Patients with mammographically dense breast tissue have a greatly increased risk of developing breast cancer. Dense breast tissue contains more stromal collagen, which contributes to increased matrix stiffness and alters normal cellular responses. Stromal collagen within and surrounding mammary tumors is frequently aligned and reoriented perpendicular to the tumor boundary. We have shown that a...

The efficient treatment of dense matrices arising, e.g., from the finite element discretisation of integral operators requires special compression techniques. In this article we use the H-matrix representation that approximates the dense stiffness matrix in admissible blocks (corresponding to subdomains where the underlying kernel function is smooth) by low-rank matrices. The low-rank matrices ...

Finite element stiffness and consistent mass matrices are derived for helically wound, symmetrical composite tubes. The tubular element is considered to have constant cross-section and small deformations restricted to a plane. Each node has three degrees of freedom: axial and transverse displacement and rotation (slope of transverse displacement). Shell theory and lamination theory are used to ...

Lung fibroblast functions such as matrix remodeling and activation of latent transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) are associated with expression of the myofibroblast phenotype and are directly linked to fibroblast capacity to generate force and deform the extracellular matrix. However, the study of fibroblast force-generating capacities through methods such as traction force microscopy is hin...

Cancer cell invasion from primary tumors is mediated by a complex interplay between cellular adhesions, actomyosin-driven contractility, and the physical characteristics of the extracellular matrix (ECM). Here, we incorporate a mechanochemical free-energy-based approach to elucidate how the two-way feedback loop between cell contractility (induced by the activity of chemomechanical interactions...

In this paper, a procedure has been introduced to the multi-objective optimal design of semi-active tuned mass dampers (SATMDs) with variable stiffness for nonlinear structures considering soil-structure interaction under multiple earthquakes. Three bi-objective optimization problems have been defined by considering the mean of maximum inter-story drift as safety criterion of structural compone...

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...

In this paper, we use the hybrid h-p version of the finite element method to study the effect of an open transverse crack on the vibratory behavior of rotors, the one-dimensional finite element Euler-Bernoulli beam is used for modeling the rotor, the shape functions used are the Hermite cubic functions coupled to the special Legendre polynomials of Rodrigues. The global matrices of the equation...

Two issues that arise when solving Stokes flow problems with the hydrodynamical single-layer potential are addressed. First, the resulting boundary integral equation is singular, and second, discretizations lead to dense matrices. We discuss a well-posed modified equation which is equivalent for zero net-flux. Furthermore, we describe a multiscale basis that lead to sparse stiffness matrices. T...