A simple assumed strain method for enhancing the accuracy of the cubic triangular C degree plate bending element

The conventional cubic triangular Mindlin/Reissner plate bending element, DISP10, is in general too stiff. To reduce the element stiffness, three of the strain sampling points are shifted from the integration stations to the element corners so as to reduce the number of shear constraints in the global level. The strain field is then obtained by interpolation. In this way, the constraint ratio of the element increases from 1.125 to 1.5 which is exactly equal to a postulated optimal value. However, the element does not appear to be more accurate than its conventional counterpart. While keeping the constraint ratio and interpolation pivots unchanged, two different ways of refining the sampled strains at the element corners are attempted and the pertinent elements are consistently more accurate than DISP10postprin

On the relative merits of three-point integration rules for six-node triangles

There exist two three-point integration rules for triangular elements. Both rules are precise up to the second order and used for evaluating the six-node triangles. While one of rules has its sampling stations inside the triangle, that of the other coincide with the edge nodes. Though the former is commonly employed, it will be seen in this short paper that latter is indeed more favourable in view of element accuracy. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.postprin

Assumed strain and hybrid destabilized ten-node C0 triangular shell elements

The conventional ten-node C0 triangular shell element is in general too stiff. In this paper, several less stiff formulations are proposed. To reduce the transverse shear stiffness, the assumed strain method is adopted. On the other hand, both assumed strain method and hybrid destabilization are employed for softening the membrane stiffness. The improvement is validated by popular numerical problems.postprin

A quadratic assumed natural strain curved triangular shell element

In this paper, a six-node triangular C 0 curved shell element is developed by the assumed natural or covariant strain (ANS) method. All the sampled natural strains are optimal with respect to the derivative of a prescribed cubic field in a subparametric element. Numerical examinations reveal that the element shows no sign of locking, passes all the patch tests and yields satisfactory accuracy. © 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.postprin

Axial alignment of the lower extremity in Chinese adults

Background: The restoration of normal axial alignment of the lower extremity is important to surgeons who perform reconstructive surgery of the knee. However, data on the normal alignment of the lower extremity in Chinese adults are not available. Methods: The axial alignment of the lower extremity in twenty-five adult male and twenty-five adult female volunteers of southern Chinese origin was measured on weight-bearing radiographs of the entire lower limb. The mean age was twenty-four years for the male volunteers and twenty-three years for the female volunteers. The results were compared with those of two similar studies of white volunteers in the United States. Results: The medial inclination of the tibial plateau in the Chinese subjects (mean and standard deviation, 5.4 ± 2.5 degrees for women and 4.9 ± 2.3 degrees for men) was greater than the commonly reported 3 degrees. The extremities of the Chinese women were found to have a mean of 2.2 ± 2.5 degrees of varus alignment, and those of the Chinese men had a mean of 2.2 ± 2.7 degrees of varus alignment. Conclusions: Compared with the white subjects described in the studies by Moreland et al. and Hsu et al., the Chinese subjects had significantly larger medial inclination of the knee joint (knee-joint obliquity) (p < 0.005) and the female Chinese subjects had significantly more varus alignment of the lower extremity (p < 0.025). Clinical Relevance: Five degrees of external rotation of the femoral component, instead of the commonly reported 3 degrees, may be required to obtain a rectangular flexion gap in total knee arthroplasty in Chinese patients. The racial difference in the knee-joint obliquity may contribute to the racial difference in the ratio of knee osteoarthritis to hip osteoarthritis. Additional studies are necessary to confirm this relationship.published_or_final_versio

Segmentation of pathology microscopic images

The light microscopic analysis of the number and shape of cells in pathology is important for the diagnosis and assessment of clinical behavior of disease conditions. The fundamental step of this work is to separate the cells from the background. To segment objects from such uneven background images, a fixed threshold is not suitable. The authors have proposed a new adaptive thresholding method using variational theory. In this paper, this method is introduced to segment pathological images under the light microscope. The comparison of the segmentation results of the authors' method and Otsu's (1979) thresholding method shows the advantage of the authors' method.published_or_final_versio

Comparative genomic analysis of pre-epidemic and epidemic Zika virus strains for virological factors potentially associated with the rapidly expanding epidemic

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'Yin-Yang' regulation of insulin signaling by APPL1 and APPL2 in skeletal muscle cells

Poster Session 2: Genes & Signaling - abstract no. 48: Endocrinologypublished_or_final_versionThe 15th Annual Research Conference of the Department of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 16 January 2010. In Hong Kong Medical Journal, 2010, v. 16, suppl. 1, p. 66, abstract no. 11

Treatment time for non-surgical endodontic therapy with or without a magnifying loupe

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Mining Order-Preserving Submatrices from Data with Repeated Measurements

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