Research in urethane-acrylate UV-curables has shown that these materials have mechanical properties inferior to those of thermoplastic polyurethanes with very similar composition owing to the high cross-link density in UV-curables; in particular, their ultimate extension is low (less than 100%). Past attempts a t increasing the ultimate extension involved compromising the advantages of the UV-c...

We describe a multiscale model that incorporates force-dependent mechanical plasticity induced by interfiber cross-link breakage and stiffness-dependent cellular contractility to predict focal adhesion (FA) growth and mechanosensing in fibrous extracellular matrices (ECMs). The model predicts that FA size depends on both the stiffness of ECM and the density of ligands available to form adhesion...

The properties of thin polymer films are known to be different than the properties of bulk polymers. Both dewetting studies1,2 and temperature-dependent thickness measurements3 showed that thin polystyrene films can exhibit polymer mobility even at temperatures well below that of the bulk-polymer glass transition (Tg). Subsequent work by a wide range of groups has shown that the thermal propert...

In an attempt to study the specific influence of cross-linking on the a relaxation in polymer networks, a series of model heterocyclic polymer networks ~HPN! with well-defined cross-link densities and constant concentration of dipolar units were studied. Model HPN systems were prepared by simultaneous trimerization of 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanate ~HMDI! and hexyl isocyanate ~HI!. These HPN sy...

Received: January 06, 2017; Accepted: January 16, 2017; Published: January 18, 2017 One of the most important components in dentistry is dentine, which is a complex structure with a high organic component. Majority of its organic component is consisted of collagen type I fibres followed by collagen type III, proteoglycans, MMPs and cysteine cathepsins. Thus, dentine can be introduced as one of ...

Background Protein-protein interactions comprise the underlying molecular mechanism of a multitude of complex biological processes. Interaction between intracellular proteins can be transient, wherein two or more proteins associate in the catalysis of a step in a biosynthetic or signal-transduction pathway; alternatively, stable multiprotein complexes are required in the performance of several ...

PURPOSE The aim of study was to evaluate the cross-link using riboflavin and ultraviolet A (UVA) for improving scleral wound healing. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was an experimental study involving four New Zealand rabbits (eight eyes). Therapy procedure was chosen for the right eye and control procedure for the left one. UVA irradiation of 365 nm with a surface irradiance of 3 mW/cm2 and a ph...

This study investigates the roles of two distinct features of ionically cross-linked polyelectrolyte networks - ionic cross-links and fixed charges - in determining their nanomechanical properties. The layer-by-layer assembled poly(allylamine hydrochloride)/poly(acrylic acid) (PAH/PAA) network is used as the model material. The densities of ionic cross-links and fixed charges are modulated thro...

Annotation projection is a strategy for the cross-lingual transfer of annotations which can be used to bootstrap linguistic resources for low-density languages, such as role-semantic databases similar to FrameNet. In this paper, we investigate the main assumption underlying annotation projection, cross-lingual parallelism, which states that annotation is parallel across languages. Concentrating...

The oxidative gelation of maize bran arabinoxylans (MBAX) using a peroxidase/H(2)O(2) system as a free radical-generating agent was investigated. The peroxidase/H(2)O(2) system led to the formation of dimers and trimer of ferulic acid as covalent cross-link structures in the MBAX network. MBAX gels at 4% (w/v) presented a storage modulus of 180 Pa. The structural parameters of MBAX gels were ca...