Fracture resistance of electropolished rotary nickel-titanium endodontic instruments.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of electropolishing on cyclic flexural fatigue and torsional strength of rotary nickel-titanium endodontic instruments. Electropolished and nonelectropolished ISO size 30 (0.04 taper) EndoWave (J Morita Corporation, Osaka, Japan), ProFile (Dentsply Maillefer, Ballaigues, Switzerland), and RaCe (FKG, La-Chaux De Fonds, Switzerland) instruments from the same manufacturing batches were investigated. The number of rotations to fracture and torque at fracture were determined and compared among the instruments tested. Instruments were viewed under a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to assess the degree and quality of electropolishing. Overall, electropolished instruments performed significantly better than nonelectropolished instruments in cyclic fatigue testing and, to a lesser extent, in static torsional loading. When viewing electropolished instruments with the SEM, milling grooves, cracks, pits, and areas of metal rollover were observed, although they were more evident in the nonelectropolished instruments. Electropolishing may have beneficial effects in prolonging the fatigue life of rotary NiTi endodontic instruments. The benefits of electropolishing are likely to be caused by a reduction in surface irregularities that serve as points for stress concentration and crack initiation.

Design of a visible-light spectroscopy clinical tissue oximeter.

We develop a clinical visible-light spectroscopy (VLS) tissue oximeter. Unlike currently approved near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) or pulse oximetry (SpO2%), VLS relies on locally absorbed, shallow-penetrating visible light (475 to 625 nm) for the monitoring of microvascular hemoglobin oxygen saturation (StO2%), allowing incorporation into therapeutic catheters and probes. A range of probes is developed, including noncontact wands, invasive catheters, and penetrating needles with injection ports. Data are collected from: 1. probes, standards, and reference solutions to optimize each component; 2. ex vivo hemoglobin solutions analyzed for StO2% and pO2 during deoxygenation; and 3. human subject skin and mucosal tissue surfaces. Results show that differential VLS allows extraction of features and minimization of scattering effects, in vitro VLS oximetry reproduces the expected sigmoid hemoglobin binding curve, and in vivo VLS spectroscopy of human tissue allows for real-time monitoring (e.g., gastrointestinal mucosal saturation 69+/-4%, n=804; gastrointestinal tumor saturation 45+/-23%, n=14; and p<0.0001), with reproducible values and small standard deviations (SDs) in normal tissues. FDA approved VLS systems began shipping earlier this year. We conclude that VLS is suitable for the real-time collection of spectroscopic and oximetric data from human tissues, and that a VLS oximeter has application to the monitoring of localized subsurface hemoglobin oxygen saturation in the microvascular tissue spaces of human subjects.

Giant nuclei formation in the yolk sac syncytium of the muskellunge, a bony fish (salmoniformes: esocidae: Esox masquinongy).

In muskellunge blastulae the yolk sac syncytium originally contains nuclei comparable in size to the blastomere nuclei from which the syncytial nuclei arose. By mitosis the originally diploid syncytial nuclei become numerous and crowded together. Continued synchronous mitosis of neighboring syncytial nuclei and the resultant crowding together of their spindles culminates in overlapping spindles, multipolar spindles, disorganized spindles, and the crowding together of large numbers of condensed chromosomes from contigous spindles. When such an aggregation of condensed chromosomes becomes enclosed within one nuclear membrane, a giant nucleus appears in the following interphase. It soon becomes postmitotic.