S. Deguchi^1,2, T. Ohashi², M. Sato²

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.2, No.3, pp. 125-134, 2005, DOI:10.3970/mcb.2005.002.125

Abstract Actin bundles in vascular endothelial cells (ECs) play a critical role in transmitting intracellular forces between separate focal adhesion sites. However, quantitative descriptions of tension level in single actin bundles in a physiological condition are still poorly studied. Here, we evaluated magnitude of preexisting tension in a single actin bundle of ECs on the basis of measurements of its preexisting stretching strain and tensile properties. Cultured ECs expressing fluorescently-labeled actin were treated with detergents to extract acin bundles. One end of an actin bundle was then dislodged from the substrate by using a microneedle, resulting… More >

S.R.K. Vedula¹, T.S. Lim², P.J. Kausalya³, W. Hunziker³, G. Rajagopal², C.T. Lim^1,4

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.2, No.3, pp. 105-124, 2005, DOI:10.3970/mcb.2005.002.105

Abstract Cell-cell adhesion is an extremely important phenomenon as it influences several biologically important processes such as inflammation, cell migration, proliferation, differentiation and even cancer metastasis. Furthermore, proteins involved in cell-cell adhesion are also important from the perspective of facilitating better drug delivery across epithelia. The adhesion forces imparted by proteins involved in cell-cell adhesion have been the focus of research for sometime. However, with the advent of nanotechnological techniques such as the atomic force microscopy (AFM), we can now quantitatively probe these adhesion forces not only at the cellular but also molecular level. Here, we More >

Cheng Zhu¹, Rodger P. McEver²

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.2, No.3, pp. 91-104, 2005, DOI:10.3970/mcb.2005.002.091

Abstract Force can shorten the lifetimes of receptor-ligand bonds by accelerating their dissociation. Perhaps paradoxical at first glance, bond lifetimes can also be prolonged by force. This counterintuitive behavior was named catch bonds, which is in contrast to the ordinary slip bonds that describe the intuitive behavior of lifetimes being shortened by force. Fifteen years after their theoretical proposal, catch bonds have finally been observed. In this article we review recently published data that have demonstrated catch bonds in the selectin system and suggested catch bonds in other systems, the theoretical models for their explanations, and More >

X. Edward Guo¹, Gang Bao¹

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.2, No.3, pp. 87-88, 2005, DOI:10.3970/mcb.2005.002.087

Abstract This article has no abstract. More >

Yunfa Zhang¹, Zihui Xia^1,2

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.2, No.3, pp. 213-226, 2005, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2005.002.213

Abstract In the present study, the initiation and evolution of the interphase damage and their influences on the global stress-strain relation of composite laminates are predicted by finite element analysis on a micromechanical unit cell model. A thin layer of interphase elements is introduced and its stress-strain relation is derived based on a cohesive law which describes both normal and tangential separations at the interface between the fiber and matrix. In addition, a viscous term is added to the cohesive law to overcome the convergence difficulty induced by the so-called snap-back instability in the numerical analysis. More >

N. Ramakrishnan¹, P. Rama Rao²

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.2, No.3, pp. 163-176, 2005, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2005.002.163

Abstract Ductile fracture is initiated by void nucleation at a characteristic distance (I_c) from the crack tip and propagated by void growth followed by coalescence with the tip. The earlier concepts expressed I_c in terms of grain size or inter-particle distance because grain and particle boundaries form potential sites for void nucleation. However, Srinivas et al. (1994) observed nucleation of such voids even inside the crack tip grains in a nominally particle free Armco iron. In an attempt to achieve a unified understanding of these observations, typical crack-tip blunting prior to ductile fracture in a standard C(T) specimen… More >

J. Li, Z. H. Xiang, M. D. Xue¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.2, No.2, pp. 139-150, 2005, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2005.002.139

Abstract This paper investigates the buckling response of honeycomb sandwich composite shells with cutouts under axial compression. The Wilson's incompatible solid Finite Element (FE) is used around cutouts to obtain the detail stress distribution there. While to reduce the computational expense, a special multilayered relative degrees-of-freedom (DOF) shell FE is used to model the regions far from the cutouts. The efficiency and accuracy of this modeling scheme are illustrated by two benchmarks. Then parametric studies are carried out to reveal how the buckling response is influenced by the area, the shape and the orientation of cutouts. More >

P. Dabnichki¹, A. Zhivkov²

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.2, No.2, pp. 97-104, 2005, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2005.002.097

Abstract A novel method for geometric reconstruction of smooth pseudo-rotational objects based on elliptic functions is developed. Based on the apparatus of theta functions analytical expressions for the main geometric invariants are derived. Reconstruction of asymmetric and irregular objects is illustrated. The advantages of the proposed technique lay in the following: i) reconstruction is computationally very fast and would allow a qualitative change in the current research practices, i.e. real-time monitoring and analysis of the responses of large cell samples ii) the accuracy of the method is very high and can be flexibly varied iii) the More >

B. Amaziane¹, A. Naji², D. Ouazar³, A. H.-D. Cheng⁴

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.2, No.2, pp. 85-96, 2005, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2005.002.085

Abstract In this paper the optimization of groundwater pumping in coastal aquifers under the threat of saltwater intrusion is investigated. The aquifer is inhomogeneous and contains several hydraulic conductivities zones. The aquifer data such as the hydraulic conductivities are uncertain, but with their expected mean and standard deviation values given. A stochastic boundary element method based on the perturbation technique is employed as the simulation tool. The stochastic optimization is handled by the chance-constrained programming. Genetic algorithm is selected as the optimization tool. Numerical examples of deterministic and stochastic problems are provided to demonstrate the feasibility More >

Chein-Shan Liu, Yu-Ling Ku

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.9, No.2, pp. 151-178, 2005, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2005.009.151

Abstract In this paper we are concerned with the integration of a semi-discretized version of the Landau-Lifshitz equation, which is fundamental to describe the magnetization dynamics in micro/nano-scale magnetic systems. The resulting ordinary differential equations at the interior grid points are numerically integrated by a combination of the group preserving scheme derived by Liu (2004a) and the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method, abbreviated as GPS-RK4. The new method not only conserves the magnetization magnitude and has the fourth-order accuracy, but also preserves the Lyapunov property of the Landau-Lifshitz equation, namely the free energy is decreasing with time. In More >