The influence of third-body particles on wear rate in unicondylar knee arthroplasty: a wear simulator study with bone and cement debris

The reduced intraoperative visibility of minimally invasive implanted unicondylar knee arthroplasty makes it difficult to remove bone and cement debris, which have been reported on the surface of damaged and retrieved bearings. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the influence of bone and cement particles on the wear rate of unicompartmental knee prostheses in vitro. Fixed bearing unicompartmental knee prostheses were tested using a knee-wear-simulator according to the ISO standard 14243-1:2002(E) for 5.0 million cycles. Afterwards bone debris (particle size 671 ± 262 μm) were added to the test fluid in a concentration of 5 g/l for 1.5 million cycles, followed by 1.5 million cycles blended with cement debris (particle size 644 ± 186 μm) in the same concentration. Wear rate, knee-kinematics and wear-pattern were analyzed. The wear rate reached 12.5 ± 1.0 mm³/million cycles in the running-in and decreased during the steady state phase to 4.4 ± 0.91 mm³/million cycles. Bone particles resulted in a wear rate of 3.0 ± 1.27 mm³/million cycles with no influence on the wear rate compared to the steady state phase. Cement particles, however, lead to a significantly higher wear rate (25.0 ± 16.93 mm³/million cycles) compared to the steady state phase. The careful removal of extruded cement debris during implantation may help in reducing wear rate. Bone debris are suggested to have less critical influence on the prostheses wear rate.     

Through Process Modelling of Surface Densified PM Gears

Through process modelling of surface densified gears produced by powder metallurgy (PM) was established by coupling the modelling of the manufacturing processes surface densification, carburization, and heat treatment. The complete model allows the prediction of the local microstructure and hardness in the gear as well as the appearance and direction of residual stresses in the final part. The structural integrity of the part is governed, on the one hand, by the local material properties and residual stresses and, on the other hand, by the load stresses calculated for typical operating conditions. A simplified hardness dependent Haigh diagram was used to calculate the maximum allowable cyclic stresses for the gear tooth and to derive a local utilization ratio as target entity for optimization of the individual steps of the production chain.     

Data Mining for Vehicle Telemetry

This article presents a data mining methodology for driving-condition monitoring via CAN-bus data that is based on the general data mining process. The approach is applicable to many driving condition problems, and the example of road type classification without the use of location information is investigated. Location information from Global Positioning Satellites and related map data are often not available (for business reasons), or cannot represent the full dynamics of road conditions. In this work, Controller Area Network (CAN)-bus signals are used instead as inputs to models produced by machine learning algorithms. Road type classification is formulated as two related labeling problems: Road Type (A, B, C, and Motorway) and Carriageway Type (Single or Dual). An investigation is presented into preprocessing steps required prior to applying machine learning algorithms, that is, signal selection, feature extraction, and feature selection. The selection methods used include principal components analysis (PCA) and mutual information (MI), which are used to determine the relevance and redundancy of extracted features and are performed in various combinations. Finally, because there is an inherent bias toward certain road and carriageway labelings, the issue of class imbalance in classification is explained and investigated. A system is produced, which is demonstrated to successfully ascertain road type from CAN-bus data, and it is shown that the classification correlates well with input signals such as vehicle speed, steering wheel angle, and suspension height.     

Computer vision for improved estimates of SO2 emission rates and plume dynamics

Imaging cameras operating at ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) wavelengths can measure sulphur dioxide (SO₂) gas path concentrations or slant column densities. These measurements are useful in a variety of applications including the monitoring of emissions from volcanoes and also emissions from stacks at industrial plants and on ships. The usefulness of these data is increased if the emission rates (or fluxes) of the gases can also be estimated. Here we present an optical flow algorithm that allows rapid and accurate estimates of emission rates using both UV and IR camera imagery sampling at around 1 Hz or higher. Examples are provided from measurements made at Turrialba volcano, Costa Rica, and also at a ship in Hong Kong harbour. Other aspects of the properties of the fluid flow are also introduced, notably the divergence and the vorticity of the two-dimensional wind field. We demonstrate how the divergence can be used in a new method to calculate the emission rate and show how rotational effects observed in volcanic plumes and the resulting entrainment of ambient air affects plume rise and can be observed using vorticity. This is an important aspect for understanding the emplacement of gases and particles into the atmosphere that are subsequently transported by atmospheric winds, sometimes causing pollution episodes at long distances from the source.     

Scheduling reclaimers serving a stock pad at a coal terminal

We study a variant of an abstract scheduling problem inspired by the management of reclaimers in the stockyard of a coal export terminal. We prove NP-completeness of the problem and formulate it as a mixed-integer program. We show that for a given reclaiming sequence, the problem can be solved in pseudo-polynomial time. In addition, we provide simple, constant-factor approximation algorithms as well as exact branch-and-bound algorithms. An extensive computational study analyzes the performance of the algorithms.     

Observation of Sublattice Disordering of the Catalytic Sites in a Complex Mo–V–Nb–Te–O Oxidation Catalyst Using High Temperature STEM Imaging

A Mo–V–Nb–Te–O oxidation catalyst has been imaged using scanning transmission electron microscopy at 780 K, which is slightly above its operating temperature. We observe a sublattice disordering of the corner-sharing octahedra forming the catalytic sites containing V⁵⁺ while the edge-sharing pentagonal bipyramidal {Nb(Mo₅)} sublattice remains structurally more rigid and thereby maintains the overall structural integrity of the catalyst. Imaging the termination of the edges of the [001] basal zones at room temperature reveal a preference for presence of a closed network of secondary structural {Nb(Mo)₅} units providing further evidence of the stability of this sublattice structure. We propose that sublattice disordering of catalytic sites enables structural flexibility to accommodate different oxidation states during multistep chemical reactions within a more rigid superstructure and presents a new paradigm for compositionally and structurally complex catalysts.     

Structural Properties of Boron-Doped Germanium-Tin Alloys Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Boron-doped Ge_1?x Sn _x alloys with atomic fractions of tin up to x = 0.08 were grown on n-Ge(001) substrates using solid-source molecular beam epitaxy, in order to study their structural properties. The total boron concentration in the alloys was ~ 10¹⁸ cm^?3 as measured by secondary-ion mass spectroscopy, which also indicated low amounts of impurities such as carbon and oxygen. More than 90% of the Sn atoms occupied substitutional lattice sites in the alloy as determined by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. High-resolution x-ray diffraction showed that the boron-doped Ge_1?x Sn _x alloys were single crystals that were completely strained with low defect densities and coherent interfaces for thickness up to 90 nm, and for Sn composition of 8%. The boron-doped Ge_1?x Sn _x /n-Ge formed p–n junctions with conventional rectifying characteristics, indicating that the boron produced electrically active acceptor states.