A method to analyze the influence of mechanical strain on dermal collagen morphologies.

Collagen fibers and their orientation play a major role in the mechanical behavior of soft biological tissue such as skin. Here, we present a proof-of-principle study correlating mechanical properties with collagen fiber network morphologies. A dedicated multiphoton stretching device allows for mechanical deformations in combination with a simultaneous analysis of its collagen fiber network by second harmonic generation imaging (SHG).

Electrical and network properties of flexible silver-nanowire composite electrodes under mechanical strain.

Flexible and conductive silver-nanowire photopolymer composites are fabricated and studied under mechanical strain. The initial resistances of the unstretched flexible composites are between 0.27 Ω mm-1 and 1.

General method for classification of fiber families in fiber-reinforced materials: application to in-vivo human skin images.

Fiber structures play a major role for the function of fiber-reinforced materials such as biological tissue. An objective classification of the fiber orientations into fiber families is crucial to understand its mechanical properties. We introduce the Fiber Image Network Evaluation Algorithm (FINE algorithm) to classify and quantify the number of fiber families in scientific images.

Noise reduction and quantification of fiber orientations in greyscale images.

Quantification of the angular orientation distribution of fibrous tissue structures in scientific images benefits from the Fourier image analysis to obtain quantitative information. Measurement uncertainties represent a major challenge and need to be considered by propagating them in order to determine an adaptive anisotropic Fourier filter. Our adaptive filter method (AF) is based on the maximum relative uncertainty δcut of the power spectrum as well as a weighted radial sum with weighting factor α.