BACKGROUND The strength of each heart beat and the stiffness of large arteries contribute to blood pressure (BP). When the large arteries are stiff and their resistance greater, the afterload increases and this may change the function of the heart. However, the relation between common carotid artery stiffness and heart function in hypertensive patients has not been clarified. METHODS Two hund...

Background Measuring liver stiffness is becoming more popular as a non-invasive tool for assessing liver fibrosis. Aim To assess the effect of severe hepatitis B flare on liver stiffness and determine factors that correlate with liver stiffness measurements. Methods Twenty-nine patients with severe hepatitis B flare (ALT [ 10 9 upper limit of normal) were followed up for 1 year. Serial transien...

Central arterial stiffness is associated with incident hypertension and negative cardiovascular outcomes. Obese individuals have higher central blood pressure (BP) and central arterial stiffness than their normal-weight counterparts, but it is unclear whether obesity also affects hemodynamics and central arterial stiffness after maximal exercise. We evaluated central hemodynamics and arterial s...

BACKGROUND Measuring liver stiffness is becoming more popular as a non-invasive tool for assessing liver fibrosis. AIM To assess the effect of severe hepatitis B flare on liver stiffness and determine factors that correlate with liver stiffness measurements. METHODS Twenty-nine patients with severe hepatitis B flare (ALT > 10 × upper limit of normal) were followed up for 1 year. Serial tran...

in this article, vibration analysis of an euler-bernoulli beam resting on a pasternak-type foundation is studied. the governing equation is solved by using a spectral finite element model (sfem). the solution involves calculating wave and time responses of the beam. the fast fourier transform function is used for temporal discretization of the governing partial differential equation into a set ...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the performance of liver and spleen stiffness measured by acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) elastography for noninvasive assessment of liver fibrosis and esophageal varices in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus. METHODS Two hundred sixty-four participants, of whom 60 were healthy volunteers (classified as stage 0), 66 were patients with chronic hepatitis B wh...

Haptic information in robotic surgery can significantly improve clinical outcomes and help detect hard soft-tissue inclusions that indicate potential abnormalities. Visual representation of tissue stiffness information is a cost-effective technique. Meanwhile, direct force feedback, although considerably more expensive than visual representation, is an intuitive method of conveying information ...

Assessment of spinal stiffness is widely used by manual therapy practitioners as a part of clinical diagnosis and treatment selection. Although studies have commonly found poor reliability of such procedures, conflicting evidence suggests that assessment of spinal stiffness may help predict response to specific treatments. The current study evaluated the criterion validity of manual assessments...

To adapt to novel unstable environments, the motor system modulates limb stiffness to produce selective increases in arm stability. The motor system receives information about the environment via somatosensory and proprioceptive signals related to the perturbing forces and visual signals indicating deviations from an expected hand trajectory. Here we investigated whether subjects modulate limb ...

OBJECTIVE (1) To measure objectively the subjective improvement in joint stiffness following intra-articular injections of corticosteroids, and (2) to record changes in joint stiffness in the first 24 hours after injection to look for changes in the physical properties of the joint that would be consistent with a crystal synovitis. METHODS The study population consisted of 15 patients having ...