Guaranteeing the use of Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) in mitigation of extreme load effects requires a deep study of the SMA behavior according to the specific requirements of the application. In particular, for a storm is necessary more than one million of working cycles. It is applied to two realistic cables in ELSA (JRC-Ispra, Italy) and in IFSTTAR (old LCPC in Nantes, France). The measurements ...

Structural and neurochemical changes in frontostriatal circuits are thought to underlie age-related behavioral deficits on cognitive tasks. Here, we test the hypothesis that age-related motor switching deficits are associated with reduced basal ganglia (BG) function. Right-handed volunteers (15 Old, and 15 Young) made spatially and temporally coupled bimanual circular motions during event-relat...

the seismic performance of hybrid braces composed of steel and shape memory alloy (sma) was investigated in this paper. six types of hybrid braces were used, constituted by sma content of 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100%. a nonlinear dynamic analysis was performed under el centro earthquake records, with the maximum acceleration of 0.6g and 0.9g. our results showed that the seismic performance, i.e....

In this paper the design of a biped robot actuated with Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) springs with minimum degrees of freedom is presented. SMA springs are a class of smart materials that are known for their high power to mass and volume ratios. It was shown that utilizing spring type of SMAs have many advantages as large deformation, smooth motion, silent and clean movement compared to ordinary typ...

spinal muscular atrophy (sma) is an autosomal recessive neuromuscular disorder characterized by degeneration of spinal cord anterior horn cells, leading to muscular atrophy. sma is clinically classified into three sub-groups based on the age of onset and severity. the majority of patients with sma have homozygous deletions of exons 7 and 8 of the survival motor neuron (smn) gene. the purpose of ...

background: spinal muscular atrophy (sma) is the second most common lethal autosomal recessive disease. it is a neuromuscular disorder caused by degenerative of lower motor neurons and occasionally bulbar neurons leading to progressive limb paralysis and muscular atrophy. the smn1 gene is recognized as a sma causing gene while naip has been characterized as a modifying factor for the clinical s...

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a pediatric genetic disease, characterized by motor neuron (MN) death, leading to progressive muscle weakness, respiratory failure, and, in the most severe cases, to death. Abnormalities at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) have been reported in SMA, including neurofilament (NF) accumulation at presynaptic terminals, immature and smaller than normal endplates, re...

The recovery stress of martensitic shape-memory alloy [SMA] wires can be used to confine concrete, and the confining effectiveness of the SMA wires was previously proved through experimental tests. However, the behavior of SMA wires under recovery stress has not been seriously investigated. Thus, this study conducted a series of tests of NiTiNb martensitic SMA wires under recovery stress with v...

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) have interesting properties for application in adaptive structures, and many researchers have already explored their possibilities. However, the complex behavior of the material makes the development of SMA adaptive structures a challenging task. It is generally accepted that systematic, model-based design approaches and design optimization techniques can be of great ...