Related papers: Rigidity and mechanical response in biological str…
Numerous soft materials jam into an amorphous solid at high packing fraction. This non-equilibrium phase transition is best understood in the context of a model system in which particles repel elastically when they overlap. Recently,…
Redox biology underpins signalling, metabolism, immunity, and adaptation, yet lacks a unifying theoretical framework capable of formalising structure, function, and dynamics. Current interpretations rely on descriptive catalogues of…
In many interesting physical settings, such as the vulcanization of rubber, the introduction of permanent random constraints between the constituents of a homogeneous fluid can cause a phase transition to a random solid state. In this…
Behavioral changes in animals and humans, as a consequence of an error or a verbal instruction, can be extremely rapid. Improvement in behavioral performances are usually associated in machine learning and reinforcement learning to synaptic…
This paper treats the problem of the merging of formations, where the underlying model of a formation is graphical. We first analyze the rigidity and persistence of meta-formations, which are formations obtained by connecting several rigid…
The cells and tissues that make up our body juggle contradictory mechanical demands. It is crucial for their survival to be able to withstand large mechanical loads, but it is equally crucial for them to produce forces and actively change…
A central question in dynamics is whether the topology of a system determines its geometry. This is known as rigidity. Under mild topological conditions rigidity holds for many classical cases, including: Kleinian groups, circle…
Mechanical characteristics of single biological cells are used to identify and possibly leverage interesting differences among cells or cell populations. Fluidity---hysteresivity normalized to the extremes of an elastic solid or a viscous…
We study geometrical clues of a rigidity transition due to the emergence of a system-spanning state of self stress in under-constrained systems of individual polygons and spring networks constructed from such polygons. When a polygon with…
Many biological materials consist of sparse networks of disordered fibres, embedded in a soft elastic matrix. The interplay between rigid and soft elements in such composite networks leads to mechanical properties that can go far beyond the…
Biological systems exhibit large-scale self-organized dynamics and structures which enable organisms to perform the functions of life. The field of active matter strives to develop and understand microscopically-driven nonequilibrium…
Plasticity is a fundamental property of complex systems, such as the brain or an organism. Yet it typically remains a descriptive concept inferred retrospectively from observed outcomes, such as modifications in activity or morphology.…
Topology transcends boundaries that conventionally delineate physical, biological and engineering sciences. Our ability to mathematically describe topology, combined with our access to precision tracking and manipulation approaches, has…
Unlike most synthetic materials, biological materials often stiffen as they are deformed. This nonlinear elastic response, critical for the physiological function of some tissues, has been documented since at least the 19th century, but the…
The rigidity transition occurs when, as the density of microscopic components is increased, a disordered medium becomes able to transmit and ensure macroscopic mechanical stability, owing to the appearance of a space-spanning rigid…
Biological networks are customarily described as structurally robust. This means that they often function extremely well under large forms of perturbations affecting both the concentrations and the kinetic parameters. In order to explain…
The spontaneous creation of disclinations is a defining characteristic of active nematics, which is rarely observed in equilibrium systems or other active matter systems. Thus, understanding the mechanics of disclinations is crucial for…
Fiberboids are active filaments trapped at the interface of two phases, able of harnessing energy (and matter) fluxes across the interface in order to produce a rolling-like self-propulsion. We discuss several table-top examples and develop…
Empirical evidence suggesting that living systems might operate in the vicinity of critical points, at the borderline between order and disorder, has proliferated in recent years, with examples ranging from spontaneous brain activity to…
We show how rigidity emerges in experiments of sheared frictional granular materials by using generalizations of two methods for identifying rigid structures. Both approaches, the force-based dynamical matrix and the topology-based rigidity…