Zhang, Kuang (Date of defense: 2015-06-10)
Graphene deposited on a substrate often exhibits out-of-plane deformations with different features and origins. Networks of localized wrinkles have been observed in graphene synthesized through CVD, as ...
Li, Bin (Date of defense: 2016-03-08)
Fracture mechanics of brittle materials has focused on bulk materials with isotropic surface energy. In this situation different physical principles for crack path selection are very similar or even ...
Kaurin, Dimitri (Date of defense: 2018-10-29)
We examine a classical problem in soft-matter physics: the specific adhesion between deformable elastic objects, such as vesicles, mediated by mobile adhesion molecules. This problem is relevant to ...
Hashemian, Behrooz (Date of defense: 2015-05-08)
Collective variables (CVs) are low-dimensional representations of the state of a complex system, which help us rationalize molecular conformations and sample free energy landscapes with molecular dynamics ...
Latorre Ibars, Ernest (Date of defense: 2021-02-19)
Fundamental processes in development and physiology are determined by the three-dimensional architecture of epithelial sheets. How these sheets deform and fold into complex structures has remained ...
Tozzi, Caterina (Date of defense: 2021-04-30)
Organelles are the smallest functional parts of eukaryotic cells. Among them, some are membrane-bound such as the nucleus, the endoplasmic reticulum, or the Golgi apparatus, each of them with essential ...
Millán, Daniel (Date of defense: 2012-11-12)
In many applications, one would like to perform calculations on smooth manifolds of dimension d embedded in a high-dimensional space of dimension D. Often, a continuous description of such manifold is ...
Rahmi, Mohammad (Date of defense: 2013-04-09)
Biological membranes are continuously brought out of equilibrium, as they shape organelles, package and transport cargo, or respond to external actions. The dynamics of lipid membranes are very complex ...
Peco Regales, Christian (Date of defense: 2014-10-28)
Las biomembranas constituyen la estructura de separación fundamental en las celulas animales, y son importantes en el diseño de sistemas bioinspirados. Su simulación presenta desafíos, especialmente ...
Torres-Sánchez, Alejandro (Date of defense: 2017-07-11)
Lipid membranes are thin objects that form the main separation structure in cells. They have remarkable mechanical properties; while behaving as a solid shell against bending, they exhibit in-plane ...