Background:Personal identification plays an inevitable role in forensic investigation. Lip print is one of the evidences that can be left in the crime scene, which helps in identification purpose. Hence, the present study was undertaken to provide deeper inside view of use of cheiloscopy in personal identification, focusing on sex and age variability of lip print patterns in the population of Rajnandgaon city, Chhattisgarh, India.Materials and Methods:The cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 (100 males and 100 females) subjects of age 15-55 years, residing in different areas of Rajnandgaon city. The sex of the individual was determined as per the description given by Vahanwala et al. Frequency distribution and Chi-square test were used for data analysis by SPSS 16.0 V software.Results:The most common lip print pattern in entire population was Type I (27.5%). Very highly significant difference was found in the distribution of lip print patterns among males and females in the entire population, group I, and group III, respectively (P < 0.0001). The overall accuracy of cheiloscopy in sex determination was (high) 87.95%, 87.65%, 90.5%, and 80% in group 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively.Conclusion:Thus, it can be concluded that lip prints can be used as one of the important forensic tools for personal identification on the basis of their age and gender variability among the populations.

Benchmarking Optimization Algorithms for Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problems by Pratik Surana The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) originated in the 1950s when algorithms and mathematical approaches were applied to find solutions for routing vehicles. Since then, there has been extensive research in the field of VRPs to solve real-life problems. The process of generating an optimal routing schedule for a VRP is complex due to two reasons. First, VRP is considered to be an NP-Hard problem. Second, there are several constraints involved, such as the number of available vehicles, the vehicle capacities, time-windows for pickup or delivery etc. The main goal for this project was to compare different optimization algorithms for solving Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problems (CVRP). The three specific aims for this project were to (1) survey existing research and identify suitable optimization algorithms for CVRP and (2) implement a work-flow in the Python programming language, to evaluate their performance, (3) perform different computational experiments on existing CVRP benchmarks. Experiments were conducted by leveraging Google's OR-Tools library on the well-known benchmarks. Different strategies were evaluated to see if there exists a solution or a better solution than the best-known solutions for these benchmarks. The results show that almost 60% of the problems in the benchmarks have a better solution than the current best-known solution. The second finding of this project is that there is not one strategy which can provide the best solution for all types of CVRPs. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor Dr. Sami Khuri for being there to guide me always. I really appreciate the efforts he took to encourage me for deeper research into the topics and its associated challenges. I would also like to take this opportunity to specially thank Dr. Natalia Khuri. I was extremely fortunate to have found a teacher, a guru, a mentor, an inspiration, a role-model and a pillar of support in Dr. Natalia Khuri who has been with me since the very beginning of my Master's of Science journey. I would like to thank Dr. Philip Heller for overseeing the progress throughout the course of this project and providing timely feedback and guidance. Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents, my sister, Pranjal and to my partner, Harshada and all my dear friends for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this project report. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them.

Even if local anesthetic is still the mainstay of pain management in dentistry, research will keep striving for novel and effective pain management techniques. The majority of research efforts are focused on improving anesthetic medications, delivery systems, and related methods. There are more recent technologies available that can assist the dentist in providing better pain relief with fewer unpleasant injections and fewer negative adverse effects. The purpose of the current review of the literature is to compile evidence that will convince dentists to employ modern local anesthetics, as well as other methods and techniques to reduce patient discomfort while administering anesthesia.

Objective: This study aims to investigate and compare the establishment of dentinal cracks during root canal preparation using a stereomicroscope and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Materials and methods: Sixty removed human mandibular premolars were separated into three groups of 20: two experimental and one control. Within the randomized controlled experimental groups, root canals were constructed. Group I: the Waldent walflex file and Group II: the Trunatomy (TRN) file. Group III: the control group received no preparations. The surfaces of the roots were checked for dentinal cracks using a stereomicroscope and SEM following sectioning at 3, 6, and 9 mm from the apex. The Chi-square test was used to examine the data. Results:​​​​​​ In the control group, no fissures appeared. Cracks in Waldent Walflex were almost 66.7% between the 3mm and 6mm range. At both the 6 mm and 9 mm levels, there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental groups (P > 0.05). Defects were found to be substantially higher in the apical region of samples than in the median and coronal sections. Conclusion: Dentinal fissures were created by every rotary file used in the tests. There were more flaws in the Waldent Walflex file group than in the Trunatomy file group.

Pulpotomy is the most commonly used treatment modality used in cariously involved primary vital primary teeth. Formocresol shows a good clinical success rate over the period of years but concerns raised due to its toxicity, mutagenicity, and carcinogenicity. The current review of literature provides an overview of recent advances in pulpotomy medicament that can be used as an alternative to formocresol.