The Center for Cellular Mechanics at U of Illinois has recently hosted a week long summer workshop on Cell Mechano Sensitivity (July 30-Aug 3, 2007. The workshop had lectures in the morning an hands on-labs in the aternoons. All the lectures are on the web (with slides and video). They include a large collection of references. The web also has the laboratory protocols for cell culture, cell fixing and staining, single molecule detection, florescence microscopy, and much more. Visit the website:

www.ccm.uiuc.edu  

I am looking at problems of large deformation and large elastic strain in biological materials, using an analytical model that determines the current deformed state in a single step from the original undeformed state. The approach is to propose a strain energy function to allow the calculation of Piola-Kirchhoff 2 stresses which may then be converted to true Cauchy stresses via the usual mapping. Since I initially calculate PK2 stresses, the strain energy function must be a function of Green strain.

abstract:

Nanoscale materials, including thin films, quantum dots, nanowires, nanobelts, etc – are all structurally unique because they have a relatively high ratio of surface area to volume ratio.  This increase in surface area to volume ratio is important for nanomaterials because wide and unexpected variations in mechanical and other physical properties, such as thermal, electrical and optical, have been found to scale in some proportion to increase in surface area to volume ratio.

Faculty Opening - Assistant Professor.  Mechanical Engineering - Design, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University

The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (HSEAS) seeks applicants for a faculty position as a tenure track assistant professor in the area of mechanical engineering. The ideal candidate will have a strong interest and background in teaching design, as well as outstanding research capabilities. Areas of interest include mechanics and materials (particularly MEMS and NEMS), fluids, mechatronics, robotics, and biomechanics.

Brief description: The Advanced Computational Research Laboratory (http://acor.rpi.edu),
affiliated with the  Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear
Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA invites
applications for a postdoctoral research position to work in the area of in vivo / in situ soft tissue mechanical property estimation and modeling.




The overall goal of this research, funded by the National Institute of

When I came to the institute, my collaborator Kay invited me for a dinner in the new town together with his friend Thilo and other guys. The city is wisely divided into two functioning areas, old town and new town. All the ancient buildings like King’s summer palace, women’s church and opera house are in the old town; while the restaurants, bars and other modern buildings are in the new town. Each is in harmony with its environment and cultural atmosphere.

PRL 99, 175503 (2007);   Jianyu Huang, Feng Ding, Kun Jiao, Boris I Yakobson

Youtube Movie:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSNlE8AreeM    http://www.nature.com/nnano/reshigh/2007/1107/full/nnano.2007.404.html

You are cordially invited to attend a reception, hosted by Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, during the MRS Fall Meeting, on Monday, 26 November 2007, from 7:30 pm to 10 pm, at Independence Room East, 2nd Floor, Sheraton Boston Hotel & Towers, 39 Dalton Street, Boston, MA.

Dean Venky Narayanamurti, Joanna Aizenberg, Michael Aziz, Shriram Ramanathan, Frans Spaepen, Zhigang Suo, Joost Vlassak

The stress-strain behavior and incipient yield surface of nanoporous single crystal copper are studied by the molecular dynamics (MD) method. The problem is modeled by a periodic unit cell subject to multi-axial loading. The loading induced defect evolution is explored. The incipient yield surfaces are found to be tension-compression asymmetric. For given void volume fraction, apparent size effects in the yield surface are predicted: the smaller behaves stronger.