Vascularization is a key issue for the success of tissue engineering to repair damaged tissue. In this study, we report a composite scaffold delivering angiogenic factor for this purpose. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was loaded on mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN), which was then incorporated within a type I collagen sponge, to produce collagen/MSN/VEGF (CMV) scaffold. The CMV c...

Whilst hydrogels and hollow particles both continue to attract much attention in the literature there are few examples of hydrogel composites containing hollow particles. Here, we study composite polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogels containing micrometer-sized pH-responsive shell-crosslinked hollow particles (abbreviated as HPXL) based on poly(methylmethacrylate-co-methacrylic acid) functionalised w...

BACKGROUND Angiogenesis is an important pathophysiological process of chronic inflammation, especially in inflammatory arthritis. Quantitative measurement of changes in vascularization may improve the diagnosis and monitoring of arthritis. The aim of this work is the development of a 3D imaging and analysis framework for quantification of vascularization in experimental arthritis. METHODS Hig...

The importance of mechanical stresses and strains has become well recognized in vascular physiology and pathology. To compute the stress and strain on the various components of the vessel wall, we must know the constitutive equations for the different layers of the vessel wall. The objective of the present study is to determine the constitutive equation of the coronary artery treated as a two-l...

We present an immersed boundary method based on volume penalization, with which pulsatile flow in a model cerebral aneurysm is simulated. The model aneurysm consists of a curved vessel merged with a spherical cavity. The dominant vortical structures arising in the time-dependent flow are discussed and the evolution of the maximal shear stress in the aneurysm is analyzed. We approximate flow pro...

Tiny, gray-white, spherical deposits were found on the retinal vessels and vitreoretinal interface of the fovea in a 55-year-old woman with acute retinal necrosis due to varicella-zoster virus, and in a 47-year-old man with preproliferative diabetic retinopathy. Both patients developed massive vitreous opacities due to uveal inflammation or hemorrhages that rendered the fundus difficult to visu...

Antimosy-doped tin oxide (ATO) particles were prepared via chemical coprecipitation and reverse emulsion. The size and size distribution of ATO particles were obviously decreased via reverse microemulsion method. At the relatively high yield the ATO particles were nearly spherical in shape, meanwhile the crystalline structure and excellent conductivity were reserved, which could satisfy the req...

The optical bistability in a composite, composed of nonlinear metallic particles (spherical or cylindrical) with interfacial layers randomly embedded in a linear dielectric host, is investigated theoretically. It is shown that both interfacial property and the size of metallic particles can dramatically a!ect the optical bistable behavior, and the threshold value is more less in three dimension...

The effective dielectric function of metal-dielectric composites consisting of spherical particles randomly distributed in a matrix is numerically investigated. The study, based on the spectral density theory, shows that local field fluctuations may critically affect the composite performance for metamaterial applications. It appears that randomness significantly modifies the effective dielectr...

The design and analysis ofradar systems that transmit over oceans or smooth terrain for example, airborne radars that spot distant incoming missiles, or coastal radars that fmd drug smugglers reqUires accurate evaluation of radar propagation over a smooth sphere. Analysis of smooth sphere diffraction is equally important for general radar applications; by combining several approximations, compo...