38 research outputs found
Bioactive ceramic-reinforced composites for bone augmentation
Biomaterials have been used to repair the human body for millennia, but it is only since the 1970s that man-made composites have been used. Hydroxyapatite (HA)-reinforced polyethylene (PE) is the first of the âsecond-generationâ biomaterials that have been developed to be bioactive rather than bioinert. The mechanical properties have been characterized using quasi-static, fatigue, creep and fracture toughness testing, and these studies have allowed optimization of the production method. The in vitro and in vivo biological properties have been investigated with a range of filler content and have shown that the presence of sufficient bioactive filler leads to a bioactive composite. Finally, the material has been applied clinically, initially in the orbital floor and later in the middle ear. From this initial combination of HA in PE other bioactive ceramic polymer composites have been developed
A study of the deep structure of the energy landscape of glassy polystyrene: the exponential distribution of the energy-barriers revealed by high-field Electron Spin Resonance spectroscopy
The reorientation of one small paramagnetic molecule (spin probe) in glassy
polystyrene (PS) is studied by high-field Electron Spin Resonance spectroscopy
at two different Larmor frequencies (190 and 285 GHz). The exponential
distribution of the energy-barriers for the rotational motion of the spin probe
is unambigously evidenced at both 240K and 270K. The same shape for the
distribution of the energy-barriers of PS was evidenced by the master curves
provided by previous mechanical and light scattering studies. The breadth of
the energy-barriers distribution of the spin probe is in the range of the
estimates of the breadth of the PS energy-barriers distribution. The evidence
that the deep structure of the energy landscape of PS exhibits the exponential
shape of the energy-barriers distribution agrees with results from
extreme-value statistics and the trap model by Bouchaud and coworkers.Comment: Final version in press as Letter to the Editor on J.Phys.:Condensed
Matter. Changes in bol