A case of using the Semantic Interoperability Framework for custom orthopedic implants manufacturing

The efficiency and effectiveness of the daily practice in orthopedic surgery depend on the availability, interoperability and unique access to a wide set of information, related to the patient’s medical record and diagnosis, domain knowledge and available resources and staff. The most important of the tangible resources, needed for the therapeutic or preventive actions are orthopedic implants. In some cases, the implants may be highly complex and customized products, which need to be manufactured (assembled) on basis of the above information in a shortest possible timeframe. In this paper, the case of the custom orthopedic implants manufacturing is described from the perspective of the collaborative enterprising, with special consideration of the interoperability issues of the involved enterprise collaboration. It is shown how the previously developed Semantic Interoperability Framework can be used to improve the efficiency of the manufacturing and other relevant processes.     

Solvothermal synthesis of Ag/ZnO micro/nanostructures with different precursors for advanced photocatalytic applications

Micro/nanostructured systems based on metallic oxide (ZnO) with noble metal (Ag) on the surface (Ag/ZnO) are synthesized by solvothermal method from zinc nitrate hexahydrate (Zn(NO₃)₂·6H₂O), zinc acetate dehydrate (Zn(CH₃COO)₂·2H₂O), zinc acetylacetonate hydrate (Zn(C₅H₇O₂)₂·xH₂O) and silver nitrate (Ag(NO₃)) as precursors. In these systems, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is used as surfactant for controlling particle morphology, size and dispersion. The obtained materials are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), N₂ gas adsorption–desorption (BET) and Raman spectroscopy (RS). By XRD results, all major peaks are indexed to the hexagonal wurtzite-type structure of the ZnO and samples with noble metal, extra diffraction peaks are detected which correspond to the face-centered-cubic (fcc) structure of the metallic Ag. Depending on used precursor, different morphologies have been obtained. Mainly, ZnO prims-like rods – NRs (with 0.8 ? aspect ratio ? 3.4) – have been observed. Quasi-spherical particles of metallic Ag (with diameters between 558 ± 111 μm and 22 ± 1 nm) have been detected on the ZnO surface. Photocatalytic results (all samples studied >30% MB degradation) verify the important effect of surfactant and the viability of synthesized Ag/ZnO micro/nanocomposites for environmental applications.     

Analysis of the strain and hardness in self-cured and light-cured self-adhesive resin based cement

The study showed an application of the 3?D Digital Image Correlation Method (3?D-DIC) for detection of von Mises strain in samples of the self-etch, self-adhesive resin based cement (RBC). The aim was to determine and compare strain in the self-cured and light-cured Maxcem Elite, furthermore to investigate the hardness of these two cement-types. The experiment was carried out using two groups of Maxcem Elite (Kerr, Orange, CA, USA) samples; each tested group includes five (ø5?×?2?mm sized) samples, for both self-curing and light-curing mode. All samples were prepared by filling teflon ring-type molds. In addition, Vickers micro-hardness was measured for all samples. Maxcem Elite showed similar maximum strain values from 10% to 12% for both groups. Besides the maximum strain value, the 3?D-DIC method also enabled monitoring the change of strain field even after the recommended polymerization time. This method has shown that the polymerization shrinkage continues even after 10?min which disagreed with manufacturer’s suggestion. Group II showed maximum strain values of 12% in the peripheral zone after 10?min, in the last Stage (Stage 60). Statistically significant difference was not found in the overall strain between self- and light-cured Maxcem Elite neither peripherally (p?=?0.118) nor centrally (p?=?0.879). However, statistical significance was found in strain regarding central and peripheral zone in both, self-cured (p?=?0.020) and light-cured (p?=?0.002) Maxcem Elite. The mean von Mises strain values in the periphery of the samples (Section 0) were significantly higher compared to strain values in the center of the samples (for Section 1 and 2). The last stage (Stage 60) of the light-cured Maxcem Elite polymerization showed significantly higher values of von Mises strain compared to initial stage (Stage 0). Higher values of micro-hardness were noticed on the surfaces directly exposed to LED lamp after performing measurements of micro-hardness on light-cured samples.     

Self‐assembled structures in polystyrene‐block‐polyisoprene‐blend‐polystyrene and polystyrene‐block‐poly(methyl methacrylate)‐blend‐polystyrene or ‐blend‐poly(methyl methacrylate) in the strong segregation regime

This study deals with the investigation of microphase‐separated morphology and phase behaviour in blends of polystyrene‐block‐polyisoprene with homopolystyrene and blends of polystyrene‐block‐poly(methyl methacrylate) with homopoly(methyl methacrylate) or homopolystyrene in the strong segregation regime using small‐angle X‐ray scattering and transmission electron microscopy as a function of composition, molecular weight of homopolymers, r_M and temperature. Parameter r_M = M_H/M_C (where M_H is the molecular weight of homopolymer and M_C that of the corresponding block copolymer) was selected to encompass behaviour of the chains denoted as a ‘wet brush’ (i.e. r_M < 1). The relative domain spacing D/D_o increases in the regime 0 < r_M?1 with increasing concentration of homopolymer w_P and increasing r_M but depends on the specific implemented morphology. We tested a new approximate D/D_o versus w_P relation in the strong segregation regime using block copolymers of high molecular weights. It is shown that the parameters r_M and χ^3/2N determine the slope of the D/D_o versus w_P relation in the strong segregation regime and the new approximation generally matches the experimental data better than the approximations used so far. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry     

Optimized preparation of alumina based fillers for tuning composite properties

Alumina based particles were prepared from aluminium chloride hydroxide as starting material by sol-gel technique. One series of particles was doped with ferrous oxide. Both series of particles were calcinated at three different temperatures: 700?°C, 800?°C and 900?°C. Poly(methyl methacrylate), PMMA, was used as a matrix and two different types of alumina based particles were added into the matrix to form the composites. All composites consisted of 3?wt% of alumina based particles. The aim of this study was to examine whether and how the temperature of particle calcination affects the microhardness and mechanical properties of the composite. The particles were characterized by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) and physical absorption methods. The morphology of the composites was examined using a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The microhardness of composites was measured using a traditional Vickers hardness (HV) method. The mechanical characteristics of obtained composites were determined using tensile test and impact testing.     

Linear models‐based LPV modelling and control for wind turbines

The non‐linear behaviour of wind turbines demands control strategies that guarantee the robustness of the closed‐loop system. Linear parameter‐varying (LPV) controllers adapt their dynamics to the system operating points, and the robustness of the closed loop is guaranteed in the controller design process. An LPV collective pitch controller has been developed within this work to regulate the generator speed in the above rated power production control zone. The performance of this LPV controller has been compared with two baseline control strategies previously designed, on the basis of classical gain scheduling methods and linear time‐invariant robust H_∞ controllers. The synthesis of the LPV controller is based on the solution of a linear matrix inequalities system, proposed in a mixed‐sensitivity control scenario where not only weight functions are used but also an LPV model of the wind turbine is necessary. As a contribution, the LPV model used is derived from a family of linear models extracted from the linearization process of the wind turbine non‐linear model. The offshore wind turbine of 5 MW defined in the Upwind European project is the used reference non‐linear model, and it has been modelled using the GH Bladed 4.0 software package. The designed LPV controller has been validated in GH Bladed, and an exhaustive analysis has been carried out to calculate fatigue load reductions on wind turbine components, as well as to analyse the load mitigation in some extreme cases. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corrosion study of copper in the presence of benzotriazole and its hydroxy derivative

The inhibitory properties of benzotriazole (BTAH) and its hydroxy derivative, 1‐hydroxy‐benzotriazole (BTAOH) on copper corrosion, were compared in 3% NaCl solution using cyclic voltammetry (CV), immersion tests, profilometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) combined with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX). CV experiments showed rapid interaction of both inhibitors with a Cu surface, but only at high concentrations. Immersion tests under stationary conditions showed that BTAOH offered corrosion protection only at concentration of 10 mM. Moreover, it was not effective under stirring conditions at any of the concentrations investigated. In contrast, BTAH exhibited good corrosion inhibition ability in all immersion tests. BTAOH, at up to 1 mM, increased the surface roughness of Cu more than 3% NaCl solution alone, but a significant reduction of surface roughening was observed when BTAH was present. Porous cross‐linked acicular structures and star‐like structures were observed using SEM/EDX in the case of BTAOH treatment. When Cu was treated with BTAH, roundish surface structures composed of bent plates with toothed‐like edges, acicular structures and non‐porous few hundred nm thick plates were observed.     

High-Performance Membrane Chromatography of Small Molecules

High-performance membrane chromatography (HPMC) proved to be a very efficient method for fast protein separations. Recently, it was shown to be applicable also for the isocratic chromatography of plasmid DNA conformations. However, no study about the separation of small molecules has been performed until now. In this work, we investigated the possibility of gradient and isocratic HPMC of small molecules with Convective Interaction Media disks of different chemistries and tried to explain the mechanism that enables their separation. We demonstrated that it is possible to achieve efficient separations of oligonucleotides and peptides in the ion-exchange mode as well as the separation of small hydrophobic molecules in the reversed-phase mode. It was shown that similar peak resolution can be provided in both gradient and isocratic modes.     

An Algebra for Pomsets

We study languages for manipulatingpartially orderedstructures withduplicates(e.g., trees, lists). As a general framework, we consider thepomset(partially ordered multiset) data type. We introduce an algebra forpomsets, which generalizes traditional algebras for (nested) sets, bags, and lists. This paper is motivated by the study of the impact of different language primitives on the expressive power. We show that the use of partially ordered types increases the expressive power significantly. Surprisingly, it turns out that the algebra when restricted to both unordered (bags) and totally ordered (lists) intermediate types, yields the same expressive power as fixpoint logic with counting on relational databases. It therefore constitutes a rather robust class of relational queries. On the other hand, we obtain a characterization of PTIME queries on lists by considering only totally ordered types.     

Novel design approach for the creation of 3D geometrical model of personalized bone scaffold

Bone scaffolds provide a structural support for tissue development. Existing bone scaffolds are mainly characterized by complex porous designs whose shortcomings are a low level of permeability for growing tissue, and a difficult design customization. Scaffolds with nucleuses (rods or lattices) as basic elements should improve bone regeneration and enable higher design flexibility. In this paper, we present two new methods for building 3D geometrical models of personalized scaffolds, which are based on method of anatomical features. Methods are demonstrated in the case of scaffold for the mandible bone. This approach greatly reduces the designer effort and time, while enabling easy personalization of scaffolds’ shape and geometry.