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We use Langevin dynamics simulations to study dynamical behaviour of a dense planar layer of active semi-flexible filaments. Using the strength of active force and the thermal persistence length as parameters, we map a detailed phase…
We study the elasticity of random fiber networks. Starting from a microscopic picture of the non-affine deformation fields we calculate the macroscopic elastic moduli both in a scaling theory and a self-consistent effective medium theory.…
In cells, cytoskeletal filament networks are responsible for cell movement, growth, and division. Filaments in the cytoskeleton are driven and organized by crosslinking molecular motors. In reconstituted cytoskeletal systems, motor activity…
Deep neural networks have achieved impressive performance on a variety of tasks, but their brittleness to distributional shifts remains a significant barrier to real-world deployment. In this paper, we propose a framework to analyse and…
Understanding the structures of biological macromolecules is highly important as they are closely associated with cellular functionalities. Comprehending the precise organization actin filaments is crucial because they form the dynamic…
Patchy colloids with highly directional interactions are ideal building blocks to control the local arrangements resulting from their spontaneous self-organization. Here we propose their use, combined with substrates and nonequilibrium…
Neurons are spatially extended cells; different parts of a neuron have specific voltage dynamics. Important types of neurons even generate different spikes in different parts of the cell. Neurons' inputs are also often spatially…
We develop a continuum theory for equilibrium elasticity of a network of crosslinked semiflexible filaments, spanning the full range between flexible entropy-driven chains to stiff athermal rods. We choose the 3-chain constitutive model…
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin is dramatically altered in the presence of a flexible cross-linker such as the abundant cytoskeletal protein filamin. The basic…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…
We study a mean field model of a complex network, focusing on edge and triangle densities. Our first result is the derivation of a variational characterization of the entropy density, compatible with the infinite node limit. We then…
We use optical tweezers microrheology and fluorescence microscopy to apply nonlinear microscale strains to entangled and crosslinked actin networks, and measure the resulting stress and actin filament deformations. We couple nonlinear…
Polymerization of dendritic actin networks underlies important mechanical processes in cell biology such as the protrusion of lamellipodia, propulsion of growth cones in dendrites of neurons, intracellular transport of organelles and…
An analytic expression is derived for the distribution $G(\vec{R})$ of the end-to-end distance $\vec{R}$ of semiflexible polymers in external potentials to elucidate the effect of confinement on the mechanical and statistical properties of…
The network approach became a widely used tool to understand the behaviour of complex systems in the last decade. We start from a short description of structural rigidity theory. A detailed account on the combinatorial rigidity analysis of…
The actin cytoskeleton in living cells has many types of crosslinkers. The mechanical interplay between these different crosslinker types is an open issue in cytoskeletal mechanics. We develop a framework to study the cooperativity and…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is an important mechanism for compartmentalizing the cell's cytoplasm, allowing the dynamic organization of the components necessary for survival. However, it is not clear how phase separation is affected by…
The formation of bundles composed of actin filaments and cross-linking proteins is an essential process in the maintenance of the cells' cytoskeleton. It has also been recreated by in-vitro experiments, where actin networks are routinely…
The behaviour of elastic structures undergoing large deformations is the result of the competition between confining conditions, self-avoidance and elasticity. This combination of multiple phenomena creates a geometrical frustration that…
Polarity fields are known to exhibit long distance patterns, in both physical and biological systems. The mechanisms behind such patterns are poorly understood. Here, we describe the dynamics of polarity fields using an original physical…