The objective of this study on surgically assisted rapid maxillary expansion (RME) was to examine the extent of stress reduction in the midface and the cranial base with various surgical procedures. Four finite element models of the skull were generated (one without and three with different surgical incisions), in which a virtual RME (5 mm gap width) was simulated. In all four simulations, von-...

Here we develop a minimal model of the cell actomyosin cortex by forming a quasi-2D cross-linked filamentous actin (F-actin) network adhered to a model cell membrane and contracted by myosin thick filaments. Myosin motors generate both compressive and tensile stresses on F-actin and consequently induce large bending fluctuations, which reduces their effective persistence length to <1 μm. Over a...