Histopathologic study of rat connective tissue responses to maxillofacial silicone elastomers

The aim of this histopathologic study was to assess and compare the subcutaneous connective tissue reaction to three different maxillofacial silicone elastomers (Cosmesil, Multisil, Episil). The test materials were directly inserted subcutaneously into the dorsal subcutaneous tissue of Wistar albino rats. Histopathological examinations were done at 7, 30, and 90 days after the implantation procedure. The presence of inflammation, presence of inflammatory giant cells, and the thickness of fibrous connective tissue adjacent to each inserted sample were recorded. Data was evaluated by analysis of variance, Wilcoxon signed ranks test and Kruskal Wallis test. Cosmesil, Multisil and Episil silicone elastomers at 7 days elicited a severe inflammatory reaction. However, these reactions decreased by the 30 and 90 days. All silicone elastomers elicited a moderate inflammatory reaction at 30 and 90 days. There were no significant differences in tissue reaction between the materials at 7, 30, and 90 days (P > 0.05). All the maxillofacial silicone elastomers evaluated can not be assigned a favorable biocompatibility level based on this study’s histologic findings.     

Growth, electrical and structural characterization of β-GaSe thin films

GaSe thin films were deposited onto the glass substrates kept at 200° and 300°C by the thermal evaporation of GaSe crystals under the pressure of 10^–5 Torr. X-ray analysis of the films revealed that films grown at 200°C are amorphous in nature while the films grown at 300°C are polycrystalline -GaSe. The temperature dependent electrical conductivity measurements in the region of 320–100 K for the films grown at 300°C showed that the transport mechanisms are the thermionic emission of charged carriers and the variable range hopping above and below 180 K, respectively. Space charge limited current (SCLC) studies have also been performed on these films through the current-voltage measurements at different temperatures and a dominant hole trap at 0.233 eV from the top of the valance band with a trap density of 1.6 × 10¹¹ cm^–3 is identified.     

A nonlocal model for plug formation in plates

By means of a nonlocal viscous fluid model, an investigation is carried out of the problem of penetration of a cylindrical projectile into a plate leading to a failure of the plate by a plug formation. The effect of impact is represented by a uniform initial velocity distribution over a circular region on the surface of the plate. The behavior of this plate material is assumed to be viscous and spatially nonlocal, and only the effects of vertical shearing stress are considered. The expression of stress, velocity and displacement are obtained and the calculated displacement profiles are compared with some existing experimental profiles.     

Experimental investigation of machining characteristics and chatter stability for Hastelloy-X with ultrasonic and hot turning

Ultrasonic-assisted machining is a machining operation based on the intermittent cutting of material which is obtained through vibrations generated by an ultrasonic system. This method utilizes low-amplitude vibrations with high frequency to prevent continuous contact between a cutting tool and a workpiece. Hot machining is another method for machining materials which are difficult to cut. The basic principle of this method is that the surface of the workpiece is heated to a specific temperature below the recrystallization temperature of the material. This heating operation can be applied before or during the machining process. Both of these operations improve machining operations in terms of workpiece-cutting tool characteristics. In this study, a novel hybrid machining method called hot ultrasonic-assisted turning (HUAT) is proposed for the machinability of Hastelloy-X material. This new technique combines ultrasonic-assisted turning (UAT) and hot turning methods to take advantage of both machining methods in terms of machining characteristics, such as surface roughness, stable cutting depths, and cutting tool temperature. In order to observe the effect of the HUAT method, Hastelloy-X alloy was selected as the workpiece. Experiments on conventional turning (CT), UAT, and HUAT operations were carried out for Hastelloy-X alloy, changing the cutting speed and cutting tool overhang lengths. Chip morphology was also observed. In addition, modal and sound tests were performed to investigate the modal and stability characteristics of the machining. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) method was performed to find the effect of the cutting speed, tool overhang length, and machining techniques (CT, UAT, HUAT) on surface roughness, stable cutting depths, and cutting tool temperature. The results show both ultrasonic vibration and heat improve the machining of Hastelloy-X. A decrease in surface roughness and an increase in stable cutting depths were observed, and higher cutting tool temperatures were obtained in UAT and HUAT compared to CT. According to the ANOVA results, tool overhang length, cutting speed, and machining techniques were effective parameters for surface roughness and stable cutting depths at a 1% significance level (p ≤ 0.01). In addition, cutting speed and machining techniques have an influence on cutting tool temperature at a 1% significance level (p ≤ 0.01). During chip analysis, serrated chips were observed in UAT and HUAT.     

Effects of Er,Cr:YSGG laser parameters on dentin bond strength and interface morphology

Previous studies have shown the effects of Er,Cr:YSGG laser irradiation on the dentin bond strength; but there are few reports that show the significance of the irradiation with different laser parameters on dentin bond strength and interface morphology. This in‐vitro study attempted to evaluate the microtensile bond strength (μTBS) and interface morphology of resin‐dentin interfaces, either followed by treatment with Er,Cr:YSGG laser irradiation with different parameters or not. The flattened dentin samples of 35 bovine teeth were embedded into acrylic blocks and randomly divided into seven groups according to surface treatments using Er,Cr:YSGG lasers with different parameters: 3 W/20 Hz, 3 W/35 Hz, 3 W/50 Hz, 1.5 W/20 Hz, 1.5 W/35 Hz, 1.5 W/50 Hz, or no laser treatment (n = 5). Composite buildups were done over bonded surfaces and stored in water (24 hours at 37°C). Specimens were sectioned into sticks that were subjected to μTBS testing and observed under FE‐SEM. Control groups (27.70 ± 7.0) showed statistically higher values than laser‐irradiated groups. There were no significant differences among laser groups. Despite that, increasing the pulse frequency yielded slightly higher bond strength. Depending on laser settings, Er,Cr:YSGG laser irradiation caused interfacial gaps and resin tags with wings morphology. With the parameters used in this study, Er,Cr:YSGG laser irradiation promoted morphological changes within resin‐dentin interfaces and negatively influenced the bond strength of adhesive systems. Microsc. Res. Tech. 78:1104–1111, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A novel feature ranking algorithm for text classification: Brilliant probabilistic feature selector (BPFS)

Text classification (TC) is a very crucial task in this century of high-volume text datasets. Feature selection (FS) is one of the most important stages in TC studies. In the literature, numerous feature selection methods are recommended for TC. In the TC domain, filter-based FS methods are commonly utilized to select a more informative feature subsets. Each method uses a scoring system that is based on its algorithm to order the features. The classification process is then carried out by choosing the top-N features. However, each method's feature order is distinct from the others. Each method selects by giving the qualities that are critical to its algorithm a high score, but it does not select by giving the features that are unimportant a low value. In this paper, we proposed a novel filter-based FS method namely, brilliant probabilistic feature selector (BPFS), to assign a fair score and select informative features. While the BPFS method selects unique features, it also aims to select sparse features by assigning higher scores than common features. Extensive experimental studies using three effective classifiers decision tree (DT), support vector machines (SVM), and multinomial naive bayes (MNB) on four widely used datasets named Reuters-21,578, 20Newsgroup, Enron1, and Polarity with different characteristics demonstrate the success of the BPFS method. For feature dimensions, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 dimensions were used. The experimental results on different benchmark datasets show that the BPFS method is more successful than the well-known and recent FS methods according to Micro-F1 and Macro-F1 scores.     

Experimental and Numerical Modal Characterization for Additively Manufactured Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Lattice Structures: Comparison between Free-Size and Homogenization-Based Optimization Methods

Homogenization-based topology optimization (HMTO) is one of the most extensively used grading methods to generate functionally graded lattice structures (FGLs). However, it requires a precharacterization of the lattices, which is time-consuming. As a remedy, free-size optimization-based graded lattice generation (FOGLG) is explored as an alternative method to generate the FGLs. This article builds on the authors’ previous work in which the HMTO and FOGLG approaches are studied to improve the dynamic characteristic of a design by using a single lattice type, namely, double gyroid (DG) structure. To show applicability of the proposed methods, different lattice types including diamond (D), gyroid (G), and I-WP are employed to create FGLs herein. The frequency response analysis is performed, and the results from HMTO and FOGLG are compared in terms of their accuracy and efficiency. The optimized designs are then reconstructed by relative density mapping (RDM) and enhanced relative density mapping (ERDM) methods. The fabricated test samples made of cobalt–chromium using the direct metal laser melting (DMLM) technique are then experimentally validated using a laser vibrometer. The results reveal that HMTO and FOGLG can be used on the lattice types with a variety of configurations and relative densities.