Fiber interaction with environment

MFBs synthesize far more actin fibers than standard fibroblasts, and also have myosin fibers that, when interacting with actin, constitute the contractile motor activity of MFBs. MFBs are found in healing tissue, of which they form 40% of the total number of fibroblasts present. A large number of MFBs are also foimd in the periprosthetic capsule of encapsulated breast implants, while there is no evidence of MFBs if no capsule has formed around the prosthesis. In pathology, abnormal quantities of MFBs are found in diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis and Crohn s disease. Many SMCs respond to a kind of paracrine stimulation, where the mediator is released into the environment of the target cells and diffuses towards the cell, where it interacts with a membrane receptor. 

In order to form chemical sensors that are sensitive yet robust, an in-line sensor that maintains the constant dimension of the optical fiber, but manipulates the light within the fiber to interact with the fiber/environment interface was designed . These novel fiber sttuctures in Figure 3 thus form an in-line sensing mechanism that is able to overcome the problem associated with fragile tapered fiber sensors. 

In conclusion is should be emphasised that time-resolved studies like those described here provide information on stereochemical pathways rather than kinetics. This reflects the obvious point that individual molecules are not free but are in an environment where they interact with other molecules. However, it should be emphasised that, as is well illustrated by kinetic studies using for example Laue techniques in protein crystallography where the crystal environment is typically more ordered than in a crystalline fiber, the molecular environment in a fiber is not necessarily any less functionally meaningful than that of many kinetic studies in solution. 

This example of vascular grafts devices points out the evolution of fibrous implantable medical devices and highlights the great potential offered by each scale level of fibrous structures for biocompatibility improvements. Fibers as well as whole fibrous stmctures should be considered as implantable devices that have inherent abilities to interact with the biological environment at each of the three predetermined scale levels. Study of characteristics and specificities of fibers, fibrous siuface, and fibrous volume should then provide a more forward-looking approach in the textile substitute s area for design and achievement of smart medical implantable textile devices. 

Deactivation processes are associated with the return of the excited molecule to the ground state without fluorescence emission. Any interactions with the environment that protect the excited molecules from deactivation, or at least decrease the rate at which deactivation occurs, increase quantum efficiency. On this basis we have incorporated fluorescent dyes to estimate the amount of polymer-containing complexes or their film thickness on the hair fiber surface, as will be discussed below. 

The components effectively incorporated into the polyassociation depend in particular on the nature of the core groups and on the interactions with the environment, so that supramolecular polymers possess the possibility of adaptation by association/growth/dissociation sequences. The selection of components may occur on the basis of size commensurability [18], of compatibility in chemical properties, in charge, in rigidity/flexibility, etc. An example is given by the formation of homochiral helical fibers with chiral selection from a racemic mixture of monomeric tartaric acid derivatives LU2 = LP2 -I- DU2 -I- DP2(LU2LP2)n + (DU2DP2)n (see Section II.C) [16],... 

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