Two-dimensional pseudoelastic mechanical properties of the canine pericardium were investigated in vitro. The pericardium was assumed to be orthotropic. The material symmetry axis was determined a priori and aligned with the stretching axis. Various biaxial stretching tests were then performed and a set of data covering a wide range of strains was constructed. This complete data set was fitted to a new exponential type constitutive model, and a set of true material constants was determined for each specimen. Using the constitutive model and the true material constants, the results from constant lateral force tests and constant lateral displacement tests were predicted and compared with experiment.

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Hip abduction training in the side-lying position while applying manual pelvic fixation seems to be more effective for recruiting deep trunk muscles for dynamic lumbar spinal stabilization.

This study proposed a method to reduce the motion analysis error due to soft tissue artifact using a systematic pattern between the displacement of anatomical landmark and skin marker. A validation experiment to test the feasibility of the method was performed in which a female wearing an external fixator on the right shank. The proposed method reduced the error of the shank motion more than the comparable previous method, and the error reductions for some of kinematic variables were statistically significant.