BACKGROUND In treatment of unstable trochanteric fractures dynamic hip screw and Medoff sliding plate devices are designed to allow secondary fracture impaction, whereas intramedullary nails aim to maintain fracture alignment. Different treatment protocols are used by two similar Swedish regional emergency care hospitals. Dynamic hip screw is used for fractures considered as stable within the r...

Inspired by the observations of a remarkably stable biaxial nematic phase [van den Pol et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 258301 (2009)], we investigate the effect of size polydispersity on the phase behavior of a suspension of boardlike particles. By means of Onsager theory within the restricted orientation (Zwanzig) model we show that polydispersity induces a novel topology in the phase diagram, w...

We investigate the origin of "secondary disclinations" that were recently described as new evidence of a biaxial nematic phase in an oxadiazole bent-core thermotropic liquid crystal C7. Using an assortment of optical techniques such as polarizing optical microscopy, LC PolScope, and fluorescence confocal polarizing microscopy, we demonstrate that the secondary disclinations represent non-singul...

We use a continuum model to investigate the isochoric axial contraction and expansion of a right circular cylindrical specimen composed of a nematic elastomer that is cross-linked in a uniaxial state and then annealed. We build on previous work by relaxing the constraint that the molecular conformation be spherical or uniaxial, allowing instead for biaxiality. The material exhibits an energetic...

Recent experiments report that the long-looked-for thermotropic biaxial nematic phase has been finally detected in some thermotropic liquid crystalline systems. Inspired by these experimental observations, we concentrate on some elementary theoretical issues concerned with the classical sixth-order Landau-de Gennes free energy expansion in terms of the symmetric and traceless tensor order param...

By thermally cycling through their transformation temperature range, coarse-grained polymorphic materials can be deformed superplastically, owing to the emergence of transformation mismatch plasticity (or transformation superplasticity) as a deformation mechanism. This mechanism is presently investigated under biaxial stress conditions during thermal cycling of unalloyed titanium, Ti-6Al-4V, an...

To design more effective tissue-engineered heart valve replacements, the replacement tissue may need to mimic the biaxial stress-strain behavior of native heart valve tissue. This study characterized the planar biaxial properties of tissue-engineered valve leaflets and native aortic valve leaflets. Fibrin-based valve equivalent (VE) and porcine aortic valve (PAV) leaflets were subjected to incr...

The performance properties of many polymers are dom inated by the molecular alignment induced during pro cessing by the elongational ow component that is the diagonal component of the velocity gradient tensor Here we discuss two idealizations of this ow microstructure in teraction We rst summarize our recent studies of biaxial nematic patterns and phase transitions Forest andWang a of lyotropic...

the aim of this study was to characterize albumin fractions of four different wheat varieties grown in a local climatic context, as well as to find the relationship between the particular albumin fractions and enzyme activity of the tested wheat flours and dough rheological properties. the determined content of albumin fractions ranged from 2.64 to 17.50% of total proteins. more than 50% of the...