When a elastic body is moved quasistatically back and forth over a surface, the friction of the interface is experimentally observed to circulate through a hysteretic loop. The asymptotic behaviour of the hysteresis loop is approached exponentially. We describe how this behaviour is connected to the collective properties of the elastic instabilities suffered by the elastic body as it is displac...

An original homogenization method was used to analyze the nonlinear elastic properties of epithelial cells probed by magnetic twisting cytometry. In this approach, the apparent rigidity of a cell with nonlinear mechanical properties is deduced from the mechanical response of the entire population of adherent cells. The proposed hyperelastic cell model successfully accounts for the variability i...

Mechanical interactions between cells and their surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) play an important role in regulating many cellular functions, such as migration, proliferation and differentiation. Cells adhere to a substrate through an integrated process that involves binding and clustering of integrins to ECM ligands, actin polymerizationdriven plasma membrane extension, and contraction ...

We present a detailed derivation of the renormalization group equations for two dimensional electromagnetic Coulomb gases whose charges lie on a triangular lattice (magnetic charges) and its dual (electric charges). The interactions between the charges involve both angular couplings and a new electromagnetic potential. This motivates the denomination of “elastic” Coulomb gas. Such elastic Coulo...

Nanorod applications Different types of nanorods Applications of nanorods kinesiology in different technology Different methods of manipulation of Nanorods. Classification of effective parameters in manipulation of Nanorods Effective forces and available theory in nanorod modeling Various theories to model nanorod Appropriate strategy for manipulation of Nanorods and efficient algorithm A compl...

Using a minimal model of cells or cohesive cell layers as continuum active elastic media, we examine the effect of substrate thickness and stiffness on traction forces exerted by strongly adhering cells. We obtain a simple expression for the length scale controlling the spatial variation of stresses in terms of cell and substrate parameters that describes the crossover between the thin and thic...