A second-order accurate semi-implicit Lorentz force ions, fluid electrons df hybrid model has been developed using a ‘‘current closure’’ scheme. The model assumes quasi-neutrality and is fully electromagnetic. The implicit field solver improves numerical accuracy by separating the equilibrium terms in the presence of small perturbations. The equilibrium part of the generalized Ohm’s law is solv...

Although small nematodes significantly impact human and animal health, agriculture, and ecology, little is known about the role of hydrodynamics in their life cycles. Using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a model undulatory microswimmer, we have observed that animals are attracted to and swim along surfaces. The attraction to surfaces does not require mechanosensory neuron function. In d...

Submitted for the MAR16 Meeting of The American Physical Society Scaling Relations for Wheeled Locomotion in Granular Media JAMES SLONAKER, KEN KAMRIN, MIT — Vehicular wheel design for use on granular material has not currently been perfected. Resistive Force Theory (RFT) is a reduced-order empirical model for granular drag, which shows promise to help simulate and understand locomotion process...

Unipolar resistive switching memory cells were fabricated using a Mg0.84Zn0.16O2−δ thin film, sandwiched between p+-Si (100) substrate and Cr/Au top electrodes. Electrical measurements showed a large memory window and memory window margin of 107 and 104, respectively. Furthermore, a wide switching voltage distribution gap of 3.6 V between the switching-ON and -OFF processes was obtained for dif...

Friction, the resistive force between two surfaces sliding past each other, is at the core of a wide diversity of locomotion schemes. While such schemes are well described for homogeneous environments, locomotion based on friction in inhomogeneous environments has not received much attention. Here we introduce and demonstrate the concept of tribotaxis, a motion that is guided by gradients in th...

A bolometer consists of a thermometer with heat capacity C mounted on an absorbing substrate, weakly coupled to a bath at temperature T0 via a thermal conductance G ( Figure 1 ). Resistive bolometers (including both composite and transition-edge bolometers) use the temperature dependence of a resistive element to measure the infrared signal incident on the absorber. In steady-state operation, t...

The mechanism of some characteristics about swimming motion of the marine bacterium, Vibrio alginolyticus, close to a boundary was investigated. The motion of the microorganism that possesses single polar-flagellum propelling the cell body was dealt with as an outer flow problem from a bio-fluid dynamics viewpoint. Numerical analyses based on the boundary element method in addition to the resis...

To facilitate the cell based robot research, we presented a micro-mechanical force measurement system for the biological muscle actuators, which utilize glucose as a power source for potential application in a human body or blood vessels. The system is composed of a micro-manipulator, a force transducer with a glass probe, a signal processor, an inverted microscope and video recoding system. Us...

The constraint of incompressibility is often used to simplify the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) description of linearized plasma dynamics because it does not affect the ideal MHD marginal stability point. In this paper two methods for introducing incompressibility are compared in a cylindrical plasma model: In the first method, the limit γ → ∞ is taken, where γ is the ratio of specific heats; in th...

Bite force was quantified for 13 species of North American rodents using a piezo-resistive sensor. Most of the species measured (11) formed a tight relationship between body mass and bite force (log 10(bite force) = 0.43(log 10(body mass)) + 0.416; R2 > 0.98). This high correlation exists despite the ecological (omnivores, grazers and more carnivorous) and taxonomic (Cricetidae, Heteromyidae, S...