In Vivo Biological Behavior of Polymer Scaffolds of Natural Origin in the Bone Repair Process

Autologous bone grafts, used mainly in extensive bone loss, are considered the gold standard treatment in regenerative medicine, but still have limitations mainly in relation to the amount of bone available, donor area, morbidity and creation of additional surgical area. This fact encourages tissue engineering in relation to the need to develop new biomaterials, from sources other than the individual himself. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of an elastin and collagen matrix on the bone repair process in critical size defects in rat calvaria. The animals (Wistar rats, n = 30) were submitted to a surgical procedure to create the bone defect and were divided into three groups: Control Group (CG, n = 10), defects filled with blood clot; E24/37 Group (E24/37, n = 10), defects filled with bovine elastin matrix hydrolyzed for 24 h at 37 °C and C24/25 Group (C24/25, n = 10), defects filled with porcine collagen matrix hydrolyzed for 24 h at 25 °C. Macroscopic and radiographic analyses demonstrated the absence of inflammatory signs and infection. Microtomographical 2D and 3D images showed centripetal bone growth and restricted margins of the bone defect. Histologically, the images confirmed the pattern of bone deposition at the margins of the remaining bone and without complete closure by bone tissue. In the morphometric analysis, the groups E24/37 and C24/25 (13.68 ± 1.44; 53.20 ± 4.47, respectively) showed statistically significant differences in relation to the CG (5.86 ± 2.87). It was concluded that the matrices used as scaffolds are biocompatible and increase the formation of new bone in a critical size defect, with greater formation in the polymer derived from the intestinal serous layer of porcine origin (C24/25).     

Modified gravity on the brane and dark energy

We analyze the dynamics of an AdS₅ braneworld with matter fields when gravity is allowed to deviate from the Einstein form on the brane. We consider exact five-dimensional warped solutions which are associated with conformal bulk fields of weight –4 and describe on the brane the following three dynamics: those of inhomogeneous dust, of generalized dark radiation, and of homogeneous polytropic dark energy. We show that, with modified gravity on the brane, the existence of such dynamical geometries requires the presence of non-conformal matter fields confined to the brane.     

The dynamics of excitons and trions in resonant tunneling diodes

The aim of this work is to study the dynamic formation and dissociation of trions and excitons in double barrier resonant tunneling diodes. We propose a system of rate equations that takes into account the formation, dissociation and annihilation of these complexes inside the quantum well. From the solutions of the coupled equations, we are able to study the modulation of excitons and trions formation in the device as a function of the applied bias. The results of our model agree qualitatively with the experiments showing the viability of these rate equations system to study the dynamics of complex systems.     

Wavelets and adaptive grids for the discontinuous Galerkin method

In this paper, space adaptivity is introduced to control the error in the numerical solution of hyperbolic systems of conservation laws. The reference numerical scheme is a new version of the discontinuous Galerkin method, which uses an implicit diffusive term in the direction of the streamlines, for stability purposes. The decision whether to refine or to unrefine the grid in a certain location is taken according to the magnitude of wavelet coefficients, which are indicators of local smoothness of the numerical solution. Numerical solutions of the nonlinear Euler equations illustrate the efficiency of the method.     

Observation of ionic thermocurrents in zirconia-based solid electrolytes

In ionic conductors, long range-migrating charges are a main cause of polarization processes. This has complicated, up to date, the study of ionic thermocurrents (ITC) in solid electrolytes. However, the method is appealing, as it probes directly charge-formation phenomena that are important both from a scientific point of view and for applications. This work reports on the observation of ITC in solid electrolytes. Under appropriate experimental conditions, the ITC response of a zirconia sample electroded with platinum is a reproducible one, thus opening the way to a new characterization method that may complement other well established methods, such as Impedance Spectroscopy and a number of electrochemical techniques. The general trends of the response, which is composed of two well resolved ITC peaks, is discussed. One of them, taking place at higher temperatures, conforms to the standard shape of a first order kinetics depolarization process. Paper presented at the 2nd Euroconference on Solid State Ionics, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, Sept. 10–16, 1995     

Olefin terpolymerizations. II. 4-vinylcyclohexene and cyclooctadiene

4-Vinylcyclohexene (VCH) and cyclooctadiene (COD) were investigated as termonomers in EPDM (ethylene/propylene/diene) synthesis by using rac-ethylenebis (1-η⁵-indenyl) zir-conium dichloride ( 1 ) as a catalyst precursor. Homopolymerizations of VCH, vinylcycloh-exane and cyclohexene were compared. The parameter K_πκ_p, which is the apparent rate constant for Ziegler-Natta polymerization, is about the same for VCH and vinylcyclohexanebut is 10 times smaller for cyclohexene. Therefore, the linear olefinic double bond is more active than the cyclic internal double bond. VCH reduces ethylene polymerization rate but not propylene polymerization rate in copolymerizations. In terpolymerizations, VCH tends to suppress ethylene incorporation especially at elevated polymerization temperature and Lowers the polymer MW by about two-fold. COD has very low activity as a termonomer. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

T-duality in Affine NA Toda Models

The construction of non-Abelian affine Toda models is discussed in terms of its underlying Lie algebraic structure. It is shown that a subclass of such non-conformal two-dimensional integrable models naturally leads to the construction of a pair of actions, which share the same spectra and are related by canonical transformations.     

Disentangling the reaction mechanisms of weakly bound nuclei

Complete and incomplete fusion cross sections for the ⁹Be + ¹⁴⁴Sm reaction have been measured at near-barrier energies, using the delayed X-ray detection technique. At above-barrier energies these show a suppression of complete fusion for this weakly bound projectile on an intermediate mass target. The suppression factor, attributed to ⁹Be break-up, was deduced from a comparison of complete fusion yields with coupled-channels calculations, and appears consistent with measured incomplete fusion product yields. At ∼10%, it is considerably smaller than the value of ∼30% previously found for a ²⁰⁸Pb target. Simultaneous measurements of elastic and inelastic scattering permit a clearer picture of the reaction mechanisms.     

Polynomial expansion of basis sets: Alternatives to fully optimized exponents

Alternatives based on polynomial expansions of gaussian basis set exponents are introduced and evaluated. The formulas presented here outperform methods based upon the even-tempered formula or combinations of it. They closely match the performance of other methods based upon larger polynomial expansions of the logarithm of the exponents using the same or one less parameter per orbital angular symmetry.