inical and videofluoroscopic swallowing evaluations to identify oral and pharyngeal swallowing dysfunction in this patient population.

The efficiency of

in detecting premalignancies of the vocal fold and early glottic cancer was determined in a prospective monocentric study. In addition, the recovery rate of the mucosal membrane on the vocal fold after surgical intervention was determined by

We included 159 patients with a leukoplakia of the vocal folds and 50 healthy controls. Clinicopathological data and

characteristics (amplitude, mucosal wave, nonvibratory segment, glottic closure, phase symmetry, periodicity) at the lesion site were obtained and compared with the histopathological results.

parameters were recorded before cordectomy and in a 12-month follow-up interval. Patients who had prior laryngosurgery, radiotherapy, or laryngeal scarring were excluded.

Absent or greatly reduced mucosal waves were found in all patients with an invasive carcinoma, in 94% with a severe intraepithelial neoplasia (SIN III), in 38% with a moderate squamous intraepithelial neoplasia (SIN II), in 32% with a mild squamous intraepithelial nbosopic signs of abnormal amplitude and/or mucosal waves, particularly phoniatric halt, are an early indication for a CIS or an invasive carcinoma.It has been said that ‘God invented plasticity, but the Devil invented fracture!’ Both mechanisms represent the two prime modes of structural failure, respectively, plastic collapse and the rupture/breaking of a component, but the concept of developing materials with enhanced resistance to fracture can be difficult. This is because fracture resistance invariably involves a compromise-between strength and ductility, between strength and toughness-fundamentally leading to a ‘conflict’ between nano-/micro-structural damage and the mechanisms of toughening. Here, we examine the two major classes of such toughening (i) intrinsic toughening, which occurs ahead of a crack tip and is motivated by plasticity-this is the principal mode of fracture resistance in ductile materials, and (ii) extrinsic toughening, which occurs at, or in the wake of, a crack tip and is associated with crack-tip shielding-this is generally the sole mode of fracture resistance in brittle materials. We briefly examine how these distinct mechanr than friction’.The present paper describes detailed analyses of experimental data for the cyclic-fatigue behaviour of epoxy nanocomposite polymers. It has been shown that the data may be interpreted using the Hartman-Schijve relationship to yield a unique, ‘master’, linear relationship for each epoxy nanocomposite polymer. By fitting the experimental data to the Hartman-Schijve relationship, two key materials parameters may be deduced (i) the term A, which may be thought of as the fatigue equivalent to the quasi-static value of the fracture energy, Gc, and (ii) the fatigue threshold value, [Formula see text], below which no significant fatigue crack growth (FCG) occurs. It has then been established that the values of these parameters, together with the slope, n, and intercept, D, of the Hartman-Schijve master relationship, may be used (i) to compute the experimental results measured for the fatigue behaviour of the epoxy nanocomposite polymers, (ii) to understand the observed fracture and fatigue behaviour of these materials with respect to the structure of the epoxy nanocomposite polymers, and (iii) to deduce the ‘upper-bound’, i.e. ‘worst-case’, FCG rate curve which may be used by industry as a material development, material selection, design and service-life prediction tool when these epoxy nanocomposite polymers are used in engineering applications such as structural adhesives and/or as matrices in fibre-reinforced composites. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘A cracking approach to inventing new tough materials fracture stranger than friction’.The classic Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) contact theory was developed for frictionless adhesive contact between two isotropic elastic spheres. The advantage of the classical JKR formalism is the use of the principle of superposition of solutions to non-adhesive axisymmetric contact problems. In the recent years, the JKR formalism has been extended to other cases, including problems of contact between an arbitrary-shaped blunt axisymmetric indenter and a linear elastic half-space obeying rotational symmetry of its elastic properties. Here the most general form of the JKR formalism using the minimal number of a priori conditions is studied. The corresponding condition of energy balance is developed. For the axisymmetric case and a convex indenter, the condition is reduced to a set of expressions allowing explicit transformation of force-displacement curves from non-adhesive to corresponding adhesive cases. The implementation of the developed theory is demonstrated by presentation of a two-term asymptotic adhesive solution of the contact between a thin elastic layer and a rigid punch of arbitrary axisymmetric shape. Some aspects of numerical implementation of the theory by means of Finite-Element Method are also discussed. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘A cracking approach to inventing new tough materials fracture stranger than friction’.Several ASTM standards on the fracture of glued and welded joints need attention because they do not consider the Griffith energy criterion of cracking which was proposed a century ago. It is almost as if Griffith never existed because the ASTM definition of failure is the stress criterion postulated by Galileo in 1638 in which stress at failure (i.e. strength = force/area) is defined as the determinant of fracture. Irene Martinez Villegas (Villegas, Rans 2021 Phil. selleck Trans. R. Soc. A 376, 20200296. (doi10.1098/rsta.2020.0296)) shows in this volume that attempts to use ASTM D5868 to standardize welded composite (carbon fibre reinforced polymer, CFRP) lap joints reveal major problems. First, the test is a low angle bend-peel test; not shear. Second, the energy required to break the joint is not emphasized so that joints may have high strength properties but also low toughness; third, the fracture force is not proportional to the lap joint area so the concept of strength independent of sample size is false; fourth, as the CFRP panels are made thicker, the strength rises at constant overlap area so the strength can be any value you want; fifth, the strength of larger joints goes down; this is the size effect noted in many bend-cracking tests, much as Galileo suggested for bent beam fracture in his famous book ‘the larger the machine, the greater its weakness’.