We performed an experimental study to evaluate the mechanical properties of polyvinylidene fluoride sutures and to compare their use with that of standard polypropylene sutures for the circumferential, epitendinous suture of a flexor tendon repair. Polyvinylidene fluoride sutures had a smaller suture diameter, a greater knot pull strength and less delayed extension when under creep testing, tha...

B ecause genetic events do not fossilize, we are forced to deduce the evolution of bacterial genomes by comparing the features of contemporary organisms. This comparative approach has exposed many of the alterations endured by bacterial genomes (bouts of expansion and contraction or changes in base compositions), but such reconstructions are often imprecise, and sometimes incorrect, because the...

We prove that general merge-and-shrink representations are strictly more powerful than linear ones by showing that there exist problem families that can be represented compactly with general merge-and-shrink representations but not with linear ones. We also give a precise bound that quantifies the necessary blowup incurred by conversions from general merge-and-shrink representations to linear r...

In this paper we describe the generation of a displaced subdivision surface directly from a set of unorganized points. The displaced subdivision surface is an efficient mesh representation that defines a detailed mesh with a displacement map over a smooth domain surface, and has many benefits including compression, rendering, and animation, which overcome limitations of an irregular mesh produc...

The synthetic engineering of anionic polyoxometalate (POM) clusters with predefined properties tailored to specific applications is a great challenge using routine "one-pot" POM syntheses. Under such conditions, difficulties often arise from the multitude of complex reaction pathways and self-assembly processes occurring in solution. In this respect the major role of the charge balancing cation...

In this paper we propose a new mesh reconstruction algorithm that produces a displaced subdivision mesh directly from unorganized points. The displaced subdivision surface is a new mesh representation that defines a detailed mesh with a displacement map over a smooth domain surface. This mesh representation has several benefits — compact mesh size, piecewise regular connectivity — to overcome l...

For call intensive programs, function calls are major bottlenecks during program execution since they usually force register contents to be spilled into memory. Such register to memory spills are much more pronounced in presence of recursion. A function call is usually accompanied by the creation of its activation record at function entry. In this paper, we will deviate from this usual practice...

rutting in asphalt concrete is a very common form of distress in asphalt concrete pavement which unfortunately has been incurable to date. one of the prime reasons of rutting is attributed to the behaviour of asphalt binder at elevated temperature. this study has investigated the performance of polypropylene fibres modified asphalt concrete mix against rutting. two types of asphalt concrete sam...