Relevant Choices Affecting the Fatigue Analysis of Ni-Ti Endovascular Devices.

Ni-Ti alloys are widely used for biomedical applications due to their superelastic properties, which are especially convenient for endovascular devices that require minimally invasive insertion and durable effects, such as peripheral/carotid stents and valve frames. After crimping and deployment, stents undergo millions of cyclic loads imposed by heart/neck/leg movements, causing fatigue failure and device fracture that can lead to possibly severe consequences for the patient. Standard regulations require experimental testing for the preclinical assessment of such devices, which can be coupled with numerical modeling to reduce the time and costs of such campaigns and to obtain more information regarding the local state of stress and strain in the device.

High-quality chest CT segmentation to assess the impact of COVID-19 disease.

Purpose: COVID-19 has spread rapidly worldwide since its initial appearance, creating the need for faster diagnostic methods and tools. Due to the high rate of false-negative RT-PCR tests, the role of chest CT examination has been investigated as an auxiliary procedure. The main goal of this work is to establish a well-defined strategy for 3D segmentation of the airways and lungs of COVID-19 positive patients from CT scans, including detected abnormalities.