45 research outputs found
Capillary filling with wall corrugations] Capillary filling in microchannels with wall corrugations: A comparative study of the Concus-Finn criterion by continuum, kinetic and atomistic approaches
We study the impact of wall corrugations in microchannels on the process of
capillary filling by means of three broadly used methods - Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD), Lattice-Boltzmann Equations (LBE) and Molecular Dynamics (MD).
The numerical results of these approaches are compared and tested against the
Concus-Finn (CF) criterion, which predicts pinning of the contact line at
rectangular ridges perpendicular to flow for contact angles theta > 45. While
for theta = 30, theta = 40 (no flow) and theta = 60 (flow) all methods are
found to produce data consistent with the CF criterion, at theta = 50 the
numerical experiments provide different results. Whilst pinning of the liquid
front is observed both in the LB and CFD simulations, MD simulations show that
molecular fluctuations allow front propagation even above the critical value
predicted by the deterministic CF criterion, thereby introducing a sensitivity
to the obstacle heigth.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures, Langmuir in pres
RNA metabolism is the primary target of formamide in vivo
The synthesis, processing and function of coding and non-coding RNA molecules and their interacting proteins has been the focus of a great deal of research that has boosted our understanding of key molecular pathways that underlie higher order events such as cell cycle control, development, innate immune response and the occurrence of genetic diseases. In this study, we have found that formamide preferentially weakens RNA related processes in vivo. Using a non-essential Schizosaccharomyces pombe gene deletion collection, we identify deleted loci that make cells sensitive to formamide. Sensitive deletions are significantly enriched in genes involved in RNA metabolism. Accordingly, we find that previously known temperature-sensitive splicing mutants become lethal in the presence of the drug under permissive temperature. Furthermore, in a wild type background, splicing efficiency is decreased and R-loop formation is increased in the presence of formamide. In addition, we have also isolated 35 formamide-sensitive mutants, many of which display remarkable morphology and cell cycle defects potentially unveiling new players in the regulation of these processes. We conclude that formamide preferentially targets RNA related processes in vivo, probably by relaxing RNA secondary structures and/or RNA-protein interactions, and can be used as an effective tool to characterize these processes
Temporal scales of auditory objects underlying birdsong vocal recognition
Vocal recognition is common among songbirds, and provides an excellent model system to study the perceptual and neurobiological mechanisms for processing natural vocal communication signals. Male European starlings, a species of songbird, learn to recognize the songs of multiple conspecific males by attending to stereotyped acoustic patterns, and these learned patterns elicit selective neuronal responses in auditory forebrain neurons. The present study investigates the perceptual grouping of spectrotemporal acoustic patterns in starling song at multiple temporal scales. The results show that permutations in sequencing of submotif acoustic features have significant effects on song recognition, and that these effects are specific to songs that comprise learned motifs. The observations suggest that (1) motifs form auditory objects embedded in a hierarchy of acoustic patterns, (2) that object-based song perception emerges without explicit reinforcement, and (3) that multiple temporal scales within the acoustic pattern hierarchy convey information about the individual identity of the singer. The authors discuss the results in the context of auditory object formation and talker recognition
The effect of auditory distractors on song discrimination in male canaries (Serinus canaria)
Male songbirds such as canaries produce complex learned vocalizations that are used in the context of mate attraction and territory defense. Successful mate attraction or territorial defense requires that a bird be able to recognize individuals based on their vocal performance and identify these songs in a noisy background. In order to learn more about how birds are able to solve this problem, we investigated, with a two-alternative choice procedure, the ability of adult male canaries to discriminate between conspecific song segments from two different birds and to maintain this discrimination when conspecific songs are superimposed with a variety of distractors. The results indicate that male canaries have the ability to discriminate, with a high level of accuracy song segments produced by two different conspecific birds. Song discrimination was partially maintained when the stimuli were masked by auditory distractors, but the accuracy of the discrimination progressively declined as a function of the number of masking distractors. The type of distractor used in the experiments (other conspecific songs or different types of artificial white noise) did not markedly affect the rate of deterioration of the song discrimination. These data indicate that adult male canaries have the perceptual abilities to discriminate and selectively attend to one ongoing sound that occurs simultaneously with one or more other sounds. The administration of a noradrenergic neurotoxin did not impair markedly the discrimination learning abilities although the number of subjects tested was too small to allow any firm conclusion. In these conditions, however, the noradrenergic lesion significantly increased the number failures to respond in the discrimination learning task suggesting a role, in canaries, of the noradrenergic system in some attentional processes underlying song learning and processing. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved