BACKGROUND Individual counselling, pharmacotherapy, and group therapy are evidence-based interventions that help patients stop smoking. Acupuncture, hypnosis, and relaxation have no demonstrated efficacy on smoking cessation, whereas self-help material may only have a small benefit. The purpose of this study is to assess physicians' current clinical practice regarding smokers motivated to stop ...

This paper presents a numerical parametric study on design parameters of multispan viscoelastic shear deformable beams subjected to a moving mass via generalized moving least squares method (GMLSM). For utilizing Lagrange’s equations, the unknown parameters of the problem are stated in terms of GMLSM shape functions and the generalized Newmarkscheme is applied for solving the discrete equations...

The development of tissue surrogate materials that can replicate the mechanical response of biological soft tissues is of increasing interest. Such materials are required to enable robust experimental capabilities for evaluating next-generation armor systems that are critical to the survivability of the Soldier with regard to mechanical impact forces, including small caliber projectiles, fragme...

Molecular dynamics simulations were carried out on a Lennard-Jones binary mixture of rigid (fixed bond length) diatomic molecules. The translational and rotational correlation functions, and the corresponding susceptibilities, exhibit two relaxation processes: the slow structural relaxation (α dynamics) and a higher frequency secondary relaxation. The latter is a Johari-Goldstein (JG) process, ...

In this article we present mechanical measurements of three representative elastomers used in soft robotic systems: Sylgard 184, Smooth-Sil 950, and EcoFlex 00-30. Our aim is to demonstrate the effects of the nonlinear, time-dependent properties of these materials to facilitate improved dynamic modeling of soft robotic components. We employ uniaxial pull-to-failure tests, cyclic loading tests, ...

relaxation is one of the important mental skills in physical education and sportsactivities. relationship between relaxation and rhythmic exercises with anemphasis on flexibility-functional mechanisms of nervous system has receivedattention in recent studies. the aim of the present study was to investigate the effectof rhythmic exercises on deepening the relaxation of national judo athletes. fo...

abstract introduction: hypertension is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases worldwide. because of its chronicity, hypertension requires life-long therapy. many patients tend to discontinue therapy and seek alternative treatments. in this study, we evaluated the efficacy of two behavioral therapeutic techniques, namely relaxation and biofeedback-assisted relaxation in reducing blood pressu...

The determination of the viscoelastic properties of cells by atomic force microscopy (AFM) is mainly realized by looking at the relaxation of the force when a constant position of the AFM head is maintained or at the evolution of the indentation when a constant force is maintained. In both cases the analysis rests on the hypothesis that the motion of the probe before the relaxation step is real...

introduction: during the recent years many studies have been performed on the effects of nitric oxide andoxygen-derived free radicals (ofr) on the aorta, but there is no report on the effects of simultaneousmanipulation of both systems on the relaxation of this artery. material and methods: after anaesthesia, aortic rings from male rats (320-420 g) were obtained. thepieces of aorta were mounted...

Lagrangian hydrodynamics of strength-free materials continues to present open issues, even in one dimension. We focus on the problem of closing a system of equations for a two-material cell under the assumption of a single velocity model. There are several existing models and approaches, each possessing different levels of fidelity to the underlying physics and each exhibiting unique features i...