Thirteen Norway spruce [Picea abies (L.) Karst.] trees of different size, age, and social status, and grown under varying conditions, were investigated to see how they react to complex natural static loading under summer and winter conditions, and how they have adapted their growth to such combinations of load and tree state. For this purpose a non-linear finite-element model and an extensive e...

Winter ice storms frequently occur in the southeastern United States and can severely damage softwood plantations. In January 2004, a severe storm deposited approximately 2 cm of ice on an intensively managed 4-year-old loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) plantation in South Carolina. Existing irrigation and fertilization treatments presented an opportunity to examine the effects of resource amendme...

The distribution of curvature and of bending speed along the cell's growing region are studied during steady state phototropic bending. At the start, elemental bending speed parallels the known axial distribution of growth rate. Hence regional phototropic sensitivity is initially determined by the local growth rate, and unilateral visible light acts proportionally at all levels of the growth zo...

Percutaneous osseointegrated (OI) implants for direct skeletal attachment of upper extremity prosthetics represent an alternative to traditional socket suspension that may yield improved patient function and satisfaction. This is especially true in high-level, transhumeral amputees where prosthetic fitting is challenging and abandonment rates remain high. However, maintaining mechanical integri...

The hoes are widely used in the farms and home gardens in the United States. Many existing hoes are not ergonomically designed because they require a lot of back bending and wrist bending during use. Back bending often causes lower back injuries, and wrist bending often causes carpal tunnel syndrome. It can be very expensive to cure these injuries. The objective of this project is to reduce bac...

DNA-bending flexibility is central for its many biological functions. A new bending restraining method for use in molecular mechanics calculations and molecular dynamics simulations was developed. It is based on an average screw rotation axis definition for DNA segments and allows inducing continuous and smooth bending deformations of a DNA oligonucleotide. In addition to controlling the magnit...

When a plant is rotated on a clinostat, with its axis parallel to the ground, the axis may remain straight. According to Sachs (9), the successive stimuli of gravity compensate each other and, therefore, there is no tropic reaction. Czapek (4) on the other hand, felt that under these conditions, there is no perception of the gravity by the plant and consequently no tropic reaction. In connectio...

The bending of a flagellum, such as the flagellum which forms the tail of a seaurchin spermatozoon, is the result of active mechanochemical processes occurring within the flagellum itself, which cause it to bend actively throughout its length (Gray, 1955; Machin, 1958). To understand how flagella operate, we must understand not only the mechanisms which generate bending, but also the control me...