Archive for the ‘Themed issue’ Category

Themed issue on Interfacial Dynamics in Foams and Emulsions

Graphical abstract: Front coverIssue 36 of Soft Matter is a very special themed issue on interfacial dynamics in foams and emulsions, published in celebration of the career of Dominique Langevin, whose work has done much to advance the understanding of these soft matter systems.

The themed issue is Guest Edited by Anniina Salonen, Wiebke Drenckhan and Emmanuelle Rio (Université Paris-Sud, France) – read their introduction to the issue in the Editorial.

On the cover

Influence of interfacial rheology on drainage from curved surfaces
M. Saad Bhamla, Caroline E. Giacomin, Caroline Balemans and Gerald G. Fuller

Review articles

Thermodynamics of adsorption of ionic surfactants at water/alkane interfaces
V. B. Fainerman, E. V. Aksenenko, N. Mucic, A. Javadi and R. Miller

Bubbles and foams in microfluidics
Axel Huerre, Vincent Miralles and Marie-Caroline Jullien

Effect of polyelectrolytes on (de)stability of liquid foam films
Heiko Fauser and Regine von Klitzing

Read the full issue here

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Web collection for 2013 International Soft Matter Conference

Take a look at our new web collection, celebrating the excellent research presented at the 2013 International Soft Matter Conference and the very healthy state of the soft matter field.

This collection of articles is Guest Edited by Sofia Kantorovich (University of Vienna) and Emanuela Zaccarelli (CNR-ISC, Sapienza Universita di Roma).  It comprises papers from a selection of talks and posters that were presented at  the 3rd International Soft Matter Conference, held in Rome on 15-19 September last year.

The collection reflects the variety of topics discussed at the conference, and includes articles on colloids, gels, biomaterials such as DNA and cells, crystals and glasses.  It highlights novel experimental methods, theoretical approaches and advanced simulation techniques, and provides an insight into both equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium behaviour of soft matter.

Articles include:

Phase separation and self-assembly of colloidal dimers with tunable attractive strength: from symmetrical square-wells to Janus dumbbells
Gianmarco Munaò, Patrick O’Toole, Toby S. Hudson, Dino Costa, Carlo Caccamo, Achille Giacometti and Francesco Sciortino  

Graphical abstract: Phase separation and self-assembly of colloidal dimers with tunable attractive strength: from symmetrical square-wells to Janus dumbbells

Biocompatible cationic lipids for the formulation of liposomal DNA vectors
Costanza Montis, Silvia Sostegni, Silvia Milani, Piero Baglioni and Debora Berti  

Graphical abstract: Biocompatible cationic lipids for the formulation of liposomal DNA vectors

Viscoelasticity of nematic liquid crystals at a glance
Fabio Giavazzi, Stefano Crotti, Antonio Speciale, Francesca Serra, Giuliano Zanchetta, Veronique Trappe, Marco Buscaglia, Tommaso Bellini and Roberto Cerbino (Open Access)

Graphical abstract: Viscoelasticity of nematic liquid crystals at a glance

Stratum corneum molecular mobility in the presence of natural moisturizers
Sebastian Björklund, Jenny Marie Andersson, Quoc Dat Pham, Agnieszka Nowacka, Daniel Topgaard and Emma Sparr  (featured in Chemistry World)

  Graphical abstract: Stratum corneum molecular mobility in the presence of natural moisturizers

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Proteins, cells, and tissues in patterned environments: themed issue now published!

The Soft Matter themed issue on Proteins, cells, and tissues in patterned environments is now online! Guest Editors Ulrich Schwarz (University of Heidelberg), Celeste Nelson (Princeton University) and Pascal Silberzan (Institut Curie) introduce the issue in their Editorial.

Over the last two decades, the role of spatial coordination has increasingly moved into the focus of researchers working on biological systems. Using tools from materials science, it has been revealed that the amazing capacity of biological systems to organize themselves strongly depends on the way the environment is spatially structured. For this themed issue, researchers from the biophysics, biophysical chemistry, cell biology and bioengineering communities were invited to contribute studies based on spatially controlled environments which can be used as modulators, control elements or sensors for the self-organized assembly of proteins, cells and tissue. Below are just some of the excellent papers we received:

On the cover:

Alignment of nematic and bundled semiflexible polymers in cell-sized confinement José Alvarado, Bela M. Mulder and Gijsje H. Koenderink  

Communications:

Co- and distinct existence of Tris-NTA and biotin functionalities on individual and adjacent micropatterned surfaces generated by photo-destruction Atanu Biswas, Abhijit Saha, Dhruba Ghosh, Batakrishna Jana and Surajit Ghosh  

Papers:

Three-dimensional patterning of multiple cell populations through orthogonal genetic control of cell motility Joanna L. MacKay, Anshum Sood and Sanjay Kumar  

Oscillations of Min-proteins in micropatterned environments: a three-dimensional particle-based stochastic simulation approach Max Hoffmann and Ulrich S. Schwarz  

Cellular self-organization on micro-structured surfaces Peter J. F. Röttgermann, Alicia Piera Alberola and Joachim O. Rädler 

Optimal shapes and stresses of adherent cells on patterned substrates Shiladitya Banerjee, Rastko Sknepnek and M. Cristina Marchetti  

Intracellular stresses in patterned cell assemblies Michel Moussus, Christelle der Loughian, David Fuard, Marie Courçon, Danielle Gulino-Debrac, Hélène Delanoë-Ayari and Alice Nicolas  

Hyperswarming adaptations in a bacterium improve collective motility without enhancing single cell motility Maxime Deforet, Dave van Ditmarsch, Carlos Carmona-Fontaine and Joao B. Xavier  

Find the full issue here!

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Reconfigurable soft matter themed issue now published!

Reconfigurable soft matter systems are distinguished by their remarkable ability to sense and respond to external stimuli or changes in the environment by readjusting their morphology and/or functionality. Published last week, the Soft Matter themed issue on Reconfigurable Soft Matter highlights the new advances in designing and creating such materials. Guest Editors Anna Balazs and Joanna Aizenberg introduce the issue in their Editorial.

Here is a small sample of the excellent review, communication and full articles contained within the themed issue:

On the cover
Reviews

Communications
 Papers

Find the full issue here!
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Soft Matter under Confinement Themed Issue has been published!

The Soft Matter themed issue on Soft Matter under Confinement is now available to read online! This issue brings together studies which explore the effect of confinement, whether spatial, topological, configurational or at interfaces, on the properties and behaviour of soft matter.

Find out more about the issue in the Editorial, written by Guest Editors Professor Jacob Klein (Weizmann Institute, Israel) and Dr Susan Perkin (Oxford University, UK).

The issue contains reviews

Physical modelling of the nuclear pore complex
Dino Osmanović, Ariberto Fassati, Ian J. Ford and Bart W. Hoogenboom  

communications
Super-compressible DNA nanoparticle lattices 
Sunita Srivastava, Dmytro Nykypanchuk, Mathew M. Maye, Alexei V. Tkachenko and Oleg Gang

 … and a number of previous Hot Papers!

Frustrated crystallisation and melting in two-dimensional pentagonal confinement
Thomas O. E. Skinner, Henry M. Martin, Dirk G. A. L. Aarts and Roel P. A. Dullens

Semi-flexible polymer chains in quasi-one-dimensional confinement: a Monte Carlo study on the square lattice
Hsiao-Ping Hsu and Kurt Binder

Self-organization of the bacterial cell-division protein FtsZ in confined environments
Sonia Mellouli, Begoña Monterroso, Hanumantha Rao Vutukuri, Esra te Brinke, Venkatachalam Chokkalingam, Germán Rivas and Wilhelm T. S. Huck

Oligo(aniline) nanofilms: from molecular architecture to microstructure
Thomas G. Dane, Philip T. Cresswell, Georgia A. Pilkington, Samuele Lilliu, John E. Macdonald, Stuart W. Prescott, Oier Bikondoa, Charl F. J. Faul and Wuge H. Briscoe

Find the full collection here.

Follow the latest journal news on Twitter @softmatter or go to our Facebook page.

To keep up-to-date with all the latest research, sign-up to our RSS feed or Table of contents alert.

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Emerging Investigators Themed Issue published

The 2013 Soft Matter Emerging Investigators themed issue has been published. This issue highlights some of the current up-and-coming researchers in soft matter science and showcases the research that is making them leading investigators in the field. Liz Dunn and Michael Rubinstein, Chair of the Editorial Board, introduce the issue in their editorial. The full issue can be found here.

The Emerging Investigators themed issue features over 60 Communications, Papers, Reviews and Highlights, including:

Reviews:
Cell confinement: putting the squeeze on the nucleus
Marie Versaevel, Maryam Riaz, Thomas Grevesse and Sylvain Gabriele

Self-assembly of nanoparticles adsorbed on fluid and elastic membranes
Anđela Šarić and Angelo Cacciuto

Emerging Areas:
The influence of shape anisotropy on the microstructure of magnetic dipolar particles
Sofia Kantorovich, Elena Pyanzina and Francesco Sciortino  

Highlights:
Electrochemical biocomputing: a new class of molecular-electronic logic devices
Yongmei Jia, Ruixue Duan, Fan Hong, Boya Wang, Nannan Liu and Fan Xia  

Papers:
Do hierarchical structures assemble best via hierarchical pathways?
Thomas K. Haxton and Stephen Whitelam

Myosin II does it all: assembly, remodeling, and disassembly of actin networks are governed by myosin II activity
Yaron Ideses, Adar Sonn-Segev, Yael Roichman and Anne Bernheim-Groswasser

Frustration and packing in curved-filament assemblies: from isometric to isomorphic bundles
Gregory M. Grason

To keep up-to-date with all the latest research, sign-up to our RSS feed or Table of contents alert.

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Themed issue on Reconfigurable soft matter

Soft Matter and guest editors Joanna Aizenberg (Harvard University) and Anna Balazs (University of Pittsburgh) are planning to produce a themed issue on ‘Reconfigurable soft matter’.

From the guest editors:

“This issue will focus on experimental, theoretical and computer simulation studies of soft, reconfigurable materials. A distinctive feature of these systems is their ability to sense and respond to external stimuli or changes in the environment by readjusting their morphology and/or functionality. Examples abound in biology since this adaptive behaviour is vital for survival. Consider, for the example, the ability of the octopus and cuttlefish to change their colour and texture in the presence of their predators, and thus camouflage their identity. In order to accomplish analogous adaptive behaviour, synthetic systems typically encompass a coupling between mechanical and chemical, electrical, optical or thermal behaviour. For instance, certain photo-responsive gels mechanically shrink or swell in the presence of light, and by exploiting this property, the gels can be driven to undergo controllable shape changes. Our goal is to highlight the new advances in designing and creating such reconfigurable materials. Advances in this area could lead to new multi-functional systems, which display one structure and function in one environment, but display another shape and function under different conditions. As a friend of ours likes to joke, an umbrella provides a prime example of this behaviour – in the absence of rain, it remains folded and could act as a walking stick; however, in the presence of rain, it becomes unfolded and keeps the user dry. We seek other remarkable examples of such useful adaptation.”

The deadline for receipt of manuscripts for this themed is 14 June 2013

Manuscripts can be submitted using the RSC’s online submissions service. Please clearly mark that the manuscript is submitted for the themed issue on ‘Reconfigurable soft matter’.

Please would you inform the editorial office by e-mail as soon as possible if you plan to submit to the issue and whether your contribution will be original research or a review-type article. We would like to have a list of authors who intend to contribute as soon as possible.

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Discussing soft matter education

Soft Matter has recently published online a series of Editorials by Samuel A. Safran, Tom Lubensky, Richard Jones, Edit Yerushalmi & Erich Sackmann that discuss the state of soft matter education across scientific fields.

Both the authors and Soft Matter strongly feel that this is an area of great importance for the soft matter community, and would very much like to encourage you all to share your thoughts, comments and opinions on this subject. As such we have created this blog as a central place to enable open discussion of the matter.

If you would like take part in this discussion please add your comments on this blog, and come back often to see what others have to say!

The Editorials are listed below and they have also been grouped together on the ‘Themed Issues’ tab of the Soft Matter website so that you can easily find them again in the future.

1. Soft matter education – Samuel A. Safran

2. Reflections on graduate education in soft matter – Tom C. Lubensky

3. The place of soft matter in undergraduate physics courses – Richard A. L. Jones

4. The challenge of teaching soft matter at the introductory level – Edit Yerushalmi

5. Activities and future challenges of soft matter and biological physics education – Erich Sackmann

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Themed Issue on Directed self-assembly

Soft Matter is planning to produce a themed issue on Directed self-assembly in 2013. Please e-mail the editorial office at softmatter-rsc@rsc.org, if you are interested in contributing an article.

The Guest Editor of the issue is Professor Eric M. Furst (University of Delaware).

The presence of random thermal processes is an important characteristic of soft materials. This intrinsic motion often drives soft matter to a thermodynamic equilibrium, and consequently, spontaneous self-assembly into a specific microstructure. Surfactant micelles, ordered block co-polymers, and colloidal crystals are just a few examples of the rich array of assemblies. In nanotechnology, self-assembly promises to enable new forms of scalable manufacture, reducing the cost of sophisticated functional nanomaterials and devices. However, to achieve this will require direction and control. The fundamental programming rules for self-assembly remain elusive—what structures with molecular or particle building blocks with different shapes and interactions form? How do we work backwards from a desired structure to direct the properties of the constituent building blocks that encode assembly? Moreover, there is no guarantee that the equilibrium state can be reached on a desired timescale, and non-equilibrium barriers to self-assembly, such as glassy arrest or gelation, may hamper the way. Moderate external directing fields have proven useful for circumventing non-equilibrium states.

The deadline for the receipt of manuscripts for this themed issue is April 2013.

Manuscripts can be submitted using the RSC’s online submissions service. Please clearly mark that the manuscript is submitted for the themed issue on ‘Directed self-assembly’.

Please would you inform the editorial office by e-mail at softmatter-rsc@rsc.org as soon as possible if you plan to submit to the issue and whether your contribution will be original research or a review-type article. We would like to have a list of authors who intend to contribute as soon as possible.

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Hot paper: Review of electrostatics of DNA compaction in viruses, bacteria and eukaryotes

This review by Maria Barbi and colleagues from the “Multiscale Modelling of Living Matter” group covers many aspects of DNA packaging in viruses, bacteria through to eukaryotes. The review discusses the electrostatic interactions of DNA, proteins and ions; mechanisms of DNA compaction; the way different condensation mechanisms are implemented in vivo; functional tuning of DNA compaction and finally gives an evolutionary perspective on the subject.

Electrostatics of DNA compaction in viruses, bacteria and eukaryotes: functional insights and evolutionary perspective
Soft Matter, 2012, 8, 9285
DOI: 10.1039/c2sm25789k
(free to read for a short time)

This review is from the Polyelectrolytes in Soft Matter and Biology themed issue. Click on the link to view the entire themed issue.

Follow the latest journal news on Twitter @softmatter or go to our Facebook page.

To keep up-to-date with all the latest research, sign-up to our RSS feed or Table of contents alert.

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