Do Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Fetuin-A Play Different Roles in Symptomatic Coronary Artery Disease and Peripheral Arterial Disease?

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is strongly associated with both atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) and Fetuin-A. However, the association of Fetuin-A with atherosclerosis is more controversial. We hypothesized that the pathogenic interplay of NAFLD, Fetuin-A and atherosclerosis varies based on arterial site. Accordingly, we aimed to assess NAFLD prevalence, Fetuin-A values and their relationship with symptomatic atherosclerosis occurring in different localizations: coronary artery disease (CAD) vs. peripheral arterial disease (PAD)

Validation on a new anisotropic four-parameter turbulence model for low Prandtl number fluids

This work aims to validate a new anisotropic four-parameter turbulence model for low-Prandtl number fluids in forced and mixed convection. Traditional models based on the gradient-diffusion hypothesis and Reynolds analogy are inadequate to simulate the turbulent heat transfer in low-Prandtl number fluids. Additional transport equations for thermal variables are required to predict the characteristic thermal time scale. In a four-parameter turbulence model, two additional transport equations are solved for the temperature variance and its dissipation rate. Thus, it is possible to formulate appropriate characteristic time scales to predict the near-wall and bulk behaviour of mean and turbulent variables. The isotropic version of the four-parameter model has been widely studied and validated in forced and mixed convection. We aim to extend the model validity by proposing explicit algebraic models for the closure of Reynolds stress tensor and turbulent heat flux. For the validation of the anisotropic four-parameter turbulence model, low-Prandtl number fluids are simulated in several flow configurations considering buoyancy effects and numerical results are compared with DNS data

Dirichlet boundary control of a steady multiscale fluid-structure interaction system

This work aims to extend the techniques used for the optimal control of the NavierStokes systems to control a steady multi-scale FSI system. In particular, we consider a multiscale fluid-structure interaction problem where the structure obeys a membrane model derived from the Koiter shell equations. With this approach, the thickness of the solid wall can be neglected, with a meaningful reduction of the computational cost of the numerical problem. The fluid-structure simulation is then reduced to the fluid equations on a moving mesh together with a Robin boundary condition imposed on the moving solid surface. The inverse problem is formulated to control the velocity on a boundary to obtain a desired displacement of the solid membrane. For this purpose, we use an optimization method that relies on the Lagrange multiplier formalism to obtain the first-order necessary conditions for optimality. The arising optimality system is discretized in a finite element framework and solved with an iterative steepest descent algorithm, used to reduce the computational cost of the numerical simulations

A new projection method for Navier-stokes equations by using Raviart-thomas finite element

Computational Fluid Dynamics codes usually adopt velocity-pressure splitting to reduce the computational effort in the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations. In standard projection methods, the finite element approximations show difficulties to find a solution with discrete free-divergence velocity field in all space points. In this work, a new velocity-pressure method for Navier-Stokes equations that projects the velocity field inside the discrete free-divergence velocity space is presented. This algorithm computes the velocity field on the discrete free-divergence space by using Raviart-Thomas finite elements. The projection is obtained by the minimization of the distance, over the discrete free-divergence space, between the auxiliary field and the desired Raviart-Thomas interpolation space. The Raviart-Thomas discretization is based on the quadrilateral and hexahedral finite element space and therefore the divergence mimetic computational approach is used to avoid the well-known degradation of the divergence term convergence. The auxiliary velocity field is obtained by solving the velocity-pressure split system used in the classical Chorin­Temam algorithm. The pressure is recovered by the orthogonal space to the projection on the Raviart-Thomas interpolation space. The method is investigated with an explicit and semi-implicit treatment of the pressure terms. The issues on boundary conditions and the errors in the reproducibility of the tangential components are investigated. Several numerical examples are reported to support this new projection method