Related papers: Rigidity and mechanical response in biological str…
One of the basic concepts of modern physics with a long prehistory is a fluid, which means a substance that flows under an applied shear stress. In this sense fluids form a wide subset of the phases of matter that includes liquids, dense…
We study a material modeled as a network of nodes connected by edges. Using a discrete approach, we build a nonlinear algebraic system that connects applied forces to internal forces and node positions. The model can describe elasticity,…
Organisms in nature, such as Cephalopods and Pachyderms, exploit stiffness modulation to achieve amazing dexterity in the control of their appendages. In this paper, we explore the phenomenon of layer jamming, which is a popular stiffness…
Using a geometric formalism of elasticity theory we develop a systematic theoretical method for controlling and manipulating the mechanical response of slender solids to external loads. We formally express global mechanical properties…
Aging is a fundamental aspect of living systems that undergo a progressive deterioration of physiological function with age and an increase of vulnerability to disease and death. Living systems, known as complex systems, require complexity…
Phage lambda is one of the most studied biological models in modern molecular biology. Over the past 50 years quantitative experimental knowledge on this biological model has been accumulated at all levels: physics, chemistry, genomics,…
The human organism is an integrated network where complex physiologic systems, each with its own regulatory mechanisms, continuously interact, and where failure of one system can trigger a breakdown of the entire network. Identifying and…
Noise plays a fundamental role in a wide variety of physical and biological dynamical systems. It can arise from an external forcing or due to random dynamics internal to the system. It is well established that even weak noise can result in…
Biological adhesion is a critical mechanical function of complex organisms operating at multiple scales. At the cellular scale, cell-cell adhesion is remarkably tunable to enable both cohesion and malleability during development,…
Persistence is an important characteristic of many complex systems in nature, related to how long the system remains at a certain state before changing to a different one. The study of complex systems' persistence involves different…
We investigate the selective forces that promote the emergence of modularity in nature. We demonstrate the spontaneous emergence of modularity in a population of individuals that evolve in a changing environment. We show that the level of…
"Emergence", the phenomenon where a complex system displays properties, behaviours, or dynamics not trivially reducible to its constituent elements, is one of the defining properties of complex systems. Recently, there has been a concerted…
This study compares turbulent channel flows over elastic walls with those over rough walls, to explore the role of the dynamic change of shape of the wall on turbulence. The comparison is made meaningful by generating rough walls from…
Living systems evolve one mutation at a time, but a single mutation can alter the effect of subsequent mutations. The underlying mechanistic determinants of such epistasis are unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the physical dynamics of a…
What features characterise complex system dynamics? Power laws and scale invariance of fluctuations are often taken as the hallmarks of complexity, drawing on analogies with equilibrium critical phenomena[1-3]. Here we argue that slow,…
We construct a stochastic dynamical systems theory in which sustainability is a structural boundary property of a fully coupled Earth--Human--Production system. Each subsystem is modelled as a vector-valued process governed by stochastic…
Cellularized tissue and polymer networks can both transition from floppy to rigid as a function of their control parameters, and, yet, the two systems often mechanically interact, which may affect their respective rigidities. To study this…
We study the role of connectivity on the linear and nonlinear elastic behavior of amorphous systems using a two-dimensional random network of harmonic springs as a model system. A natural characterization of these systems arises in terms of…
During development and under normal physiological conditions, biological tissues are continuously subjected to substantial mechanical stresses. In response to large deformations cells in a tissue must undergo multicellular rearrangements in…
Proteins are the common constituents of all living cells. They are molecular machines that interact with each other as well as with other cell products and carry out a dizzying array of functions with distinction. These interactions follow…