The Role of Very Low-Reynolds Hydrodynamics on the Transfer of Information Among Active Agents

We investigate the role of hydrodynamic interactions on the decision-making and leader-identification processes within a group of fifty small-size active individuals, immersed in a viscous fluid at very low Reynolds number, . A fraction of the individuals is informed about the spatial location of the target, and moves accordingly along a privileged trajectory. The rest of the group has no access to this information, but may draw indirect benefit by following the trajectory of the informed individuals, through a process of leader-identification.

Spatial and velocity statistics of inertial particles in turbulent flows

Spatial and velocity statistics of heavy point-like particles in incompressible, homogeneous, and isotropic three-dimensional turbulence is studied by means of direct numerical simulations at two values of the Taylor-scale Reynolds number Re-lambda similar to 200 and Re-lambda similar to 400, corresponding to resolutions of 512(3) and 2048(3) grid points, respectively. Particles Stokes number values range from St approximate to 0.2 to 70.

Semi-spectral method for the Wigner equation

We propose a numerical method to solve the Wigner equation in quantum systems of spinless, non-relativistic particles. The method uses a spectral decomposition into L-2(R-d) basis functions in momentum-space to obtain a system of first-order advection-reaction equations. The resulting equations are solved by splitting the reaction and advection steps so as to allow the combination of numerical techniques from quantum mechanics and computational fluid dynamics by identifying the skew-hermitian reaction matrix as a generator of unitary rotations.

Three-Dimensional Lattice Pseudo-Potentials for Multiphase Flow Simulations at High Density Ratios

It is shown that the combination of generalized Van der Waals equations of state with high-order discrete velocity lattices, permits to simulate the dynamics of liquid droplets at air-water density ratios, with very moderate levels of spurious currents near the droplet interface. Satisfactory agreement with experimental data on droplet collisions at density ratios of order thousand is reported.

Paradoxical ratcheting in cornstarch

In this paper, we demonstrate that vertically vibrating a plate in a cornstarch suspension causes the suspension to vigorously ratchet up the plate. We show that this is a necessary consequence of the fact that cornstarch in water is shear thickening: when the plate moves up it opposes gravity and so the fluid stiffens; when it moves down it works with gravity and so the fluid flows. This produces asymmetric ratcheting that opposes gravity.

A MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR THE ENHANCED CYTOPLASMIC TRANSPORT How to Get (Faster) to the Nucleus

We consider a simple model for signal transport in the cytoplasm. Following some recent experimental evidences, the standard diffusion model is supplemented by advection operated through an attachement/detachement mechanism along microtubules. This model is given by a system of partial differential equations which are cast in different dimensions and connected by suitable exchange rules. A numerical scheme is introduced and some simulations are presented and discussed to show the performances of our model.

Impact of the Peterlin approximation on polymer dynamics in turbulent flows

We study the impact of the Peterlin approximation on the statistics of the end-to-end separation of polymers in a turbulent flow. The finitely extensible nonlinear elastic (FENE) model and the FENE model with the Peterlin approximation (FENE-P) are numerically integrated along a large number of Lagrangian trajectories resulting from a direct numerical simulation of three-dimensional homogeneous isotropic turbulence. Although the FENE-P model yields results in qualitative agreement with those of the FENE model, quantitative differences emerge.

Minimally Unbalanced Diamond-Free Graphs and Dyck-Paths

A {0, 1}-matrix A is balanced if it does not contain a submatrix of odd order having exactly two 1's per row and per column. A graph is balanced if its clique-matrix is balanced. No characterization of minimally unbalanced graphs is known, and even no conjecture on the structure of such graphs has been posed, contrary to what happened for perfect graphs. In this paper, we provide such a characterization for the class of diamond-free graphs and establish a connection between minimally unbalanced diamond-free graphs and Dyck-paths.

On the influence of solid-liquid mass transfer in the modelling of drug release from stents

In this paper we present a model of drug release from a drug eluting-stent and the subsequent drug transport in the arterial wall. In order to study the complete process, a two-phase mathematical model describing the transport of a drug between two coupled media of different properties and dimensions is presented. A system of partial differential equations describes both the solid-liquid transfer (dissolution) and diffusion processes in the polymeric substrate as well as diffusion, convection and reaction in the tissue layer.