Implantation of bone marrow-derived buffy coat can supplement bone marrow stimulation for articular cartilage repair

SummaryObjectiveBone marrow stimulation (BMS) has been regarded as a first line procedure for repair of articular cartilage. However, repaired cartilage from BMS is known to be unlike that of hyaline cartilage and its inner endurance is not guaranteed. The reason presumably came from a shortage of cartilage-forming cells in blood clots derived by BMS. In order to increase repairable cellularity, the feasibility of autologous bone marrow-derived buffy coat transplantation in repair of large full-thickness cartilage defects was investigated in this study.MethodsRabbits were divided into four groups: the defect remained untreated as a negative control; performance of BMS only (BMS group); BMS followed by supplementation of autologous bone marrow buffy coat (Buffy coat group); transplantation of autologous osteochondral transplantation (AOTS) as a positive control.ResultsRepair of cartilage defects in the Buffy coat group in a rabbit model was more effective than BMS alone and similar to AOTS. Gross findings, histological analysis, histological scoring, immunohistochemistry, and chemical assay demonstrated that supplementation of autologous bone marrow buffy coat after BMS arthroplasty effectively repaired cartilage defects in a rabbit model, and was more effective than BMS arthroplasty alone.ConclusionSupplementation of autologous bone marrow-derived buffy coat in cases of BMS could be a useful clinical protocol for cartilage repair

Toughened ceramics life prediction. Final technical report

The objective of this research was to understand the room temperature and high temperature behavior of brittle materials such as in situ toughened ceramics, glasses and intermetallics as the basis for developing life prediction and test methodologies. A major objective was to understand the relationship between microstructure and mechanical behavior within the bounds of a limited number of materials. A second major objective was to determine the behavior as a function of time and temperature. Specifically, the room temperature and elevated strength and reliability, the fracture toughness, slow crack growth and the creep behavior. These results will provide input for parallel materials development and design methodology programs. Resultant design codes will be verified. A summary of the accomplishments that occurred under this program is given

Quantum phase transition of condensed bosons in optical lattices

In this paper we study the superfluid-Mott-insulator phase transition of ultracold dilute gas of bosonic atoms in an optical lattice by means of Green function method and Bogliubov transformation as well. The superfluid- Mott-insulator phase transition condition is determined by the energy-band structure with an obvious interpretation of the transition mechanism. Moreover the superfluid phase is explained explicitly from the energy spectrum derived in terms of Bogliubov approach.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure

The π\pi, K+K^+, and K0K^0 electromagnetic form factors

The rainbow truncation of the quark Dyson-Schwinger equation is combined with the ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation for the meson amplitudes and the dressed quark-photon vertex in a self-consistent Poincar\'e-invariant study of the pion and kaon electromagnetic form factors in impulse approximation. We demonstrate explicitly that the current is conserved in this approach and that the obtained results are independent of the momentum partitioning in the Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes. With model gluon parameters previously fixed by the condensate, the pion mass and decay constant, and the kaon mass, the charge radii and spacelike form factors are found to be in good agreement with the experimental data.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Revte

Probing the energy bands of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice

We simulate three experimental methods which could be realized in the laboratory to probe the band excitation energies and the momentum distribution of a Bose-Einstein condensate inside an optical lattice. The values of the excitation energies obtained in these different methods agree within the accuracy of the simulation. The meaning of the results in terms of density and phase deformations is tested by studying the relaxation of a phase-modulated condensate towards the ground state.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Effects of Impurity Content on the Sintering Characteristics of Plasma-Sprayed Zirconia

Yttria-stabilized zirconia powders, containing different levels of SiO2 and Al2O3, have been plasma sprayed onto metallic substrates. The coatings were detached from their substrates and a dilatometer was used to monitor the dimensional changes they exhibited during prolonged heat treatments. It was found that specimens containing higher levels of silica and alumina exhibited higher rates of linear contraction, in both in-plane and through-thickness directions. The in-plane stiffness and the through-thickness thermal conductivity were also measured after different heat treatments and these were found to increase at a greater rate for specimens with higher impurity (silica and alumina) levels. Changes in the pore architecture during heat treatments were studied using Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry (MIP). Fine scale porosity (<_50 nm) was found to be sharply reduced even by relatively short heat treatments. This is correlated with improvements in inter-splat bonding and partial healing of intra-splat microcracks, which are responsible for the observed changes in stiffness and conductivity, as well as the dimensional changes

Boost operators in Coulomb-gauge QCD: the pion form factor and Fock expansions in phi radiative decays

In this article we rederive the Boost operators in Coulomb-Gauge Yang-Mills theory employing the path-integral formalism and write down the complete operators for QCD. We immediately apply them to note that what are usually called the pion square, quartic... charge radii, defined from derivatives of the pion form factor at zero squared momentum transfer, are completely blurred out by relativistic and interaction corrections, so that it is not clear at all how to interpret these quantities in terms of the pion charge distribution. The form factor therefore measures matrix elements of powers of the QCD boost and Moeller operators, weighted by the charge density in the target's rest frame. In addition we remark that the decomposition of the eta' wavefunction in quarkonium, gluonium, ... components attempted by the KLOE collaboration combining data from phi radiative decays, requires corrections due to the velocity of the final state meson recoiling against a photon. This will be especially important if such decompositions are to be attempted with data from J/psi decays.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

RQM description of the charge form factor of the pion and its asymptotic behavior

The pion charge and scalar form factors, $F_1(Q^2)$ and $F_0(Q^2)$, are first calculated in different forms of relativistic quantum mechanics. This is done using the solution of a mass operator that contains both confinement and one-gluon-exchange interactions. Results of calculations, based on a one-body current, are compared to experiment for the first one. As it could be expected, those point-form, and instant and front-form ones in a parallel momentum configuration fail to reproduce experiment. The other results corresponding to a perpendicular momentum configuration (instant form in the Breit frame and front form with $q^+=0$) do much better. The comparison of charge and scalar form factors shows that the spin-1/2 nature of the constituents plays an important role. Taking into account that only the last set of results represents a reasonable basis for improving the description of the charge form factor, this one is then discussed with regard to the asymptotic QCD-power-law behavior $Q^{-2}$. The contribution of two-body currents in achieving the right power law is considered while the scalar form factor, $F_0(Q^2)$, is shown to have the right power-law behavior in any case. The low-$Q^2$ behavior of the charge form factor and the pion-decay constant are also discussed.}Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure

Theory of output coupling for trapped fermionic atoms

We develop a dynamic theory of output coupling, for fermionic atoms initially confined in a magnetic trap. We consider an exactly soluble one-dimensional model, with a spatially localized delta-type coupling between the atoms in the trap and a continuum of free-particle external modes. Two important special cases are considered for the confinement potential: the infinite box and the harmonic oscillator. We establish that in both cases a bound state of the coupled system appears for any value of the coupling constant, implying that the trap population does not vanish in the infinite-time limit. For weak coupling, the energy spectrum of the outgoing beam exhibits peaks corresponding to the initially occupied energy levels in the trap; the height of these peaks increases with the energy. As the coupling gets stronger, the energy spectrum is displaced towards dressed energies of the fermions in the trap. The corresponding dressed states result from the coupling between the unperturbed fermionic states in the trap, mediated by the coupling between these states and the continuum. In the strong-coupling limit, there is a reinforcement of the lowest-energy dressed mode, which contributes to the energy spectrum of the outgoing beam more strongly than the other modes. This effect is especially pronounced for the one-dimensional box, which indicates that the efficiency of the mode-reinforcement mechanism depends on the steepness of the confinement potential. In this case, a quasi-monochromatic anti-bunched atomic beam is obtained. Results for a bosonic sample are also shown for comparison.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, added discussion on time-dependent spectral distribution and corresponding figur