The effects of dental condition on hand strength and maximum bite force

Piezoelectric force transducer and hand dynamometer were used for measuring the maximum bite force and hand grasp force on 2034 primary, middle, and high school students. Dental condition and body weight and height were also observed to relate to the force measurements. It was discovered that both forces increased relative to the increase of age, body weight, and body height. Boys had stronger bite force than girls at all age groups, while the grasp force of boys became significantly stronger only after the age of 13. Students who had dentition with decay and missing teeth tended to have weaker bite force, while hand force was not influenced. Bite force does not seem parallel to hand strength and is, instead, related to dental condition.     

Critical speed analysis for nonlinear effects of rotor system and ball end milling

The critical speed analysis for nonlinear effects of rotor-bearing system and ball end milling are studied in this paper. The nonlinear cutting force can be calculated by using the Tlusty proposed 3/4 rule for chip thickness. The rotor system is supported by bearings with nonlinear spring effects. The critical speeds obtained from this study are compared with two sets of experimental data to validate the proposed four cases. The effects of design parameters on system dynamic behaviors, including critical speeds and tool displacements under the dynamic cutting forces, are numerically investigated in the time domain. The results show that the critical speeds of system are proportional to the corresponding system natural frequencies, but inversely to the cycle number of tool vibration multiplying by the number of flutes during the cutting time from one flute to another. For the linear system and the nonlinear system with small depth-of-cut under linear cutting force milling, their critical speeds are almost identical. With large feed-per-tooth, the differences of the critical speeds become larger between linear and nonlinear rotor systems and so are the dynamic responses at critical speeds milling. The critical speed under nonlinear cutting force milling is found to be always higher than that under linear cutting force. Furthermore, the chatter stability lobes are studied for various cutting conditions. The intervals between critical speeds increase gradually, and the axial depths of cut of nonlinear system for stability are lower than those of linear system.     

Scheduling deteriorating jobs to minimize the makespan on a single machine

Machine scheduling problems with deteriorating jobs have received increasing attention in recent years, mostly focusing on the linear deterioration models. However, if certain maintenance procedures fail to be completed prior to a prespecified deadline, jobs will require extra time for successful accomplishment in some situations. Therefore, this paper addresses a single-machine problem where the objective is to minimize the makespan under the piecewise linear deterioration model. A branch-and-bound algorithm and two heuristic algorithms are provided to search for the optimal solution and near-optimal solutions, respectively. Computational results are also presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms.     

Transition in a 2-D lid-driven cavity flow

Direct numerical simulations about the transition process from laminar to chaotic flow in square lid-driven cavity flows are considered in this paper. The chaotic flow regime is reached after a sequence of successive supercritical Hopf bifurcations to periodic, quasi-periodic, inverse period-doubling, period-doubling, and chaotic self-sustained flow regimes. The numerical experiments are conducted by solving the 2-D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with increasing Reynolds numbers (Re). The spatial discretization consists of a seventh-order upwind-biased method for the convection term and a sixth-order central method for the diffusive term. The numerical experiments reveal that the first Hopf bifurcation takes place at Re equal to 7402±4%, and a consequent periodic flow with the frequency equal to 0.59 is obtained. As Re is increased to 10,300, a new fundamental frequency (FF) is added to the velocity spectrum and a quasi-periodic flow regime is reached. For slightly higher Re (10,325), the new FF disappears and the flow returns to a periodic regime. Furthermore, the flow experiences an inverse period doubling at 10,325 <Re< 10,700 and a period-doubling regime at 10,600 <Re< 10,900. Eventually, for flows with Re greater than 11,000, a scenario for the onset of chaotic flow is obtained. The transition processes are illustrated by increasing Re using time-velocity histories, Fourier power spectra, and the phase-space trajectories. In view of the conducted grid independent study, the values of the critical Re presented above are estimated to be accurate within ±4%.     

Improved performance of 4K SRAM by means of CW laser annealing

A 4K × 1 NMOS static RAM (MM2147) has been successfully fabricated by means of CW laser annealing. The access time was reduced by 10 ns compared with a thermally annealed control with no increase in power dissipation. This report demonstrates the feasibiligy of using CW laser annealing as a potential VLSI process technology.     

Structural influence of hanatoxin binding on the carboxyl terminus of S3 segment in voltage-gated K(+)-channel Kv2.1

The voltage-sensing domains of voltage-gated potassium channels Kv2.1 (drk1) contain four transmembrane segments in each subunit, termed S1 to S4. While S4 is known as the voltage sensor, the carboxyl terminus of S3 (S3C) bears a gradually broader interest concerning the site for gating modifier toxins like hanatoxin and thus the secondary structure arrangement as well as its surrounding environment. To further examine the putative three-dimensional (3-D) structure of S3C and to illustrate the residues required for hanatoxin binding (which may, in turn, show the influence on the S4 in terms of changes in channel gating), molecular simulations and dockings were performed. These were based on the solution structure of hanatoxin and the structural information from lysine-scanning results for S3C fragment. Our data suggest that several basic and acidic residues of hanatoxin are electrostatically and stereochemically mapped onto their partner residues on S3C helix, whereas some aromatic or hydrophobic residues located on the same helical fragment interact with the hydrophobic patch of the toxin upon binding. Therefore, a slight distortion of the S3C helix, in a direction toward the N-terminus of S4, may exist. Such conformational change of S3C upon toxin binding is presented as a possible explanation for the observed shift in hanatoxin binding-induced gating.     

Repeatability/Linearity Study and Measurement Loss Cost Analysis of an Automatic Gauge

Computer-aided inspection (CAI) has become one of the fundamental steps in advanced manufacturing by employing automatic gauges. However, it is necessary to provide a more practical way to evaluate CAI on-line efficiency. Since a gauge capability study should be conducted before applying any automatic gauge, the necessary off-line gauge assesment for CAI is introduced in this paper. An R&R (repeatability/reproducibility) study is commonly conducted in the gauge capability study, but in this paper, an R&L (repeatability/linearity) study of a machine vision system is investigated and introduced. The ANOVA approach and regression approach are applied and compared to study the linearity effect. The measurement loss cost includes extra costs (i.e. costs of discarding, reworking, inspection, and quality loss) that arise from measurement error. These costs are analysed by interpreting the relationships between manufacturing capability, gauge capability, and the tolerance. As most gauge capability studies were conducted for the bilateral tolerance inspection, unbalanced tolerance inspection is considered here. The way that the relative costs contribute to the measurement loss cost is also studied. Rather than using a constant measurement error determined by previous observations, the measurement error model is embedded in the relative cost models. Users can then evaluate CAI on-line efficiency by incorporating the measurement error when the tolerances are rapidly changed to satisfy customer requirements.     

Temperature dependence of ferrobielastic switching in quartz

Using the piezoelectric effect, the variation of coercive stress with temperature for ferrobielastic switching in synthetic quartz crystals has been measured under unaxial load applied in a direction favoring Dauphiné twinning. It is found that the coercive stress decreases with increasing temperature from about 4×10⁸ Pa at room temperature to less than 10⁷ Pa near 300°C.     

Preparation and epoxy curing of novel dicyclopentadiene‐derived Mannich amines

Phenol/dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) adducts were prepared from the BF₃‐catalyzed reaction of p‐nonylphenol and dicyclopentadiene at molar ratios of 2 : 1 and 3 : 2. The phenol‐terminating adducts were consequently reacted with diethylenetriamine and formaldehyde using Mannich reaction conditions. These products containing phenol, amine and tricyclodecane functionalities in the same molecule can be used as epoxy curing agents. The diethylenetriamine was add to the phenol via Mannich reaction at approximately 50% theoretical equivalent. The multiple N H groups in amines and the O H groups in phenols provide crosslinking sites for epoxy resins. The cured epoxy resins show improvement in tensile strength and elongation in comparison with those cured by the poly(oxypropylene) diamine (400 molecular weight) or diethylenetriamine. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 71: 2129–2139, 1999