Stability of radicals in cured composite materials

During the radical polymerization of dental composites, the monomers polymerize to form a three-dimensional network containing remaining double bonds and free radicals. At 37 degrees C, these radicals decompose logarithmically with a half-life of 2-5 d. In this study, the half-life of radicals in a light-cured inlay composite was determined at different temperatures, and the influence of different fillers and filler amounts on the stability of these radicals in light-cured experimental composites was investigated. There is a strong logarithmic relationship between the half-life of the radicals and temperature. At a constant temperature, the half-life of radicals depends on the type of filler, the filler fraction, and the filler surface treatment. The stability of radicals determines to a great extend the adhesion of one composite to another, such as the adhesion of a luting cement to an inlay material.     

Intelligent assistance for software development and maintenance

An environment is described, called Professor Marvel, that provides early error checking and answers questions about the program under development. The environment has a certain understanding of the systems being developed and how to use tools to produce software. It aids individual programmers and helps coordinate programming teams. The key components of Marvel are a database that stores data represented as objects, as in object-oriented languages, and a model of the development process that imposes a structure on programming activities. Marvel's support of insight and of opportunistic processing is discussed at length, as is the handling of side effects. A sample session is described     

Effect of Surface Characteristics on Compressive Stress and Leakage Rate in Gasketed Flanged Joints

The effect of surface characteristics on compressive stress and leakage rate in gasketed flanged joints is discussed qualitatively and quantitatively based on experimental verifications. The sensitivity of the sealing phenomenon to the sealing surface characteristics, gas pressure and stress level is presented. Sealing surfaces produced with grinding, turning and milling procedures of different roughness values were the subject of the tests with three types of gasket, namely, PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), graphite, and spiral wound. The experimental results indicated that the roughness value Ra (average arithmetic height) has no effect on the sealing performance of the gasket, except for the ground type sealing surfaces. The platen (flange) surface forms were found to be the determining factor on the leakage rate and flow regime for gasketed flanged joints. It is shown that the surface characteristics have no effect on the leakage rate and on the gasket performance for the PTFE gasket at high stress levels. However, at low stress levels the rougher ground and milled sealing surfaces having radial channels on the surface produce larger leakage rates. The effect of surface characteristics, stress level, and gas pressure was more evident on the graphite and spiral wound gasket types, at both low and high stress levels. It is also shown that the leakage rate follows an exponential law as a factor of surface stress and gas pressure, for all sealing surface characteristics and gasket types. While there is little difference in the leakage rate for the PTFE gasket when the gasket stress level is increased by a factor of two, from S3 to S5, a substantial leakage rate reduction by a ratio of 17.5 times was observed for the graphite and spiral wound gaskets for most sealing surfaces. On the other hand, when increasing the helium gas pressure from 200 to 800 p.s.i., the leakage rate increased by 5 times for the PTFE, and up to10 times for the graphite and the spiral wound gaskets. It was determined that while molecular flow regimes can be achieved for the PTFE gasket for all sealing surfaces, the two other gasket types provided laminar flow under the same operating conditions.     

Prevalence of asthma and asthma-like symptoms in three French cities

BACKGROUND: This study is part of the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS), which uses a common methodology in different areas throughout the world. This paper describes the prevalences of reported asthma, asthma-like symptoms and nasal allergies, their relationships to age group and sex, and the relationships of asthma-like symptoms to current asthma, in the general population aged 20-44 years of three French urban areas. METHODS: The study population of 2804 subjects in Grenoble, 3774 in Montpellier and 3152 in Paris (18th district), randomly selected from electoral rolls, answered a postal questionnaire (stage I of ECRHS). The response rates were 77.8%, 68.6% and 74.4%, respectively. RESULTS: The prevalences were approximately 14% for wheezing, 16% for chest tightness and 4.5% for nocturnal shortness of breath in the three areas. Asthma attacks in the last 12 months were reported by 2.7% of subjects in Grenoble, 3.5% of subjects in Montpellier and 4.0% of subjects in Paris (P = 0.02). For nasal allergies, the prevalences were 28.0%, 34.3% and 30.8%, respectively (P < 0.001). Asthma was inversely correlated to age (higher prevalence in the youngest) but was not related to sex. Neither age distribution nor sex ratio explained the differences between areas. Among the asthma-like symptoms, wheezing and nocturnal shortness of breath correlated strongly with asthma, chest tightness correlated moderately and nocturnal coughing correlated poorly. CONCLUSION: The prevalences observed were higher than expected from previous comparable French studies in young adults. These results are consistent with the hypothesis of a recent increase of asthma and allergies.