Related papers: Investigation of the cellular response to bone fra…
We report the first measurements of the intrinsic strain fluctuations of living cells using a recently-developed tracer correlation technique along with a theoretical framework for interpreting such data in heterogeneous media with…
A micromechanically motivated phase-field damage model is proposed to investigate the fracture behaviour in crosslinked polyurethane adhesive. The crosslinked polyurethane adhesive typically show viscoelastic behaviour with geometric…
In this paper, we study how cytoskeletal remodeling is correlated to changes in subcellular microrheology. We analyze the changes in the magnitude and directionality of the shear and elastic moduli of bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs)…
Throughout the process of aging, deterioration of bone macro- and micro-architecture, as well as material decomposition result in a loss of strength and therefore in an increased likelihood of fractures. To date, precise contributions of…
The detachment of material in an adhesive wear process is driven by a fracture mechanism which is controlled by a critical length-scale. Previous efforts in multi-asperity wear modeling have applied this microscopic process to rough elastic…
Biological cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, but how such a mechanosensing proccess takes place in a nonlinear inhomogeneous fibrous matrix remains unknown. We show that cells in a fibrous matrix induce deformation fields that…
In the first part of this two-paper series, a new Fragile Points Method (FPM), in both primal and mixed formulations, is presented for analyzing flexoelectric effects in 2D dielectric materials. In the present paper, a number of numerical…
We study the effects of long-range electrostatic interactions on the thermal fluctuations of free-standing crystalline membranes exhibiting spontaneous electric polarization directed at each point along the local normal to the surface. We…
Constancy of life vitally depends on the internalization of particles through biomembranes. Of particular interest, cellular uptake, including phagocytosis, receptor-mediated endocytosis, and membrane fusion, critically depends on the…
A severe application of stress on articular cartilage can initiate a cascade of biochemical reactions that can lead to the development of osteoarthritis. We constructed a multiscale mathematical model of the process with three components:…
Cell mechanical functions like locomotion, contraction and division are controlled by the cytoskeleton, a dynamic biopolymer network whose mechanical properties remain poorly understood. We perform single-cell uniaxial stretching…
To understand nontrivial edge electronic states in strongly-correlated metals such as cuprate superconductors, we study the two-dimensional Hubbard models with open edge boundary. The position-dependences of the spin susceptibility and the…
It was recently discovered that friction between surfaces bearing phosphatidylcholine (PC) lipid bilayers can be increased by two orders of magnitude or more via an externally-applied electric field, and that this increase is fully…
Recent experiments in various cell types have shown that two-dimensional tissues often display local nematic order, with evidence of extensile stresses manifest in the dynamics of topological defects. Using a mesoscopic model where tissue…
We report the phenomenon of periodic shape oscillations occurring in 3T3 fibroblasts merely as a consequence of a loss of cell-substrate adhesion. The oscillatory behavior can last many hours at a constant frequency, and can be switched off…
We study theoretically the influence of the underlying domain microstructure on the electromechanical properties of ferroelectrics. Our calculations are based on a continuum approach that incorporates the long-range elastic and…
Pharmaceutical treatments can slow bone degradation, thus reducing the fracture risk inherent in osteoporosis. Antiresorptive treatments block the over-activation of osteoclasts vs osteoblasts, but the resulting decrease in bone remodeling…
Bone's mechanostat theory describes the adaptation of bone tissues to their mechanical environment. Many experiments have investigated and observed such structural adaptation. However, there is still much uncertainty about how to define the…
Soft solids with tunable mechanical response are at the core of new material technologies, but a crucial limit for applications is their progressive aging over time, which dramatically affects their functionalities. The generally accepted…
Symmetry breaking at surfaces and interfaces and the capability to support large strain gradients in nanoscale systems enable new forms of electromechanical coupling. Here we introduce the concept of quantum flexoelectricity, a phenomenon…