Various surface treatments on zirconia have been reported for dental porcelain veneer. However, it has not been determined which of these treatments provide the highest bond strength. The purpose of this study is to compare the effect of airborne particle abrasion and atmospheric pressure plasma treatment on the shear bond strength between zirconia and dental porcelain veneer. The groups were divided into four groups according to the surface treatment method: the control group, the atmospheric pressure plasma treated group (group P), the airborne particle abrasion group (group A), the atmospheric pressure plasma treated group after the airborne particle abrasion (group AP). Atmospheric pressure plasma was applied on the specimens using a plasma generator (Plasma JET, POLYBIOTECH Co. Ltd., Gwangju, Korea) and airborne-particle abraded with 110 µm. The characteristics of surface treated zirconia were analyzed by 3D-OP, XRD, XPS and contact angle. The shear bond strength was tested using a universal testing machine. The shear bond strength of group P was significantly increased compared to that of the control group (P < 0.05). The shear bond strength of group AP was significantly increased as compared to group A (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the group P and group A (P > 0.05). As a result of this study, the atmospheric pressure plasma treatment showed significantly higher shear bond strength than control group, but similar to the airborne particle abrasion, and the atmospheric pressure plasma treatment after the airborne particle abrasion provided the highest shear bond strength. This study demonstrated that application atmospheric pressure plasma treatment on zirconia may be useful for increasing bond strength between zirconia and dental porcelain veneer.

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of hydroxyapatite (HA) coating on titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotube by sol-gel process on viability of osteoblast like cell (MC3T3-E1) and bone formation in rat tibia. Specimens were divided into three groups including commercially pure titanium (control group), TiO2 nanotubes (group N), and HA coated TiO2 nanotubes (group HN). Surface characteristics were determined using field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM; S-4700, Hitachi, Japan) and contact angles were measured. Cell viability was investigated in vitro after 1 day, 3 days, and 7 days of incubation. Implants (2.0 mm in diameter and 5.0 mm in length) were inserted into the tibia of rats. After 4 weeks, histomorphometric analysis was performed. Both N and HN groups showed enhanced hydrophilicity compared to control group. After 7 days of implantation, group HN showed higher cell viability with marginal significance (0.05 < P < 0.1). Bone to implant contact (BIC) ratio in the control group, group N, and group HN were 32.5%, 33.1%, and 43.8%, respectively. Results of this study showed that HA coated TiO2 nanotube using sol-gel process could be used to enhance hydrophilicity and improve osseointegration of dental implant surface.

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Elections are an essential process for securing public opinion and legal justification in a democratic society. In the case of the Republic of Korea, a rigid electoral culture was established during the military dictatorship, which caused many electoral systems to become unilateral. However, as times have changed, various means of communication between candidates and voters have been newly introduced, and various ways to lower election costs and actively promote election activities have been attempted. Among them, the introduction of the use of social media reflects the transition from group focus to individual focus and from one-sided publicity to active election campaigns through interaction between candidates and voters. In this study, we present examples of election campaigns using the recently developed NFT(non-fungible token) as part of promoting the election atmosphere and encouraging the supporters of each party's presidential candidates to participate in the vote. The HOK (House of Kard) was a tournament project that used NFTs for the advance voting of candidates in the 20th Korean presidential election. In each round, the candidate-'s’ NFTs were presented with a new concept. The HOK project presented NFTs in graphic form as entertainment elements called league matches based on the presidential election. Consumers with NFTs tried a virtuous cycle structure where they could choose candidates they support or cards with a high probability of winning for various reasons, and small sales were attempted to increase the NFT value for owners who support and sponsor them. The HOK project had the goal to promote a new way of lighthearted participation in the presidential election away from the rigid election culture of the past, and became one example of the various NFT applications that may be attempted in the future.

In this paper, we suggest a simple and efficient multipleforwarder-based file distribution method which can work with a tree-based application layer multicast. Existing multiple-forwarder approaches require high control overhead. The proposed method exploits the assumption that receivers join a session at different times. In treebased application layer multicast, a set of data packets is delivered from its parent after a receiver has joined but before the next receiver joins without overlapping that of other receivers. The proposed method selects forwarders from among the preceding receivers and the forwarder forwards data packets from the non-overlapping data packet set. Three variations of forwarder selection algorithms are proposed. The impact of the proposed algorithms is evaluated using numerical analysis. A performance evaluation using PlanetLab, a global area overlay testbed, shows that the proposed method enhances throughput while maintaining the data packet duplication ratio and control overhead significantly lower than the existing method, Bullet.