Chemical and physical characteristics of third metacarpal bones and liver and rib soft tissue composition from feedlot steers were determined. Steers were selected (32 from each experimental location) to represent the range in slaughter weight and composition for each treatment group in three (total n = 1,088) feedlot experiments. Steers were implanted with 0, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, or 96 mg o...

The independent effect of dynamic flexure on the development of tissue engineered heart valves (TEHV) was investigated. Engineered heart valve tissues were constructed by seeding ovine smooth muscle cells onto rectangular scaffold strips and incubating the resultant constructs in a dynamic flexure bioreactor or under static conditions for three weeks. Tests indicated a trend of higher effective...

This paper presents the development of a new compact three-axis compliant stage employing piezoelectric actuators and a new flexure structure. A proposed stage works out-of-plane (Z, θx, θy) direction. The stage consists of 4 amplification flexures mounted piezoelectric actuators. New structure of flexure reduces height and enhances dynamic performance of stage. To certify excellent performance...

A temperature-like parameter is introduced in ordinary sandpiles models. A temperature dependent probability distribution is assigned for the sand toppling on sites of any height. In mean eld theory criticality is obtained for all the values of temperature and no characteristic avalanche size appears. Numerical simulations supports the existence of criticality at any temperature with apparently...

The abelian sandpile models feature a finite abelian group G generated by the operators corresponding to particle addition at various sites. We study the canonical decomposition of G as a product of cyclic groups G = Zd1 ×Zd2 ×Zd3 · · ·×Zdg where g is the least number of generators of G, and di is a multiple of di+1. The structure of G is determined in terms of the toppling matrix ∆. We constru...

This study presents experimental and numerical investigations on seven one-way, reinforced concrete (RC) slabs with a new technique of slab weight reduction using polystyrene-embedded arched blocks (PEABs). All had the same dimensions, steel reinforcement, compressive strength. One these was solid slab, which taken as control while other six were cast PEABs. The main variables ratio length PEAB...

Foam core sandwich composites are finding a wider breadth of use in aerospace, automotive, and construction applications. These structures present unique challenges in terms of material failure and interaction and are highly sensitive to damage and imperfections introduced during manufacturing. An emerging class of 3D Fiber Reinforced Foam Core (3DFRFC) aims to replace monolithic foams used in ...

This paper presents in-plane electrostatic comb-drive actuators with stroke as large as 245 μm that is achieved by employing a novel Clamped Paired Double Parallelogram (C-DPDP) flexure mechanism. For a given flexure beam length, comb gap, and actuation voltage, this is currently the largest comb-drive actuator stroke reported in the literature. The C-DP-DP flexure mechanism design offers high ...