Influence of different light sources and photo-activation methods on degree of conversion and polymerization shrinkage of a nanocomposite resin

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of different light sources and photo-activation methods on degree of conversion (DC%) and polymerization shrinkage (PS) of a nanocomposite resin (Filtek (TM) Supreme XT, 3M/ESPE). Two light-curing units (LCUs), one halogen-lamp (QTH) and one light-emitting-diode (LED), and two different photo-activation methods (continuous and gradual) were investigated in this study. The specimens were divided in four groups: group 1-power density (PD) of 570 mW/cm(2) for 20 s (QTH); group 2-PD 0 at 570 mW/cm(2) for 10 s + 10 s at 570 mW/cm(2) (QTH); group 3-PD 860 mW/cm(2) for 20 s (LED), and group 4-PD 125 mW/cm(2) for 10 s + 10 s at 860 mW/cm(2) (LED). A testing machine EMIC with rectangular steel bases (6 x 1 x 2 mm) was used to record the polymerization shrinkage forces (MPa) for a period that started with the photo-activation and ended after two minutes of measurement. For each group, ten repetitions (n = 40) were performed. For DC% measurements, five specimens (n = 20) for each group were made in a metallic mold (2 mm thickness and 4 mm diameter, ISO 4049) and them pulverized, pressed with bromide potassium (KBr) and analyzed with FT-IR spectroscopy. The data of PS were analyzed by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with Welch`s correction and Tamhane`s test. The PS means (MPa) were: 0.60 (G1); 0.47 (G2); 0.52 (G3) and 0.45 (G4), showing significant differences between two photo-activation methods, regardless of the light source used. The continuous method provided the highest values for PS. The data of DC% were analyzed by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and shows significant differences for QTH LCUs, regardless of the photo-activation method used. The QTH provided the lowest values for DC%. The gradual method provides lower polymerization contraction, either with halogen lamp or LED. Degree of conversion (%) for continuous or gradual photo-activation method was influenced by the LCUs. Thus, the presented results suggest that gradual method photo-activation with LED LCU would suffice to ensure adequate degree of conversion and minimum polymerization shrinkage.

Effect of light-curing units on push-out fiber post bond strength in root canal dentin

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of different light-curing units on the bond strength (push-out) of glass fiber posts in the different thirds of the root (cervical, middle and apical) with different adhesive luting resin systems (dual-cure total-etch; dual-cured and self-etch bonding system; and dual-cure self-adhesive cements), Disks of the samples (n = 144) were used, with approximately 1 mm of thickness of 48 bovine roots restored with glass fiber posts, that were luted with resin cements photo-activated by halogen LCU (QTH, Optilux 501) and blue LED (Ultraled), with power densities of 600 and 550 mW/cm(2), respectively. A universal testing machine (MTS 810 Material Test System) was used with a 1 mm diameter steel rod at cross-head speed of 0.5 mm/min until post extrusion, with load cell of 50 kg, for evaluation of the push-out strength in the different thirds of each sample. The push-out strength values in kgf were converted to MPa and analyzed through Analysis of Variance and Tukey`s test, at significance level of 5%. The results showed that there were no statistical differences between the QTH and LED LCUs. The self-adhesive resin cement had lower values of retention. The total-etch and self-adhesive system resin cements seem to be a possible alternative for glass fiber posts cementation into the radicular canal and the LED LCU can be applied as an alternative to halogen light on photo-activation of dual-cured resin cements.

FeNbP in ultra-low carbon Nb-added steel containing high P

Precipitation of FeTiP is reported to occur in Ti-added IF steels containing high P during thermomechanical processing. An ultra-low carbon (ULC) Nb-added steel ingot containing a higher P content (< 0.8 wt-%) was produced via aluminothermic reduction of Fe2O3 followed by double electron beam melting (EBM). FeNbP coarse precipitates were observed in the as-cast microstructure. After soaking at 1050C for 1 h, the plate was hot rolled from 31 mm down to 7 mm in thickness (total reduction of 77%). During cold rolling of these hot bands we observed embrittlement. We believe that this embrittlement can be attributed to the presence of the FeNbP precipitates. Light optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDS) were used to characterize the microstructure of this ULC steel. (C) 2000 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Fractal behavior throughout stretch zone of 15-5PH steel under elastic-plastic loading conditions

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

MRT letter: Extended depth from focus reconstruction method for stretch zone measurement in 15-5PH steel

The stretch zone width (SZW) data for 15-5PH steel CTOD specimens fractured at -150 degrees C to + 23 degrees C temperature were measured based on focused images and 3D maps obtained by extended depth-of-field reconstruction from light microscopy (LM) image stacks. This LM-based method, with a larger lateral resolution, seems to be as effective for quantitative analysis of SZW as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) or confocal scanning laser microscopy (CSLM), permitting to clearly identify stretch zone boundaries. Despite the worst sharpness of focused images, a robust linear correlation was established to fracture toughness (KC) and SZW data for the 15-5PH steel tested specimens, measured at their center region. The method is an alternative to evaluate the boundaries of stretched zones, at a lower cost of implementation and training, since topographic data from elevation maps can be associated with reconstructed image, which summarizes the original contrast and brightness information. Finally, the extended depth-of-field method is presented here as a valuable tool for failure analysis, as a cheaper alternative to investigate rough surfaces or fracture, compared to scanning electron or confocal light microscopes. Microsc. Res. Tech. 75:11551158, 2012. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Influence of different light sources and photo-activation methods on degree of conversion and polymerization shrinkage of a nanocomposite resin

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Influence of the Light-Curing Unit, Storage Time and Shade of a Dental Composite Resin on the Fluorescence

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of three light-curing units, storage times and colors of the dental composite resin on the fluorescence. The specimens (diameter 10.0 +/- 0.1 mm, thickness 1.0 +/- 0.1 mm) were made using a stainless steel mold. The mold was filled with the microhybrid composite resin and a polyethylene film covered each side of the mold. After this, a glass slide was placed on the top of the mold. To standardize the top surface of the specimens a circular weight (1 kg) with an orifice to pass the light tip of the LCU was placed on the top surface and photo-activated during 40 s. Five specimens were made for each group. The groups were divided into 9 groups following the LCUs (one QTH and two LEDs), storage times (immediately after curing, 24 hours, 7 and 30 days) and colors (shades: A(2)E, A(2)D, and TC) of the composite resin. After photo-activation, the specimens were storage in artificial saliva during the storage times proposed to each group at 37 C and 100% humidity. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey's post-hoc tests showed no significant difference between storage times (immediately, 24 hours and 30 days) (P > 0.05). The means of fluorescence had difference significant to color and light-curing unit used to all period of storage (P < 0.05). The colors had difference significant between them (shades: A2D < A2E < TC) (P < 0.05). The Ultraled (LED) and Ultralux (QTH) when used the TC shade showed higher than Radii (LED), however to A2E shade and A2D shade any difference were found (P > 0.05).

Naturally light invisible axion in models with large local discrete symmetries

We show that by introducing appropriate local Z(N)(Ngreater than or equal to13) symmetries in electroweak models it is possible to implement an automatic Peccei-Quinn symmetry, at the same time keeping the axion protected against gravitational effects. Although we consider here only an extension of the standard model and a particular 3-3-1 model, the strategy can be used in any kind of electroweak model. An interesting feature of this 3-3-1 model is that if we add (i) right-handed neutrinos, (ii) the conservation of the total lepton number, and (iii) a Z(2) symmetry, the Z(13) and the chiral Peccei-Quinn U(1)P-Q symmetries are both accidental symmetries in the sense that they are not imposed on the Lagrangian but are just a consequence of the particle content of the model, its gauge invariance, renormalizability, and Lorentz invariance. In addition, this model has no domain wall problem.

Light-front zero-mode contribution to the Ward Identity

In a covariant gauge we implicitly assume that the Green's function propagates information from one point of the space-time to another, so that the Green's function is responsible for the dynamics of the relativistic particle. In the light front form one would naively expect, that this feature would be preserved. In this manner, the fermionic field propagator can be split into a propagating piece and a non-propagating (contact) term. Since the latter (contact) one does not propagate information; and therefore, supposedly can be discarded with no harm to the field dynamics we wanted to know what would be the impact of dropping it off. To do that, we investigated its role in the Ward identity in the light front. Here we use the terminology Ward identity to identify the limiting case of photon's zero momentum transfer in the vertex from the more general Ward-Takahashi identity with nonzero momentum transfer.

Low-Energy Scattering of Heavy-Light Mesons from Nucleons

We study the low-energy scattering of charmed (D) and strange (K) mesons by nucleons. The short-distance part of the interaction is due to quark-gluon interchanges derived from a model that realizes dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and confines color. The quark-gluon interaction incorporates a confining Coulomb-like potential extracted from lattice QCD simulations in Coulomb gauge and a transverse hyperfine interaction consistent with a finite gluon propagator in the infrared. The long-distance part of the interaction is due to single vector (rho, omega) and scalar (sigma) meson exchanges. We show results for scattering cross-sections for isospin I = 0 and I = 1.

Light Front Boson Model Propagation

The scope and aim of this work is to describe the two-body interaction mediated by a particle (either the scalar or the gauge boson) within the light-front formulation. To do this, first of all we point out the importance of propagators and Green functions in Quantum Mechanics. Then we project the covariant quantum propagator onto the light front time to get the propagator for scalar particles in these coordinates. This operator propagates the wave function from x(+) = 0 to x(+) > 0. It corresponds to the definition of the time ordering operation in the light front time x(+). We calculate the light-front Green's function for 2 interacting bosons propagating forward in x(+). We also show how to write down the light front Green's function from the Feynman propagator and finally make a generalization to N bosons.

Do tadpoles vanish in the light-front?

In covariant gauges (CG) regularized with dimensional regularization (DR) it is a standard procedure to set all tadpole Feynman integrals to zero, though; explicitly, they diverge quadratically as the space-time volume. on the other hand, in the notoriously subtle light-front gauge (LTG) some divergent tadpole integrals are said to be nonvanishing, i.e., cannot be set to zero as in the CC case. In this article we analyse the reasons behind this seemingly ambiguous results.

Light composite Higgs from an effective action for technicolor

We compute an effective action for a composite Higgs boson formed by new fermions belonging to a general technicolor non-Abelian gauge theory, using a quite general expression for the fermionic self-energy that depends on a certain parameter (alpha), that defines the technicolor theory from the extreme walking behavior up to the one with a standard operator product expansion behavior. We discuss the values of the trilinear and quadrilinear scalar couplings. Our calculation spans all the possible physical possibilities for mass and couplings of the composite system. In the case of extreme walking technicolor theories we verify that it is possible to have a composite Higgs boson with a mass as light as the present experimental limit, contrary to the usual expectation of a heavy mass for the composite Higgs boson. In this case we obtain an upper limit for the Higgs boson mass, (M(H)<= O(700) GeV for SU(2)(TC)), and the experimental data on the Higgs boson mass constrain SU(N)(TC) technicolor gauge groups to be smaller than SU(10)(TC).

Probing negative-dimensional integration: Two-loop covariant vertex and one-loop light-cone integrals

The negative-dimensional integration method (NDIM) seems to be a very promising technique for evaluating massless and/or massive Feynman diagrams. It is unique in the sense that the method gives solutions in different regions of external momenta simultaneously. Moreover, it is a technique whereby the difficulties associated with performing parametric integrals in the standard approach are transferred to a simpler solving of a system of linear algebraic equations, thanks to the polynomial character of the relevant integrands. We employ this method to evaluate a scalar integral for a massless two-loop three-point vertex with all the external legs off-shell, and consider several special cases for it, yielding results, even for distinct simpler diagrams. We also consider the possibility of NDIM in non-covariant gauges such as the light-cone gauge and do some illustrative calculations, showing that for one-degree violation of covariance (i.e. one external, gauge-breaking, light-like vector n μ) the ensuing results are concordant with the ones obtained via either the usual dimensional regularization technique, or the use of the principal value prescription for the gauge-dependent pole, while for two-degree violation of covariance - i.e. two external, light-like vectors n μ, the gauge-breaking one, and (its dual) n * μ - the ensuing results are concordant with the ones obtained via causal constraints or the use of the so-called generalized Mandelstam-Leibbrandt prescription. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V.

Prescriptionless light-cone integrals

Perturbative quantum gauge field theory as seen within the perspective of physical gauge choices such as the light-cone gauge entails the emergence of troublesome poles of the type (k · n)-α in the Feynman integrals. These come from the boson field propagator, where α = 1, 2, ⋯ and nμ is the external arbitrary four-vector that defines the gauge proper. This becomes an additional hurdle in the computation of Feynman diagrams, since any graph containing internal boson lines will inevitably produce integrands with denominators bearing the characteristic gauge-fixing factor. How one deals with them has been the subject of research over decades, and several prescriptions have been suggested and tried in the course of time, with failures and successes. However, a more recent development at this fronteer which applies the negative dimensional technique to compute light-cone Feynman integrals shows that we can altogether dispense with prescriptions to perform the calculations. An additional bonus comes to us attached to this new technique, in that not only it renders the light-cone prescriptionless but, by the very nature of it, it can also dispense with decomposition formulas or partial fractioning tricks used in the standard approach to separate pole products of the type (k · n)-α[(k - p) · n]-β (β = 1, 2, ⋯). In this work we demonstrate how all this can be done.