Imbibition of micropatterned surfaces can have broad technological and fundamental implications for areas ranging from biomedical devices and fuel transport to writing with ink. Despite rapidly growing interests aimed at various applications, a fundamental physical understanding of the imbibition dynamics is still in its infancy. Recently, two simple scaling regimes for the dynamics have been e...

The surfaces of all vertebrate cells are decorated with a dense and complex array of sugar chains, which are mostly attached to proteins and lipids. Most soluble secreted proteins are also similarly decorated with such glycans. Sialic acids are a diverse family of sugar units with a nine-carbon backbone that are typically found attached to the outermost ends of these chains. Given their locatio...

Equivalence classes of virtual knot diagrams are in a one to one correspondence with knot diagrams (decorated immersions of S1) in orientable, closed surfaces modulo stable handle equivalence and Reidemeister moves. Each virtual knot diagram corresponds to a diagram in a unique minimal surface. If a virtual knot diagram is equivalent to a classical knot diagram then this minimal surface is a sp...

The homology of a 2-colored dioperad of decorated Riemann surfaces, relevant to open-closed string field theory, is computed. The structure it describes is realized in an open-closed setting of string topology via an action at the level of topological spaces.

A photoresponsive drug releasing system based on mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) was developed. A model drug was decorated on the surfaces via singlet oxygen sensitive linkers and a singlet oxygen-generating photosensitizer was loaded in the mesopores of the MSN. An on-demand drug releasing system was successfully developed by irradiation with long-wavelength light.

An ideal surface for implantable glucose sensors would be able to evade the events leading to chronic inflammation and fibrosis, thereby extending its utility in an in vivo environment. Nafion™, a perfluorinated ionomer, is the membrane material preferred for in situ glucose sensors. Unfortunately, the surface properties of Nafion™ promote random protein adsorption and eventual foreign body enc...

The punctured solenoid H is an initial object for the category of punctured surfaces with morphisms given by finite covers branched only over the punctures. The (decorated) Teichmüller space of H is introduced, studied, and found to be parametrized by certain coordinates on a fixed triangulation of H. Furthermore, a point in the decorated Teichmüller space induces a polygonal decomposition of H...