After each heating stage, the specimens were scanned by home-made XPS.
At this stage the specimens are cultured for Campylobacter jejuni/coli, Escherichia coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella species, Shigella species and Yersinia species.
It was found that the principle stage of the specimen wear takes place during the first 200 240 s of sliding independently of the applied speed; obviously, after this stage the intensity of wear decreases drastically.
We chose an inverted stage because the specimen chamber had to be accessible for a microinjection device (Fig. 1b).
At least some of the inconsistency we find here between mass estimation techniques may therefore be due to the ontogenetic stage of the specimen.
This microanatomy and histology is unique among the sampled Nothosaurus long bones and is most consistent with an early juvenile stage of the specimen, before perimedullary resorption and calcification of cartilage set in.
Outwardly, the convex hull volumes appear extremely large (figure 1 g) and, given the excessive soft tissue volume that would need to be placed outside the skeleton in order to reach a body mass of more than 3700 kg, we consider that the CE predictive equation [ 5] overestimates body mass in Stegosaurus when applied in this manner (i.e. without correction for the ontogenetic stage of the specimen).
After different aging stages, the specimens were subjected to accelerated carbonation experiments, and partial specimens were examined by scanning electron microscopy.
All the surgical specimens were classified by one experienced pathologist (CM) who was unaware of the clinical and PET data and who graded and staged the specimens in accordance with the criteria of the International Union Against Cancer and the American Joint Committee on Cancer Staging (Greene et al, 2002).
In addition, an effort was made to explore the effect of specimen geometry and loading schemes on the occurrence of particle fracture activity as well its evolution throughout the early stages of the specimen life.
