Kinetics and equilibrium of the ring-opening polymerisations of 1,3-dioxolane and oxepane at high pressures

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Osteochondral tissue repair in osteoarthritic joints: clinical challenges and opportunities in tissue engineering

Osteoarthritis (OA), identified as one of the priorities for the Bone and Joint Decade, is one of the most prevalent joint diseases, which causes pain and disability of joints in the adult population. Secondary OA usually stems from repetitive overloading to the osteochondral (OC) unit, which could result in cartilage damage and changes in the subchondral bone, leading to mechanical instability of the joint and loss of joint function. Tissue engineering approaches have emerged for the repair of cartilage defects and damages to the subchondral bone in the early stages of OA and have shown potential in restoring the joint’s function. In this approach, the use of three-dimensional scaffolds (with or without cells) provides support for tissue growth. Commercially available OC scaffolds have been studied in OA patients for repair and regeneration of OC defects. However, none of these scaffolds has shown satisfactory clinical results. This article reviews the OC tissue structure and the design, manufacturing and performance of current OC scaffolds in treatment of OA. The findings demonstrate the importance of biological and biomechanical fixations of OC scaffolds to the host tissue in achieving an improved cartilage fill and a hyaline-like tissue formation. Achieving a strong and stable subchondral bone support that helps the regeneration of overlying cartilage seems to be still a grand challenge for the early treatment of OA

Simulation of the flow and the study of the effects of the surface roughness in isothermal gas flows of micro scale using Lattice Boltzmann method

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.In this paper, a lattice Boltzmann method used in the simulation of the fluid flow in micro/nano scale is introduced and studied. The method can be employed instead of NS equations in cases where the continuum assumption is no longer valid. In the present study the aim is to investigate the effects of surface roughness on flow characteristics of micro/nano gas flows. In order to compare the final results, two flow geometries were chosen for which the numerical and experimental results were available. Surface roughness was increased in each stage (from completely smooth to 12% roughness) and its influences on the flow regime, pressure and velocity distribution, slip velocity and mass flow rate were studied. It is shown that surface roughness results in a decrease in the mass flow rate as well as slip velocity. Increasing the amount of roughness causes the mass flow rate to continually decrease, however this trend is inverted for the slip velocity

Numerical vs experimental pressure drops for Boger fluids in sharp-corner contraction flow

This paper addresses the problem of matching experimental findings with numerical prediction for the extreme experimental levels of pressure-drops observed in the 4:1 sharp-corner contraction flows, as reported by Nigen and Walters [“Viscoelastic contraction flows: Comparison of axisymmetric and planar configurations,” J. Non- Newtonian Fluid Mech. 102, 343–359 (2002)]. In this connection, we report on significant success in achieving quantitative agreement between predictions and experiments. This has been made possible by using a new swanINNFM model, employing an additional dissipative function. Notably, one can observe that extremely large pressure-drops may be attained with a suitable selection of the extensional viscous time scale. In addition, and on vortex structure, the early and immediate vortex enhancement for Boger fluids in axisymmetric contractions has also been reproduced, which is shown to be absent in planar counterparts

Predicting large experimental excess pressure drops for Boger fluids in contraction–expansion flow

More recent finite element/volume studies on pressure-drops in contraction flows have introduced a variety of constitutive models to compare and contrast the competing influences of extensional viscosity, normal stress and shear-thinning. In this study, the ability of an extensional White–Metzner construction with FENE-CR model is explored to reflect enhanced excess pressure drops (epd) in axisymmetric 4:1:4 contraction-expansion flows. Solvent-fraction is taken as =0.9, to mimic viscoelastic constant shear-viscosity Boger fluids. The experimental pressure-drop data of Rothstein & McKinley [1] has been quantitatively captured (in the initial pronounced rise with elasticity, and limiting plateau-patterns), via two modes of numerical prediction: (i) flow-rate Q-increase, and (ii) relaxation-time 1-increase. Here, the former Q-increase mode, in line with experimental procedures, has proved the more effective, generating significantly larger enhanced-epd. This is accompanied with dramatically enhanced trends with De-incrementation in vortex-activity, and significantly larger extrema in N1, shear-stress and related extensional and shear velocity-gradient components. In contrast, the 1-increase counterpart trends remain somewhat invariant to elasticity rise. Moreover, under Q-increase and with elasticity rise, a pattern of flow transition has been identified through three flow-phases in epd-data; (i) steady solutions for low-to-moderate elasticity levels, (ii) oscillatory solutions in the moderate elasticity regime (coinciding with Rothstein & McKinley [1] data), and (iii) finally solution divergence. New to this hybrid algorithmic formulation are - techniques in time discretisation, discrete treatment of pressure terms, compatible stress/velocity-gradient representation; handling ABS-correction in the constitutive equation, which provides consistent material-property prediction; and introducing purely-extensional velocity-gradient component specification at the shear-free centre flow-line through the velocity gradient (VGR) correction

The falling sphere problem and capturing enhanced drag with Boger fluids

In this computational study, the ability of an extensional White–Metzner construction with the FENE-CR model is considered to reflect experimental enhanced drag data of Jones et al. [1]. The numerical drag predictions for three different aspect ratios of sphere:tube radii {0.5, 0.4, 0.2} are obtained with a hybrid finite element/volume (fe/fv) algorithm. Excellent agreement is extracted for all three aspect ratios against the experimental measurements, and at any specified rate, the tighter-fitting the aspect ratio the lower the resulting drag. Moreover, as the Weissenberg number is increased, the transition between steady-state and oscillatory flow is recognised from the instantaneous pressure data, prior to numerical divergence. A main realisation in this study is that it is important to select the same procedure of Wi-continuation across experimental and computational protocols, to extract comparable levels of drag. Clearly the -increase mode (common computational form), is more involved than the Q-increase mode (usual experimental form), and as such, less robust as a reliable method for accurate drag prediction and enhanced drag capture. In general, flow-rate increase (Q-increase) conditions generate larger drag enhancement, when compared to fluid-relaxation time increase ( -increase), at comparable levels of dissipative-factor ( ). The investigation also follows parametric variation in solvent fraction ( ) in one particular geometric aspect-ratio instance. This reveals that at any specific fixed elasticity level, there is an increase in drag observed with rise in . In addition, high solute/low-solvent fractions at low dissipative-factor, were only found to generate drag reduction, consistent with the literature. New and key facets to this fe/fv implementation are summarised, in appealing to: an improved velocity gradient boundary conditions imposed at the centreline (VGR-correction); continuity correction; absolute value of the stress-trace function (ABS-f-correction); increasing flow-rate solution continuation; alongside advanced techniques in fv-time discretisation, discrete treatment of pressure terms, and compatible stress/velocity-gradient representation

ADP-ribosylation factor 6 expression increase in oesophageal adenocarcinoma suggests a potential biomarker role for it

ADP-ribosylation factor 6 small GTPase plays an important role in cell migration, invasion and angiogenesis, which are the hallmarks of cancer. Although alterations in ARF6 expression and activity have been linked to metastatic cancer in one or two tissues, the expression of ARF6 in cancers over a wide range of tissues has not been studied so far. In this report, we analysed the expression of ARF6 mRNA in cancers and corresponding healthy controls from 17 different tissues by real-time qualitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). We further evaluated ARF6 protein expression in oesophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) tissue microarray cores by immunohistochemistry. The ARF6 gene expression levels are highly variable between healthy and cancer tissues. Our findings suggest that the ARF6 gene expression is up-regulated highest in oesophageal cancer. In EAC TMAs, ARF6 protein expression increase correlated with EAC progression. This is the first study to investigate ARF6 gene expression in a wide array of cancer tissues and demonstrate that ARF6 expression, at both mRNA and protein levels, is significantly upregulated in higher grades of EAC, which may be useful in targeting ARF6 for cancer diagnostic and therapeutic purposes