High speed insertion of bone fracture fixation pins: a finite element penetration model with experimental comparisons

A new method of bone fracture fixation is considered in which small pins/darts are dynamically inserted into bone to prevent translation and rotation at the fracture site. An ABAQUS model was developed to analyze dart penetration in cortical and cancellous bone for varying dart diameter, material, and velocity, and cortical thickness. The method is advocated for bioresorbable darts, so polylactide (PLA) and magnesium are the materials examined in this study. Numerical results showed that magnesium darts can achieve full penetration in bone while suffering little damage. The PLA darts penetrated thin bone well, but substantial deformation was seen as the cortical thickness increased, especially for small diameter darts. As partial validation, prototype PLA fixation darts were fired into cadaveric bone with a custom nailer. As in the model, the PLA darts could penetrate thin cortices but saw gross deformation when impacted against thicker bone.     

As(V) removal using carbonized yeast cells containing silver nanoparticles

The present study involves the development of adsorbent containing silver nanoparticles for arsenate removal using silver reducing property of a novel yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae BU-MBT-CY1 isolated from coconut cell sap. Biological reduction of silver by the isolate was deduced at various time intervals. The yeast cells after biological silver reduction were harvested and subjected to carbonization at 400 °C for 1 h and its properties were analyzed using Fourier Transform Infra-Red spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope attached with energy dispersive spectroscopy and transmission electron microscope. The average size of the silver nanoparticles present on the surface of the carbonized silver containing yeast cells (CSY) was 19 ± 9 nm. The carbonized control yeast cells (CCY) did not contain any particles on its surface. As(V) adsorption efficiency of CCY and CSY was deduced in batch mode by varying parameters like contact time, initial concentration, and pH. Desorption studies were also carried out by varying the pH. The experimental data were fitted onto Langmuir and D-R Isotherms and Lagergren and pseudo second order kinetic models. The CSY was more efficient in arsenate removal when compared to CCY.     

Natural versus wastewater derived dissolved organic carbon: implications for the environmental fate of organic micropollutants

The interaction of organic micropollutants with dissolved organic carbon (DOC) can influence their transport, degradation and bioavailability. While this has been well established for natural organic carbon, very little is known regarding the influence of DOC on the fate of micropollutants during wastewater treatment and water recycling. Dissolved organic carbon-water partition coefficients (K_DOC) for wastewater derived and reference DOC were measured for a range of micropollutants using a depletion method with polydimethylsiloxane disks. For micropollutants with an octanol-water partition coefficient (log K_OW) greater than 4 there was a significant difference in K_DOC between reference and wastewater derived DOC, with partitioning to wastewater derived DOC over 1000 times lower for the most hydrophobic micropollutants. The interaction of nonylphenol with wastewater derived DOC from different stages of a wastewater and advanced water treatment train was studied, but little difference in K_DOC was observed. Organic carbon characterisation revealed that reference and wastewater derived DOC had very different properties due to their different origins. Consequently, the reduced sorption capacity of wastewater derived DOC may be related to their microbial origin which led to reduced aromaticity and lower molecular weight. This study suggests that for hydrophobic micropollutants (log K_OW > 4) a higher concentration of freely dissolved and thus bioavailable micropollutants is expected in the presence of wastewater derived DOC than predicted using K_DOC values quantified using reference DOC. The implication is that naturally derived DOC may not be an appropriate surrogate for wastewater derived DOC as a matrix for assessing the fate of micropollutants in engineered systems.     

Patterning of Epitaxial Perovskites from Micro and Nano Molded Stencil Masks

A process is developed that combines soft lithographic molding with pulsed laser deposition (PLD) to make heteroepitaxial patterns of functional perovskite oxide materials. Micro‐ and nanostructures of sacrificial ZnO are made by micro molding in capillaries (MiMiC) and nano transfer molding, respectively, and used to screen the single crystalline substrates during subsequent PLD. ZnO is used because of its compatibility with the high temperatures reached during PLD and because of the ease of its removal after use by benefiting from its amphoteric nature. Sub‐micrometer sized lines of La_0.67Sr_0.33MnO₃ are made by the transfer molding approach, preserving the anisotropic features expected for a fully oriented thin film and taking account for the magnetostatic contribution from the line shapes. Different patterns of SrRuO₃ are made with lateral dimensions of a few micrometers having individual features for which electrical isolation is illustrated. The bottom‐up soft lithographic methods can be compliantly utilized for making epitaxial structures of various shapes and sizes in the μm down to the nm range, and offer unique opportunities for fundamental studies as well as for realizing technological applications.     

Left ventricular contractile performance, ventriculoarterial coupling, and left ventricular efficiency in hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy

Contractile performance of hypertrophied left ventricle may be depressed in arterial hypertension. Ventriculoarterial coupling is impaired when myocardial contractile performance is reduced and when afterload is increased. The left ventricular contractile performance and the ventriculoarterial coupling were evaluated in 30 hypertensive patients with moderate left ventricular hypertrophy and 20 control subjects. Left ventricular angiography coupled with the simultaneous recording of pressures with a micromanometer were used to determine end-systolic stress/volume index, the slope of end-systolic pressure-volume relationship, ie, end-systolic elastance, effective arterial elastance, external work, and pressure-volume area. In hypertensive patients, left ventricular contractile performance, as assessed by end-systolic elastance/ 100 g myocardial mass, was depressed (4.35 +/- 1.13 v 5.21 +/- 1.89 mm Hg/mL/100 g in control subjects P < .02), when end-systolic stress-to-volume ratio was comparable in the two groups (3.85 +/- 0.99 g/cm2/mL in hypertensive patients versus 3.51 +/- 0.77 g/cm2/mL in control subjects). Ventriculoarterial coupling, evaluated through effective arterial elastance/end-systolic elastance ratio, was slightly higher in hypertensive patients (0.53 +/- 0.08 v 0.48 +/- 0.09 mm Hg/mL in control subjects, P < .05), and work efficiency (external work/pressure-volume area) was similar in the two groups (0.78 +/- 0.04 mm Hg/mL in hypertensive patients versus 0.80 +/- 0.03 mm Hg/mL in control subjects). This study shows that despite a slight depression of left ventricular contractile performance, work efficiency is preserved and ventriculoarterial coupling is almost normal in hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy. Thus, it appears that left ventricular hypertrophy might be a useful means of preserving the match between left ventricle and arterial receptor with minimal energy cost.     

Anticipation‐based partial redundancy elimination for static single assignment form

Partial redundancy elimination (PRE) is a program transformation that identifies and eliminates expressions that are redundant on at least one (but not necessarily all) execution paths of a program without increasing any path length. Chow, Kennedy and co‐workers devised an algorithm (SSAPRE) for performing partial redundancy elimination on intermediate representations in static single assignment (SSA) form. The practicality of that algorithm is limited by the following concerns: (1) it makes assumptions about the namespace that are stronger than those of SSA form and that may not be valid if other optimizations have already been performed on the program; (2) if redundancies occur in nested expressions, the algorithm may expose but not eliminate them (requiring a second pass of the algorithm); (3) it misses cases covered by the state of the art in PRE; and (4) it is difficult to understand and implement. We present an algorithm (A‐SSAPRE) structurally similar to SSAPRE that uses anticipation rather than availability; this algorithm is simpler than SSAPRE, covers more cases, eliminates nested redundancies on a single pass, and makes no assumptions about the namespace. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design of a flat field fiber with very small dispersion slope

We have given designs of a small dispersion fiber with large effective area and small dispersion slope. The fiber has flat modal field over the central part of the core, which provides large mode field diameter (8.3 μm at λ₀=1550 nm) leading to the relatively large effective area (A_eff=56.1 μm²) required to reduce nonlinear effects. The total dispersion of the proposed fiber is in the range of 2.7–3.4 ps/km/nm in the wavelength range of 1530 to 1610 nm, which covers the entire C- and L-bands of erbium doped fiber amplifiers. The dispersion slope at λ₀=1550 nm is 0.01 ps/km/nm², which is also very small.     

Aerodynamic design via control theory

Conclusion The purpose of the last three sections is to demonstrate by representative examples that control theory can be used to formulate computationally feasible procedures for aerodynamic design. The cost of each iteration is of the same order as two flow solutions, since the adjoint equation is of comparable complexity to the flow equation, and the remaining auxiliary equations could be solved quite inexpensively. Provided, therefore, that one can afford the cost of a moderate number of flow solutions, procedures of this type can be used to derive improved designs. The approach is quite general, not limited to particular choices of the coordinate transformation or cost function, which might in fact contain measures of other criteria of performance such as lift and drag. For the sake of simplicity certain complicating factors, such as the need to include a special term in the mapping function to generate a corner at the trailing edge, have been suppressed from the present analysis. Also it remains to explore the numerical implementation of the design procedures proposed in this paper.     

Pattern of cardiac failure in Northern Savanna Nigeria

A prospective study of 315 cases of cardiac failure admitted to the General Hospital at Katsina, in the northern savanna region of Nigeria, is presented and the pattern emerged is compared with that of the southern forest region of the country. Although the diseases causing cardiac failure were similar in these two areas, their incidence and pattern showed wide variations. Cardiomyopathies were the commonest cause (47%) of cardiac failure in the northern savanna, congestive cardiomyopathy being the predominant type (31%). Endomyocardial fibrosis (EMF) commonly encountered in the south, was absent in the north; Peripartum Cardiac Failure (PPCF), rarely reported from the south, formed the commonest cause of cardiac failure among the females in the north. Rheumatic heart diseases (RHD) showed a uniform distribution throughout the country. Anaemia caused a higher percentage (13%) of cardiac failure in the north. Hypertension caused relatively fewer (12%) cardiac failures. The variations in the pattern of cardiac failure in these two areas of Nigeria are probably partly attributable to geographic geo-climatic, socio-economic, ethnic and cultural differences.     

Nucleation and growth of potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals in silica gels

Kinetic studies on nucleation and growth of potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals in silica gels show that the rate-determining process for the growth of these crystals in silica gels is diffusion. Morphology, microhardness and perfection of gel grown crystals are also reported.