Effect of surface coating on the screw loosening of dental abutment screws

Regardless of the type of performed restoration, in most cases, a screw connection is employed between the abutment and implant. For this reason, implant screw loosening has remained a problem in restorative practices. The purpose of this study was to compare the surface of coated/plated screws with titanium and gold alloy screws and to evaluate the physical properties of coated/plated material after scratch tests via FE-SEM (field emission scanning electron microscopy) investigation. GoldTite, titanium screws provided by 3i (Implant Innovation, USA) and TorqTite, titanium screws by Steri-Oss (Nobel Biocare, USA) and gold screws and titanium screws by AVANA (Osstem Implant, Korea) were selected for this study. The surface, crest, and root of the abutment screws were observed by FE-SEM. A micro-diamond needle was also prepared for the scratch test. Each abutment screw was fixed, and a scratch on the surface of the head region was made at constant load and thereafter the fine trace was observed with FE-SEM. The surface of GoldTite was smoother than that of other screws and it also had abundant ductility and malleability compared with titanium and gold screws. The scratch tests also revealed that teflon particles were exfoliated easily in the screw coated with teflon. The titanium screw had rough surface and low ductility. The clinical use of gold-plated screws is recommended as a means of preventing screw loosening.     

Polar-Cartesian Hybrid Transforms: A novel 2D range scan registration algorithm

Registration of range scans is commonly required in many localization and mapping algorithms. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach called Polar-Cartesian Hybrid Transforms for pair-wise registration of range scans. The proposed algorithm iteratively establishes correspondences by searching the points with closest polar angles in the polar coordinate frame. An angular look-up table is constructed based on the properties of the laser range finder to accelerate the searching procedure. In order to speed up the convergence, we compute the difference of polar range of every matched point pair to select the most contributing correspondences. After the correspondences are determined, the transformation is computed in Cartesian coordinate frame using a point-to-line metric. Combining the advantages of the polar and Cartesian coordinate frames, both robustness and efficiency are greatly improved compared with an up-to-date ICP algorithm.     

Direct microscale imprinting of Al at room temperature with Si inserts

For direct imprinting of metals, hard materials such as diamond and SiC have been used to construct mold inserts in preference to Si, despite the ease in fabricating Si-based micro-/nano- scale structures. In this communication, we demonstrate that micron scale Al structures can be replicated with good fidelity at room temperature by compression molding with Si inserts without incurring insert damage. We further report on results of a finite element analysis of the mechanics of the molding process. The finite element results provide some understanding of the observed lack of damage to the Si inserts.     

Reducing control points in lofted B-spline surface interpolation using common knot vector determination

A new algorithm for reducing control points in lofted surface interpolation to rows of data points is presented in this paper. The key step of surface lofting is to obtain a set of compatible B-spline curves interpolating each row. Given a set of points and their parameterization, a necessary and sufficient condition is proposed to determine the existence of interpolating B-spline curves defined on a given knot vector. Based on this condition, we first properly construct a common knot vector that guarantees the existence of interpolating B-spline curves to each row of points. Then we calculate a set of interpolating B-spline curves defined on the common knot vector by energy minimization. Using this method, fewer control points are employed while maintaining a visually pleasing shape of the lofted surface. Several experimental results demonstrate the usability and quality of the proposed method.     

Pitchfork bifurcation and flip-flop operation with a coupled nonlinear system

A ring cavity system consisting of two hybrid Michelson interferometers coupled together with feedback is constructed. This system shows spatial bifurcation and can be utilized as an all-optical flip-flop device. We demonstrate experimentally a flip-flop operation by use of only a positive pulse in this system.     

Metal microparticle – Polymer composites as printable,bio/ecoresorbable conductive inks

Biologically and environmentally resorbable electronic devices support application possibilities that cannot be addressed with conventional technologies. This paper presents highly conductive, water-soluble composites that can be printed to form contacts, interconnects, antennas, and other important features that are essential to nearly all systems of this type. An optimized material formulation involves in situ polymerization to yield a polyanhydride containing a dispersion of molybdenum microparticles at appropriate concentrations. Comparisons of essential physical and electrical properties of these materials to those of composites formed with other polymers and other metal microparticles reveal the relevant considerations. Various functional demonstrations of screen-printed test structures and devices illustrate the suitability of these conductive inks for use in water-soluble electronic devices. A key advantage of the material introduced here compared to alternatives is its ability to maintain conductance over significant periods of time while immersed in relevant aqueous solutions. Studies involving live animal models establish the biocompatibility.     

Topological derivative-based technique for imaging thin inhomogeneities with few incident directions

Many non-iterative imaging algorithms require a large number of incident directions. Topological derivative-based imaging techniques can alleviate this problem, but lacks a theoretical background and a definite means of selecting the optimal incident directions. In this paper, we rigorously analyse the mathematical structure of a topological derivative imaging function, confirm why a small number of incident directions is sufficient, and explore the optimal configuration of these directions. To this end, we represent the topological derivative-based imaging function as an infinite series of Bessel functions of integer order of the first kind. Our analysis is supported by the results of numerical simulations.