(n.) The act or process of contracting, shortening, or shrinking; the state of being contracted; as, contraction of the heart, of the pupil of the eye, or of a tendion; the contraction produced by cold.
(n.) The process of shortening an operation.
(n.) The act of incurring or becoming subject to, as liabilities, obligation, debts, etc.; the process of becoming subject to; as, the contraction of a disease.
(n.) Something contracted or abbreviated, as a word or phrase; -- as, plenipo for plenipotentiary; crim. con. for criminal conversation, etc.
(n.) The shortening of a word, or of two words, by the omission of a letter or letters, or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one; as, ne'er for never; can't for can not; don't for do not; it's for it is.
(n.) A marriage contract.
Example Sentences:
(1) During the performance of propulsive waves of the oesophagus the implanted vagus nerve caused clonic to tetanic contractions of the sternohyoid muscle, thus proving the oesophagomotor genesis of the reinnervating nerve fibres.
(2) But RWE admitted it had often only been able to retain customers with expired contracts by offering them new deals with more favourable conditions.
(3) Thus adrenaline, via pre- and post-junctional adrenoceptors, may contribute to enhanced vascular smooth muscle contraction, which most likely is sensitized by the elevated intracellular calcium concentration.
(4) Further, the maximal increase in force of contraction was measured using papillary muscle strips from some of these patients.
(5) When subjects centered themselves actively, or additionally, contracted trunk flexor or extensor muscles to predetermined levels of activity, no increase in trunk positioning accuracy was found.
(6) Twitch-tetanus ratios were calculated and found not to be related to unit contraction time.6.
(7) Selective removal of endothelium had no effect on BK-induced contraction or the action of the antagonists.
(8) The increased muscular strength in due to a rise of calcaemia, improved muscle contraction and probably also due to the mentioned nutritional factors.
(9) However, there was not a relationship between the contraction curve of the gallbladder and the bile flow into the duodenum.
(10) In in vitro preparations GABA (10(-7) - 10(-3) M) elicited a dose-dependent relaxation; a decrease in the spontaneous contractions was sometimes observed.
(11) There was no correlation between disturbed gastric clearance, impaired gall bladder contraction, and prolonged colonic transit time in the patients with cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy nor was there a correlation between any disturbed motor function and age or duration of diabetes.
(12) Noradrenaline decreased the phasic contraction amplitude of the circular muscle and exerted a stimulant effect on the tone which suggested an existence of two alpha 1-adrenoceptor subtypes.
(13) It may, however, be useful to compare local wall dynamics in the more isometrically-contracting basal segment with those in the middle portion which brings about most of the emptying of the ventricle.
(14) Upon depletion of ATP in contraction, the P2 intensity reverted to the original rigor level, accompanied by development of rigor tension.
(15) L-NAME abolished B contractions in a dose-dependent fashion.
(16) The power spectrum of the EMG was analyzed during isometric contractions of the shoulder muscles.
(17) A23187 had only a transient effect on KCl-contracted coronary arteries.
(18) When caffeine evokes a contraction, and only then, crayfish muscle fibers become refractory to a second challenge with caffeine for up to 20 min in the standard saline (5 mM K(o)).
(19) Dopamine at concentrations over 10(-5)M induced contractions of tracheal muscle strips and repeated exposures resulted in desensitization (tachyphylaxis) of the muscle.
(20) In the present study we examined cholecystokinin release and gallbladder contraction after oral administration of a commercial fatty meal (Sorbitract; Dagra, Diemen, The Netherlands) using ultrasonography in eight normal subjects and eight gallstone patients before and after 1 and 4 weeks of treatment with ursodeoxycholic acid (10 mg kg-1.day-1).
Shrinkage
Definition:
(n.) The act of shrinking; a contraction into less bulk or measurement.
(n.) The amount of such contraction; the bulk or dimension lost by shrinking, as of grain, castings, etc.
(n.) Decrease in value; depreciation.
Example Sentences:
(1) Tumor shrinkage was documented by A-scan ultrasonography in all but one patient.
(2) Results suggest that these resins should be used with some method to compensate for the shrinkage, when used as index material.
(3) Since all human cadaveric tissue is fixed whilst on the skeleton, we may assume that shrinkage of the muscles in such specimens is negligible.
(4) Clofibrate and its analogs (halofenate and beta-benzalbutyrate) produced significant hepatomegaly (mean responses of +18, +18 and +10%, respectively) whereas oxandrolone produced significant hepatic shrinkage (-10%)(P less than .05).
(5) Hypertrophy of the satellite cells with increase in the perineuronal intercellular spaces, often associated with irregular, scalloped nuclear and cell outlines, suggested that neuron shrinkage had occurred.
(6) In Patient 2, rhinorrhoea and presumably entry of infection was facilitated by unplugging of a defect in the wall of the sphenoid sinus by bromocriptine-induced shrinkage of the pituitary adenoma.
(7) During negative equilibrium gas in the bubble gradually simulates tissue gas with eventual shrinkage of the bubble.
(8) Dehydration in ethanol and propylene oxide produces a further 10% shrinkage in volume.
(9) Angioscopy provided cross-sectional topographic views of thrombosed lumen and showed charring and shrinkage of thrombus following laser angioplasty.
(10) Marked net cation loss and cell shrinkage occurred in the absence of a chemical gradient for Na and K. This voltage-dependent increase in Na and K conductance is partially inhibited by 10 microM ruthenium red and persists when the membrane potential is returned to -10 mV after transient exposure to inside-positive potentials.
(11) Overall extensibility of the fixed material was significantly greater than that for the fresh tissue, consistent with a 10.7% shrinkage in aldehydes calculated from strain at fracture data.
(12) In vitro, NGF withdrawal from septal neurons initially grown in the presence of NGF did not result in the death of old cholinergic neurons in these tissue cultures but did result in a down-regulation of transmitter-associated enzymes, accompanied by cholinergic cell shrinkage and a reduction in fiber density.
(13) A chronic, progressive disease, CP is characterized by shrinkage of the conjunctiva, symblepharon, entropion, trichiasis, dry eye, and finally reduced vision from corneal opacification.
(14) There are no significant differences of shrinkage temperature and ultimate tensile stress among all tissue samples pretreated with GA, EP 1# and EP 2#.
(15) These data support the hypothesis of regional variations in the severity of cerebral cortical damage in alcoholism with shrinkage of neurons in most regions examined but neuronal loss only in the superior frontal gyrus.
(16) 40:820-823) showed that the shrinkage is due to a mechanochemical coupling between the elasticity of the network and the osmotic stress arising from preferential exclusion of PEG.
(17) After heat treatment, the test piece was examined for compressive strength, compressive shrinkage, hardness, tarnishing and difference in phase.
(18) This could be explained on the basis of a selective loss of larger neurones rather than a general shrinkage of all neurones.
(19) Comparisons with animals monocularly deprived for similar periods indicate, however, that in 3 of these animals the undeprived parvocellular cells would have been markedly hypertrophied at the time of reopening the deprived eye, and in two of the animals, little shrinkage of the deprived parvocellular cells would have occurred by this time.
(20) A significant correlation was observed between the shrinkage during the treatment period and the local control at 150 days, for three of the four fractionated schedules.