To determine the quality of life in adult patients after autologous bone marrow transplantation (BMT), we administered a questionnaire to a cohort of patients seen at a single referral-based center. The sample included adults 18 years and older during the 1 year following an autologous BMT. Both disease-free patients and those who relapsed with 1-year of follow-up data available were included. Of 59 eligible patients, 58 (98%) responded to the questionnaire. Patients completed a telephone questionnaire administered by a nurse specialist in the field of BMT approximately every 90 days. At the time of initial contact on day +90, the mean quality of life was 7.8 (range, 1 to 10) on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best. By the end of the first year of follow-up, the mean quality of life was 8.9 (range, 3 to 10). Seventy- eight percent of the patients were employed. Twenty-one percent lost weight during the first year, with the majority reporting voluntary weight loss. Fourteen percent reported difficulties with sexual activity. Only 5% reported difficulty with sleeping or with frequent colds. One patient felt that her appearance was worse, and none of the patients reported a poor appetite. Eighty-eight percent of surviving adult patients reported an above-average to excellent quality of life 1 year following autologous BMT. This outcome is encouraging and suggests that this procedure is not associated with long-term morbidity in the surviving adult patient.

Current fatigue crack growth procedures in the commercial nuclear industry do not clearly specify how compressive loads are to be handled and, therefore, regulatory agencies usually recommend a conservative approach requiring full consideration of the loads. This paper demonstrates that a more realistic approach to account for compressive loads can be formulated using crack closure concepts. Several empirical plasticity-induced crack closure models were evaluated. An approach in the Section XI ASME Code for tensile loading only has been extended and evaluated for negative R-ratios. However, the paper shows this approach to be overly conservative. The approaches using crack closure models are shown to be more accurate. An analytically based crack closure model, while more complicated, is shown to give a theoretical basis to the empirically derived crack closure models. The paper concludes with a recommendation for modifying the current ASME Code practices consistent with the crack closure models and fatigue crack growth data from negative R-ratio tests.

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In late 1974 a report [i] came to the attention of the author that the 8-node isoparametric, planar element can be slightly modified to incorporate the required singularity of I/Jr for calculating stress intensity factors in linear elastic fracture mechanics.In addition, further references [2,3] have been made to this new singularity element. The author feels that these references [1,2,3] have not adequately presented enough data to show the powerful potential of this element.The 8-node or quadratic isoparametric element can be made to simulate the i//r singularity in stress by placing the mid-side nodal coordinates on any side (connected to the crack tip) at the quarter point of that side adjacent to the crack tip. Figure 1 illustrates this concept for 8-node isoparametric elements surrounding a crack tip. Reference [2] gives an excellent discussion of the reasons this element behaves in its unique way; therefore, no mention of the theory behind this element need be made here.Several example problems were run to investigate this unique singular element.The single edge crack problem was run to check convergence of the solution, and the results are given in Table I. Additional examples of the center-cracked plate, double edge-cracked plate, and three-point bend specimen were run. Figure 2 illustrates the grid used for the 32 element problems.The 8 and 128 element grids were proportionally spaced in a manner similar to Figure 2. The 32-element problems had typical CPU times of 2 seconds on the CDC 7600 computer.The procedure used to determine the stress intensity factor, KI, was the displacement method [4]. This method involves extrapolatIng a displacement parameter at nodal points along the free surface of the crack back to the crack tip. A similar approach using nodal stresses instead of displacements was found to produce inferior results. All results given in Table I were compared to accepted values of stress intensity factors found in [5]. Based on the present evaluation, it appears that the 8-node distorted isoparametric element is extremely cost effective in calculating stress intensity factors for two-dimensional bodies when used in conjunction with the displacement method. Acknowledgement:The author wishes to express his thanks to