EVALUATION OF TORQUE MOMENT IN ESTHETIC BRACKETS

Objectives: To examine the torque moment that occurs between esthetic brackets and bendable alloy (stainless steel [SS], titanium-molybdenum [Ti-Mo], and titanium-niobium [Ti-Nb]) wires. Materials and Methods: This study examined ceramic (CR), zirconium oxide (ZC), polycarbonate (PC), and conventional metallic brackets (MT) (upper, 0.018-inch and 0.022-inch slots) combined with SS, Ti-Mo, and Ti-Nb wires using elastic module ligation. The torque moments delivered by various wire and bracket combinations were measured using a torque gauge apparatus. The wire torque angles at 5–40° were examined. Results: The torque value increased in the order of CR, ZC, MT, and PC brackets for both 0.018-inch and 0.022-inch slots. The fracture points of the CR and ZC brackets combined with SS and Ti-Mo wires were approximately more than 30° and 35°, respectively. No fracture points were detected in the combination of ZC brackets and Ti-Nb wires. Conclusions: The current study identified the material characteristics of CR, ZR, and PC brackets during torque tooth movements. The present results demonstrate a characteristic combined effect between different esthetic brackets and bendable alloy wires

Identification of novel biomarker as citrullinated inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain 4, specifically increased in sera with experimental and rheumatoid arthritis

BackgroundAnticitrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) and citrullinated proteins play key roles in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Many candidate citrullinated antigens have been identified in joints, but citrullinated proteins in sera are mostly uncertain in patients with RA. We explored the expression of citrullinated proteins in joints and sera of experimental arthritis, and we further investigated their specific expression correlated with the disease activity in patients with RA.MethodsCitrullinated protein expression in tissues was examined by IHC in peptide glucose-6-phosphate isomerase-induced arthritis (pGIA). Serum citrullinated proteins from pGIA were examined by Western blotting, and the sequence was identified by MS. With the same methods, serum citrullinated proteins were analyzed in patients with RA, primary Sjögren’s syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, and osteoarthritis as well as in healthy subjects, by Western blotting and MS. In patients with RA, the relationship between the expression of the identified protein (inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain 4 [ITIH4]) and clinical features was evaluated, and the levels of citrullinated ITIH4 were compared before and after biological treatment. The antibody response against citrullinated ITIH4 peptide was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.ResultsCitrullinated proteins were detected specifically in arthritic joints and sera from pGIA relative to controls. In sera, a common band of citrullinated protein at 120 kDa was revealed, and it fluctuated in parallel with arthritis score of pGIA by Western blotting. Interestingly, in 82% of RA patient sera, similar bands of citrullinated protein were specifically detected. These proteins were identified as citrullinated ITIH4, and especially the R438 site was commonly citrullinated between mice and humans. Citrullinated ITIH4 levels were associated with clinical parameters such as C-reactive protein (CRP), rheumatoid factor, and Disease Activity Score in 28 joints as measured by CRP in patients with RA. Its levels were decreased in correlation with the reduction of disease activity score after effective treatment in patients with RA. Moreover, antibody response to citrullinated epitope in ITIH4 was specifically observed in patients with RA.ConclusionsOur results suggest that serum citrullinated ITIH4 was specifically increased in patients with RA and could be a novel biomarker for assessing disease activity in patients with RA

Active Voluntary Contraction of the Ruptured Muscle Tendon during the Wide-awake Tendon Reconstruction

Purpose:. The purpose of this study was to measure the active voluntary contraction distances of ruptured musculotendinous units during wide-awake tendon reconstruction surgery and to investigate the relationships between active contraction distance and the passive distraction distance and the time elapsed before reconstruction. Methods:. The passive distraction distance and active contraction distance of 36 tendons of 22 patients who underwent forearm tendon transfer or tendon graft during wide-awake surgery were measured. Results:. The passive distraction distance was significantly related to the active contraction distance of the ruptured musculotendinous unit (r = 0.60, P < 0.05). The passive distraction distance accounted for approximately half of the total excursion of the musculotendinous unit. There was no significant correlation between each distance and the time elapsed before reconstruction. Conclusions:. The passive distraction distance was significantly related to the active contraction distance of the ruptured musculotendinous unit in vivo during wide-awake surgery. Active musculotendinous unit contraction distance may be a useful index to evaluate ruptured musculotendinous unit degeneration and donor muscle function in standard tendon reconstruction. This study suggested that the advantages of the wide-awake approach were not just as a clinical tool but also as an in vivo research tool

Tuning the Solution Viscosity of Ionic-Liquid-Based Polyelectrolytes with Solvent Dielectric Constants via the Counterion Condensation

Ionic-liquid-based polyelectrolytes, or polymerized ionic liquids (PILs), are a special class of polyelectrolytes having advantageous properties of ionic liquids. Previous studies have found that the electrostatic interaction and therefore the number of dissociated counterions govern the conformation and dynamics of PIL chains in solutions. Herein, we investigate the effect of the solvent dielectric constant εr on the effective charge fraction feff for a model PIL, poly(1-butyl-3-vinylimidazolium bis(trifluoro­methane­sulfonyl)imide) (PC4-TFSI), by measuring the shear viscosity of the PC4-TFSI in a series of non-ionic good solvents with dielectric constants ranging from 7.9 for tetrahydrofuran to 178 for N-methylformamide. For a given molar concentration cp of PC4-TFSI monomers, the specific viscosity ηsp decreases monotonically with decreasing εr. In the semidilute unentangled regime, the dependence of ηsp on cp in solvents at high εr follows the scaling law of ηsp (∝ cp0.5) for salt-free polyelectrolytes in good solvents, but its scaling relationship gradually shifts toward the scaling law of ηsp (∝ cp1.3) for charge neutral polymers in good solvents as εr is decreased. Moreover, the cp dependence of ηsp in solvents having different εr falls onto a single curve by adding an ionic liquid as salt ions to screen the charges on PC4-TFSI chains. These results indicate that the effective charge fraction on PC4-TFSI chains decreases with decreasing εr, in good agreement with the predicted trend by the Manning counterion condensation model. As a result, we demonstrate that the counterion condensation takes place in PIL solutions, indicating an ability to control the properties of PIL solutions simply by changing the solvent dielectric constant. Because PILs have recently attracted significant attention with a wide range of applications for batteries, molecular separations, and antimicrobial, our results can provide useful information about the rheological properties of PIL solutions, optimizing processing operations for PILs and thus PIL-based material design with improved system performance

Effect of Porcine Colostral Exosomes on T Cells in the Peripheral Blood of Suckling Piglets

Growing evidence indicates that porcine colostral exosomes may contribute to the healthy development of piglets. Here, we evaluated in vitro the effect of porcine milk-derived exosomes, in particular colostral exosomes, on T cells in the peripheral blood of suckling piglets. A total of seven sows and thirteen suckling piglets were used. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from suckling piglets were cultured with or without milk-derived exosomes (control). Using flow cytometry, the proportion of each T cell subset in cultured PBMCs was analyzed three days post-incubation. PBMCs cultured with porcine colostral exosomes had a higher proportion of CD3+CD4&minus;CD8+ T cells (cytotoxic T cells; Tc) than the control. However, exosomes induced no increase in the Tc cell population in PBMC whose endocytosis was inhibited. We further measured the concentrations of cytokines in the culture supernatant. Exosome-treated PBMCs had a higher cytokine IL-2 concentration than the control. The present study demonstrated that porcine colostral exosomes could increase the Tc cell proportion in the peripheral blood of suckling piglets, with the underlying mechanism believed to be the stimulation of IL-2 production in PBMCs via endocytosis. Moreover, our results suggested that porcine colostral exosomes were involved in the development of cellular immunity in suckling piglets

The influence of the fragment particles from carbon beam on an OpenPET detector as in-beam PET for heavy ion therapy

1. BackgroundWe have proposed the "OpenPET" geometry which consists of two detector rings separated axially. The OpenPET is suitable for use as in-beam PET in heavy ion therapy due to the open space between the separated detector rings. Annihilation gamma rays from irradiated volumes enter obliquely into OpenPET detectors. Therefore, detectors which can measure depth of interaction (DOI) are required to reduce parallax error. Since the DOI detectors need to identify the large number of crystals in proportion to the number of depth layers, the crystal identification performance is possible to deteriorate under heavy ion irradiation. In this presentation, we report the results of experiments about the influences of heavy ion irradiation, especially fragment particles, on the OpenPET detectors.\n2. Material and methods The experiments were performed using carbon beam in the Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba (HIMAC) at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences. The energy and intensity of the carbon beam were 290MeV/u and 108-109 pps. Carbon ions entered to a water phantom through an ionization chamber used as a beam intensity monitor. All of the primary carbon ions were stopped in the water phantom. First, to compare the influences of fragment particles on various scintillation materials, same size crystals of BGO, LuAG, LYSO and YSO were irradiated by 3.0E+8 pps carbon beam and measured with a single channel PMT. Next, the influence of fragment particles on the DOI detector was studied. The DOI detector which consisted of a 8x8x4 LGSO crystal array with the optimized reflector arrangement and a 64ch position sensitive PMT. The scintillator and the OpenPET detector were positioned 30cm apart from the backside of the water phantom at an angle of 30 degree.\n3. Results After heavy ion irradiation, all of the scintillators were activated due to incidence of the fragment particles from the water phantom. The activation of the scintillators is lead to increase of count rate and degraded the performance of the DOI detector. From the comparison of the results for the scintillators, the increase of count rate depends on the effective atomic numbers. We conclude that lutetium doped scintillators are suitable in terms of the activation and detector performances previously studied. The DOI detector positioned in the OpenPET geometry were also affected by the fragment particles even though it was not in the line of the primary beam. However, we obtained sufficient detector performance as a PET detector by optimizing to an environment of heavy ion irradiation.\n4. ConclusionWe studied responses of the OpenPET detector under heavy ion therapy. The influences of the activation by the fragment particles were measured for the various scintillators. We obtained sufficient detector performance as a PET detector by optimizing to the environment of heavy ion irradiation.PTCOG4

A DOI PET Detector With Scintillation Crystals Cut in Triangular Prism

We propose a new depth of interaction (DOI) detector which is made of scintillation crystals cut in triangular prism. Preliminary study was carried out with Lu2xGd2(1-x)SiO5 (LGSO) crystals cut in three-square of 3.0 mm and 10.0 mm long. They are arranged in 3-layer DOI array and coupled to a position sensitive photomultiplier tube (PS-PMT). By removing some reflector from the crystal array to control scintillation light spread, we could obtain the 2-dimensional position histogram in which responses of the crystals in all layers are discriminated with only Anger-type calculation of the PS-PMT signals.2008 Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conferenc