21,078 research outputs found
Elastohydrodynamic study of actin filaments using fluorescence microscopy
We probed the bending of actin subject to external forcing and viscous drag.
Single actin filaments were moved perpendicular to their long axis in an
oscillatory way by means of an optically tweezed latex bead attached to one end
of the filaments. Shapes of these polymers were observed by epifluorescence
microscopy. They were found to be in agreement with predictions of semiflexible
polymer theory and slender-body hydrodynamics. A persistence length of m could be extracted.Comment: RevTex, 4 pages, 5 eps figs, submitted to PR
Fluid Velocity Fluctuations in a Suspension of Swimming Protists
In dilute suspensions of swimming microorganisms the local fluid velocity is
a random superposition of the flow fields set up by the individual organisms,
which in turn have multipole contributions decaying as inverse powers of
distance from the organism. Here we show that the conditions under which the
central limit theorem guarantees a Gaussian probability distribution function
of velocities are satisfied when the leading force singularity is a Stokeslet,
but are not when it is any higher multipole. These results are confirmed by
numerical studies and by experiments on suspensions of the alga Volvox carteri,
which show that deviations from Gaussianity arise from near-field effects.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Flow visualization studies of blowing from the tip of a swept wing
Flow visualization studies of blowing from the tip of a swept wing were conducted in the Langley 16- by 24-inch water tunnel. Four wing tips, each with two independent blowing slots, were tested. The two slots were located one behind the other in the chordwise direction. The wing tips were designed to vary systematically the jet length, the jet in-plane exhaust direction (sweep), and the jet out-of-plane exhaust direction (anhedral). Each blowing slot was tested separately at two angles of attack and at four ratios of jet to free stream velocity ratios. Limited tests were conducted with blowing from both slots simultaneously. Blowing from the tip inhibited inboard spanwise flow on the upper wing surface near the tip. The jet path moved farther away from the tip with increasing jet to free stream velocity ratio and moved closer to the tip with increasing angle of attack
Coupling of Active Motion and Advection Shapes Intracellular Cargo Transport
Intracellular cargo transport can arise from passive diffusion, active
motor-driven transport along cytoskeletal filament networks, and passive
advection by fluid flows entrained by such motor/cargo motion. Active and
advective transport are thus intrinsically coupled as related, yet different
representations of the same underlying network structure. A
reaction-advection-diffusion system is used here to show that this coupling
affects the transport and localization of a passive tracer in a confined
geometry. For sufficiently low diffusion, cargo localization to a target zone
is optimized either by low reaction kinetics and decoupling of bound and
unbound states, or by a mostly disordered cytoskeletal network with only weak
directional bias. These generic results may help to rationalize subtle features
of cytoskeletal networks, for example as observed for microtubules in fly
oocytes.Comment: revtex, 5 pages, 5 figures, to appear in PRL (http://prl.aps.org/
Crossover from Endogenous to Exogenous Activity in Open-Source Software Development
We have investigated the origin of fluctuations in the aggregated behaviour
of an open-source software community. In a recent series of papers, de Menezes
and co-workers have shown how to separate internal dynamics from external
fluctuations by capturing the simultaneous activity of many system's
components. In spite of software development being a planned activity, the
analysis of fluctuations reveals how external driving forces can be only
observed at weekly and higher time scales. Hourly and higher change frequencies
mostly relate to internal maintenance activities. There is a crossover from
endogenous to exogenous activity depending on the average number of file
changes. This new evidence suggests that software development is a
non-homogeneous design activity where stronger efforts focus in a few project
files. The crossover can be explained with a Langevin equation associated to
the cascading process, where changes to any file trigger additional changes to
its neighbours in the software network. In addition, analysis of fluctuations
enables us to detect whether a software system can be decomposed in several
subsystems with different development dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Europhysics Letter
How to Track Protists in Three Dimensions
We present an apparatus optimized for tracking swimming microorganisms in the
size range 10-1000 microns, in three dimensions (3D), far from surfaces, and
with negligible background convective fluid motion. CCD cameras attached to two
long working distance microscopes synchronously image the sample from two
perpendicular directions, with narrowband dark-field or bright-field
illumination chosen to avoid triggering a phototactic response. The images from
the two cameras can be combined to yield 3D tracks of the organism. Using
additional, highly directional broad-spectrum illumination with millisecond
timing control the phototactic trajectories in 3D of organisms ranging from
Chlamydomonas to Volvox can be studied in detail. Surface-mediated hydrodynamic
interactions can also be investigated without convective interference. Minimal
modifications to the apparatus allow for studies of chemotaxis and other taxes.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure
Collective chemotactic dynamics in the presence of self-generated fluid flows
In micro-swimmer suspensions locomotion necessarily generates fluid motion,
and it is known that such flows can lead to collective behavior from unbiased
swimming. We examine the complementary problem of how chemotaxis is affected by
self-generated flows. A kinetic theory coupling run-and-tumble chemotaxis to
the flows of collective swimming shows separate branches of chemotactic and
hydrodynamic instabilities for isotropic suspensions, the first driving
aggregation, the second producing increased orientational order in suspensions
of "pushers" and maximal disorder in suspensions of "pullers". Nonlinear
simulations show that hydrodynamic interactions can limit and modify
chemotactically-driven aggregation dynamics. In puller suspensions the dynamics
form aggregates that are mutually-repelling due to the non-trivial flows. In
pusher suspensions chemotactic aggregation can lead to destabilizing flows that
fragment the regions of aggregation.Comment: 4 page
Fluid dynamics of bacterial turbulence
Self-sustained turbulent structures have been observed in a wide range of
living fluids, yet no quantitative theory exists to explain their properties.
We report experiments on active turbulence in highly concentrated 3D
suspensions of Bacillus subtilis and compare them with a minimal fourth-order
vector-field theory for incompressible bacterial dynamics. Velocimetry of
bacteria and surrounding fluid, determined by imaging cells and tracking
colloidal tracers, yields consistent results for velocity statistics and
correlations over two orders of magnitude in kinetic energy, revealing a
decrease of fluid memory with increasing swimming activity and linear scaling
between energy and enstrophy. The best-fit model parameters allow for
quantitative agreement with experimental data.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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