Arterial stiffness is widely used in assessing arteriosclerosis in the background of increased cardiovascular events. Arteriosclerosis also causes reduction in exercise capacity, which is a most important prognostic factor in patients with cardiovascular disease; however, data on the association between arterial stiffness and exercise capacity are limited. Therefore, a simple and noninvasive me...

Background: The presence of inadequate levels of passive ankle stiffness have been associated with the occurrence of movement disorders, the development of pathological conditions and the reduction in the performance of functional activities such as walking, running and jumping. Therefore, clinical tests to evaluate ankle stiffness may be useful for the physical therapy assessment. Objectives: ...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in dialysis patients. Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) is more efficient to handily assess arteriosclerosis than aortic PWV. The cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) is also a novel blood pressure-independent arterial stiffness parameter. In dialysis patients, both baPWV and CAVI are increased compared to gene...

High passive stiffness is one of the characteristic properties of the asynchronous indirect flight muscle (IFM) found in many insects like Drosophila. To evaluate the effects of two thick filament protein domains on passive sarcomeric stiffness, and to investigate their correlation with IFM function, we used microfabricated cantilevers and a high resolution imaging system to study the passive I...

Variable Stiffness Actuators (VSAs) emerged as an alternative to conventional actuators in a variety of applications, such as walking robots and service robotics. New requirements, which were obviated in the design of rigid actuators, must be accounted for during the mechanical design of such new devices. Among them, we find the possibility of tunning the natural frequency of the mechanical sys...

background loss of motion is a well-known complication after elbow trauma and in severe cases, arthrolysis of elbow is the procedure of choice. the posterior approach might have some advantages especially in post-traumatic patients who have undergone the same surgical approach in the past. objectives the aim of this study was to evaluate the short-term outcomes of elbow arthrolysis through post...

To investigate the role of the myosin hinge region in muscle contraction, we examined the contraction characteristics and Mg-ATPase activity of glycerinated muscle fibers prepared from rabbit psoas in the presence and absence of polyclonal antibody directed against the subfragment 2 (S-2) region of myosin. The antibody-induced reduction of Ca(2+)-activated isometric force was always accompanied...

Arterial stiffness is an independent cardiovascular prognostic factor and is modulated by angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs). The authors performed a meta-analysis of clinical trials investigating the effects of ACEIs on pulse wave velocity (PWV) or augmentation index. The search included randomized clinical trials as well as uncontrolled studies that measured in-treatment changes...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate hemodynamics and coil distribution with changing coil stiffness and length using the finite element method (FEM) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. METHODS Basic side-wall and bifurcation type aneurysm models were used. Six types of coil models were generated by changing the coil stiffness and length, based on commercially ava...