2016 Discussion Meetings

Fall 2016

Center for Soft Matter and Biological Physics Friday Discussion Meetings

Fall 2016

Organizer: Vinh Nguyen

These meetings occur on Fridays from 4:00pm to 5:00pm in Robeson 304 (unless otherwise indicated)

August 2016
August 26 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Physics Department Faculty Meeting. No talk scheduled.
September 2016
September 2 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	No talk scheduled.
September 9 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Udaya Sree Datla (Virginia Tech) Topic: Evolutionary dynamics in synthetic predator-prey ecologies Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
September 16 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Talk cancelled.
September 23 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Prudvi Gaddam (Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Virginia Tech) Topic: A liquid state thermal diode Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
September 30 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	William Mather Topic: Modeling Gene Networks Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
October 2016
October 7 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	No talk scheduled.
October 14 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Fall Break. No talk scheduled.
October 21 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	CSB Center Faculty Meeting. No talk scheduled.
October 28 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Harshwardhan Chaturvedi (Dept. of Physics, Virginia Tech) Topic: Flux Lines in Superconductors: Planar Defects and Beyond Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
November 2016
November 4 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Chola Regmi (Dept. of Physics, Virginia Tech) Topic: Tubulin binding energies from all-atom molecular dynamics simulations Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
November 11 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	83rd Annual Meeting of the APS Southeastern Section. No talk scheduled.
November 18 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Physics Department Faculty Meeting. No talk scheduled.
November 25 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall	Thanksgiving Holiday. No talk scheduled.
December 2016
December 2 Friday 4:00pm 304 Robeson Hall (poster)	Bart Brown (Dept. Physics, Virginia Tech) Topic: Noncyclic interactions: games within games Cyclic predator prey games can create complex patterns in space and time such as domains and propagating spirals from simple microscopic rules. The coexistence of domains and spirals has been observed in a cyclic six species game where each species preys upon three others. This game is of particular interest as it exhibits the dynamical generation of multiple space and time scales. In this work we explore different interaction schemes to investigate the effects of these different scales on the patterns produced by the system and introduce a new non-cyclic game of nine species which produces spirals within spirals. Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather

Summer 2016

Center for Soft Matter and Biological Physics Friday Discussion Meetings

Summer 2016

Organizer: Vinh Nguyen

These meetings occur on Fridays from 4:00pm to 5:00pm in Robeson 304 (unless otherwise indicated)

May 2016
May 23 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Ali Charkhesht and Vinh Nguyen (Dept. of Physics, Virginia Tech) Topic: Protein hydration and dynamics Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
May 30 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Memorial Day. No meeting scheduled. Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
June 2016
June 6 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Steve Melville (Dept. of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech) Topic: How do you pull a hydrophobic protein out of a membrane and put it in a fiber 1,000 times per second? Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
June 13 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Will Mather (Dept. of Physics, Virginia Tech) Topic: Whither noise? A discussion concerning the utility of stochastic modeling for cellular networks. Biology is in the middle of a mathematical revolution, where quantitative models for complex biological systems are increasingly being used to detangle underlying molecular mechanisms. My presentation will first provide a general introduction for non-experts concerning the application of these mathematical models, and in short time, I will discuss the usefulness of stochastic (probabilistic) modeling for cellular systems. My claim is that nearly all single cell phenomena are noisy, but it is not immediately clear that the added workload required to pursue stochastic modeling ultimately pays off. I will provide supporting evidence (with caveats) in favor of this approach, which will serve as a launching pad for discussion. Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
June 20 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	David Popham (Dept. of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech) Topic: Water and solutes in bacterial spores: Effects on protein and lipid mobility Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
June 27 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Alexey Onufriev (Dept. of Computer Science, Virginia Tech) Topic: Existing water models for atomistic modeling: the bad and the ugly Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
July 2016
July 4 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Independence Day. No meeting scheduled. Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
July 11 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	No meeting scheduled. Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
July 18 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	No meeting scheduled. Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
July 25 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Justin Barone (Dept. of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech) Topic: Protein amyloid self-assembly Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
August 2016
August 1 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Shihoko Kojima (Dept. of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech) Topic: Oscillators from nature - circadian clocks Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather
August 8 Monday 1:30pm 304 Robeson Hall	Will Mather (Dept. of Physics, Virginia Tech) Topic: Machine Learning, with Image Analysis in Fiji as an Example Organizers: Vinh Nguyen and Will Mather

Current Discussioin Meetings