Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation does not influence the neural adjustments associated with fatiguing contractions in a hand muscle

European Journal of Applied Physiology - The objective of the current study was to investigate the mechanisms responsible for the briefer time to failure of a submaximal contraction (C2) when...     

Calibration of Drucker–Prager Cap Constitutive Model for Ceramic Powder Compaction through Inverse Analysis

Phenomenological plasticity models that relate relative density to plastic strain are frequently used to simulate ceramic powder compaction. With respect to the form implemented in finite element codes, they need to be modified in order to define governing parameters as functions of relative densities. Such a modification increases the number of constitutive parameters and makes their calibration a demanding task that involves a large number of experiments. The novel calibration procedure investigated in this paper is based on inverse analysis methodology, centered on the minimization of a discrepancy function that quantifies the difference between experimentally measured and numerically computed quantities. In order to capture the influence of sought parameters on measured quantities, three different geometries of die and punches are proposed, resulting from a sensitivity analysis performed using numerical simulations of the test. The formulated calibration protocol requires only data that can be collected during the compaction test and, thus, involves a relatively smaller number of experiments. The developed procedure is tested on an alumina powder mixture, used for refractory products, by making a reference to the modified Drucker–Prager Cap model. The assessed parameters are compared to reference values, obtained through more laborious destructive tests performed on green bodies, and are further used to simulate the compaction test with arbitrary geometries. Both comparisons evidenced excellent agreement.     

H syndrome: Clinical,histological and genetic investigation in Tunisian patients

H syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder with characteristic dermatological findings consisting of hyperpigmentation and hypertrichosis patches mainly located on the inner thighs and multisystemic involvement including hepatosplenomegaly, hearing loss, heart abnormalities and hypogonadism. The aim of this study was to conduct a clinical and genetic investigation in five unrelated Tunisian patients with suspected H syndrome. Hence, genetic analysis of the SLC29A3 gene was performed for four patients with a clinical diagnosis of H syndrome. We identified a novel frame‐shift mutation in the SLC29A3 gene in a female patient with a severe clinical presentation. Furthermore, we report two mutations previously described, the p.R363Q mutation in a male patient and the p.P324L mutation in two patients of different age and sex. This paper extends the mutation spectrum of H syndrome by reporting a novel frame‐shift mutation, the p.S15Pfs*86 in exon 2 of SLC29A3 gene and emphasizes the relevance of genetic testing for its considerable implications in early diagnosis and clinical management.