This study deals with the effect of coupled thermal and cyclic mechanical loadings on the viscoelastic response of carbon black filled nitrile rubber. For this purpose, cyclic loading tests were performed at different temperatures by means of Dynamic Mechanical and Thermal Analysis (DMTA). The type and level of the thermomechanical loadings applied were chosen in order to determine the relative...

CONTEXT Little is known about Wisconsin workers who wear respirators and the prevalence of work-related asthma (WRA) in that population. To understand this problem, we questioned workers who wear respirators. OBJECTIVES The primary objective was to learn more about the health experiences of workers who wear respirators. A secondary objective was to evaluate the utility of the survey in WRA su...

The degree of comfort of personal protective equipment (PPE) was investigated in an automobile encapsulating plant. Up to 96.2% of employees used one or a combination of PPE. Only 8% of the workers felt their respirators were comfortable, 30% tolerated their respirators, and 62% rated them as uncomfortable. The percentage of employees who rated their PPE (other than a respirator) as comfortable...

BACKGROUND Carotid intimal medial thickening (c-IMT) is an established surrogate marker for atherosclerosis. There have been sporadic reports about an increase of c-IMT on the left carotid artery among populations with a mean age of +/-50 years. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether there is a difference in c-IMT between the two carotid arteries in a group of young healt...

A systematic review was conducted to identify reliable somatosensory evaluation methods for atypical odontalgia (AO) patients. The computerized search included the main databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library). The studies included used the following quantitative sensory testing (QST) methods: mechanical detection threshold (MDT), mechanical pain threshold (MPT) (pinprick), pressure pa...

nanocomposites based on phenolic resol and novolac resins and cloisite 30b were prepared. different kinds of phenolic resins and clay content were studied with respect to the morphology and mechanical properties of the polymer silicate layers. the phenolic resins, namely resol, novolac and their mixture and four different percentages of clay contents, 0.5, 1, 2 and 5 wt% have been considered. x...