Long term outcomes of biomaterial-mediated repair of focal cartilage defects in a large animal model

The repair of focal cartilage defects remains one of the foremost issues in the field of orthopaedics. Chondral defects may arise from a variety of joint pathologies and left untreated, will likely progress to osteoarthritis. Current repair techniques, such as microfracture, result in short-term clinical improvements but have poor long-term outcomes. Emerging scaffold-based repair strategies have reported superior outcomes compared to microfracture and motivate the development of new biomaterials for this purpose. In this study, unique composite implants consisting of a base porous reinforcing component (woven poly(ε-caprolactone)) infiltrated with 1 of 2 hydrogels (self-assembling peptide or thermo-gelling hyaluronan) or bone marrow aspirate were evaluated. The objective was to evaluate cartilage repair with composite scaffold treatment compared to the current standard of care (microfracture) in a translationally relevant large animal model, the Yucatan minipig. While many cartilage-repair studies have shown some success in vivo, most are short term and not clinically relevant. Informed by promising 6-week findings, a 12-month study was carried out and those results are presented here. To aid in comparisons across platforms, several structural and functionally relevant outcome measures were performed. Despite positive early findings, the long-term results indicated less than optimal structural and mechanical results with respect to cartilage repair, with all treatment groups performing worse than the standard of care. This study is important in that it brings much needed attention to the importance of performing translationally relevant long-term studies in an appropriate animal model when developing new clinical cartilage repair approaches

Virtual Compton Scattering and Neutral Pion Electroproduction in the Resonance Region up to the Deep Inelastic Region at Backward Angles

We have made the first measurements of the virtual Compton scattering (VCS) process via the H$(e,e'p)\gamma$ exclusive reaction in the nucleon resonance region, at backward angles. Results are presented for the $W$-dependence at fixed $Q^2=1$ GeV$^2$, and for the $Q^2$-dependence at fixed $W$ near 1.5 GeV. The VCS data show resonant structures in the first and second resonance regions. The observed $Q^2$-dependence is smooth. The measured ratio of H$(e,e'p)\gamma$ to H$(e,e'p)\pi^0$ cross sections emphasizes the different sensitivity of these two reactions to the various nucleon resonances. Finally, when compared to Real Compton Scattering (RCS) at high energy and large angles, our VCS data at the highest $W$ (1.8-1.9 GeV) show a striking $Q^2$- independence, which may suggest a transition to a perturbative scattering mechanism at the quark level.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures. To appear in Phys.Rev.

Nozzle development

The objective of this program has been the development of experimental techniques and data processing procedures to allow for the characterization of multi-phase fuel nozzles using laboratory tests. Test results were to be used to produce a single value coefficient-of-performance that would predict the performance of the fuel nozzles independent of system application. Several different types of fuel nozzles capable of handling multi-phase fuels have been characterized for: (a) fuel flow rate versus delivery pressure, (b) fuel-air ratio throughout the fuel spray or plume and the effective cone angle of the injector, and (c) fuel drop- or particle-size distribution as a function of fluid properties. Fuel nozzles which have been characterized on both single-phase liquids and multi-phase liquid-solid slurries include a variable-film-thickness nozzle, a commercial coal-water slurry (CWS) nozzle, and four diesel injectors of different geometries (tested on single-phase fluids only). Multi-phase mixtures includes CWS with various coal loadings, surfactant concentrations, and stabilizer concentrations, as well as glass-bead water slurries with stabilizing additives. Single-phase fluids included glycerol-water mixtures to vary the viscosity over a range of 1 to 1500 cP, and alcohol-water mixtures to vary the surface tension from about 22 to 73 dyne/cm. In addition, tests were performed to characterize straight-tube gas-solid nozzles using two differences size distributions of glass beads in air. Standardized procedures have been developed for processing measurements of spray drop-size characteristics and the overall cross-section average drop or particle size. 43 refs., 60 figs., 7 tabs