Fracture Toughness of Veneering Ceramics for Fused to Metal (PFM) and Zirconia Dental Restorative Materials

Veneering ceramics designed to be used with modern zirconia framework restorations have been reported to fracture occasionally in vivo. The fracture toughness of such veneering ceramics was measured and compared to that of conventional feldspathic porcelain veneering ceramics for metal framework restorations. The fracture toughness of the leucite free veneer was measured to be 0.73 MPa m ± 0.02 MPa m, which is less than that for the porcelain fused to metal (PFM) veneering ceramic: 1.10 MPa ± 0.2 MPa. (Uncertainties are one standard deviation unless otherwise noted.) The surface crack in flexure (SCF) method was suitable for both materials, but precrack identification was difficult for the leucite containing feldspathic porcelain PFM veneer.     

Failure analysis of a broken tooth

Several days after heart surgery, a patient discovered his upper right canine tooth had broken at the root. Such tooth damage, recognized post-operatively, is usually assumed to be caused by blunt mechanical force from an instrument used by the anesthesiologist during placement of a breathing tube at the start of surgery. In this case, the patient had saved the crown portion of the broken tooth, and it was possible to examine the root fracture characteristics. The curvature and direction of the crack path and natural tooth situation suggested that failure could be described through a cantilever beam model. This was confirmed when a whole extracted sample tooth was embedded and broken by a measured force in a manner consistent with the model. The resulting fracture surface matched that of the patient’s broken canine tooth. However, the high load and force direction necessary to fracture the root was inconsistent with forces applied during the anesthesia procedure. The failure analysis and further investigation indicated tooth clenching on the breathing tube during recovery was the likely cause of fracture. This paper presents an alternate explanation for intubation-related dental injury, demonstrates the practicality of fractographic analysis of biological materials, and introduces a methodology for simulating in vitro tooth settings for mechanical testing.     

Neural network pruning with Tukey-Kramer multiple comparison procedure

Reducing a neural network's complexity improves the ability of the network to generalize future examples. Like an overfitted regression function, neural networks may miss their target because of the excessive degrees of freedom stored up in unnecessary parameters. Over the past decade, the subject of pruning networks produced nonstatistical algorithms like Skeletonization, Optimal Brain Damage, and Optimal Brain Surgeon as methods to remove connections with the least salience. The method proposed here uses the bootstrap algorithm to estimate the distribution of the model parameter saliences. Statistical multiple comparison procedures are then used to make pruning decisions. We show this method compares well with Optimal Brain Surgeon in terms of ability to prune and the resulting network performance.     

Accounting for uncertainty in control-relevant statistics

To make appropriate decisions based on common indices used in control, both the point estimates and their uncertainties must be known. Many control-relevant statistics, such as model predictions, gain margins and other frequency domain quantities, are functions of parameters of process models. Confidence regions for these quantities are most often calculated under the assumption that these quantities have an asymptotic limiting normal distribution. These confidence regions may be erroneous, and very misleading, as the asymptotic results ignore the influence of parameter nonlinearities. In addition, proximity of the model parameters to stability/invertibility boundaries also distorts the confidence regions from those predicted from asymptotic theory. Generalized profiling is a flexible numerical method for constructing confidence intervals and confidence regions for model parameters, and functions of model parameters. Applications in nonlinear regression [D. Bates, D. Watts, Nonlinear Regression Analysis and Its Applications, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1988] indicate that it provides a much more accurate representation of uncertainty in those instances when the asymptotic uncertainty results are inaccurate or misleading. Generalized profiling is based on the likelihood approach to quantifying uncertainty. The numerical construction of these likelihood uncertainty regions requires solution to a series of constrained optimization problems. Computationally efficient diagnostic tests, motivated by profiling, are developed. These can be effectively employed as screening tools to indicate when the asymptotic results are most likely to be inadequate.     

Facilitated transport of benzylpenicillin through immobilized liquid membrane

The rate of benzylpenicillin transport, as an ionic pair with a tetrabutyl ammonium cation, from aqueous media through a liquid membrane consisting of n-decanol supported in a porous Teflon membrane has been investigated as a function of the chemical composition of the system and the hydrodynamic conditions at 25°C. The measured transfer rates have been explained in terms of the diffusion of the ionic pair species through the liquid membrane. The results are in agreement with theoretical predictions and it is demonstrated that the transport of benzylpenicillin takes place against a concentration gradient.     

A 3D Cu-Naphthalene-Phosphonate Metal–Organic Framework with Ultra-High Electrical Conductivity

A conductive phosphonate metal–organic framework (MOF), [{Cu(H₂O)}(2,6-NDPA)_0.5] (NDPA = naphthalenediphosphonic acid), which contains a 2D inorganic building unit (IBU) comprised of a continuous edge-sharing sheet of copper phosphonate polyhedra is reported. The 2D IBUs are connected to each other via polyaromatic 2,6-NDPA's, forming a 3D pillared-layered MOF structure. This MOF, known as TUB40, has a narrow band gap of 1.42 eV, a record high average electrical conductance of 2 × 10² S m⁻¹ at room temperature based on single-crystal conductivity measurements, and an electrical conductance of 142 S m⁻¹ based on a pellet measurement. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the conductivity is due to an excitation from the highest occupied molecular orbital on the naphthalene-building unit to the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital on the copper atoms. Temperature-dependent magnetization measurements show that the copper atoms are antiferromagnetically coupled at very low temperatures, which is also confirmed by the DFT calculations. Due to its high conductance and thermal/chemical stability, TUB40 may prove useful as an electrode material in supercapacitors.