The reasons physicists give for studying colloids are varied. Our initial motivation was that colloids can serve as model experimental systems to study simple fluids because with careful preparation, colloids approximate hard particles. Numerous studies have investigated the phase behavior, structure, and macroscopic viscoelastic properties of suspensions of spherical colloids (Poon and Pusey 1...

abstract   background: pseudoarthrosis of the tibia poses one of the most challenging treatment problems in all of orthopedics. the goal of the study was to assess the clinical outcome of intramedullary rod fixation in its treatment.   methods: the results of the management for nine patients with pseudoarthrosis of the tibia with im rod fixation were reviewed retrospectively between 1986 - 2006...

Microglial cells (or microglia) are the mononuclear phagocytes residing in the central nervous system (CNS). In homeostasis, they showed ramified morphology with relative small cell bodies and long processes (Figure 1A). They detect injury signals in the CNS and get activated. In the brain they undergo different stages of activation, which can be classified according to the morphological and im...

The size, shape, surface property and material composition of polymer-coated nanoparticles (NPs) are four important parameters in designing efficient NP-based carriers for targeted drug delivery. However, due to the complex interplay between size, shape and surface property, most studies lead to ambiguous descriptions of the relevance of shape. To clarify its influence on the cellular uptake of...

Wall teichoic acid (WTA) is essential for the growth of Bacillus subtilis 168. To clarify the function of this polymer, the WTAs of strains 168, 104 rodB1, and 113 tagF1 (rodC1) grown at 32 and 42 degrees C were characterized. At the restrictive temperature, the rodB1 and tagF1 (rodC1) mutants undergo a rod-to-sphere transition that is correlated with changes in the WTA content of the cell wall...

Control of the size and agglomeration of micellar systems is important for pharmaceutical applications such as drug delivery. Although shape-related transitions in surfactant solutions are studied experimentally, their molecular mechanisms are still not well understood. In this study, we use coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations to describe micellar assemblies of pentaethylene glycol mo...