a 3D object as input, we first select a set of handle points on the input model and compute their offset distances to the background. Taking these handle points as constraints, we then optimize the depth field by solving a bi-Laplacian-based linear system. The deformed object is ensured to attach onto the background with preserved depth structure and geometrical details. Our method is effective in dealing with different types of input shapes, even the ones with topology-disconnected components. Experimental results and comparisons with previous method demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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