Short communication: Cemented implant reconstructions are associated with less marginal bone loss than screw-retained reconstructions at 3 and 5 years of loading

OBJECTIVES To analyse whether there is a difference in marginal bone levels (MBL) and the respective changes between cemented and screw-retained reconstructions at 3 and 5 years of loading. METHODS Radiographic data from 14 prospective multicentre clinical trials following implant loading with fixed cemented (CEM) or screw-retained (SCREW) reconstructions with a 3- to 5-year follow-up were retrieved from a database. MBL and MBL changes were assessed at initiation of implant loading (BL), at 3 (FU-3) and 5 years (FU-5) thereafter. The presence of peri-implantitis was also determined. RESULTS Data from 1,672 implants at BL, 1,565 implants at FU-3 and 1,109 implants at FU-5 were available. The mean MBL amounted to 0.57 mm (SD 0.87) at BL, 0.55 mm (SD 0.86) at FU-3 and 0.65 mm (SD 1.18) at FU-5. At FU-3, the mean MBL was 0.44 mm (SD 0.65) in group CEM and 0.63 mm (SD 0.99) in group SCREW showing a significant difference between the groups (intergroup <0.05). At FU-5, the mean MBL was 0.42 mm (SD 0.77) in CEM and 0.80 mm (SD 1.37) in SCREW, again with significant differences between both groups (p < .05). MBL changes between BL and FU-3 amounted to 0.11 mm (SD 1.02) (bone loss) in SCREW and -0.17 mm (SD 1.03) (bone gain) in CEM. Similarly, mean MBL changes from BL to FU-5 amounted to 0.23 mm (SD 1.31) (bone loss) in SCREW and -0.26 mm (SD 1.27) (bone gain) in CEM. The prevalence of peri-implantitis amounted to 6.9% in CEM and 5.6% in group SCREW (intergroup p = .29063) at FU-3. At FU-5, peri-implantitis amounted to 4.6% in CEM and 6.2% in group SCREW (intergroup p = .28242). CONCLUSION Cemented implant reconstructions compared with screw-retained reconstructions revealed higher marginal bone levels and similar rates of peri-implantitis during 5 years. The difference in MBL and the respective changes between the two groups, however, appear to be clinically negligible

Low tropical diversity during the adaptive radiation of early land plants.

The latitudinal biodiversity gradient, with tropical regions acting as 'evolutionary cradles', is a cornerstone of current biogeographical and ecological theory1. In the modern world floral biodiversity and biomass are overwhelmingly concentrated in the tropics, and it is often assumed that the tropics were evolutionary cradles throughout land plant evolutionary history. For example, the origination and diversification of angiosperms is believed to have taken place in the Cretaceous tropics2 and modern gymnosperms in the Permian tropics3. Here, we show that during the first major diversification of land plants, in the Late Silurian-Early Devonian, land plant biodiversity was much lower at the equator compared to medium-high southern latitudes. Throughout this crucial interval of plant evolution, tropical vegetation remained depauperate and of very low taxonomic biodiversity, although with similar morphological disparity to the more diverse higher latitude floras. Possible explanations for this low tropical floral biodiversity include palaeocontinental configuration or adverse palaeotropical environmental conditions. We discount the possibility that it was simply a fortuitous feature of the biogeographical spread of the earliest vascular land plants.National Geographi

Creep in reactive colloidal gels: A nanomechanical study of cement hydrates

From soft polymeric gels to hardened cement paste, amorphous solids under constant load exhibit a pronounced time-dependent deformation called creep. The microscopic mechanism of such a phenomenon is poorly understood in amorphous materials and constitutes an even greater challenge in densely packed and chemically reactive granular systems. Both features are prominently present in hydrating cement pastes composed of calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H) nanoparticles, whose packing density increases as a function of time, while cement hydration is taking place. Performing nanoindentation tests and porosity measurements on a large collection of samples at various stages of hydration, we show that the creep response of hydrating cement paste is mainly controlled by the interparticle distance and results from slippage between (C-S-H) nanoparticles. Our findings provide a unique insight into the microscopic mechanism underpinning the creep response in aging granular materials, thus paving the way for the design of concrete with improved creep resistance

Direct Hopf Bifurcation in Parametric Resonance of Hybridized Waves

We study parametric resonance of interacting waves having the same wave vector and frequency. In addition to the well-known period-doubling instability we show that under certain conditions the instability is caused by a Hopf bifurcation leading to quasiperiodic traveling waves. It occurs, for example, if the group velocities of both waves have different signs and the damping is weak. The dynamics above the threshold is briefly discussed. Examples concerning ferromagnetic spin waves and surface waves of ferro fluids are discussed.Comment: Appears in Phys. Rev. Lett., RevTeX file and three postscript figures. Packaged using the 'uufiles' utility, 33 k

On the driven Frenkel-Kontorova model: II. Chaotic sliding and nonequilibrium melting and freezing

The dynamical behavior of a weakly damped harmonic chain in a spatially periodic potential (Frenkel-Kontorova model) under the subject of an external force is investigated. We show that the chain can be in a spatio-temporally chaotic state called fluid-sliding state. This is proven by calculating correlation functions and Lyapunov spectra. An effective temperature is attributed to the fluid-sliding state. Even though the velocity fluctuations are Gaussian distributed, the fluid-sliding state is clearly not in equilibrium because the equipartition theorem is violated. We also study the transition between frozen states (stationary solutions) and=7F molten states (fluid-sliding states). The transition is similar to a first-order phase transition, and it shows hysteresis. The depinning-pinning transition (freezing) is a nucleation process. The frozen state contains usually two domains of different particle densities. The pinning-depinning transition (melting) is caused by saddle-node bifurcations of the stationary states. It depends on the history. Melting is accompanied by precursors, called micro-slips, which reconfigurate the chain locally. Even though we investigate the dynamics at zero temperature, the behavior of the Frenkel-Kontorova model is qualitatively similar to the behavior of similar models at nonzero temperature.Comment: Written in RevTeX, 13 figures in PostScript, appears in PR

A low-mass planet candidate orbiting Proxima Centauri at a distance of 1.5 AU

Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).Our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, hosts a temperate terrestrial planet. We detected in radial velocities evidence of a possible second planet with minimum mass m c sin i c = 5.8 ± 1.9 M ⊕ and orbital period P c = 5.21 - 0.22 + 0.26 years. The analysis of photometric data and spectro-scopic activity diagnostics does not explain the signal in terms of a stellar activity cycle, but follow-up is required in the coming years for confirming its planetary origin. We show that the existence of the planet can be ascertained, and its true mass can be determined with high accuracy, by combining Gaia astrometry and radial velocities. Proxima c could become a prime target for follow-up and characterization with next-generation direct imaging instrumentation due to the large maximum angular separation of ~1 arc second from the parent star. The candidate planet represents a challenge for the models of super-Earth formation and evolution.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Modeling the Multiwavelength Evolution of the V960 Mon System

We study the evolution of the FU Ori object V960 Mon since its outburst, using available multi-wavelength photometric time series over 8 years, complemented by several epochs of moderate-dispersion spectrophotometry. We find that the source fading can be well-described by a decrease in the temperature of the inner disk, which results from a combination of decreasing accretion rate and increasing inner disk radius. We model the system with a disk atmosphere model that produces the observed variations in multi-band photometry (this paper) and high resolution spectral lines (a companion paper).Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, Accepted to Ap

Carbon Stars in the Hamburg/ESO Survey: Abundances

We have carried out a detailed abundance analysis for a sample of 16 carbon stars found among candidate extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars from the Hamburg/ESO Survey. We find that the Fe-metallicities for the cooler C-stars (Teff ~ 5100K) have been underestimated by a factor of ~10 by the standard HES survey tools. The results presented here provided crucial supporting data used by Cohen et al (2006) to derive the frequency of C-stars among EMP stars. C-enhancement in these EMP C-stars appears to be independent of Fe-metallicity and approximately constant at ~1/5 the solar C/H. The mostly low C12/C13 ratios (~4) and the high N abundances in many of these stars suggest that material which has been through proton burning via the CN cycle comprises most of the stellar envelope. C-enhancement is associated with strong enrichment of heavy nuclei beyond the Fe-peak for 12 of the 16 stars. The remaining C-stars from the HES, which tend to be the most Fe-metal poor, show no evidence for enhancement of the heavy elements. Very high enhancements of lead are detected in some of the C-stars with highly enhanced Ba. (We show that) the s-process is responsible for the enhancement of the heavy elements for the majority of the C-stars in our sample. We suggest that both the s-process rich and Ba-normal C-stars result from phenomena associated with mass transfer in binary systems. This leads directly to the progression from C-stars to CH stars and then to Ba stars as the Fe-metallicity increases. (abridged and slightly edited to shorten)Comment: AJ, in press, submitted 13 Dec, 2005, accepted 21 March 200