Stress in Regulation of GABA Amygdala System and Relevance to Neuropsychiatric Diseases

The amygdala is an almond-shaped nucleus located deep and medially within the temporal lobe and is thought to play a crucial role in the regulation of emotional processes. GABAergic neurotransmission inhibits the amygdala and prevents us from generating inappropriate emotional and behavioral responses. Stress may cause the reduction of the GABAergic interneuronal network and the development of neuropsychological diseases. In this review, we summarize the recent evidence investigating the possible mechanisms underlying GABAergic control of the amygdala and its interaction with acute and chronic stress. Taken together, this study may contribute to future progress in finding new approaches to reverse the attenuation of GABAergic neurotransmission induced by stress in the amygdala

The PFILSTM model: a crack recognition method based on pyramid features and memory mechanisms

Crack detection is a crucial task for the structural health diagnosis of buildings. The current widely used manual inspection methods have inherent limitations and safety hazards, while traditional digital image processing methods require manual feature extraction and also have substantial limitations. In this paper, we propose a crack recognition method based on pyramid features and memory mechanisms that leverages a U-shaped network, long short-term memory mechanisms, and a pyramid feature design to address the recognition accuracy, robustness, and universality issues with deep learning-based crack detection methods in recent years. Experiments were conducted on four publicly available datasets and one private dataset. Compared with the commonly used FCN8s, SegNet, UNet, and DeepLabv3+ models and other related studies using the same evaluation criteria and datasets, our proposed model shows better overall performance in terms of all metrics evaluated

A coupled 3D isogeometric and discrete element approach for modelling interactions between structures and granular matters

A three-dimensional (3D) isogeometric/discrete-element coupling method is presented for modelling contact/impact between structures and particles. This method takes advantages of the geometry smoothness and exactness of isogeometric analysis (IGA) for continuous solid media and the effectiveness and flexibility of the discrete element method (DEM) for particulate matters. The coupling procedure for handling interactions between IGA elements and discrete elements (DEs) includes global search, local search and interaction calculation. In the global search, the CGRID method is modified to detect potential contact pairs between IGA elements and DEs based on their bounding box representations. The strong convex hull property of a NURBS control mesh plays an important part in the bounding box representation of IGA elements. In the local search, the proposed approach treats each spherical DE centroid as a slave node and the contact surface of each IGA element as the master surface. The projection of a DE centroid onto an IGA element contact surface is solved by modifying the simplex method and Brent iterations. The contact force between an IGA element and a DE is determined from their penetration by using a (nonlinear) penalty function based method. The whole coupled system is solved by the explicit time integration within a updated Lagrangian scheme. Finally, three impact examples, including the impact of two symmetric bars, a tube onto a footing strip, and an assembly of granular particles to a tailor rolled blank, are simulated in elastic regime to assess the accuracy and applicability of the proposed method

An Isogeometric Bézier Finite Element Method for Vibration Optimization of Functionally Graded Plate with Local Refinement

An effective free vibration optimization procedure in combination with the isogeometric approach (IGA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and an integrated global and local parameterization is presented. The natural frequency of functionally graded (FG) plates is calculated by the IGA based on the Bézier extraction of non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) with the cubic NURBS basis function. The material composition is assumed to vary only in the thickness direction, and the volumetric fraction is described by the NURBS basis function in light of the superior properties of NURBS curves. The volume fractions of the control points are then optimized by the PSO. In most of the previous work, the control points for the volume fraction are usually equally spaced, which is incapable of identifying the optimal location of the graded zones in most cases. To overcome this bottleneck, a novel local refinement strategy is proposed. The reliability and effectiveness of the proposed approach are demonstrated through several numerical examples. It is interesting to observe that the optimal results are sandwich or laminate plates, and few parameters are involved in the integrated global and local parameterization

An Isogeometric Bézier Finite Element Method for Vibration Optimization of Functionally Graded Plate with Local Refinement

An effective free vibration optimization procedure in combination with the isogeometric approach (IGA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and an integrated global and local parameterization is presented. The natural frequency of functionally graded (FG) plates is calculated by the IGA based on the Bézier extraction of non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) with the cubic NURBS basis function. The material composition is assumed to vary only in the thickness direction, and the volumetric fraction is described by the NURBS basis function in light of the superior properties of NURBS curves. The volume fractions of the control points are then optimized by the PSO. In most of the previous work, the control points for the volume fraction are usually equally spaced, which is incapable of identifying the optimal location of the graded zones in most cases. To overcome this bottleneck, a novel local refinement strategy is proposed. The reliability and effectiveness of the proposed approach are demonstrated through several numerical examples. It is interesting to observe that the optimal results are sandwich or laminate plates, and few parameters are involved in the integrated global and local parameterization

Variational Formulations and Isogeometric Analysis of Timoshenko–Ehrenfest Microbeam Using a Reformulated Strain Gradient Elasticity Theory

This paper presents a novel non-classical Timoshenko–Ehrenfest beam model based on a reformulated strain gradient elasticity theory. The strain gradient effect, couple stress effect, and velocity gradient effect for vibration are included in the new model by only one material length scale parameter for each. The variational formulation and Hamilton’s principle are applied to derive the governing equations and boundary conditions. Both an analytical solution and an isogeometric analysis approach are proposed for static bending and free vibration of the microbeam. A non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) isogeometric analysis with high-order continuity can effectively fulfill the higher derivatives of the displacement variables in the reformulated gradient beam model. Convergence studies and comparisons to the corresponding analytical solutions verify the model’s performance and accuracy. Finally, different boundary conditions, material length scale parameters, and beam thicknesses are investigated in order to certify the applicability of the proposed approach

Size-Dependent Buckling Analysis of Microbeams by an Analytical Solution and Isogeometric Analysis

This paper proposes an analytical solution and isogeometric analysis numerical approach for buckling analysis of size-dependent beams based on a reformulated strain gradient elasticity theory (RSGET). The superiority of this method is that it has only one material parameter for couple stress and another material parameter for strain gradient effects. Using the RSGET and the principle of minimum potential energy, both non-classical Euler–Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam buckling models are developed. Moreover, the obtained governing equations are solved by an exact solution and isogeometric analysis approach, which conforms to the requirements of higher continuity in gradient elasticity theory. Numerical results are compared with exact solutions to reveal the accuracy of the current isogeometric analysis approach. The influences of length–scale parameter, length-to-thickness ratio, beam thickness and boundary conditions are investigated. Moreover, the difference between the buckling responses obtained by the Timoshenko and Euler–Bernoulli theories shows that the Euler–Bernoulli theory is suitable for slender beams

Size-Dependent Buckling Analysis of Microbeams by an Analytical Solution and Isogeometric Analysis

This paper proposes an analytical solution and isogeometric analysis numerical approach for buckling analysis of size-dependent beams based on a reformulated strain gradient elasticity theory (RSGET). The superiority of this method is that it has only one material parameter for couple stress and another material parameter for strain gradient effects. Using the RSGET and the principle of minimum potential energy, both non-classical Euler–Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam buckling models are developed. Moreover, the obtained governing equations are solved by an exact solution and isogeometric analysis approach, which conforms to the requirements of higher continuity in gradient elasticity theory. Numerical results are compared with exact solutions to reveal the accuracy of the current isogeometric analysis approach. The influences of length–scale parameter, length-to-thickness ratio, beam thickness and boundary conditions are investigated. Moreover, the difference between the buckling responses obtained by the Timoshenko and Euler–Bernoulli theories shows that the Euler–Bernoulli theory is suitable for slender beams