自凝软衬处理对全口义齿咀嚼效率影响的临床观察

目的探讨自凝硅橡胶软衬材料（Sofreliner MS）对全口义齿患者咀嚼效率和最大咬合力的影响。方法在本院修复科选择因牙槽嵴条件差而导致下颌总义齿固位不良或压痛的惠者25例，使用Sofreliner MS自凝硅橡胶软衬材料在患者口内行义齿衬垫术，于衬垫前和衬垫后1周、1月、3月、6月用花生米比色法分别测定咀嚼效率、HL-Ⅱ型耠力仪测定最大咬合力，用SPSS统计软件进行数据分析。结果患者使用软衬义齿前和使用后1周、1月、3月、6月的咀嚼效率和最大咬合力均有显著差异（P〈0．05），软衬后明显高于软衬前；软衬后6月的咀嚼效率低于软村后3月（P〈0．05）；软村后1周、1月、3月、6月的最大咬合力没有显著差异（P〉0．05）。结论对因牙槽嵴条件差的无牙颌患者配戴的全口义齿，使用Sofreliner MS软衬后可以提高惠者的咀嚼效率，缩短患者对义齿的适应期，尽早发挥义齿的最大咀嚼功能。     

洞形与抗剪切能力的关系

目的：研究盒型洞两侧的余留牙体组织与底面不同移行方式时抗剪切能力的关系。方法：将新鲜离体牙的一部分制备成符合要求的两组试件。第一组试件的两侧壁轴向加载，第二组试件两侧壁侧向加载，分别记录两侧不同形状侧壁的抗剪切力值。结果：轴向加载，不同形状的侧壁抗剪切力无显著性差异（P〉0.5）；侧向加载，不同形状的侧壁抗剪切力有高度显著性差异（P〈0．00001）。结论：两侧壁受到轴向负载时，其抗剪切能力与洞形无关，受侧向负载时，其抗剪切能力与洞形有密切关系。     

Pain and instability during biting with mandibular implant-retained overdentures

We tested in a randomized controlled clinical trial the effect of pain and instability of dentures on bite force with different degrees of mucosal support. The trial involved 3 groups who had received: 1) a new conventional denture (CD-group), 2) an implant-mucosa-borne overdenture on 2 IMZ implants (IMZ-group) or 3) a mainly implant-borne overdenture retained by a transmandibular implant (TMI-group). Fifty-three women and 15 men, mean age 59 years, participated in this study. Bite force measurements were made unilaterally with a transducer and bilaterally with a bite fork. After the measurements, subjects were asked whether or not biting had caused pain or tilting of one of the dentures. Significantly more complete-denture wearers reported pain. They reported more frequent pain in the mandible than in the maxilla (P < 0.001), whereas implant-groups seemed to experience more often pain in the maxilla. On the transducer, maxillary dentures of the CD-group tilted less (P < 0.01) and mandibular dentures more (P < 0.05) compared to the implant-groups. With the bite fork, tilting occurred more often in the incisal-cuspid area than in the molar region (P < 0.001). No effect of pain and tilting was observed on maximum bite force. It appears that oral implants used to stabilize mandibular dentures permit subjects to exert higher bite forces and reduce the pain as otherwise felt in the mandible during maximum biting. Due to this stabilization, pain and instability of the maxillary denture can become the limiting factor for a further increase in bite force.     

Current Preclinical Testing of New Hip Arthroplasty Technologies Does Not Reflect Real-World Loadings: Capturing Patient-Specific and Activity-Related Variation in Hip Contact Forces

BackgroundTotal hip arthroplasty (THA) implants are routinely tested for their tribological performance through regulatory preclinical wear testing (eg, ISO-14242). The standardized loading conditions defined in these tests consist of simplified waveforms, which do not specifically represent in vivo loads in different groups of patients. The aim of this study is to investigate, through musculoskeletal modeling, patient-specific and activity-related variation in hip contact forces (HCFs) in a large cohort of THA patients during common activities of daily living (ADLs).MethodsA total of 132 THA patients participated in a motion-capture analysis while performing different ADLs, including walk, fast walk, stair ascent, and descent (locomotor); sit to stand, stand to sit, squat, and lunge (nonlocomotor). HCFs were then calculated using the AnyBody Modeling System and qualitatively compared across all activities. The influence of gender on HCFs was analyzed through statistical parametric mapping analysis.ResultsSystematic differences were found in HCF magnitudes and individual components in both locomotor and nonlocomotor ADLs. The qualitative analysis of the ADLs revealed a large range and a large variability in forces experienced at the hip during different activities. Significant differences in the 3-dimensional loading patterns were observed between males and females across most activities.ConclusionTHA patients present a large variability in the forces experienced at the hip joint during their daily life. The interpatient variation might partially explain the heterogeneity observed in implant survival rates. A more extensive preclinical implant testing standard under clinically relevant loading conditions has been advocated to better predict and avoid clinical wear problems.     

Neuromuscular adaptations in older males and females with knee osteoarthritis during weight-bearing force control

Background

Females exhibit significantly greater incidence, prevalence, and severity of osteoarthritis (OA) compared to males. Despite known biological, morphological, and functional differences between males and females, there has been little sex-related investigation into sex-specific biomechanical and neuromuscular responses to OA.

A non-invasive measurement of the knee contact force using a subject-specific musculoskeletal model to investigate osteotomy

The varus knee has been defined as a Hip-Knee-Ankle alignment of less than 180 degrees. Varus knee alignment increases the load on the medial knee and also the risk of osteoarthritis. High tibial osteotomy has been designed to modify the malalignment of varus knee. The aim of this study was to investigate the osteotomy effects on knee adduction moment (KAM) and contact forces using a musculoskeletal and subject-specific knee model. A patient with varus knee and no symptoms of any other disease or disability participated in this study. The geometry of the multibody knee model has been modified using MR images. The solutions of its finite element model have been used to determine the parameters of the multibody model. The motion data, ground reaction force and kinetic data have been applied to run the subject-specific musculoskeletal model during the stance phase of gait. After osteotomy, the adduction moment decreased, where the maximum values are comparable to other studies. The pattern of KAM did not witness any significant changes. The total and medial contact forces reduced considerably after surgery, but the lateral contact force did not significantly change. The changes in total and medial contact forces and lack of change in lateral contact force could be explained by modification of the gait pattern after surgery.     

Crystallization/Melting Kinetics and Morphological Analysis of Polyphenylene Sulfide

Crystallization and melting kinetics of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) are determined using fast scanning calorimetry. The temperature dependence of half‐time crystallization of isothermally melt‐crystallized PPS shows a downward convex curve with a minimum at 160 °C. The minimum crystallization half‐time is about 3 s. The analysis of heating rate dependence of the melting temperature reveals a zero‐entropy‐production melting temperature of the sample. The microstructure of the sample, which is prepared by fast scanning calorimetry, is investigated by small‐angle X‐ray scattering and polarizing optical microscopy. The crystallinity and lamellar thickness of the sample annealed for 400 s decrease with decreasing crystallization temperature. The size of spherulites becomes small as the isothermal temperature is decreased. Transcrystalline morphology is observed near the surface between the sample and nitrogen gas at a crystallization temperature of 120 °C. The thickness of the transcrystalline layer disappears as the isothermal temperature is increased.     

Shape matters in protein mobility within membranes

The lateral mobility of proteins within cell membranes is usually thought to be dependent on their size and modulated by local heterogeneities of the membrane. Experiments using single-particle tracking on reconstituted membranes demonstrate that protein diffusion is significantly influenced by the interplay of membrane curvature, membrane tension, and protein shape. We find that the curvature-coupled voltage-gated potassium channel (KvAP) undergoes a significant increase in protein mobility under tension, whereas the mobility of the curvature-neutral water channel aquaporin 0 (AQP0) is insensitive to it. Such observations are well explained in terms of an effective friction coefficient of the protein induced by the local membrane deformation.Brownian motion plays an essential role in biological processes. Since the pioneering experiments of Perrin (1), the observation of diffusing objects has emerged as a mean to extract the rheological properties of the surrounding medium or the probe particle size. The theoretical investigation of diffusion of proteins within membranes has been studied widely going back to P. G. Saffman and M. Delbrück (SD). They investigated the hydrodynamic drag acting on a membrane inclusion when the membrane is described as a 2D fluid sheet of viscosity embedded within a less viscous fluid of viscosity η (2). In this theory, the diffusion coefficient D₀ in the limit of a large viscosity contrast between the membrane and bulk fluid is given by:The length is the length scale over which flow is generated within the bilayer by the inclusion, k_BT is the thermal energy, and γ is Euler’s constant. This model predicts a logarithmic dependence of D₀ on the protein radius a_p, which has been confirmed for some in vitro experiments on membranes containing transmembrane proteins (see ref. 3 and references therein). In contrast, the experiments of Gambin et al. (4) showed significant deviations from the SD theory.A possible origin for the discrepancy observed by Gambin et al. (4) is the significant local membrane deformation due to the interaction between the inclusion and the lipid bilayer (5). Naji et al. suggested in ref. 6 that inclusions experience additional dissipation, either due to internal flows within the membrane or to additional fluid flows produced by the deformed membrane. This work triggered a number of theoretical studies investigating the coupling of inclusion proteins with the membrane that had been pioneered by the Seifert’s group (see ref. 7 and references therein). Such studies have systematically gone beyond the SD model by including additional effects (8–12). So far, a thorough verification of these ideas has not been attempted. To investigate the effect of the protein–lipid coupling on the protein mobility, we study its dependence on membrane tension, because this parameter affects the local membrane deformation.In this work, we compare the mobility of two transmembrane proteins with the same lateral size, aquaporin 0 (AQP0) and a voltage-gated potassium channel (KvAP), reconstituted in giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). Whereas AQP0 does not deform locally the bilayer, KvAP locally bends the membrane (13). Using single-particle tracking (SPT), we demonstrate that the curvature-coupled protein KvAP undergoes a significant increase in mobility under tension, whereas the mobility of the curvature-neutral water channel AQP0 is insensitive to it. This difference, which goes beyond the SD model, is explained by an approach that includes the interplay between membrane deformation and friction with the surrounding medium and within the bilayer. This is compelling evidence that the Brownian motion of a shaping-membrane protein is not simply dependent on the inclusion size but also related to the lateral extension of the deformed membrane patch, which depends on tension.