BACKGROUND: Little evidence is available regarding the effects of long-term periodontal infection on diabetes mellitus (DM) control. The aim of this retrospective cohort study is to evaluate influence of periodontal status on changes of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels of patients with type 2 DM (DMt2). METHODS: Eighty patients (mean age: 56.0 +/- 8.9 years) with DMt2 were included. Patients were non-smokers, aged >/=40 years, and using antidiabetic drugs. Demographics, health history, and HbA1c levels were retrieved from medical charts. Probing depth and clinical attachment loss (AL) were recorded. RESULTS: Patients were examined at two time points within a mean interval of 38.6 +/- 6.6 months. Increase in HbA1c over time was statistically significant when severe periodontitis was diagnosed at baseline (2.32%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.50% to 3.15%), in patients showing at least one tooth with >/=2 mm of AL progression (2.24%, 95% CI: 1.56% to 2.91%), in males (2.75%, 95% CI: 1.72% to 3.78%), and in those with HbA1c <6.5% at baseline (3.08%, 95% CI: 2.47% to 3.69%). After adjusting for baseline HbA1c, significant changes were still observed for severe periodontitis and progression of AL with increases of 0.85% and 0.9%, respectively. After adjusting for sex and HbA1c, AL progression was also statistically significant, with increases of 0.84%. CONCLUSIONS: Periodontitis progression was associated with increase in HbA1c in patients with DMt2. Identification of these risk factors suggests that periodontal treatment may improve glycemic control of patients with DMt2 by eliminating periodontal infection.

New products development is a highly complex activity, where applying methodologies and tools to support the engineering design process is fundamental in conducting the numerous activities between the phases involved. The conceptual design phase is a critical moment for product success, where access to the existingdesign knowledgeand the prior experience of the designer are the basis for building the creative process. Thus, the Design-by-Analogy (DbA) field isa design approach that uses analogousprocesses to stimulate ideas generation seeking innovative solutions through computational techniques and tools. In this context, this article aims to propose a model forasoftware developmentbased on DbA techniques to stimulate and assist designers during project process. To fulfill this objective, literature review and existing state of the art DbA software survey establish the knowledge bases for this study. Given extracted information from these sources, analysis criteria were defined for the existing software quality characteristics evaluation. This, combined a set of desirable characteristics to establish the requirements that guided theelaboration of theproposed model, specifying its components and structure. Theresult of this paper is the model proposal, where combining existing techniques and new components that explore alternative paths will promote advances in DbA field. This model will guide the development of a softwareto aid and stimulate the conceptual phase of the project, allowing the registration of the knowledge generated during the development of projects so that they can be reused in future projects, adds new possibilities giving continuity to the studies in digital tools to support the engineering design process.

The aim of this paper is to disclose the new research developments and the results from the systematization of experience and user interaction with the Inspaedia (a new web knowledge " Agora "), to inspire a dynamic, collaborative, and interactive intelligence among the inspaediers. We will explain in detail and describe the design process and discuss the ultimate design interaction concept and development regarding (almost everything about) simplicity and playfulness of the inspaediers' experience to transform relevant information (related > mean-full > useful) in productive knowledge (inspiration > insight > foresight) in a very easy and quick way (usability: learnability; understandability; operability; attrac-tiveness…), with a smile in the face (satisfaction) and a wow in the mind (or in the soul).