An all-optical approach for probing microscopic flows in living embryos

Living systems rely on fluid dynamics from embryonic development to adulthood. To visualize biological fluid flow, devising the proper labeling method compatible with both normal biology and in vivo imaging remains a major experimental challenge. Here, we describe a simple strategy for probing microscopic fluid flows in vivo that meets this challenge. An all-optical procedure combining femtosecond laser ablation, fast confocal microscopy and 3D-particle tracking was devised to label, image and quantify the flow. This approach is illustrated by studying the flow generated within a micrometer scale ciliated vesicle located deep inside the zebrafish embryo and involved in breaking left-right embryonic symmetry. By mapping the velocity field within the vesicle and surrounding a single beating cilium, we show this method can address the dynamics of cilia-driven flows at multiple length scales, and can validate the flow features as predicted from previous simulations. This approach provides new experimental access to questions of microscopic fluid dynamics in vivo

Measuring surface-area-to-volume ratios in soft porous materials using laser-polarized xenon interphase exchange NMR

We demonstrate a minimally invasive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique that enables determination of the surface-area-to-volume ratio (S/V) of soft porous materials from measurements of the diffusive exchange of laser-polarized 129Xe between gas in the pore space and 129Xe dissolved in the solid phase. We apply this NMR technique to porous polymer samples and find approximate agreement with destructive stereological measurements of S/V obtained with optical confocal microscopy. Potential applications of laser-polarized xenon interphase exchange NMR include measurements of in vivo lung function in humans and characterization of gas chromatography columns.Comment: 14 pages of text, 4 figure

Absence of Ground States for a Class of Translation Invariant Models of Non-relativistic QED

We consider a class of translation invariant models of non-relativistic QED with net charge. Under certain natural assumptions we prove that ground states do not exist in the Fock space

Reducing relative termination to dependency pair problems

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21401-6_11Relative termination, a generalized notion of termination, has been used in a number of different contexts like proving the confluence of rewrite systems or analyzing the termination of narrowing. In this paper, we introduce a new technique to prove relative termination by reducing it to dependency pair problems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first significant contribution to Problem #106 of the RTA List of Open Problems. The practical significance of our method is illustrated by means of an experimental evaluation.Germán Vidal is partially supported by the EU (FEDER) and the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under grant TIN2013-44742-C4-R and by the Generalitat Valenciana under grant PROMETEOII201/013. Akihisa Yamadais supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): Y757Iborra, J.; Nishida, N.; Vidal Oriola, GF.; Yamada, A. (2015). Reducing relative termination to dependency pair problems. En Automated Deduction - CADE-25. Springer. 163-178. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21401-6_11S163178Alarcón, B., Lucas, S., Meseguer, J.: A dependency pair framework for A $$\vee$$ C-termination. In: Ölveczky, P.C. (ed.) WRLA 2010. LNCS, vol. 6381, pp. 35–51. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)Arts, T., Giesl, J.: Termination of term rewriting using dependency pairs. Theor. Comput. Sci. 236(1–2), 133–178 (2000)Arts, T., Giesl, J.: A collection of examples for termination of term rewriting using dependency pairs. Technical report AIB-2001-09, RWTH Aachen (2001)Baader, F., Nipkow, T.: Term Rewriting and All That. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1998)Dershowitz, N.: Termination of rewriting. J. Symb. Comput. 3(1&2), 69–115 (1987)Endrullis, J., Waldmann, J., Zantema, H.: Matrix interpretations for proving termination of term rewriting. J. Autom. Reasoning 40(2–3), 195–220 (2008)Geser, A.: Relative termination. Dissertation, Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik, Universität Passau, Germany (1990)Giesl, J., Kapur, D.: Dependency pairs for equational rewriting. In: Middeldorp, A. (ed.) RTA 2001. LNCS, vol. 2051, pp. 93–107. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)Giesl, J., Schneider-Kamp, P., Thiemann, R.: AProVE 1.2: automatic termination proofs in the dependency pair framework. In: Furbach, U., Shankar, N. (eds.) IJCAR 2006. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4130, pp. 281–286. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)Giesl, J., Thiemann, R., Schneider-Kamp, P., Falke, S.: Mechanizing and improving dependency pairs. J. Autom. Reasoning 37(3), 155–203 (2006)Hirokawa, N., Middeldorp, A.: Polynomial interpretations with negative coefficients. In: Buchberger, B., Campbell, J. (eds.) AISC 2004. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3249, pp. 185–198. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)Hirokawa, N., Middeldorp, A.: Dependency pairs revisited. In: van Oostrom, V. (ed.) RTA 2004. LNCS, vol. 3091, pp. 249–268. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)Hirokawa, N., Middeldorp, A.: Decreasing diagrams and relative termination. J. Autom. Reasoning 47(4), 481–501 (2011)Hullot, J.M.: Canonical forms and unification. CADE-5. LNCS, vol. 87, pp. 318–334. Springer, Heidelberg (1980)Iborra, J., Nishida, N., Vidal, G.: Goal-directed and relative dependency pairs for proving the termination of narrowing. In: De Schreye, D. (ed.) LOPSTR 2009. LNCS, vol. 6037, pp. 52–66. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)Kamin, S., Lévy, J.J.: Two generalizations of the recursive path ordering (1980, unpublished note)Klop, J.W.: Term rewriting systems: a tutorial. Bull. Eur. Assoc. Theor. Comput. Sci. 32, 143–183 (1987)Koprowski, A., Zantema, H.: Proving liveness with fairness using rewriting. In: Gramlich, B. (ed.) FroCos 2005. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3717, pp. 232–247. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)Koprowski, A.: TPA: termination proved automatically. In: Pfenning, F. (ed.) RTA 2006. LNCS, vol. 4098, pp. 257–266. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)Korp, M., Sternagel, C., Zankl, H., Middeldorp, A.: Tyrolean termination tool 2. In: Treinen, R. (ed.) RTA 2009. LNCS, vol. 5595, pp. 295–304. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)Lankford, D.: Canonical algebraic simplification in computational logic. Technical report ATP-25, University of Texas (1975)Liu, J., Dershowitz, N., Jouannaud, J.-P.: Confluence by critical pair analysis. In: Dowek, G. (ed.) RTA-TLCA 2014. LNCS, vol. 8560, pp. 287–302. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)Nishida, N., Sakai, M., Sakabe, T.: Narrowing-based simulation of term rewriting systems with extra variables. ENTCS 86(3), 52–69 (2003)Nishida, N., Vidal, G.: Termination of narrowing via termination of rewriting. Appl. Algebra Eng. Commun. Comput. 21(3), 177–225 (2010)Ohlebusch, E.: Advanced Topics in Term Rewriting. Springer-Verlag, London (2002)Thiemann, R., Allais, G., Nagele, J.: On the formalization of termination techniques based on multiset orderings. In: RTA 2012. LIPIcs, vol. 15, pp. 339–354. Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2012)Vidal, G.: Termination of narrowing in left-linear constructor systems. In: Garrigue, J., Hermenegildo, M.V. (eds.) FLOPS 2008. LNCS, vol. 4989, pp. 113–129. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)Yamada, A., Kusakari, K., Sakabe, T.: Nagoya termination tool. In: Dowek, G. (ed.) RTA-TLCA 2014. LNCS, vol. 8560, pp. 466–475. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)Yamada, A., Kusakari, K., Sakabe, T.: A unified ordering for termination proving. Sci. Comput. Program. (2014). doi: 10.1016/j.scico.2014.07.009Zantema, H.: Termination of term rewriting by semantic labelling. Fundamenta Informaticae 24(1/2), 89–105 (1995)Zantema, H.: Termination. In: Bezem, M., Klop, J.W., de Vrijer, R. (eds.) Term Rewriting Systems. Cambridge Tracts in Theoretical Computer Science, vol. 55, pp. 181–259. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2003

Formation and Interaction of Membrane Tubes

We show that the formation of membrane tubes (or membrane tethers), which is a crucial step in many biological processes, is highly non-trivial and involves first order shape transitions. The force exerted by an emerging tube is a non-monotonic function of its length. We point out that tubes attract each other, which eventually leads to their coalescence. We also show that detached tubes behave like semiflexible filaments with a rather short persistence length. We suggest that these properties play an important role in the formation and structure of tubular organelles.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Cilia at the node of mouse embryos sense fluid flow for left-right determination via Pkd2

Unidirectional fluid flow plays an essential role in the breaking of left-right (L-R) symmetry in mouse embryos, but it has remained unclear how the flow is sensed by the embryo. We report that the Ca2+ channel Polycystin-2 (Pkd2) is required specifically in the perinodal crown cells for sensing the nodal flow. Examination of mutant forms of Pkd2 shows that the ciliary localization of Pkd2 is essential for correct L-R patterning. Whereas Kif3a mutant embryos, which lack all cilia, failed to respond to an artificial flow, restoration of primary cilia in crown cells rescued the response to the flow. Our results thus suggest that nodal flow is sensed in a manner dependent on Pkd2 by the cilia of crown cells located at the edge of the node.CREST of the Japan Science and Technology Corporation; NIH [P30 DK090744]; Human Frontier Science Program [ST00246/2003C]; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [PE 853/2]; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; American Heart Association [R10682]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Generic flow profiles induced by a beating cilium

We describe a multipole expansion for the low Reynolds number fluid flows generated by a localized source embedded in a plane with a no-slip boundary condition. It contains 3 independent terms that fall quadratically with the distance and 6 terms that fall with the third power. Within this framework we discuss the flows induced by a beating cilium described in different ways: a small particle circling on an elliptical trajectory, a thin rod and a general ciliary beating pattern. We identify the flow modes present based on the symmetry properties of the ciliary beat.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, to appear in EPJ

Infrared problem for the Nelson model on static space-times

We consider the Nelson model with variable coefficients and investigate the problem of existence of a ground state and the removal of the ultraviolet cutoff. Nelson models with variable coefficients arise when one replaces in the usual Nelson model the flat Minkowski metric by a static metric, allowing also the boson mass to depend on position. A physical example is obtained by quantizing the Klein-Gordon equation on a static space-time coupled with a non-relativistic particle. We investigate the existence of a ground state of the Hamiltonian in the presence of the infrared problem, i.e. assuming that the boson mass tends to 0 at infinity