Stiffening silicone via compression

One-dimensional patterning of cells in silicone wells via compression-induced fracture.

We have adapted our existing compression-induced fracture technology to cell culture studies by generating linear patterns on a complex cell culture well structure rather than on simple solid constructs. We present a simple method to create one-dimensional (1D), submicron, and linear patterns of extracellular matrix on a multilayer silicone material. We identified critical design parameters nec...

Rapid stiffening of a microfluidic endoskeleton via frontal polymerization.

Materials capable of rapidly modifying their physical properties in response to stimuli are desirable for on-demand deployment and adaptive engineering structures. Frontal polymerization is a self-propagating reaction that can quickly transform liquid reactants into solid products. In this contribution, we demonstrate that frontal polymerization enables facile, rapid stiffening of a vascular ne...

Compression via Guided Parsing

Finding Structure via Compression

Jason L. Hutchens Dept. of E&E Engineering University of Western Australia Nedlands W.A. 6907, Australia [email protected] Michael D. Alder Dept. of Mathematics University of Western Australia Nedlands W.A. 6907, Australia [email protected] Abstract A statistical language model may be used to segment a data sequence by thresholding its instantaneous entropy. In this paper we describ...

Uncoupling shear and uniaxial elastic moduli of semiflexible biopolymer networks: compression-softening and stretch-stiffening

Gels formed by semiflexible filaments such as most biopolymers exhibit non-linear behavior in their response to shear deformation, e.g., with a pronounced strain stiffening and negative normal stress. These negative normal stresses suggest that networks would collapse axially when subject to shear stress. This coupling of axial and shear deformations can have particularly important consequences...