Search results for " stiffness"
showing 10 items of 299 documents
Associations of Objectively Measured Physical Activity and Sedentary Time With Arterial Stiffness in Pre-Pubertal Children.
2017
Purpose: To investigate the relationships of objectively measured physical activity (PA) and sedentary time (ST) to arterial stiffness in pre-pubertal children. Method: Altogether 136 children (57 boys, 79 girls) aged 6–8-years participated in the study. Stiffness index (SI) was assessed by pulse contour analysis based on photoplethysmography. ST, light PA, moderate PA, and vigorous PA were assessed using combined acceleration and heart rate monitoring. We investigated the associations of ST (<1.5METs) and time spent in intensity level of PA above 2–7METs in min/d with SI using linear regression analysis. We studied the optimal duration and intensity of PA to identify children being in the …
The associations of cardiorespiratory fitness, adiposity and sports participation with arterial stiffness in youth with chronic diseases or physical …
2017
Article
Longitudinal associations of physical activity, sedentary time, and cardiorespiratory fitness with arterial health in children – the PANIC study
2021
We investigated the longitudinal associations of physical activity (PA), sedentary time (ST), and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) with arterial health among children. In our primary analyses, we investigated 245 children (girls 51.8%) aged 6-9 years participating in the baseline examinations who had data on arterial health at 2-year follow-up. We also utilized a subsample of 90 children who had a complete arterial health data at baseline and 2-year follow-up. ST (≤1.5 METs), light PA (>1.5-4 METs), moderate PA (>4-7 METs), vigorous PA (>7METs), and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA, >4 METs) were assessed by combined movement and heart rate monitoring and CRF by maximal exercise testing on a cy…
Repeatability and sensitivity of passive mechanical stiffness measurements in the triceps surae muscle‐tendon complex
2021
Measurements of muscle-tendon unit passive mechanical properties are often used to illustrate acute and chronic responses to a training stimulus. The purpose of this study was to quantify the inter-session repeatability of triceps surae passive stiffness measurements in athletic and non-athletic populations, with the view to discussing its usefulness both as a muscle-tendon profiling tool and a control measure for studies with multiple data collection sessions. The study also aimed to observe the effects of quiet standing on passive stiffness parameters. Twenty-nine men (10 cyclists, nine triathletes, 10 controls) visited the laboratory on three separate occasions, where passive stiffness t…
Structural factor in bending testing of fivefold twinned nanowires revealed by finite element analysis
2016
In this study, we performed finite element method simulations to investigate the effect of the structure on the elastic response of Ag and Au nanowires (NWs) with a fivefold twinned crystal structure in bending tests. Two different models of a pentagonal NW were created: a 'uniform model' having an isotropic continuous structure and a 'segmented model' consisting of five anisotropic domains. Two asymmetrical mechanical test configurations were simulated: cantilevered beam bending and 3-point bending. The dimensions of the NW, the test configurations, as well as the force and the displacement ranges were based on the previously obtained experimental data. The results of the simulations demon…
Meshless meso-modeling of masonry in the computational homogenization framework
2017
In the present study a multi-scale computational strategy for the analysis of structures made-up of masonry material is presented. The structural macroscopic behavior is obtained making use of the Computational Homogenization (CH) technique based on the solution of the Boundary Value Problem (BVP) of a detailed Unit Cell (UC) chosen at the mesoscale and representative of the heterogeneous material. The attention is focused on those materials that can be regarded as an assembly of units interfaced by adhesive/cohesive joints. Therefore, the smallest UC is composed by the aggregate and the surrounding joints, the former assumed to behave elastically while the latter show an elastoplastic soft…
Mechanical characterization of dry asphalt rubber concrete for base layers by means of the four bending points tests
2012
The mechanical characterisation of the asphalt concrete in terms of both the fatigue resistance and the stiffness modulus is necessary to use any design method of the flexible road pavements. Even more the determination of these mechanical properties is necessary if the asphalt concrete investigated is an innovative material as a dry asphalt rubber concrete DARC (i.e. a bituminous mixture with rubber via dry process). Such material is less known and investigated than the asphalt rubber concrete via wet process, even if its application implies peculiar economical and environmental advantages such as no specialized equipment or significant plant modifications and large quantity of recycled wa…
Buckling of a coating strip of finite width bonded to elastic half-space
2008
AbstractA solution for buckling of a stiff strip of finite width bonded to a compliant elastic half-space and subjected to uniform axial compression is presented. Approximate semi-analytical and finite element solutions are obtained and compared with a two-dimensional case of a plate on elastic foundation. The comparison demonstrates that the two-dimensional solution can be applied to predict the buckling wavelength and critical compressive strain when the width of the strip is equal to or larger than the buckling wavelength. For narrow strips, the wavelength is smaller and critical strain is higher than that of a plate on foundation.
LRPH device optimization for axial and shear stresses
2020
The paper concerns an in-depth study of a special connection for steel structures and the formulation of the related optimal design problem. The connection is called Limited Resistance Rigid Perfectly Plastic Hinge (LRPH) and it represents an innovative device devoted to join steel beam elements of frame structures. The device consists in a sequence of steel cross sections constituted by two parallel flanges with suitably different thickness connected by as many webs with constant and equal thickness. The fundamental innovation of the device is the possibility of designing special connections with elastic stiffness and limit strength independent of each other. Such a special characteristic …
Assessment of conduit artery vasomotion using photoplethysmography
2013
Vasomotion is a spontaneous oscillation of vascular tone. The phenomenon has been observed in small arterioles and capillaries as well as in the large conduit arteries. The layer of smooth muscle cells that surrounds a blood vessel can spontaneously and periodically change its tension and thereby the arterial wall stiffness also changes. As the understanding of the phenomenon is still rather obscure, researchers would benefit from a low-cost and reliable investigation technique such as photoplethysmography (PPG). PPG is an optical blood pulsation measurement technique that can offer substantial information about the arterial stiffness. The aims of this pilot study were to evaluate the usefu…