The role played by nonspecialized connective tissues in chronic non-specific low back pain is not well understood. In a recent ultrasound study, human subjects with chronic low back pain had altered connective tissue structure compared to human subjects without low back pain, suggesting the presence of inflammation and/or fibrosis in the low back pain subjects. Mechanical input in the form of s...

We consider the static and dynamic phases in a Rosenzweig-Porter (RP) random matrix ensemble with tailed distribution of off-diagonal elements form large-deviation ansatz. present general theory survival probability such random-matrix model show that {\it averaged} may decay time as simple exponent, stretch-exponent power-law or slower. Correspondingly, we identify exponential, stretch-exponent...

background: mesenchymal stem cells (mscs) can be expanded and differentiated into many mature cell types including smooth muscle cells (smcs). in addition to growth factor, cyclic stretch contributes to differentiation of stem cells. mechanical stimuli are critical to morphological changes, development, regeneration, differentiation and pathology of mesenchymal tissues. the aim of this study is...

It has been suggested that species with high breathing frequencies have pulmonary stretch receptors which adapt more rapidly than species with low breathing frequencies. This has proved not to be so. Our hypothesis is that this theory is in fact correct if modified so that overall rate of adaptation of afferent vagal activity, i.e. the sum of stretch and rapidly adapting receptors, is considere...

Structures consisting of cables and membranes have been of interest to engineers due to their higher ratio of strength to weight and lower cost compared to other structures. One of the challenges in such structures is presence of holes in membranes, which leads to non-uniform stress and strain distributions, even under uniform far-field deformations. One of the approaches suggested for controll...

Epicardial wall motion was measured on the left ventricular free wall in six isolated potassium-arrested dog hearts using a biplane video technique. Significant regional variations in epicardial deformations were recorded during static ventricular filling. Epicardial stretches varied linearly with cavity volume, sometimes exceeding 20% at physiological left ventricular end-diastolic pressures. ...

The biomechanical environment to which cells are exposed is important to their normal growth, development, interaction, and function. Accordingly, there has been much interest in studying the role of biomechanical forces in cell biology and pathophysiology. This has led to the introduction and even commercialization of many experimental devices. Many of the early devices were limited by the het...