Natural lung surfactant contains less than 40% disaturated phospholipids, mainly dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC). The mechanism by which lung surfactant achieves very low near-zero surface tensions, well below its equilibrium value, is not fully understood. To date, the low surface tension of lung surfactant is usually explained by a squeeze-out model which predicts that upon film compres...

OBJECTIVE To investigate anorectal function in women patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc), with and without lower gastrointestinal symptoms. METHODS Anorectal manometry was performed in 16 patients with SSc: six with no or minimal bowel symptoms, seven with constipation, and three with diarrhoea and faecal incontinence. Eleven healthy women acted as control subjects. Pressure data were reco...

The paper summarises the results of laboratory testing of three commercially available magnetorheological (MR) fluids operated in the oscillatory squeeze mode. Tested fluids include the Basonetic 204 and Basonetic 4035 (BASF) and MRF-122EG (Lord Corporation). The oscillatory squeeze mode produces large forces at small displacements. This feature may be well utilised in fabrication of new MR dev...

In the coming decades, world agricultural systems will face serious transitions. Population growth, income and lifestyle changes will lead to considerable increases in food demand. Moreover, a rising demand for renewable energy and biodiversity protection may restrict the area available for food production. On the other hand, global climate change will affect production conditions for better or...

Compaction is a mechanical process in which an earthen material is made more dense. The densification occurs as a direct result of the mechanical loading, and is essentially complete at the end of the loading. Volume changes are incurred as a result of a reduction in the quantity of air voids— water content remaining constant. Since it is impractical to squeeze out all the air, the as-compacted...

We study an incentive model of financial intermediation in which firms as well as intermediaries are capital constrained. We analyze how the distribution of wealth across firms, intermediaries, and uninformed investors affects investment, interest rates, and the intensity of monitoring. We show that all forms of capital tightening (a credit crunch, a collateral squeeze, or a savings squeeze) hi...

The influence of the chiral mean field on the collective motion of kaons in relativistic heavy ion reactions at SIS energies is investigated. We consider three types of collective motion, i.e. the transverse flow, the out-of-plane flow (squeeze-out) and the radial flow. The kaon dynamics is thereby described with a relativistic mean field as it originates form chiral lagrangiens. For the K meso...

This paper studies the nonlinear effects of squeeze film stiffening on the performance of a high resolution MEMS nonresonant inertial sensor. It is shown that these effects introduce a surprising dynamic response that extends the operational frequency range of the devices by retarding the resonate response. In addition, this performance advantage will occur without the traditional gain trade-of...