232 research outputs found
Prediction of Turbulent Shear Stresses through Dysfunctional Bileaflet Mechanical Heart Valves using Computational Fluid Dynamics
There are more than 300,000 heart valves implanted annually worldwide with
about 50% of them being mechanical valves. The heart valve replacement is often
a common treatment for severe valvular disease. However, valves may dysfunction
leading to adverse hemodynamic conditions. The current computational study
investigated the flow around a bileaflet mechanical heart valve at different
leaflet dysfunction levels of 0%, 50%, and 100%, and documented the relevant
flow characteristics such as vortical structures and turbulent shear stresses.
Studying the flow characteristics through these valves during their normal
operation and dysfunction can lead to better understanding of their
performance, possibly improved designs, and help identify conditions that may
increase the potential risk of blood cell damage. Results suggested that
maximum flow velocities increased with dysfunction from 2.05 to 4.49 ms-1 which
were accompanied by growing eddies and velocity fluctuations. These
fluctuations led to higher turbulent shear stresses from 90 to 800 N.m-2 as
dysfunctionality increased. These stress values exceeded the thresholds
corresponding to elevated risk of hemolysis and platelet activation. The
regions of elevated stresses were concentrated around and downstream of the
functional leaflet where high jet velocity and stronger helical structures
existed
Numerical Modeling of Pulse Wave Propagation in a Stenosed Artery using Two-Way Coupled Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI)
As the heart beats, it creates fluctuation in blood pressure leading to a
pulse wave that propagates by displacing the arterial wall. These waves travel
through the arterial tree and carry information about the medium that they
propagate through as well as information of the geometry of the arterial tree.
Pulse wave velocity (PWV) can be used as a non-invasive diagnostic tool to
study the functioning of cardiovascular system. A stenosis in an artery can
dampen the pulse wave leading to changes in the propagating pulse. Hence, PWV
analysis can be performed to detect a stenosed region in arteries. This paper
presents a numerical study of pulse wave propagation in a stenosed artery by
means of two-way coupled fluid structure interaction (FSI). The computational
model was validated by the comparison of the simulated PWV results with
theoretical values for a healthy artery. Propagation of the pulse waves in the
stenosed artery was compared with healthy case using spatiotemporal maps of
wall displacements. The analysis for PWV showed significance differences
between the healthy and stenosed arteries including damping of propagating
waves and generation of high wall displacements downstream the stenosis caused
by flow instabilities. This approach can be used to develop patient-specific
models that are capable of predicting PWV signatures associated with stenosis
changes. The knowledge gained from these models may increase utility of this
approach for managing patients at risk of stenosis occurrence
The Influence of the Aortic Root Geometry on Flow Characteristics of a Bileaflet Mechanical Heart Valve
Bileaflet mechanical heart valves have one of the most successful valve
designs for more than 30 years. These valves are often used for aortic valve
replacement, where the geometry of the aortic root sinuses may vary due to
valvular disease and affect valve performance. Common geometrical sinus changes
may be due to valve stenosis and insufficiency. In the current study, the
effect of these geometrical changes on the mean flow and velocity fluctuations
downstream of the valve and aortic sinuses were investigated. The study focused
on the fully-open leaflet position where blood velocities are close to their
maximum. Simulation results were validated using previous experimental laser
Doppler anemometry (LDA) measurements. Results showed that as the stenosis and
insufficiency increased there were more flow separation and increased local
mean velocity downstream of the leaflets. In addition, the detected elevated
velocity fluctuations were associated with higher Reynolds shear stresses
levels, which may increase the chances of blood damage and platelet activation
and may lead to increased risk of blood clot formation
Intravesicle Isothermal DNA Replication
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bacterial and viral DNA replication was previously reconstituted <it>in vitro </it>from component parts <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr><abbr bid="B2">2</abbr><abbr bid="B3">3</abbr><abbr bid="B4">4</abbr></abbrgrp>. Significant advances in building minimal cell-like structures also have been made recently <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B5">5</abbr><abbr bid="B6">6</abbr><abbr bid="B7">7</abbr></abbrgrp>. Combining the two approaches would further attempts to build a minimal cell-like structure capable of undergoing evolution by combining membrane encapsulation and genome replication. Towards this end, we attempted to use purified genomic replication protein components from thermophilic bacterial sources to copy strands of DNA isothermally within lipid vesicles.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Bacterial replication components (such as helicases and DNA polymerases) are compatible with methods for the generation of lipid vesicles. Encapsulation inside phospholipid vesicles does not inhibit the activity of bacterial DNA genome replication machinery. Further the described system is efficient at isothermally amplifying short segments of DNA within phospholipid vesicles.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Herein we show that bacterial isothermal DNA replication machinery is functional inside of phospholipid vesicles, suggesting that replicating cellular mimics can be built from purified bacterial components.</p
On RAF Sets and Autocatalytic Cycles in Random Reaction Networks
The emergence of autocatalytic sets of molecules seems to have played an
important role in the origin of life context. Although the possibility to
reproduce this emergence in laboratory has received considerable attention,
this is still far from being achieved. In order to unravel some key properties
enabling the emergence of structures potentially able to sustain their own
existence and growth, in this work we investigate the probability to observe
them in ensembles of random catalytic reaction networks characterized by
different structural properties. From the point of view of network topology, an
autocatalytic set have been defined either in term of strongly connected
components (SCCs) or as reflexively autocatalytic and food-generated sets
(RAFs). We observe that the average level of catalysis differently affects the
probability to observe a SCC or a RAF, highlighting the existence of a region
where the former can be observed, whereas the latter cannot. This parameter
also affects the composition of the RAF, which can be further characterized
into linear structures, autocatalysis or SCCs. Interestingly, we show that the
different network topology (uniform as opposed to power-law catalysis systems)
does not have a significantly divergent impact on SCCs and RAFs appearance,
whereas the proportion between cleavages and condensations seems instead to
play a role. A major factor that limits the probability of RAF appearance and
that may explain some of the difficulties encountered in laboratory seems to be
the presence of molecules which can accumulate without being substrate or
catalyst of any reaction.Comment: pp 113-12
LES-based Study of the Roughness Effects on the Wake of a Circular Cylinder from Subcritical to Transcritical Reynolds Numbers
This paper investigates the effects of surface roughness on the flow past a circular cylinder at subcritical to transcritical Reynolds numbers. Large eddy simulations of the flow for sand grain roughness of size k/D = 0.02 are performed (D is the cylinder diameter). Results show that surface roughness triggers the transition to turbulence in the boundary layer at all Reynolds numbers, thus leading to an early separation caused by the increased momentum deficit, especially at transcritical Reynolds numbers. Even at subcritical Reynolds numbers, boundary layer instabilities are triggered in the roughness sublayer and eventually lead to the transition to turbulence. The early separation at transcritical Reynolds numbers leads to a wake topology similar to that of the subcritical regime, resulting in an increased drag coefficient and lower Strouhal number. Turbulent statistics in the wake are also affected by roughness; the Reynolds stresses are larger due to the increased turbulent kinetic energy production in the boundary layer and separated shear layers close to the cylinder shoulders.We acknowledge “Red Española de Surpercomputación” (RES) for awarding us access to the MareNostrum III machine based in Barcelona, Spain (Ref. FI-2015-2-0026 and FI-2015-3-0011). We also acknowledge PRACE for awarding us access to Fermi and Marconi Supercomputers at Cineca, Italy (Ref. 2015133120). Oriol Lehmkuhl acknowledges a PDJ 2014 Grant by AGAUR (Generalitat de Catalunya). Ugo Piomelli acknowledges the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada under the Discovery Grant Programme (Grant No. RGPIN-2016-04391). Ricard Borrell acknowledges a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral grant (IJCI-2014-21034). Ivette Rodriguez, Oriol Lehmkuhl, Ricard Borrell and Assensi Oliva acknowledge Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación, Spain (ref. ENE2014-60577-R).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
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