Variation in the dispersions of powder liquid ratios in hand-mix glass ionomers

BACKGROUND: The Powder/Liquid Ratio (PLR) influence, and the literature regarding the handling and physical properties of Glass Ionomer restorative materials (GIC) were investigated. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to compare the PLR variability and magnitude in hand-mix GICs, as dispensed for clinical use. From the recorded individual powder and liquid weights, additional comparisons could be made by pairing the various “extreme” outer observations in relation to the manufacturer’s PLR. STUDY DESIGN: The materials assessed were Ketac Universal Hand-mix (KUH), Riva Self Cure Hand-mix (RSCH) and Fuji IX GP Hand-mix (FIXH). Twenty scoops of powder were paired with twenty drops of liquid, as would be the case in the clinical scenario. Statistical analysis was completed with the Kruskal Wallis H test, Intraclass Correlation (ICC) and straight line regressions with One-way ANOVA and the post-hoc Tukey HSD Test (p<0.05 was considered significant). RESULTS: The powder and liquid observations indicate a lack of consistency in both the powder and liquid dispersions. The volume remained “one drop” but the weights were much lower than the manufacturer’s recommended drop weight for some observations, due to air in the liquid drop. The Kruskal-Wallis H test indicated significant differences (p=0.0001) between the three materials for the paired PLRs. The One-way ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey HSD Test were used to compare the recommended PLR to the results and the significant differences (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: The recommended manufacturers’ powder and liquid weights were KUH 0.150/0.05g; RSC 0.165/0.035; FIXH 0.18/0.05, respectively. KUH, FIXH and RSCH liquid had powder and liquid dispersions above the manufacturer’s recommendations. FIXH had the most paired PLR observations within the ±10% range followed by KUH. Extreme powder and liquid combinations could occur in the clinical scenario and these combinations were considered

A semidefinite optimization approach to the steady-state analysis of queueing systems

10.1007/s11134-007-9028-7Queueing Systems56127-3

Preliminary Results on a Simple Approach to G/G/c-like Queues

In this paper we consider a multi-server queue with a near general arrival process (represented as an arbitrary state-dependent Coxian distribution), a near general state-dependent Coxian service time distribution and a possibly finite queueing room. In addition to the dependence on the current number of customers in the system, the rate of arrivals and the progress of the service may depend on each other. We propose a semi-numerical method based on the use of conditional probabilities to compute the steady-state queue length distribution in such a queueing system. Our approach is conceptually simple, easy to implement and can be applied to both infinite and finite Cm/Ck/c-like queues. The proposed method uses a simple fixed-point iteration. In the case of infinite queues, it avoids the need for arbitrary truncation through the use of asymptotic conditional probabilities. This preliminary study examines the computational behavior of the proposed method with a Cox-2 service distribution. Our results indicate that it is robust and performs well even when the number of servers and the coefficient of variation of the service times are relatively high. The number of iterations to attain convergence varies from low tens to several thousand. For example, we are able to solve queues with 1024 servers and the coefficients of variation of the service time and of the time between arrivals set to 4 within 1100 iterations