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).     

The symmetric eigenvalue complementarity problem

In this paper the Eigenvalue Complementarity Problem (EiCP) with real symmetric matrices is addressed. It is shown that the symmetric (EiCP) is equivalent to finding an equilibrium solution of a differentiable optimization problem in a compact set. A necessary and sufficient condition for solvability is obtained which, when verified, gives a convenient starting point for any gradient-ascent local optimization method to converge to a solution of the (EiCP). It is further shown that similar results apply to the Symmetric Generalized Eigenvalue Complementarity Problem (GEiCP). Computational tests show that these reformulations improve the speed and robustness of the solution methods.

     

Effect of the particle size distribution on the low shear viscosity of high‐solid‐content latexes

The production of high‐solid‐content, low‐viscosity latexes is an active field in both industry and academia. The viscosity of polymer dispersions has a clear dependence on the particle size distribution (PSD). An example is the rule of thumb that a bimodal PSD enables the reduction of the viscosity with respect to monomodal systems. Despite important progress in theoretical work, not much has been done to quantitatively predict the low shear viscosity of aqueous polymer dispersions as a function of the complex PSD. In this work, the capability of a low‐shear‐viscosity equation to quantitatively account for the influence of both the PSD and the physicochemical characteristics of the dispersions is experimentally assessed. An analysis, consistent with theoretical concepts, of the data with semiempirical correlations is proposed. Next, with values of the parameters of the viscosity equation obtained experimentally, the effect of a latex with a 70% solid content on the low shear viscosity is examined. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 3936–3946, 2004     

Deciding confluence of certain term rewriting systems in polynomial time

We present a characterization of confluence for term rewriting systems, which is then refined for special classes of rewriting systems. The refined characterization is used to obtain a polynomial time algorithm for deciding the confluence of ground term rewrite systems. The same approach also shows the decidability of confluence for shallow and linear term rewriting systems. The decision procedure has a polynomial time complexity under the assumption that the maximum arity of a function symbol in the signature is a constant.     

Development of a so-called hour method for analysis of plutonium in soil samples

A short overview of HPLC column packings is presented. The properties of chromatographic carriers and the possibilities to combine the solid matrices with organic polymeric stationary phases are elucidated in detail. The latest achievements and anticipated future developments in the area are outlined.     

Thermal stability of poly(mono-n-alkylitaconates) and mono-n-alkylitaconate-co-vinylpyrrolidone copolymers I

Poly(monoitaconates) containing octyl, decyl and dodecyl groups and random monoalkylitaconate-co-vinylpyrrolidone copolymers were studied by thermogravimetric analysis. Copolymers of mono-n-octylitaconate (MOI), mono-n-decylitaconate (MDI), and mono-n-dodecylitaconate (MDoI), respectively, with N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone (VP) of different compositions were studied by dynamic thermogravimetric analysis. The thermal stability of the copolymers depends on the structure of the monoitaconate comonomer and on the composition of the copolymer The kinetic analysis of the degradation data shows that the thermal decomposition of these copolymers can be described by several kinetic orders depending on the copolymer and on the composition. The relative thermal stability of the copolymers increases as the VP content increases and as the length of the side chain of the itaconate increases, following the same trend as the flexibility of the copolymers in solution.     

Large number hypothesis

Dirac's large number hypothesis (LNH) and the Whitrow-Randall-Sciama relation are related to some cosmological models. The LNH and Whitrow-Randall-Sciama relations are neither equivalent nor consistent in general relativity, but they may both be valid in the Brans-Dicke theory and in another theory considered in this paper.