Critical behavior of interacting surfaces with tension

Wetting phenomena, molecular protrusions of lipid bilayers and membrane stacks under lateral tension provide physical examples for interacting surfaces with tension. Such surfaces are studied theoretically using functional renormalization and Monte Carlo simulations. The critical behavior arising from thermally-excited shape fluctuations is determined both for global quantities such as the mean separation of these surfaces and for local quantities such as the probabilities for local contacts.Comment: 13 pages, 17 figures; accepted for publication in The European Physical Journa

Swinging and tumbling of elastic capsules in shear flow

The deformation of an elastic micro-capsule in an infinite shear flow is studied numerically using a spectral method. The shape of the capsule and the hydrodynamic flow field are expanded into smooth basis functions. Analytic expressions for the derivative of the basis functions permit the evaluation of elastic and hydrodynamic stresses and bending forces at specified grid points in the membrane. Compared to methods employing a triangulation scheme, this method has the advantage that the resulting capsule shapes are automatically smooth, and few modes are needed to describe the deformation accurately. Computations are performed for capsules both with spherical and ellipsoidal unstressed reference shape. Results for small deformations of initially spherical capsules coincide with analytic predictions. For initially ellipsoidal capsules, recent approximative theories predict stable oscillations of the tank-treading inclination angle, and a transition to tumbling at low shear rate. Both phenomena have also been observed experimentally. Using our numerical approach we could reproduce both the oscillations and the transition to tumbling. The full phase diagram for varying shear rate and viscosity ratio is explored. While the numerically obtained phase diagram qualitatively agrees with the theory, intermittent behaviour could not be observed within our simulation time. Our results suggest that initial tumbling motion is only transient in this region of the phase diagram.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

Generalized Einstein or Green-Kubo relations for active biomolecular transport

For driven Markovian dynamics on a network of (biomolecular) states, the generalized mobilities, i.e., the response of any current to changes in an external parameter, are expressed by an integral over an appropriate current-current correlation function and thus related to the generalized diffusion constants. As only input, a local detailed balance condition is required typically even valid for biomolecular systems operating deep in the non-equilibrium regime.Comment: 4 page

Hydrodynamic lift on bound vesicles

Bound vesicles subject to lateral forces such as arising from shear flow are investigated theoretically by combining a lubrication analysis of the bound part with a scaling approach to the global motion. A minor inclination of the bound part leads to significant lift due to the additive effects of lateral and tank-treading motions. With increasing shear rate, the vesicle unbinds from the substrate at a critical value. Estimates are in agreement with recent experimental data.Comment: 9 pages, one figur

Solvent free model for self-assembling fluid bilayer membranes: Stabilization of the fluid phase based on broad attractive tail potentials

We present a simple and highly adaptable method for simulating coarse-grained lipid membranes without explicit solvent. Lipids are represented by one head-bead and two tail-beads, with the interaction between tails being of key importance in stabilizing the fluid phase. Two such tail-tail potentials were tested, with the important feature in both cases being a variable range of attraction. We examined phase diagrams of this range versus temperature for both functional forms of the tail-tail attraction and found that a certain threshold attractive width was required to stabilize the fluid phase. Within the fluid phase region we find that material properties such as area per lipid, orientational order, diffusion constant, inter-leaflet flip-flop rate and bilayer stiffness all depend strongly and monotonically on the attractive width. For three particular values of the potential width we investigate the transition between gel and fluid phases via heating or cooling and find that this transition is discontinuous with considerable hysteresis. We also investigated the stretching of a bilayer to eventually form a pore and found excellent agreement with a recently published analytic theory.Comment: 14 pages 12 figure

Gravity-Induced Shape Transformations of Vesicles

We theoretically study the behavior of vesicles filled with a liquid of higher density than the surrounding medium, a technique frequently used in experiments. In the presence of gravity, these vesicles sink to the bottom of the container, and eventually adhere even on non - attractive substrates. The strong size-dependence of the gravitational energy makes large parts of the phase diagram accessible to experiments even for small density differences. For relatively large volume, non-axisymmetric bound shapes are explicitly calculated and shown to be stable. Osmotic deflation of such a vesicle leads back to axisymmetric shapes, and, finally, to a collapsed state of the vesicle.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX, 3 Postscript figures uuencode

Operational applications of NOAA-VHRR imagery in Alaska

Near-real time operational applications of NOAA satellite enhanced thermal infrared imagery to snow monitoring for river flood forecasts, and a photographic overlay technique of imagery to enhance snowcover are presented. Ground truth comparisons show a thermal accuracy of approximately + or - 1 C for detection of surface radiative temperatures. The application of NOAA imagery to flood mapping is also presented

Front Propagation in the Pearling Instability of Tubular Vesicles

Recently Bar-Ziv and Moses discovered a dynamical shape transformation induced in cylindrical lipid bilayer vesicles by the action of laser tweezers. We develop a hydrodynamic theory of fluid bilayers in interaction with the surrounding water and argue that the effect of the laser is to induce a sudden tension in the membrane. We refine our previous analysis to account for the fact that the shape transformation is not uniform but propagates outward from the laser trap. Applying the marginal stability criterion to this situation gives us an improved prediction for the selected initial wavelength and a new prediction for the propagation velocity, both in rough agreement with the experimental values. For example, a tubule of initial radius 0.7\micron\ has a predicted initial sinusoidal perturbation in its diameter with wavelength 5.5\micron, as observed. The perturbation propagates as a front with the qualitatively correct front velocity a bit less than 100\micron/sec. In particular we show why this velocity is initially constant, as observed, and so much smaller than the natural scale set by the tension. We also predict that the front velocity should increase linearly with laser power. Finally we introduce an approximate hydrodynamic model applicable to the fully nonlinear regime. This model exhibits propagating fronts as well as fully-developed ``pearled" vesicles similar to those seen in the experiments.Comment: 42 pages, 6 eps figures included with text in uuencoded file, ps file available from ftp://dept.physics.upenn.edu/pub/Nelson/pearl_propagation.ps submitted to Journal de Physiqu

Frangible glass canisters

The need for a canister that can release its contents without disturbing the contents dynamically is discussed. The solution of this problem by the use of a frangible glass canister is considered. The basic theory applicable to frangible glass and the method of initiating a command flaw are discussed. A brief description of the test program and the results of a flight test are presented

United States v. Ohio

United States v. Ohio is a concise example of the judiciary’s decisive role in ascertaining the intention of parties to an agreement. Relying primarily on the original documents memorializing a cost-sharing agreement to discern intent, the court invalidated two subsurface mining leases entered into between Ohio and Buckingham Coal Company for lack of prior federal approval. The court determined that requiring pre-approval for any lease involving Project lands was consistent with the foundational and foremost purpose of the Project to control flooding