Increased stromal stiffness is associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development and progression. However, the molecular mechanism by which matrix stiffness stimuli modulate HCC progress is largely unknown. In this study, we explored whether matrix stiffness-mediated effects on osteopontin (OPN) expression occur in HCC cells. We used a previously reported in vitro culture system with t...

Stiffness matrices of beams with stochastic distributed parameters modelled by random fields are considered. In finite element analysis, deterministic shape functions traditionally employed to derive stiffness using the variational principle. Such not exact because derived from solution governing partial differential equation relevant boundary conditions. This paper proposes an analytical metho...

Breast epithelial cells sense the stiffness of the extracellular matrix through Rho-mediated contractility. In turn, matrix stiffness regulates RhoA activity. However, the upstream signaling mechanisms are poorly defined. Here we demonstrate that the Rho exchange factor GEF-H1 mediates RhoA activation in response to extracellular matrix stiffness. We demonstrate the novel finding that microtubu...

This paper deals with detennination of macroscopic fracture characteristics of random panicle systems. which represents a fundamental but little explored problem of micromechanics of quasibrittle materials. The panicle locations are randomly generated and the mechanical properties are characterized by a triangular softening forcedisplacement diagram for the interparticle links. An efficient alg...

Rubber engine mounts are commonly used to provide vibration attenuation. The loss factor and dynamic stiffness of engine mount provide fundamental information of the energy dissipation. The objectives of this work are to study the frequency-dependant stiffness and loss factor of engine rubber mount and to determine the effect of the orientation angle of the engine mount on the dynamic character...

Filopodia have a key role in sensing both chemical and mechanical cues in surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM). However, quantitative understanding is still missing in the filopodial mechanosensing of local ECM stiffness, resulting from dynamic interactions between filopodia and the surrounding 3D ECM fibers. Here we present a method for characterizing the stiffness of ECM that is sensed by f...

This paper discusses two approaches to modeling helical suspension springs for use in a dynamic finite element compressor model. The first approach represents the spring's stiffness characteristics with a simple spring element matrix. The appropriate spring constants are calculated using a separate finite element model of the spring. The spring modeling procedure is described and supplemented w...

We argue that restricted Schur polynomials provide a useful parameterization of the complete set of gauge invariant variables of multi-matrix models. The two point functions of restricted Schur polynomials are evaluated exactly in the free field theory limit. They have diagonal two point functions.

this study contains the identification of modal dynamic properties of a 3-story large-scale steel test frame structure through shaking table measurements. shaking table test is carried out to estimate the modal properties of the test frame such as natural frequencies, damping ratios and mode shapes. among many different model structures, arx (auto recursive exogenous) model structure is used fo...

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...