Related papers: Rigidity and mechanical response in biological str…

This work focuses on the bearing rigidity theory, namely the branch of knowledge investigating the structural properties necessary for multi-element systems to preserve the inter-units bearings when exposed to deformations. The original…

Functional structures from across the engineered and biological world combine rigid elements such as bones and columns with flexible ones such as cables, fibers and membranes. These structures are known loosely as tensegrities, since these…

Robustness, the insensitivity of some of a biological system's functionalities to a set of distinct conditions, is intimately linked to fitness. Recent studies suggest that it may also play a vital role in enabling the evolution of species.…

Many biological tissues feature a heterogeneous network of fibers whose tensile and bending rigidity contribute substantially to these tissues' elastic properties. Rigidity percolation has emerged as a important paradigm for relating these…

Robustness of biochemical systems has become one of the central questions in systems biology although it is notoriously difficult to formally capture its multifaceted nature. Maintenance of normal system function depends not only on the…

Particulate matter, such as foams, emulsions, and granular materials, attain rigidity in a dense regime: the rigid phase can yield when a threshold force is applied. The rigidity transition in particulate matter exhibits {\it bona fide}…

The recent discovery of universal principles underlying many complex networks occurring across a wide range of length scales in the biological world has spurred physicists in trying to understand such features using techniques from…

Adaptivity is a dynamical feature that is omnipresent in nature, socio-economics, and technology. For example, adaptive couplings appear in various real-world systems like the power grid, social, and neural networks, and they form the…

Living organisms, ecosystems, and social systems are examples of complex systems in which robustness against inclusion of new elements is an essential feature. A recently proposed simple model has revealed a general mechanism by which such…

While classical theory of phase transitions deals with systems where shape variation is energetically neutral, the account of rigidity can lead to the emergence of new thermodynamic features. One of them is a special type of critical points…

Here we develop an approach to bio-structural robustness integrated with structure-function relationship in a unified conceptual and methodological framework, and envision its study using adequate computational and experimental methods. To…

Many mechanical structures, both engineered and biological, combine heavy rigid elements such as bones and beams with lightweight flexible ones such as cables and membranes. These are referred to as tensegrities, reflecting that cables can…

Many complex systems satisfy a set of constraints on their degrees of freedom, and at the same time, they are able to work and adapt to different conditions. Here, we describe the emergence of this ability in a simplified model in which the…

The physics of disordered media, from metallic glasses to colloidal suspensions, granular matter and biological tissues, offers difficult challenges because it often occurs far from equilibrium, in materials lacking symmetries and evolving…

Criticality has been proposed as a mechanism for the emergence of complexity, life, and computation, as it exhibits a balance between robustness and adaptability. In classic models of complex systems where structure and dynamics are…

Biological networks have evolved to be highly functional within uncertain environments while remaining extremely adaptable. One of the main contributors to the robustness and evolvability of biological networks is believed to be their…

Just as a herd of animals relies on its robust social structure to survive in the wild, similarly robustness is a crucial characteristic for the survival of a complex network under attack. The capacity to measure robustness in complex…

The capacity to adapt can greatly influence the success of systems that need to compensate for damaged parts, learn how to achieve robust performance in new environments, or exploit novel opportunities that originate from new technological…

Biological systems are influenced by fluid mechanics at nearly all spatiotemporal scales. This broad relevance of fluid mechanics to biology has been increasingly appreciated by engineers and biologists alike, leading to continued expansion…

Collective cell motions underlie structure formation during embryonic development. Tissues exhibit emergent multicellular characteristics such as jamming, rigidity transitions, and glassy dynamics, but there remain questions about how those…