How does the brain beget the mind? How do molecules, cells and synapses effect reasoning, intelligence, language? Despite dazzling progress in experimental neuroscience, as well as in cognitive science at the other extreme of scale, we do not seem to be making progress in the overarching question -- the gap is huge and a […]
Eutectic phase transitions play an important role in many engineering materials, from cast iron to electronic solder. Regular binary eutectics are relatively straightforward and generally well understood, but the additional degree of freedom in three-component alloys introduces a far greater level of complexity, as three solid phases can form simultaneously from the melt. These ternary […]
This event will be held virtually on zoom. Check your email for the link and passcode or contact ksas@seas.upenn.edu. Recent advances in microfluidics and high-throughput sequencing technology have enabled rapid profiling of genomic material in single cells. Valve- and droplet-based microfluidic platforms can precisely and efficiently manipulate, sort, and process cells to generate indexed sequencing […]
This talk will cover how Pixar's crowds pipeline evolved from "A Bug's Life" to "Onward", and how the studio's artists and engineers refined and re-invented their tools over the years to create memorable animated crowd scenes. We'll cover the progression from finite state machine control, to agent based crowd simulation, to sketch based workflows, using […]
Abstract: Thermodynamics provides a robust conceptual framework and set of laws that govern the exchange of energy and matter. Although these laws were originally articulated for macroscopic objects, nanoscale systems also exhibit “thermodynamic-like” behavior – for instance, biomolecular motors convert chemical fuel into mechanical work, and single molecules exhibit hysteresis when manipulated using optical tweezers. To […]
"Manipulating Macrophage Signaling - How macrophages measure 'Eat me' and 'Don't eat me' signals" Physical Sciences in Oncology Center PSOC@Penn Fall 2020 Webinar Series Mondays @ Noon (EST) For webinar links, please contact manu@seas.upenn.edu
The question of "what set of basis functions should be used?" is of fundamental importance to scientific computing. The performance of different choices of basis is assessed primarily by the rate of convergence and robustness. However, when the one-dimensional basis is extended to higher dimensions d, the computational complexity increases exponentially with respect to d. […]
The modern instantiation of a sensor network is a cyberphysical (CPS) system where CPS subsystems can be interconnected by a shared communication network of limited bandwidth. A common problem in CPS networks is the sensing and communication of spatio-temporal signals. However, there are fundamental differences between estimation (sensing) and communication. For example, the type of […]
Abstract Fuels based on hydrocarbons, taken together with the processing of raw hydrocarbons into chemicals, account for about half of the United States’ CO2 emissions. Efforts to lessen the CO2 footprint of these activities have the potential to make a significant impact on total greenhouse emissions. We focus on taking CO2 and – with energy […]
Phase prediction in multicomponent alloys remains one of the most fundamental challenges. Navigating the vast compositional space of these alloys requires a predictive capability to efficiently guide alloy discovery and microstructure design. Recently, Dr. Ghazisaeidi has developed a Multicell Monte Carlo (MC)^2 method, based on first-principles calculations, to study phase formation in multicomponent alloys. This […]
