Analysis of the effects of irradiation in osseointegrated dental implants

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the influence of radiation in osseointegrated dental implants installed in tibiae of rats.Material and methods: Screw-shaped implants (2.5 mm diameter by 3.5 mm length) were custom made from commercially pure titanium bars. Titanium implants were blasted and sterilized before implantation. Animals were divided into two groups of 12 animals each and the rats were not paired after the groups' formation. The experimental group (group 1) received external irradiation 4 weeks after surgery while in the control group (group 2) animals were kept free of radiation. The shear strength required to detach the implant from bone was measured by push-out testing and osseointegration was histologically evaluated.Results: Results showed that the compressive strength of irradiated implants (33.49 MPa) was significantly lower than the compressive strength of non-irradiated implants (48.05 MPa).Conclusions: We concluded that the mechanical strength bonding between implants and host tissues decreased after irradiation.

Assessment of external root temperature during root canal irradiation by Nd:YAG and Er:YAG lasers

Different types of laser have been widely studied for applicability in the oral health area. In the endodontic area, investigations with some types of laser have been conducted to establish safe parameters for clinical application in root canals. However, it has not been duly explained whether the temperature increase caused by laser irradiation could cause alteration in the temperature on the external surface of the root and, consequently, alterations in the cells of the periodontal ligament, causing resorption and even loss of the dental element. The proposal in this paper was to gauge the external root temperature in the apical and cervical regions of the roots of human teeth during root canal irradiation with Nd:yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) and Er:YAG lasers using different parameters. The novel approach of this paper is the use of the technique of laser applications along the total length of the root canal with series of repetitive irradiation, however, using time of 1 s of irradiation associated with 1 s off to avoid cumulative thermal effects. Experimental results confirm the accuracy of the parameters and exposure regimen obtained. All the parameters used in this paper are acceptable from a clinical as well as a biological point of view. (C) 2009 Laser Institute of America.

Effects of Er, Cr:YSGG laser irradiation on external adaptation of restorations in caries-affected cavities

This study evaluated the effect of Er,Cr:YSGG laser irradiation on the external adaptation of composite resin restorations in caries-affected cavities. Mixed class V cavity preparations were performed in 36 intact human third molars, in half of which caries was artificially induced. Both healthy and carious dentin were etched with 35% phosphoric acid (Ultradent Products Inc., South Jordan, Utah, USA), and the teeth were divided into three groups, i.e., (a) untreated etched dentin, (b) application of the Er, Cr:YSGG laser and (c) use of chlorhexidine as an adjunct in the bonding process. Restorations were fabricated with Z350 XT FiltekTM composite resin (3M ESPE) and subsequently the specimens were subjected to thermocycling to simulate artificial ageing. Quantitative analysis of external adaptation was performed by scanning electron microscopy in both healthy and affected dentin using epoxy resin replicas. It was concluded that the application of laser and chlorhexidine did not affect the percentages of marginal adaptation of class V restorations. Furthermore, thermocycling may influence adaptation values.

Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation (APBI) : a review of available techniques

Breast conservation therapy (BCT) is the procedure of choice for the management of the early stage breast cancer. However, its utilization has not been maximized because of logistics issues associated with the protracted treatment involved with the radiation treatment. Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation (APBI) is an approach that treats only the lumpectomy bed plus a 1-2 cm margin, rather than the whole breast. Hence because of the small volume of irradiation a higher dose can be delivered in a shorter period of time. There has been growing interest for APBI and various approaches have been developed under phase I-III clinical studies; these include multicatheter interstitial brachytherapy, balloon catheter brachytherapy, conformal external beam radiation therapy and intra-operative radiation therapy (IORT). Balloon-based brachytherapy approaches include Mammosite, Axxent electronic brachytherapy and Contura, Hybrid brachytherapy devices include SAVI and ClearPath. This paper reviews the different techniques, identifying the weaknesses and strength of each approach and proposes a direction for future research and development. It is evident that APBI will play a role in the management of a selected group of early breast cancer. However, the relative role of the different techniques is yet to be clearly identified.

Nanoinstabilities as revealed by shrinkage of nanocavities in silicon during irradiation

While the thermodynamic nonequilibrium properties of nanoparticles are being extensively studied, the thermodynamic nonequilibrium properties of their counterpart: nanocavities, however, are less noticed. Here, we systematically review and comprehensively model the recently published results on the newly-found thermodynamic nonequilibriurn properties of nanocavities in covalently bound materials during energetic beam irradiation. We also review and model the thermodynamic nonequilibrium properties of nanoparticles. The review and modelling not only demonstrates the novel nonequilibriurn properties of such an open-volume nanostructure during external excitation but also gives a deep insight into the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of amorphous structures and the difference in the behaviours of defects in crystalline and in amorphous silicon. Especially, the review and modelling leads to two new concepts:anti-symmetry relation between a nanoparticle and a nanocavity；energetic beam induced-soft mode and lattice instability in condensed matter；which reveals that structure of a condensed matter would be unstable not only at nanosize scale but also at a nanotime scale in general. It is also reveals that such nanoinstabilities would be more pronounced in an amorphous structure than in a crystalline structure.

Shrinkage of nanocavities in silicon during electron beam irradiation

An internal shrinkage of nanocavity in silicon was in situ observed under irradiation of energetic electron on electron transmission microscopy. Because there is no addition of any external materials to cavity site, a predicted nanosize effect on the shrinkage was observed. At the same time, because there is no ion cascade effect as encountered in the previous ion irradiation-induced nanocavity shrinkage experiment, the electron irradiation-induced instability of nanocavity also provides a further more convincing evidence to demonstrate the predicted irradiation-induced athermal activation effect. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.

Tailoring Magnetic Properties of Co-Fe Thin Films by Topographical Modifications Using Thermal Annealing and Swift Heavy Ion Irradiation and Fabrication of Magnetoelectric Multilayers for Device Applications

Magnetism and magnetic materials have been playing a lead role in improving the quality of life. They are increasingly being used in a wide variety of applications ranging from compasses to modern technological devices. Metallic glasses occupy an important position among magnetic materials. They assume importance both from a scientific and an application point of view since they represent an amorphous form of condensed matter with significant deviation from thermodynamic equilibrium. Metallic glasses having good soft magnetic properties are widely used in tape recorder heads, cores of high-power transformers and metallic shields. Superconducting metallic glasses are being used to produce high magnetic fields and magnetic levitation effect. Upon heat treatment, they undergo structural relaxation leading to subtle rearrangements of constituent atoms. This leads to densification of amorphous phase and subsequent nanocrystallisation. The short-range structural relaxation phenomenon gives rise to significant variations in physical, mechanical and magnetic properties. Magnetic amorphous alloys of Co-Fe exhibit excellent soft magnetic properties which make them promising candidates for applications as transformer cores, sensors, and actuators. With the advent of microminiaturization and nanotechnology, thin film forms of these alloys are sought after for soft under layers for perpendicular recording media. The thin film forms of these alloys can also be used for fabrication of magnetic micro electro mechanical systems (magnetic MEMS). In bulk, they are drawn in the form of ribbons, often by melt spinning. The main constituents of these alloys are Co, Fe, Ni, Si, Mo and B. Mo acts as the grain growth inhibitor and Si and B facilitate the amorphous nature in the alloy structure. The ferromagnetic phases such as Co-Fe and Fe-Ni in the alloy composition determine the soft magnetic properties. The grain correlation length, a measure of the grain size, often determines the soft magnetic properties of these alloys. Amorphous alloys could be restructured in to their nanocrystalline counterparts by different techniques. The structure of nanocrystalline material consists of nanosized ferromagnetic crystallites embedded in an amorphous matrix. When the amorphous phase is ferromagnetic, they facilitate exchange coupling between nanocrystallites. This exchange coupling results in the vanishing of magnetocrystalline anisotropy which improves the soft magnetic properties. From a fundamental perspective, exchange correlation length and grain size are the deciding factors that determine the magnetic properties of these nanocrystalline materials. In thin films, surfaces and interfaces predominantly decides the bulk property and hence tailoring the surface roughness and morphology of the film could result in modified magnetic properties. Surface modifications can be achieved by thermal annealing at various temperatures. Ion irradiation is an alternative tool to modify the surface/structural properties. The surface evolution of a thin film under swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation is an outcome of different competing mechanism. It could be sputtering induced by SHI followed by surface roughening process and the material transport induced smoothening process. The impingement of ions with different fluence on the alloy is bound to produce systematic microstructural changes and this could effectively be used for tailoring magnetic parameters namely coercivity, saturation magnetization, magnetic permeability and remanence of these materials. Swift heavy ion irradiation is a novel and an ingenious tool for surface modification which eventually will lead to changes in the bulk as well as surface magnetic property. SHI has been widely used as a method for the creation of latent tracks in thin films. The bombardment of SHI modifies the surfaces or interfaces or creates defects, which induces strain in the film. These changes will have profound influence on the magnetic anisotropy and the magnetisation of the specimen. Thus inducing structural and morphological changes by thermal annealing and swift heavy ion irradiation, which in turn induce changes in the magnetic properties of these alloys, is one of the motivation of this study. Multiferroic and magneto-electrics is a class of functional materials with wide application potential and are of great interest to material scientists and engineers. Magnetoelectric materials combine both magnetic as well as ferroelectric properties in a single specimen. The dielectric properties of such materials can be controlled by the application of an external magnetic field and the magnetic properties by an electric field. Composites with magnetic and piezo/ferroelectric individual phases are found to have strong magnetoelectric (ME) response at room temperature and hence are preferred to single phasic multiferroic materials. Currently research in this class of materials is towards optimization of the ME coupling by tailoring the piezoelectric and magnetostrictive properties of the two individual components of ME composites. The magnetoelectric coupling constant (MECC) (_ ME) is the parameter that decides the extent of interdependence of magnetic and electric response of the composite structure. Extensive investigates have been carried out in bulk composites possessing on giant ME coupling. These materials are fabricated by either gluing the individual components to each other or mixing the magnetic material to a piezoelectric matrix. The most extensively investigated material combinations are Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) or Lead Magnesium Niobate-Lead Titanate (PMNPT) as the piezoelectric, and Terfenol-D as the magnetostrictive phase and the coupling is measured in different configurations like transverse, longitudinal and inplane longitudinal. Fabrication of a lead free multiferroic composite with a strong ME response is the need of the hour from a device application point of view. The multilayer structure is expected to be far superior to bulk composites in terms of ME coupling since the piezoelectric (PE) layer can easily be poled electrically to enhance the piezoelectricity and hence the ME effect. The giant magnetostriction reported in the Co-Fe thin films makes it an ideal candidate for the ferromagnetic component and BaTiO3 which is a well known ferroelectric material with improved piezoelectric properties as the ferroelectric component. The multilayer structure of BaTiO3- CoFe- BaTiO3 is an ideal system to understand the underlying fundamental physics behind the ME coupling mechanism. Giant magnetoelectric coupling coefficient is anticipated for these multilayer structures of BaTiO3-CoFe-BaTiO3. This makes it an ideal candidate for cantilever applications in magnetic MEMS/NEMS devices. SrTiO3 is an incipient ferroelectric material which is paraelectric up to 0K in its pure unstressed form. Recently few studies showed that ferroelectricity can be induced by application of stress or by chemical / isotopic substitution. The search for room temperature magnetoelectric coupling in SrTiO3-CoFe-SrTiO3 multilayer structures is of fundamental interest. Yet another motivation of the present work is to fabricate multilayer structures consisting of CoFe/ BaTiO3 and CoFe/ SrTiO3 for possible giant ME coupling coefficient (MECC) values. These are lead free and hence promising candidates for MEMS applications. The elucidation of mechanism for the giant MECC also will be the part of the objective of this investigation.

Proper evaluation of the external convective heat transfer for the thermal analysis of cool roofs

Cool materials are characterized by high solar reflectance and high thermal emittance; when applied to the external surface of a roof, they make it possible to limit the amount of solar irradiance absorbed by the roof, and to increase the rate of heat flux emitted by irradiation to the environment, especially during nighttime. However, a roof also releases heat by convection on its external surface; this mechanism is not negligible, and an incorrect evaluation of its entity might introduce significant inaccuracy in the assessment of the thermal performance of a cool roof, in terms of surface temperature and rate of heat flux transferred to the indoors. This issue is particularly relevant in numerical simulations, which are essential in the design stage, therefore it deserves adequate attention. In the present paper, a review of the most common algorithms used for the calculation of the convective heat transfer coefficient due to wind on horizontal building surfaces is presented. Then, with reference to a case study in Italy, the simulated results are compared to the outcomes of a measurement campaign. Hence, the most appropriate algorithms for the convective coefficient are identified, and the errors deriving by an incorrect selection of this coefficient are discussed.

The effect of an Er,Cr:YSGG laser on external adaptation of healthy and decayed cavities

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of chlorhexidine and Er, Cr:YSGG laser irradiation on the bond strength and external adaptation in mixed healthy and caries-affected class V cavities before and after thermal cycling. Thirty-six cavity preparations were made in mixed class V buccal human molars, half of them being artificially caries-induced. Any remaining affected dentin was removed from the cavity with a round burr at low speed. The teeth were divided into six groups, according to cleaning agent for both healthy and caries-induced dentin: no treatment, chlorhexidine and erbium, chromium-doped: yttrium, scandium, gallium, garnet (Er,Cr:YSGG) laser irradiation. A Filtek P90 (3M ESPE, St Paul, MN, USA) silorane adhesive restorative system was used. The specimens were subjected to 5000 thermal cycles (5-55 degrees C 60 min). Epoxy replicas were obtained to characterize the external adaptation under scanning electron microscopy. The average percentages of non-continuous margins were 5.41% and 6.49% in enamel dentin before thermal cycling and 25% and 33.7% after thermal cycling, respectively. The caries-affected and laser irradiated cavities showed higher non-continuous margins. Thermal cycling was able to raise the percentage of non-continuous margin for all groups. Chlorhexidine did not affect the marginal adaptation results, and the Er,Cr:YSGG laser irradiation showed significantly worse results compared with the control group.

Comparative assessment of global irradiation from a satellite estimate model (CM SAF) and on-ground measurements (SIAR): a Spanish case study

An analysis and comparison of daily and yearly solar irradiation from the satellite CM SAF database and a set of 301 stations from the Spanish SIAR network is performed using data of 2010 and 2011. This analysis is completed with the comparison of the estimations of effective irradiation incident on three different tilted planes (fixed, two axis tracking, north-south hori- zontal axis) using irradiation from these two data sources. Finally, a new map of yearly values of irradiation both on the horizontal plane and on inclined planes is produced mixing both sources with geostatistical techniques (kriging with external drift, KED) The Mean Absolute Difference (MAD) between CM SAF and SIAR is approximately 4% for the irradiation on the horizontal plane and is comprised between 5% and 6% for the irradiation incident on the inclined planes. The MAD between KED and SIAR, and KED and CM SAF is approximately 3% for the irradiation on the horizontal plane and is comprised between 3% and 4% for the irradiation incident on the inclined planes. The methods have been implemented using free software, available as supplementary ma- terial, and the data sources are freely available without restrictions.