Structure and mechanics of active colloids

11 pages Acknowledgments MCM thanks Xingbo Yang and Lisa Manning for their contribution to some aspects of the work reviewed here and for fruitful discussions. MCM was supported by NSF-DMR-305184. MCM and AP acknowledge support by the NSF IGERT program through award NSF-DGE-1068780. MCM, AP and DY were additionally supported by the Soft Matter Program at Syracuse University. AP acknowledges use of the Syracuse University HTC Campus Grid which is supported by NSF award ACI-1341006. YF was supported by NSF grant DMR-1149266 and the Brandeis Center for Bioinspired Soft Materials, an NSF MRSEC, DMR-1420382.Peer reviewedPreprin

Polysomally protected viruses

It is conceivable that an RNA virus could use a polysome, that is, a string of ribosomes covering the RNA strand, to protect the genetic material from degradation inside a host cell. This paper discusses how such a virus might operate, and how its presence might be detected by ribosome profiling. There are two possible forms for such a polysomally protected virus, depending upon whether just the forward strand or both the forward and complementary strands can be encased by ribosomes (these will be termed type 1 and type 2, respectively). It is argued that in the type 2 case the viral RNA would evolve an ambigrammatic property, whereby the viral genes are free of stop codons in a reverse reading frame (with forward and reverse codons aligned). Recent observations of ribosome profiles of ambigrammatic narnavirus sequences are consistent with our predictions for the type 2 case

Thermal crumpling of perforated two-dimensional sheets

Thermalized elastic membranes without distant self-avoidance are believed to undergo a crumpling transition when the microscopic bending stiffness is comparable to kT, the scale of thermal fluctuations. Most potential physical realizations of such membranes have a bending stiffness well in excess of experimentally achievable temperatures and are therefore unlikely ever to access the crumpling regime. We propose a mechanism to tune the onset of the crumpling transition by altering the geometry and topology of the sheet itself. We carry out extensive molecular dynamics simulations of perforated sheets with a dense periodic array of holes and observe that the critical temperature is controlled by the total fraction of removed area, independent of the precise arrangement and size of the individual holes. The critical exponents for the perforated membrane are compatible with those of the standard crumpling transition

Diseño de sistema de climatización para calidad de aire interior en grandes establecimientos cerrados post Covid-19

El diseño de un sistema climatización en grandes recintos cerrados considerando la calidad de aire interior post Covid-19, es motivo de la presente investigación. Desarrollamos el diseño de un salón de baile para 1000 personas. Revisamos recomendaciones y experiencias de estándares y estudios de sistemas HVAC realizados en pandemia. Con condiciones exteriores DB 29°C y WB 24°C, condiciones interiores 22°C y HR 55% (no controlada); y caudal de aire fresco 31,541 m3/h como parámetros de diseño de aire acondicionado y de ventilación; componentes antipandémicos para la limpieza del aire como filtros de alta eficiencia y emisores UV. Reducir el riesgo de infección de patógenos respirables en grandes salones de baile cerrados es un caso especial de acondicionamiento de aire (calor latente muy alto y solo 10 % de aire recirculado). Seleccionamos 03 AHU RoofTop compactos sólo frío de casi 100% de aire exterior, de alta capacidad de refrigeración (60 Ton refrig.c/u) y alta presión estática (76 mm ca) en aire de suministro. Aseguramos confort con dilución de aire del recinto e integramos componentes antipandémicos para asegurar la limpieza del aire con filtrado MERV14 y HEPA de alta eficiencia en la captura de partículas de 0.3 µm. Inversión total US$ 345,55

A high-resolution flux-matrix model describes the spread of diseases in a spatial network and the effect of mitigation strategies

Propagation of an epidemic across a spatial network of communities is described by a variant of the SIR model accompanied by an intercommunity infectivity matrix. This matrix is estimated from fluxes between communities, obtained from cell-phone tracking data recorded in the USA between March 2020 and February 2021. We apply this model to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic by fitting just one global parameter representing the frequency of interaction between individuals. We find that the predicted infections agree reasonably well with the reported cases. We clearly see the effect of “shelter-in-place” policies introduced at the onset of the pandemic. Interestingly, a model with uniform transmission rates produces similar results, suggesting that the epidemic transmission was deeply influenced by air travel. We then study the effect of alternative mitigation policies, in particular restricting long-range travel. We find that this policy is successful in decreasing the epidemic size and slowing down the spread, but less effective than the shelter-in-place policy. This policy can result in a pulled wave of infections. We express its velocity and characterize the shape of the traveling front as a function of the epidemiological parameters. Finally, we discuss a policy of selectively constraining travel based on an edge-betweenness criterion.journal articl

JANUS: an FPGA-based System for High Performance Scientific Computing

This paper describes JANUS, a modular massively parallel and reconfigurable FPGA-based computing system. Each JANUS module has a computational core and a host. The computational core is a 4x4 array of FPGA-based processing elements with nearest-neighbor data links. Processors are also directly connected to an I/O node attached to the JANUS host, a conventional PC. JANUS is tailored for, but not limited to, the requirements of a class of hard scientific applications characterized by regular code structure, unconventional data manipulation instructions and not too large data-base size. We discuss the architecture of this configurable machine, and focus on its use on Monte Carlo simulations of statistical mechanics. On this class of application JANUS achieves impressive performances: in some cases one JANUS processing element outperfoms high-end PCs by a factor ~ 1000. We also discuss the role of JANUS on other classes of scientific applications.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. Improved version, largely rewritten, submitted to Computing in Science & Engineerin

Matching microscopic and macroscopic responses in glasses

Primero reproducimos en las computadoras Janus y Janus II un experimento importante que mide la longitud de la coherencia de los hilados de vidrio a través de la reducción de las barreras de energía libre inducidas por el efecto Zeeman. En segundo lugar, determinamos el comportamiento de escala que permite un análisis cuantitativo de un nuevo experimento informado en la Carta complementaria [S. Guchhait y R. Orbach, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 157203 (2017)]. El valor de la longitud de coherencia estimada a través del análisis de las funciones de correlación microscópicas resulta ser cuantitativamente consistente con su medición a través de las funciones de respuesta macroscópica. Además, las susceptibilidades no lineales, recientemente medidas en líquidos formadores de vidrio, se escalan como potencias de la misma longitud microscópica.We first reproduce on the Janus and Janus II computers a milestone experiment that measures the spin glass coherence length through the lowering of free-energy barriers induced by the Zeeman effect. Secondly, we determine the scaling behavior that allows a quantitative analysis of a new experiment reported in the companion Letter [S. Guchhait and R. Orbach, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 157203 (2017)]. The value of the coherence length estimated through the analysis of microscopic correlation functions turns out to be quantitatively consistent with its measurement through macroscopic response functions. Further, nonlinear susceptibilities, recently measured in glass-forming liquids, scale as powers of the same microscopic length.• European Research Council. Beca No. NPRGGLASS. Ayuda para Marco Baity Jesi • Unión Europea. Marie Skłodowska- Curie. Beca No. 654971 • Consejo Europeo de Investigación (ERC). Subvención 694925 • University of Syracuse. Beca No. NSF-DMR-305184, para David Yllanes Mosquera • Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. No. FIS2012-35719-C02, No. FIS2013-42840-P (I+D+i), No. FIS2015-65078-C2, No. FIS2016-76359-P (I+D+i), y No. TEC2016-78358-R • Junta de Extremadura y Fondos FEDER. Contrato parcial GRU10158 • Dipùtación General de Aragón y Fondos Social Europeo. AyudapeerReviewe