Figure 3.

Functional relationship between normalized mass production rate $\mathrm{\Upsilon }\left(K_{(·)}^k{\delta }_{(·)}^k\right)$ and a change in mechanical stimulus ${\delta }_{(·)}^k$ for indicated values of $K_{(·)}^k$ and where $m_{max}^k=5$ (cf., equation (25)). The sigmoidal behavior approximates observed saturation limits for mass production rates as functions of shear-induced changes in NO or ET-1^28,72,73. Also note the nearly linear behavior near ${\delta }_{(·)}^k=0$, retaining features of previously implemented models¹⁰⁵.