OBJECTIVE This study was designed to measure pressure and shear reduction of a novel insole design. METHODS We compared three multilayer viscoelastic insoles to a novel insole design (Glide-Soft, Xilas Medical, Inc., San Antonio, TX). The bottom pad of each insole was fabricated from firm-density Plastazote [Apex Foot Products (now Aetrex), South Hackensack, NJ] with an upper of Plastazote, e...

The paper investigates the long-term seismic behaviour of an underground reinforced concrete (RC) metro tunnel in Santiago, Chile, considering combined effects chloride-induced corrosion and cumulative, low-amplitude shaking on structure's performance. soil-tunnel response is evaluated with aid transient, nonlinear finite element analysis using a two-dimensional (2D) plane strain numerical mode...

The rumen of dairy cattle can be thought of as a large, stable fermentation vat and as such it houses a large and diverse community of microorganisms. The bacterium Butyrivibrio proteoclasticus is a representative of a significant component of this microbial community. It is a xylan-degrading organism whose genome encodes a large number of open reading frames annotated as fibre-degrading enzyme...

In this paper, a discontinuity in beams whose intensity is adjusted by the spring stiffness factor is modeled using a torsional spring. Adapting two analyses in strong and weak forms for discontinuous beams, the improved governing differential equations and the modified stiffness matrix are derived respectively. In the strong form, two different solution methods have been presented to make an a...

In this paper, exact closed-form solutions for displacement and stress components of thick-walled functionally graded (FG) spherical pressure vessels are presented. To this aim, linear variation of properties, as an important case of the known power-law function model is used to describe the FG material distribution in thickness direction. Unlike the pervious studies, the vessels can have arbit...

The enrichment of styrene degrading microorganisms from biofilters resulted in a broad range of degrading isolates with unkown in situ relevance. For this reason an in situ labeling of styrene degrading microorganisms using deuterated styrene and phospholipid fatty acids as biomarkers prior to the isolation approach was performed. By this method the fatty acid profiles of the primary styrene de...

In humans, vocal tissue stiffness increases with age, suggesting a possible contribution of age-associated variations in vocal fold collagen turnover to voice senescence. The underlying mechanisms remain to be explored. With the use of reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), collagen subtypes expressed in rat vocal folds were determined, and messenger RNA (mRNA) levels of coll...

Initial destructive experimental studies have demonstrated significant stiffness variations in the damage region and large differences in compression and tension [2]. A quantitative description of the stiffness reduction in an artificial impact damage was demonstrated in [3], employing a non-destructive testing method coupled with an inverse approach. Tensile stiffness distribution of real impa...

Background: Phenol is an aromatic pollutant in industrial wastes that in combination with salts is highly toxic for all forms of life. Phenol elimination is the foremost challenge to meet the goal of pollutant-free environment. Objective: The present study was carried out to isolate phenol degrading bacteria which can degrade phenol under saline conditions and...

It is well accepted that angiotensin II (Ang II) induces altered vascular stiffness through responses including both structural and material remodeling. Concurrent with remodeling is the induction of the enzyme lysyl oxidase (LOX) through which ECM proteins are cross-linked. The study objective was to determine the effect of LOX mediated cross-linking on vascular mechanical properties. Three-mo...