The role of nanocrystalline titania coating on nanostructured austenitic stainless steel in enhancing osteoblasts functions for regeneration of tissue

In the context of osseointegration of metallic implants, while nanostructuring the surface favorably modulates cellular response, the disinfective attributes required during the healing process are not available. Thus, in the present study, we demonstrate that nanocrystalline titania provides cumulative benefit of enhancing osteoblasts functions to promote the efficacy of metal implants together with the disinfective attributes. To this end, the primary objective here is to examine the select functions of bone forming cells (osteoblasts) on electrocrystallized nanonodular titania-coated nanograined/ultrafine grained (NG/UFG) austenitic stainless steel. The accompanying objective is to study the disinfective/antimicrobial activity. To the best of our understanding this is the first study of nanophase titania on a non-titanium substrate. The osteoblasts functions were investigated in terms of cell attachment, proliferation, and quantitative analysis of proteins, actin and vinculin. In comparison to the bare NG/UFG substrate, the nanophase titania-coated substrate exhibited higher degree of cell attachment and proliferation which are regulated via cellular and molecular interactions with proteins, actin and vinculin. The enhanced functions of osteoblasts suggest that nanophase titania adsorbs extracellular matrix proteins, fibronectin and vitronectin from serum enhancing protein, with subsequent binding of integrins and osteoblasts precursor to titania. The antimicrobial attributes assessed in terms of degradation of methyl orange and effectiveness in killing E. coli supports the viewpoint that large surface area of titania would be instrumental in reducing the detrimental effect of biologically reactive oxygen species produced by macrophages in the vicinity of the metal bone/implant interface. In summary, the study provides some new insights concerning nanostructuring of metallic substrates with specific physical and surface properties for medical devices with significantly improved cellular response.     

Performance Analysis of WDM Optical Networks with Wavelength Usage Constraint

Due to power considerations, it is possible that not all wavelengths available in a fiber can be used at a given time. In this paper, an analytical model is proposed to evaluate the blocking performance of wavelength-routed optical networks with and without wavelength conversion where the usable wavelengths in a fiber is limited to a certain maximum number, referred to as wavelength usage constraint. The effect of the wavelength usage constraint is studied on ring and mesh-torus networks. It is shown that the analytical model closely approximates the simulation results. We also evaluate the performance of the first-fit wavelength assignment algorithm and compare its performance with the random wavelength assignment algorithm through simulation. It is observed that increasing the total number of wavelengths in a fiber is an attractive alternative to wavelength conversion when the number of usable wavelengths in a fiber is maintained the same.     

Cross-talk attack monitoring and localization in all-optical networks

The effects of an attack connection can propagate quickly to different parts of an all-optical transparent network. Such attacks affect the normal traffic and can either cause service degradation or outright service denial. Quick detection and localization of an attack source can avoid losing large amounts of data in an all-optical network. Attack monitors can collect the information from connections and nodes for diagnostic purpose. However, to detect attack sources, it is not necessary to put monitors at all nodes. Since those connections affected by the attack connection would provide valuable information for diagnosis, we show that by placing a relatively small number of monitors on a selected set of nodes in a network is sufficient to achieve the required level of performance. However, the actual monitor placement, routing, and attack diagnosis are challenging problems that need research attention. In this paper, we first develop our models of crosstalk attack and monitor node. With these models, we prove the necessary and sufficient condition for one-crosstalk-attack diagnosable networks. Next, we develop a scalable diagnosis method which can localize the attack connection efficiently with sparse monitor nodes in the network.     

Orientated crystallization in discontinuous aramid fiber/isotactic polypropylene composites under shear flow conditions

Melt blends of short aramid fibers (AF) and isotactic polypropylene (iPP) are subjected to shear at 145°C and the structural evolution and final morphology are examined by in situ synchrotron X‐ray scattering/diffraction and high‐resolution scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The results indicate that the presence of short AFs significantly enhances the crystallization of iPP. It is argued that shear flow in this system exerts a twofold orientating action, namely, on the bulk iPP molecules and on the short AFs. The resultant crystalline morphology reflects the combined effects of crystallization on orientated iPP molecules to facilitate a shish kebab morphology and at the interface of the aligned fibers, to form transcrystallinity. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 98: 1113–1118, 2005     

Effects of high molecular weight species on shear-induced orientation and crystallization of isotactic polypropylene

In situ rheo-SAXS (small-angle X-ray scattering) and—rheo-WAXD (wide-angle X-ray diffraction) techniques were used to investigate the role of high molecular weight species on the evolution of oriented microstructure in isotactic polypropylene (iPP) melt under shear flow. The two iPP samples, designated as PP-A and PP-B, respectively, had the same number-average (M_n) but different weight-average (M_w) and Z-average (M_z) molecular weights. Molecular weight distribution (MWD) of PP-A and PP-B was such that for MW<10⁵ the MWD curves overlapped; whereas in the high MW tail region, the amount of high molecular weight species was higher in PP-B than PP-A. Both samples were subjected to an identical shear condition (rate=60 s⁻¹, duration=5 s, T=155 °C). In situ 2D SAXS and WAXD images allowed the tracking of shear-induced oriented structures in the melt. It was found that the shish structures evolved much earlier, and the degree of crystal orientation and oriented crystal fractions were higher in PP-B than PP-A. Moreover, PP-B exhibited faster crystallization kinetics than PP-A. These results, along with the predictions of double reptation models of chain motion and experimental studies of chain conformation dynamics in dilute solutions under flow, suggest the following: When a polymer melt that consists of entangled chains of different lengths is deformed, the chain segments aligned with the flow eigenvector can undergo the abrupt coil-stretch-like transition, while other segments would remain in the coiled state. Since, flow-induced orientation decays much more slowly for long chains than for short chains, oriented high molecular weight species play a prominent role in formation of the stretched sections, where shish originates. Our experimental results are strong evidence of the hypothesis that even a small increase in the concentration of high molecular weight species causes a significant increase in the the formation, stability and concentration of the flow-induced oriented microstructure.     

Optimizing Location and Capacity for Multiple Types of Locomotive Maintenance Shops

Thousands of locomotives run in the North America railroad network and each of them must receive periodic maintenance service; meanwhile, the locomotives may break down during shipment operations and demand repair. Maintenance shops are characterized by the types of locomotives they can handle and the level of service they can provide. This article formulates a mixed‐integer program model to optimize location and capacity of locomotive maintenance shops. The objective is to minimize the sum of the costs for building new (or shutting down existing) maintenance shops, the costs for capacity expansion (or reduction), and the costs for shipping broken locomotives to a suitable shop. A Lagrangian‐relaxation‐based heuristic algorithm is proposed to solve the shop location and capacity planning problem. The model and solution techniques are applied to a full‐scale real‐world case study, while the computational results show that the current maintenance shops are overly built and recommend that two maintenance shops should be closed and an amount of capacities should be reduced from the existing shops. A series of numerical sensitivity analyses are also conducted to draw managerial insights.     

Optical quorum cycles for efficient communication

Many optical networks face heterogeneous communication requests requiring topologies to be efficient and fault tolerant. For efficiency and distributed control, it is common in distributed systems and algorithms to group nodes into intersecting sets referred to as quorum sets. We show efficiency and distributed control can also be accomplished in optical network routing by applying the same established quorum set theory. Cycle-based optical network routing, whether using SONET rings or p-cycles, provides the sufficient reliability in the network. Light-trails forming a cycle allow broadcasts within a cycle to be used for efficient multicasts. Cyclic quorum sets also have all pairs of nodes occurring in one or more quorums, so efficient, arbitrary unicast communication can occur between any two nodes. Efficient broadcasts to all network nodes are possible by a node broadcasting to all quorum cycles to which it belongs (\(O(\sqrt{N})\)). In this paper, we propose applying the distributed efficiency of the quorum sets to routing optical cycles based on light-trails. With this new method of topology construction, unicast and multicast communication requests do not need to be known or even modeled a priori. Additionally, in the presence of network link faults, greater than 99 % average coverage enables the continued operation of nearly all arbitrary unicast and multicast requests in the network. Finally, to further improve the fault coverage, an augmentation to the ECBRA cycle finding algorithm is proposed.     

Cellular Mechanisms of Enhanced Osteoblasts Functions via Phase‐Reversion Induced Nano/Submicron‐Grained Structure in a Low‐Ni Austenitic Stainless Steel

We elucidate here the fundamental principles underlying the modulation of osteoblasts functions in stainless steel biomedical devices achieved by nanoscale/submicron grain structure obtained through the novel concept of phase reversion in a low Ni bearing 15Cr–9Mn–1.7Cu steel. Interestingly, a comparative investigation of nano/submicron (N‐SM) and coarse‐grained (CG) structure under identical conditions indicated that cell attachment, proliferation, and viability are favorably enhanced in N‐SM grained structure and significantly different from the CG structure. These observations were further confirmed by expression levels of vinculin and associated actin cytoskeleton. Computational analysis of immunofluorescence micrographs suggested increased vinculin concentration associated with actin stress fibers in the outer regions of the cells and cellular extensions, implying enhanced cell–substrate interactions on the N‐SM grained substrate. The favorable enhancement of osteoblasts functions and cellular attachment on N‐SM grained surface is attributed to ultrafine grain size, i.e., the availability of greater open lattice in the position of high angle grain boundaries, and high hydrophilicity. The integration of cellular and molecular biology with material science and engineering as described here provides a route to modulate cellular and molecular reactions in promoting osteoinductive signaling of surface adherent cells. The end outcome of the study is that stainless steels with low Ni contents in comparison to the conventionally used bioimplant with 10–13 wt%Ni, as specially processed, exhibit desired, enhanced cell functions, and bulk properties.     

Efficient algorithms for routing dependable connections in WDMoptical networks

We consider the problem of establishing dependable connections in WDM networks with dynamic traffic demands. We call a connection with fault-tolerant requirements a dependable connection (D-connection). We consider the single-link failure model in our study and recommend the use of a proactive approach, wherein a D-connection is identified with the establishment of the primary lightpath and a backup lightpath at the time of honouring the connection request. We develop algorithms to select routes and wavelengths to establish D-connections with improved blocking performance. The algorithms use the backup multiplexing technique to efficiently utilize the wavelength channels. To further improve channel utilization, we propose a new multiplexing technique called primary-backup multiplexing. Here, a connection may not have its backup lightpath readily available throughout its existence. We develop algorithms based on this technique to route D-connections with a specified restoration guarantee. We present an efficient and computationally simple heuristic to estimate the average number of connections per link that do not have backup lightpaths readily available upon a link failure. We conduct extensive simulation experiments on different networks to study the performance of the proposed algorithms