• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.91 no.5
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• pp.527-538
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• 2024

The standard numerical approximation of structural displacement field leads to the thickness-wise transverse shear stress distributions which are quite different from the exact ones. To overcome this inherent problem, an effective and reliable post-processing method is presented based on the strain recovery and the stress equilibrium, particularly for functionally graded cylindrical and conical elastic panels. The present method is developed in the framework of locking-free 2-D natural element method. Through the recovery of displacement component-wise derivatives, the element-wise discontinuous in-plane strain distributions are enhanced to be globally continuous and smoothened. And, using the continuous in-plane strains, the troublesome poor transverse shear stress distributions are enhanced through the thickness-wise integration of static equilibrium equations. The validity of present post-processing method is verified through the comparison with the reference solutions. In addition, the comparative experiments are also performed to investigate the difference between the present method and other available post-processing methods. The numerical results confirm that the present method provides the accurate transverse shear stress distributions which are consistent with the reference solutions and much better than other available methods.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.791-796
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• 2014

Cryopreservation of epididymal sperm is an effective technique to preserve genetic materials of domestic cats and wild felids when they unexpectedly die. However, this technique inevitably causes detrimental changes of cryopreserved-thawed spermatozoa, for example, by physical damage and excessive oxidative stress. L-carnitine is an antioxidant that has been used to improve sperm motility in humans and domestic animals. This study aimed to investigate the effects of L-carnitine on cat epididymal sperm quality following cryopreservation and thawing. After routine castration, cauda epididymides were collected from 60 cat testes. The epididymal spermatozoa from 3 cauda epididymides were pooled as 1 replicate. Spermatozoa samples (16 replicates) were examined for spermatozoa quality and then randomly divided into 4 groups: 0 mM L-carnitine (control), 12.5 mM, 25 mM and 50 mM L-carnitine. The sperm aliquots were then equilibrated and conventionally frozen. After thawing, sperm motility, plasma membrane integrity, DNA integrity and acrosome integrity were evaluated. The 25 mM L-carnitine significantly improved sperm motility compared with a control group (p<0.05), although this was not significantly different among other concentrations. In conclusion, supplementation of 25 mM L-carnitine in freezing extender improves cauda epididymal spermatozoa motility. The effects of L-carnitine on the levels of oxidative stress during freezing and thawing remains to be examined.