The research presented in this thesis investigates eye injuries caused by blunt impacts and blast overpressure. This research represents part of an ongoing investigation to accurately quantify and predict eye injuries and injury mechanisms for various loading schemes. It has been shown that blunt trauma can cause severe eye injuries but it remains undecided whether blast overpressure alone can ...

The incidence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) among military personnel is at its highest point in U.S. history. Experimental animal models of blast have provided a wealth of insight into blast injury. The mechanisms of neurotrauma caused by blast, however, are still under debate. Specifically, it is unclear whether the blast shockwave in the absence of head motion is sufficient to induce brain ...

HYPOTHESIS Internal jugular vein (IJV) compression before blast injury will lead to reduced risk of traumatic hearing injury following exposure to a blast injury. BACKGROUND IJV compression and its effects on not only intracranial, but also intracochlear pressure may potentiate blast induced hearing injury, therefore, precluding its use as a prophylactic therapy for blast induced traumatic br...

Building facades in commercial and residential buildings in Australia, UK and elsewhere are highly vulnerable to terrorist threats involving explosive blast loading. The modelling of consequences to built infrastructure when subject to blast loading is well developed; however, considerable uncertainty remains with respect to system response and explosive loading parameters. In this paper, struc...

Blasts are responsible for about two-thirds of the combat injuries in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, which include at least 1,200 traumatic brain injuries. Blasts inflict damage to the brain directly and by causing injuries to other organs, resulting in air emboli, hypoxia, and shock. Direct injuries to the brain result from rapid shifts in air pressure (primary blast i...

Intracellular osmotic pressure plays important roles in the growth and pathogenicity of phytopathogenic filamentous fungi. However, the regulatory mechanism of turgor generation in pathogenesis or adaptation to osmolarity changes is poorly understood. We are analyzing the functions of histidine kinases in these processes. Knockout of a histidine kinase gene of the rice blast fungus caused sugar...

There exists a need for blast resistant yet portable buildings to protect personnel temporarily assigned duties within explosively hazardous areas. Blast resistant portable buildings (BRPBs) are a valuable asset for protection of temporarily assigned personnel involved in activities located near potential explosion sites. Portable. Stackable and modular. Blast designed and ductile. Several comp...

PURPOSE We qualitatively describe the anatomic features of primary blast ocular injury observed using a postmortem porcine eye model. Porcine eyes were exposed to various levels of blast energy to determine the optimal conditions for future testing. METHODS We studied 53 enucleated porcine eyes: 13 controls and 40 exposed to a range of primary blast energy levels. Eyes were preassessed with B...

The incidence of blast attacks and resulting traumatic brain injuries has been on the rise in recent years. Primary blast is one of the mechanisms in which the blast wave can cause injury to the brain. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a single sub-lethal blast over pressure (BOP) exposure of either 48.9 kPa (7.1 psi) or 77.3 kPa (11.3 psi) to rodents in an open-field sett...

Blast-related traumatic brain injury (TBI) has received much recent attention because of its frequency in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This renewed interest has led to a rapid expansion of clinical and animal studies related to blast. In humans, high-level blast exposure is associated with a prominent hemorrhagic component. In animal models, blast exerts a variety of effects on the ne...