| 41. |
- Bäck, Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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Biomechanical factors in the biology of aortic wall and aortic valve diseases
- 2013
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Ingår i: Cardiovascular Research. - : Oxford University Press. - 0008-6363 .- 1755-3245. ; 99:2, s. 232-241
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The biomechanical factors that result from the haemodynamic load on the cardiovascular system are a common denominator of several vascular pathologies. Thickening and calcification of the aortic valve will lead to reduced opening and the development of left ventricular outflow obstruction, referred to as aortic valve stenosis. The most common pathology of the aorta is the formation of an aneurysm, morphologically defined as a progressive dilatation of a vessel segment by more than 50% of its normal diameter. The aortic valve is exposed to both haemodynamic forces and structural leaflet deformation as it opens and closes with each heartbeat to assure unidirectional flow from the left ventricle to the aorta. The arterial pressure is translated into tension-dominated mechanical wall stress in the aorta. In addition, stress and strain are related through the aortic stiffness. Furthermore, blood flow over the valvular and vascular endothelial layer induces wall shear stress. Several pathophysiological processes of aortic valve stenosis and aortic aneurysms, such as macromolecule transport, gene expression alterations, cell death pathways, calcification, inflammation, and neoangiogenesis directly depend on biomechanical factors.
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| 42. |
- Cherubini, F., et al.
(författare)
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Bridging the gap between impact assessment methods and climate science
- 2016
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Ingår i: Environmental Science and Policy. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-6416 .- 1462-9011. ; 64, s. 129-140
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Life-cycle assessment and carbon footprint studies are widely used by decision makers to identify climate change mitigation options and priorities at corporate and public levels. These applications, including the vast majority of emission accounting schemes and policy frameworks, traditionally quantify climate impacts of human activities by aggregating greenhouse gas emissions into the so-called CO2-equivalents using the 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP100) as the default emission metric. The practice was established in the early nineties and has not been coupled with progresses in climate science, other than simply updating numerical values for GWP100. We review the key insights from the literature surrounding climate science that are at odds with existing climate impact methods and we identify possible improvement options. Issues with the existing approach lie in the use of a single metric that cannot represent the climate system complexity for all possible research and policy contexts, and in the default exclusion of near-term climate forcers such as aerosols or ozone precursors and changes in the Earth's energy balance associated with land cover changes. Failure to acknowledge the complexity of climate change drivers and the spatial and temporal heterogeneities of their climate system responses can lead to the deployment of suboptimal, and potentially even counterproductive, mitigation strategies. We argue for an active consideration of these aspects to bridge the gap between climate impact methods used in environmental impact analysis and climate science.
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| 43. |
- Comellas, E., et al.
(författare)
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A homeostatic-driven turnover remodelling constitutive model for healing in soft tissues
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of the Royal Society Interface. - : Royal Society of London. - 1742-5689 .- 1742-5662. ; 13:116
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Remodelling of soft biological tissue is characterized by interacting biochemical and biomechanical events, which change the tissue's microstructure, and, consequently, its macroscopic mechanical properties. Remodelling is a well-defined stage of the healing process, and aims at recovering or repairing the injured extracellular matrix. Like other physiological processes, remodelling is thought to be driven by homeostasis, i.e. it tends to re-establish the properties of the uninjured tissue. However, homeostasis may never be reached, such that remodelling may also appear as a continuous pathological transformation of diseased tissues during aneurysm expansion, for example. A simple constitutive model for soft biological tissues that regards remodelling as homeostatic-driven turnover is developed. Specifically, the recoverable effective tissue damage, whose rate is the sum of a mechanical damage rate and a healing rate, serves as a scalar internal thermodynamic variable. In order to integrate the biochemical and biomechanical aspects of remodelling, the healing rate is, on the one hand, driven by mechanical stimuli, but, on the other hand, subjected to simple metabolic constraints. The proposed model is formulated in accordance with continuum damage mechanics within an open-system thermodynamics framework. The numerical implementation in an in-house finite-element code is described, particularized for Ogden hyperelasticity. Numerical examples illustrate the basic constitutive characteristics of the model and demonstrate its potential in representing aspects of remodelling of soft tissues. Simulation results are verified for their plausibility, but also validated against reported experimental data.
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| 44. |
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| 45. |
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| 46. |
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| 47. |
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| 48. |
- Erhart, P., et al.
(författare)
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Finite-Elemente-Analyse abdomineller Aortenaneurysmen : Aktuelle Wertigkeit als Ergänzung zur herkömmlichen Diagnostik
- 2015
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Ingår i: Gefässchirurgie. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0948-7034 .- 1434-3932. ; 20:7, s. 503-507
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Finite element analysis (FEA) of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) could enable a more precise patient-specific risk assessment of AAA rupture. Further clinical studies are needed to validate this model as a clinical decision-making tool. The A4clinics™ software provides a simple and detailed FEA simulation. After implementation of a FEA workstation in a high volume university vascular center, relevant studies for further model validation are expected to be carried out.
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| 49. |
- Federico, Salvatore, et al.
(författare)
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Nonlinear elasticity of biological tissues with statistical fibre orientation
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of the Royal Society Interface. - : The Royal Society. - 1742-5689 .- 1742-5662. ; 7:47, s. 955-966
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The elastic strain energy potential for nonlinear fibre-reinforced materials is customarily obtained by superposition of the potentials of the matrix and of each family of fibres. Composites with statistically oriented fibres, such as biological tissues, can be seen as being reinforced by a continuous infinity of fibre families, the orientation of which can be represented by means of a probability density function defined on the unit sphere (i.e. the solid angle). In this case, the superposition procedure gives rise to an integral form of the elastic potential such that the deformation features in the integral, which therefore cannot be calculated a priori. As a consequence, an analytical use of this potential is impossible. In this paper, we implemented this integral form of the elastic potential into a numerical procedure that evaluates the potential, the stress and the elasticity tensor at each deformation step. The numerical integration over the unit sphere is performed by means of the method of spherical designs, in which the result of the integral is approximated by a suitable sum over a discrete subset of the unit sphere. As an example of application, we modelled the collagen fibre distribution in articular cartilage, and used it in simulating displacement-controlled tests: the unconfined compression of a cylindrical sample and the contact problem in the hip joint.
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| 50. |
- Forsell, Caroline, et al.
(författare)
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Biomechanical Properties of the Thoracic Aneurysmal Wall : Differences Between Bicuspid Aortic Valve and Tricuspid Aortic Valve Patients
- 2014
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Ingår i: Annals of Thoracic Surgery. - : Elsevier BV. - 0003-4975 .- 1552-6259. ; 98:1, s. 65-71
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background. The prevalence for thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAAs) is significantly increased in patients with a bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) compared with patients who have a normal tricuspid aortic valve (TAV). TAA rupture is a life-threatening event, and biomechanics-based simulations of the aorta may help to disentangle the molecular mechanism behind its development and progression. The present study used polarized microscopy and macroscopic in vitro tensile testing to explore collagen organization and mechanical properties of TAA wall specimens from BAV and TAV patients. Methods. Circumferential sections of aneurysmal aortic tissue from BAV and TAV patients were obtained during elective operations. The distribution of collagen orientation was captured by a Bingham distribution, and finite element models were used to estimate constitutive model parameters from experimental load-displacement curves. Results. Collagen orientation was almost identical in BAV and TAV patients, with a highest probability of alignment along the circumferential direction. The strength was almost two times higher in BAV samples (0.834 MPa) than in TAV samples (0.443 MPa; p < 0.001). The collagen-related stiffness (C-f) was significantly increased in BAV compared with TAV patients (C-f = 7.45 MPa vs 3.40 MPa; p = 0.003), whereas the elastin-related stiffness was similar in both groups. A trend toward a decreased wall thickness was seen in BAV patients (p = 0.058). Conclusions. The aneurysmal aortas of BAV patients show a higher macroscopic strength, mainly due to an increased collagen-related stiffness, compared with TAV patients. The increased wall stiffness in BAV patients may contribute to the higher prevalence for TAAs in this group.
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