We numerically investigate deformations and modes of networks of semiflexible biopolymers as a function of crosslink coordination number z and strength of bending and stretching energies. In equilibrium filaments are under internal stress, and the networks exhibit shear rigidity below the Maxwell isostatic point. In contrast to two-dimensional networks, ours exhibit nonaffine bending-dominated ...

© Appl. Rheol. 19 (2009) 41969 Abstract: Filament breakup of high viscosity fluids with apparent yield stress has been investigated and strategies for an appropriate characterization of their behavior in CaBER experiments are discussed. Filament profiles of such fluids exhibit significant concave curvature. Accurate determination of filament shape is mandatory for understanding deformation beha...

Cells are exposed to several types of integrin stimuli, which generate responses generally referred to as "integrin signals", but the specific responses to different integrin stimuli are poorly defined. In this study, signals induced by integrin ligation during cell attachment, mechanical force from intracellular contraction, or cell stretching by external force were compared. The elevated phos...

Success of scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) image registration is limited when attempted on camera footage taken under water. This is, largely due to the poor image quality inherent to imaging in aquatic environments. In this research we aim to overcome this shortcoming using a new method of pre-processing of true-color imagery taken under water based on the Contrast Limited Adaptive Hi...

The purpose of t his study was to investigate the acute effects of pre-exercise static and dynamic stretching on peak torque of the knee extensors in female athletes and non-athletes. Thirty subjects (15 athletes and 15 nonathletes) completed three tests on an isokinetic dynamometer. After performing a randomly assigned preexercise stretching protocol (no stret ching, static or dynamic) the sub...

abstract background: restless leg syndrome prevalence is high among the patients undergoing hemodialysis. due to several side effects of medicational treatments, the patients prefer non-medicational methods. therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of two methods of reflexology and stretching exercises on the severity of restless leg syndrome among patients undergoing hemod...

Transformation functions utilizing the global information content of an input image have been long serving contrast enhancement by stretching the dynamic range of intensity levels. Other transformation functions focus on local information content to correct image details, such as edges and texture. In this paper, an effective method for image contrast enhancement is presented with a mapping fun...

Point-scanning sum-frequency generation (SFG) microscopy enables the generation of images of collagen I fibers in tissues by tuning into specific vibrational resonances of the polypeptide. It is shown that when collagen-rich tissues are visualized near the 2954 cm(-1) stretching vibration of methylene groups, the SFG image contrast is higher compared to the contrast seen in nonresonant second-h...

Mechanical stress that arises due to deformation of the extracellular matrix (ECM) either stretches or compresses cells. The cellular response to stretching has been actively studied. For example, stretching induces phosphorylation of the myosin regulatory light chain (MRLC) via the RhoA/RhoA-associated protein kinase (ROCK) pathway, resulting in increased cellular tension. In contrast, the eff...

We are given a sequence of items that can be packed into m unit size bins. In the classical bin packing problem we x the size of the bins and try to pack the items in the minimum number of such bins. In contrast, in the bin-stretching problem we x the number of bins and try to pack the items while stretching the size of the bins as least as possible. We present two on-line algorithms for the bi...