MedShape (United States)

Digital dentistry has made significant advancements, yet numerous challenges remain. This paper introduces the FDI 16 dataset, an extensive collection of tooth meshes and point clouds. Additionally, we present a novel approach: Variational FoldingNet (VF-Net), a fully probabilistic variational autoencoder for point clouds. Notably, prior latent variable models for point clouds lack a one-to-one correspondence between input and output points. Instead, they rely on optimizing Chamfer distances, a metric that lacks a normalized distributional counterpart, rendering it unsuitable for probabilistic modeling. We replace the explicit minimization of Chamfer distances with a suitable encoder, increasing computational efficiency while simplifying the probabilistic extension. This allows for straightforward application in various tasks, including mesh generation, shape completion, and representation learning. Empirically, we provide evidence of lower reconstruction error in dental reconstruction and interpolation, showcasing state-of-the-art performance in dental sample generation while identifying valuable latent representations

Despite recent advances in tissue engineered heart valves (TEHV), one of the major challenges is finding a suitable cell source for seeding TEHV scaffolds. Native heart valves are durable because valve interstitial cells (VICs) maintain tissue homeostasis by synthesizing and remodeling the extracellular matrix. In this study, we demonstrate that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be derived into induced mesenchymal stem cells (iMSCs) using our feeder-free protocol and then further differentiated into VICs using a 3D cell culture environment. The differentiation efficiency was quantified using flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry staining, RT-PCR, and trilineage differentiation. In addition, iMSCs were encapsulated in polyethylene (glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hydrogels of varying stiffness, grafted with adhesion peptide (RGDS), to promote cell proliferation, remodeling, and further differentiation into VIC-like cells. VICs phenotype was characterized by the expression of αSMA, vimentin, F-actin, and the ECM production after 7, 14, and 21 days. The results demonstrated that using our feeder-free differentiation protocol, iMSCs were differentiated from iPSCs. Our iMSCs had a 99.9% and 99.4% positive expression for MSC markers CD90 and CD44, respectively. As expected, there was 0.019% expression of CD45, which is a hematopoietic marker. In addition, iMSCs differentiated into adipogenic, chondrogenic, and osteogenic. When MSC derived cells were encapsulated in PEGDA hydrogels that mimic the leaflet modulus, we observed expression of αSMA and F-actin after 7 days. Thus, the results from this study suggest that iPSCs can be a suitable cell source for TEHV by using a feeder-free differentiation approach and 3D culture.

Poly(para-phenylene) (PPP) exhibits exceptional mechanical strength, stiffness, toughness, and chemical inertness, although it is not currently used in any biomedical applications. The purpose of this study is to serve as a preliminary investigation into the potential of PPP as a biomaterial in orthopedic load-bearing applications. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis confirmed a polymer structure composed of an aromatic backbone and side groups. Tensile PPP specimens along with samples from several other polymers often used for orthopedic applications were elongated to failure after being soaked in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) for 1 h, 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, and more than 1 year. Results showed that PBS absorption of the PPP plateaued at 1 week at values of ∼0.7 wt % and remained within one standard deviation when soaked for over 1 year. PBS absorption did not affect elastic modulus (5.0 GPa), yield strength (141 MPa), fracture strength (120 MPa) and strain-to-failure (17%) more than one standard deviation. Zero-to-tension fatigue testing established an endurance limit of approximately 35 MPa, which was relatively insensitive to frequency (1-10 Hz). Eagle's minimum essential medium (MEM) elution assay with fibroblasts confirmed that the PPP was noncytotoxic. Relative to other polymers used for load-bearing biomedical applications, PPP displays promising mechanical properties that remain stable in aqueous solution. Lastly, prototype PPP and polyetheretherketone (PEEK) bone plates were manufactured and tested, with the PPP plate showing a 38% higher maximum tensile load before failure.

In this progress report, we review two common approaches to constitutive modeling of thermally activated shape memory polymers, then focus on a recent thermoviscoelastic model that incorporates the time-dependent effects of structural and stress relaxation mechanisms of amorphous networks. An extension of the model is presented that incorporates the effects of multiple discrete structural and stress relaxation processes to more accurately describe the time-dependent behavior. In addition, a procedure is developed to determine the model parameters from standard thermomechanical experiments. The thermoviscoelastic model was applied to simulate the unconstrained recovery response of a family of (meth)acrylate-based networks with different weight fractions of the crosslinking agent. Results showed significant improvement in predicting the temperature-dependent strain recovery response.