The purpose of this study was to examine whether stretching training altered the viscoelastic properties of human tendon structures in vivo. Eight men performed the stretching training for 3 wk. Before and after the stretching training, the elongation of the tendon and aponeurosis of medial gastrocnemius muscle was directly measured by ultrasonography while the subjects performed ramp isometric...

TGFβ plays key roles in fibrosis and cancer progression, and latency is conferred by covalent linkage to latent TGFβ binding proteins (LTBPs). LTBP1 is essential for TGFβ folding, secretion, matrix localization and activation but little is known about its structure due to its inherent size and flexibility. Here we show that LTBP1 adopts an extended conformation with stable matrix-binding N-term...

The main objective of this paper is concentrated on presenting a new two-stage method for damage localization and quantification in the linear-shaped structures. A linear-shaped structure is defined as a structure in which all elements are arranged only on a straight line. At the first stage, by employing Grey System Theory (GST) and diagonal members of the Generalized Flexibility Matrix (GFM),...