Effects of counterion fluctuations in a polyelectrolyte brush

We investigate the effect of counterion fluctuations in a single polyelectrolyte brush in the absence of added salt by systematically expanding the counterion free energy about Poisson-Boltzmann mean field theory. We find that for strongly charged brushes, there is a collapse regime in which the brush height decreases with increasing charge on the polyelectrolyte chains. The transition to this collapsed regime is similar to the liquid-gas transition, which has a first-order line terminating at a critical point. We find that for monovalent counterions the transition is discontinuous in theta solvent, while for multivalent counterions the transition is generally continuous. For collapsed brushes, the brush height is not independent of grafting density as it is for osmotic brushes, but scales linear with it.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Influence of Gemetrical and Thermal Parameters on the Thermal Comportment of a Pin-on-Disk System

Strong temperature gradients are often the cause of malfunctions taking place in mechanical systems which associate two rubbing solids. This work presents the thermal behaviour of a system consisting on a rotating disk in rubbing contact with a pin. Immersed in an environment characterized by a surface conductance h and a temperature Tf , the disk is subjected to localised heat flux generated by the friction with the pin, eccentric with respect to the rotating axis of the disk. Several parameters intervene decisively on the local heat transfer and therefore on the temperature of the contact surface between the two solids in friction. In addition to the conductance, other parameters as the angular velocity of the disk, the frictional heat flux or the pin diameter and its off center with respect to the disk rotation axis, play a major role in the thermal exchange. The present work examines the influence of such parameters on the thermal solution. An analytical expression is proposed for the calculation of the 3D disk´s temperature. The presented thermal cartographies make possible to locate the zones of the system undergoing the greatest temperature gradients and thus the associated spots of mechanical rupture. Results are compared with other analytical solutions found in the specialized literatu

Long Range Hydration Effects in Electrolytic Free Suspended Black Films

The force law within free suspended black films made of negatively charged Aerosol-OT (AOT) with added LiCl or CsCl is studied accurately using X-ray reflectivity (ca. 1{\AA}). We find an electrolyte concentration threshold above which a substantial additional repulsion is detected in the LiCl films, up to distances of 100 {\AA}. We interpret this phenomenon as an augmentation of the Debye screening length, due to the local screening of the condensed hydrophilic counterions by the primary hydration shell.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published Phys. Rev. Let

Counterion Penetration and Effective Electrostatic Interactions in Solutions of Polyelectrolyte Stars and Microgels

Counterion distributions and effective electrostatic interactions between spherical macroions in polyelectrolyte solutions are calculated via second-order perturbation (linear response) theory. By modelling the macroions as continuous charge distributions that are permeable to counterions, analytical expressions are obtained for counterion profiles and effective pair interactions in solutions of star-branched and microgel macroions. The counterions are found to penetrate stars more easily than microgels, with important implications for screening of bare macroion interactions. The effective pair interactions are Yukawa in form for separated macroions, but are softly repulsive and bounded for overlapping macroions. A one-body volume energy, which depends on the average macroion concentration, emerges naturally in the theory and contributes to the total free energy.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Spinodal Decomposition in Binary Gases

We carried out three-dimensional simulations, with about 1.4 million particles, of phase segregation in a low density binary fluid mixture, described mesoscopically by energy and momentum conserving Boltzmann-Vlasov equations. Using a combination of Direct Simulation Monte Carlo(DSMC) for the short range collisions and a version of Particle-In-Cell(PIC) evolution for the smooth long range interaction, we found dynamical scaling after the ratio of the interface thickness(whose shape is described approximately by a hyperbolic tangent profile) to the domain size is less than ~0.1. The scaling length R(t) grows at late times like t^alpha, with alpha=1 for critical quenches and alpha=1/3 for off-critical ones. We also measured the variation of temperature, total particle density and hydrodynamic velocity during the segregation process.Comment: 11 pages, Revtex, 4 Postscript figures, submitted to PR

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Spinodal Decomposition in Three-Dimensional Binary Fluids

Using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of a two-component Lennard-Jones model in three dimensions, we show that the late-time dynamics of spinodal decomposition in concentrated binary fluids reaches a viscous scaling regime with a growth exponent $n=1$, in agreement with experiments and a theoretical analysis for viscous growth.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Self-Consistent Field study of Polyelectrolyte Brushes

We formulate a self-consistent field theory for polyelectrolyte brushes in the presence of counterions. We numerically solve the self-consistent field equations and study the monomer density profile, the distribution of counterions, and the total charge distribution. We study the scaling relations for the brush height and compare them to the prediction of other theories. We find a weak dependence of the brush height on the grafting density.We fit the counterion distribution outside the brush by the Gouy-Chapman solution for a virtual charged wall. We calculate the amount of counterions outside the brush and find that it saturates as the charge of the polyelectrolytes increases

2016 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure: The Task Force for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Developed with the special contribution of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC

2016 ESC on Acute and Chronic H

Cell tracking in cardiac repair: what to image and how to image

Stem cell therapies hold the great promise and interest for cardiac regeneration among scientists, clinicians and patients. However, advancement and distillation of a standard treatment regimen are not yet finalised. Into this breach step recent developments in the imaging biosciences. Thus far, these technical and protocol refinements have played a critical role not only in the evaluation of the recovery of cardiac function but also in providing important insights into the mechanism of action of stem cells. Molecular imaging, in its many forms, has rapidly become a necessary tool for the validation and optimisation of stem cell engrafting strategies in preclinical studies. These include a suite of radionuclide, magnetic resonance and optical imaging strategies to evaluate non-invasively the fate of transplanted cells. In this review, we highlight the state-of-the-art of the various imaging techniques for cardiac stem cell presenting the strengths and limitations of each approach, with a particular focus on clinical applicability