We systematically investigate the role of different swimming patterns on the concentration distribution of bacterial suspensions confined between two flat walls, by considering wild-type motility Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which perform Run and Tumble and Run and Reverse patterns, respectively. The experiments count motile bacteria at different distances from the bottom wall. In agreement with previous studies, an accumulation of motile bacteria close to the walls is observed. Different wall separations, ranging from 100 to 250?m, are tested.

We study by computer simulations the dynamics of a droplet of passive, isotropic fluid, embedded in a polar active gel. The latter represents a fluid of active force dipoles, which exert either contractile or extensile stresses on their surroundings, modelling for instance a suspension of cytoskeletal filaments and molecular motors. When the polarisation of the active gel is anchored normal to the droplet at its surface, the nematic elasticity of the active gel drives the formation of a hedgehog defect; this defect then drives an active flow which propels the droplet forward.

A mathematical model of the galvanic iron corrosion is, here, presented. The iron(III)-hydroxide formation is considered together with the redox reaction. The PDE system, assembled on the basis of the fundamental holding electro-chemistry laws, is numerically solved by a locally refined FD method. For verification purpose we have assembled an experimental galvanic cell; in the present work, we report two tests cases, with acidic and neutral electrolitical solution, where the computed electric potential compares well with the measured experimental one

Cell motility in higher organisms (eukaryotes) is crucial to biological functions ranging from wound healing to immune response, and also implicated in diseases such as cancer. For cells crawling on hard surfaces, significant insights into motility have been gained from experiments replicating such motion in vitro. Such experiments show that crawling uses a combination of actin treadmilling (polymerization), which pushes the front of a cell forward, and myosin-induced stress (contractility), which retracts the rear.

The growth and evolution of microbial populations is often subjected to advection by fluid flows in spatially extended environments, with immediate consequences for questions of spatial population genetics in marine ecology, planktonic diversity and origin of life scenarios. Here, we review recent progress made in understanding this rich problem in the simplified setting of two competing genetic microbial strains subjected to fluid flows.

The possibility to computationally prioritize candi- date disease genes capitalizing on existing information has led to a speedup in the discovery of new methods. Many gene discovery techniques exploit network data, like protein-protein interactions (PPIs), in order to extract knowledge from the network structure relying on several network metrics. We here present PROCONSUL, a method that builds on top of the concept of connectivity significance (CS) and exploits the idea of probabilistic exploration of the space of putative disease genes.

The dynamic behavior of a self-propelled semiflexible filament of length L is con- sidered under the action of a linear shear flow. The system is studied by using Brownian multi-particle collision dynamics. The system can be characterized in terms of the persistence length Lp of the chain, of the Peclet number, and of the Weissenberg number. The quantity Lp/L measures the bending rigidity of the polymer, the Peclet number Pe is the ratio of active force times L to thermal energy, and the Weissenberg number Wi characterizes the flow strength over thermal effects.

Here we study theoretically the dynamics of a 2D and a 3D isotropic droplet in a nematic liquid crystal under a shear flow. We find a large repertoire of possible nonequilibrium steady states as a function of the shear rate and of the anchoring of the nematic director field at the droplet surface. We first discuss homeotropic anchoring. For weak anchoring, we recover the typical behaviour of a sheared isotropic droplet in a binary fluid, which rotates, stretches and can be broken by the applied flow.

We present hybrid lattice Boltzmann simulations of extensile and contractile active fluids where we incorporate phenomenologically the tendency of active particles such as cell and bacteria, to move, or swim, along the local orientation. Quite surprisingly, we show that the interplay between alignment and activity can lead to completely different results, according to geometry (periodic boundary conditions or confinement between flat walls) and nature of the activity (extensile or contractile).

Active systems, or active matter, are self-driven systems that live, or function, far from equilibrium - a paradigmatic example that we focus on here is provided by a suspension of self-motile particles. Active systems are far from equilibrium because their microscopic constituents constantly consume energy from the environment in order to do work, for instance to propel themselves. The non-equilibrium nature of active matter leads to a variety of non-trivial intriguing phenomena.