Background. Limited data exist regarding endothelin-1 (ET-1), a vasoactive contributor in vascular tone, in a population subjected to early vascular deterioration. We compared ET-1 levels and explored its association with markers of arterial stiffness in black and white South Africans. Methodology. This cross-sectional substudy included 195 black (men: n = 99; women: n = 95) and 197 white (men:...

Three amplification mechanisms of large accelerations over 20 m/s2 are related to various non-liner behaviors and explained by using the non-stationary Fourier spectra. The frequencies of dominant components are compared with the natural frequencies with the ratios (1:3:5:7) of a shear-spring model of the underground soil. Thus, one of the amplification mechanisms is supposed to result from the...

background loss of motion is a well-known complication after elbow trauma and in severe cases, arthrolysis of elbow is the procedure of choice. the posterior approach might have some advantages especially in post-traumatic patients who have undergone the same surgical approach in the past. objectives the aim of this study was to evaluate the short-term outcomes of elbow arthrolysis through post...

BACKGROUND No consistent relationship between the severity of symptoms of knee osteoarthritis (OA) and radiographic change has been demonstrated. OBJECTIVES To determine the relationship between symptoms of knee OA and tibial cartilage volume, whether pain predicts loss of cartilage in knee OA, and whether change in cartilage volume over time relates to change in symptoms over the same period...

The endothelial glycocalyx (eGC), a carbohydrate-rich layer lining the luminal side of the endothelium, regulates vascular adhesiveness and permeability. Although central to the pathophysiology of vascular barrier dysfunction in sepsis, glycocalyx damage has been generally understudied, in part because of the aberrancy of in vitro preparations and its degradation during tissue handling. The aim...

We present a cost-efficient and rapid prototyping technique for polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) microfluidic devices using a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based hot embossing process. Compared to conventional hot embossing methods, this technique uses PDMS molds with enhanced thermo-mechanical properties. To improve the replication performance, increases in both PDMS stiffness and hardness were ach...

We investigated the effects of aging on Drosophila melanogaster indirect flight muscle from the whole organism to the actomyosin cross-bridge. Median-aged (49-day-old) flies were flight impaired, had normal myofilament number and packing, barely longer sarcomeres, and slight mitochondrial deterioration compared with young (3-day-old) flies. Old (56-day-old) flies were unable to beat their wings...

Skeletal muscle accumulates intramuscular fat through age and obesity. Muscle quality, a measure of muscle strength per unit size, decreases in these conditions. It is not clear how fat influences this loss in performance. Changes to structural parameters (e.g. fibre pennation and connective tissue properties) affect the muscle quality. This study investigated the mechanisms that lead to deteri...

We study the spectral properties of the stiffness matrices coming from the Qp Lagrangian FEM approximation of d-dimensional second order elliptic differential problems; here, p = (p1, . . . , pd) ∈ Nd and pj represents the polynomial approximation degree in the j-th direction. After presenting a construction of these matrices, we investigate the conditioning (behavior of the extremal eigenvalue...