Age-related non-traumatic fractures are a major health problem. Historically, only bone mass was considered to predict fracture risk but other factors, including accumulation of microdamage, may also affect bone quality and contribute to bone fragility. Previous studies conducted in our laboratory have demonstrated that the predisposition of bone to form linear microcracks and not diffuse damag...

The osmotic fragility of erythrocytes from patients with genetically classified forms of retinitis pigmentosa (RP) has been studied. The mean fragility was increased in autosomal dominantly inherited RP, where the dystrophy was expressed regionally in the retina, with both rods and cones affected. In contrast it was normal in patients with the dominantly inherited disease, which leads to a diff...

Most current studies estimate the invulnerability of complex networks using a qualitative method that analyzes the decay rate of network performance. This method results in confusion over the invulnerability of various types of complex networks. By normalizing network performance and defining a baseline, this paper defines the invulnerability index as the integral of the normalized network perf...

Relationships between bridge damage and the resulting loss of functionality of the bridge are critical to assessing the impact of an earthquake event on the performance of the transportation network. This study addresses this data need by use of a Web-based survey of central and southeastern U.S. Department of Transportation bridge inspectors and officials. Results of the 28 responses are analy...

Osteoporosis is a metabolic disease characterized by low bone mass and microarchitectural deterioration of bone tissue, leading to enhanced bone fragility and a consequent increase in fracture risk. Bone fragility depends on bone density, turnover and microarchitectural features, such as relative trabecular volume, spacing, number and connectivity. Previous fragility fractures increase the frac...

Stings from scorpions (Buthus tamulus) produce acute myocarditis and can result in death in children and adults. Acute myocarditis was induced in anaesthetised dogs by intravenous injection of 4 mg/kg venom (Buthus tamulus). Myocarditis was confirmed by ECG. Blood was collected before and 30 minutes after venom treatment and processed for osmotic fragility. An increase in osmotic fragility of r...

The enthalpy relaxation is performed in the glassy Ge22Se78 to understand the dynamic behaviors. The structure of the glass is examined by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectra. The dynamic parameters such as the fragility, stretching exponent and non-linear factor are determined. A low fragility of m = 27 is exhibited for the chalcogenide, however, the stretching exponent is found not to have a ...

Osmotic fragility of erythrocytes was studied in ten Duchenne dystrophic patients and eight healthy controls. Lysis started in Duchenne crythrocytes at a concentration of 6.5 g/l NaC1 and in the control erythrocytes at a concentration of 5.5 gIl NaCI. At all concentrations of sodium chloride (from 6.5 g/l to 4.5 g/l) significantly greater lysis was observed in the erythrocytes of dystrophic pat...

Elastic moduli of the glass and fragility of the corresponding supercooled liquid were found to be correlated in recently published results. In the present work, compositions within the Ca-Mg-Cu system are used to study the relationships between liquid fragility, glass-forming ability and elastic properties. The correlation between liquid fragility and elastic properties already observed for gl...

Semi-fragile image authentication methods are robust to JPEG images, but are fragile to other malicious manipulations. This paper presents a novel digital signature scheme that adopts statistic Ogive analysis in quantized discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients to construct a feature code for image authentication. The lower bound sensitivity of fragility can be determined by a predetermine...