Review on myths about infertility-an attempt to clear the air

Infertility, defined as the inability to conceive after one year of regular unprotected sex, affects 48 million couples and 186 million individuals globally. There are several myths without factual basis regarding infertility, with the increase in prevalence of infertility in the world, the spread of such myths also increases. Such myths include concepts like infertility is a woman’s problem, it is a psychological or stress induced issue, health and lifestyle habits do not affect infertility. While others include, misconceptions about medications and treatment, some supernatural beliefs, frequency of sexual contact, sexual practices which do not have any positive impact on infertile couples. These are few among many other stories revolving around fecundity. Myths about reproductive health and chances of conception may directly or indirectly affect the emotional state of infertile couples or may give a false hope for them to get conceive faster and easier, which have no evidence. Some of the myths might not be harmful, or even do some good, but many of the prevailing myths put infertile couples, especially infertile women in an excruciating position leading to a great deal of mental distress. It is thus important to root out the myths about infertility and help the affected ones lead a less stressful life. This article is an attempt to bust some of the most common myths being spread and explains the actual facts that should be known to people of the reproductive age group.

Effect of viscoelastic and dielectric relaxing matrix on ferroelastic behaviour of 1-3 piezocomposites

This work focuses on evaluating the time-dependent non-linear ferroelastic behaviour of 1-3 piezocomposites under pure uni-axial compressive stress loading condition. An experimental setup is developed to study the influence of high-stress levels on the stress-strain and stress-polarization behaviour of 1-3 piezocomposites. The electro-elastic effective properties of 1-3 piezocomposites are measured experimentally based on IEEE standard and compared with the proposed numerical model using finite-element software ABAQUS. The time-dependent effective properties are evaluated using viscoelastic model and it is incorporated into a 3D micromechanical model to predict the viscoelastic behaviour of 1-3 piezocomposites under mechanical loading. The simulated results are compared with the viscoelastic behaviour of 1-3 piezocomposites obtained from experiments

Experimental investigation, modelling and simulation of rate-dependent response of 1-3 ferroelectric composites

Further development and design of piezoelectric composites enhances the improved use of piezoelectric materials and devices by overcoming their brittleness. In order to engineer this class of materials and to predictably simulate its behaviour, a computationally efficient constitutive model is established in this paper. This contribution deals with the development of a model for piezoelectric composites to capture their effective behaviour. We first discuss a three-dimensional fully coupled electromechanical rate-dependent model for the response of ferroelectric ceramics. Secondly, a simple homogenisation approach is applied to capture the behaviour of composites for various volume fractions of PZT fibres under different loading frequencies. Following this, a finite element formulation is applied in order to study the behaviour of composites. Finally, these two approaches are compared with experimental results

Hemodynamics alteration in patient-specific dilated ascending thoracic aortas with tricuspid and bicuspid aortic valves

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Computational prediction of hemodynamical and biomechanical alterations induced by aneurysm dilatation in patient‐specific ascending thoracic aortas

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Significance of Hemodynamics Biomarkers, Tissue Biomechanics and Numerical Simulations in the Pathogenesis of Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms

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Significance of Hemodynamics Biomarkers, Tissue Biomechanics and Numerical Simulations in the Pathogenesis of Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms

International audienceGuidelines for the treatment of aortic wall diseases are based on measurements of maximum aortic diameter. However aortic rupture or dissections do occur for small aortic diameters. Growing scientific evidence underlines the importance of biomechanics and hemodynamics in aortic disease development and progression. Wall shear stress (WWS) is an important hemodynamics marker which depends on aortic wall morphology and on the aortic valve function. WSS could be helpful to interpret aortic wall remodeling and define personalized risk criteria. The complementarity of Computational Fluid Dynamics and 4D Magnetic Resonance Imaging as tools for WSS assessment is a promising reality. The potentiality of these innovative technologies will provide maps or atlases of hemodynamics biomarkers to predict aortic tissue dysfunction. Ongoing efforts should focus on the correlation between these non-invasive imaging biomarkers and clinico-pathologic situations for the implementation of personalized medicine in current clinical practice