Does the surface tension make the lung inherently unstable?

Does the surface tension make the lung inherently unstable?

Many authors regard the human lung as a collection of 300 million bubbles independently connected by cylindrical tubes. Under surface tension such a model is inherently unstable in the sense that the small alveoli would empty into the large ones so that the lung would consist only of collapses and hyperinflated alveoli. It has been demonstrated that this basic model is wrong. My observation is ...

Rights to healthcare in the United States: inherently unstable.

On the low surface tension of lung surfactant.

Natural lung surfactant contains less than 40% disaturated phospholipids, mainly dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC). The mechanism by which lung surfactant achieves very low near-zero surface tensions, well below its equilibrium value, is not fully understood. To date, the low surface tension of lung surfactant is usually explained by a squeeze-out model which predicts that upon film compres...

Direct determination of surface tension in the lung.

We have used the spreading behavior of small drops of several fluorocarbon fluids and silicone oil on air-liquid interfaces to measure the surface tension of lungs in situ. The test fluids were calibrated in a surface balance at 37 degrees on monolayers of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine. At particular surface tensions characteristic of each fluid used, an increase in the tension of 1 mN/m or le...

Inherently improper surface parametric supports

We identify a class of monomial supports that are inherently improper because any surface rational parametrization defined on them is improper. A surface support is inherently improper if and only if the gcd of the normalized areas of the triangular sub-supports is non-unity. The constructive proof of this claim can be used to detect all and correct almost all improper surface parametrizations ...