| 02/2023 Nonequilibrium mixture dynamics: A model for mobilities and its consequences Maryam Akaberian et al. Extending the famous Model B for the time evolution of a liquid mixture, we derive an approximate expression for the mobility matrix that couples the different mixture components. This approach is based on a single component fluid with particles that are artificially grouped into separate species labelled by “colors''. The resulting mobility matrix depends on a single dimensionless para … |
| 01/2023 Zonal receptor distributions maximize olfactory information Swati Sen et al. The olfactory sense measures the chemical composition of the environment using a diverse array of olfactory receptors. In vertebrates, the olfactory receptors reside in a mucus layer in the nasal cavity and can thus only detect odorants that are inhaled with the airflow and dissolved in mucus. These physical processes fundamentally affect how many odorant molecules contact the receptors. We hypoth … |
| 01/2023 Model-based assessment of sampling protocols for infectious disease genomic surveillance Sebastian Contreras et al. Genomic surveillance of infectious diseases allows monitoring circulating and emerging variants and quantifying their epidemic potential. However, due to the high costs associated with genomic sequencing, only a limited number of samples can be analysed. Thus, it is critical to understand how sampling impacts the information generated. Here, we combine a compartmental model for the spread of COVID … |
| 01/2023 Impact of the Euro 2020 championship on the spread of COVID-19 Jonas Dehning et al. Large-scale events like the UEFA Euro~2020 football (soccer) championship offer a unique opportunity to quantify the impact of gatherings on the spread of COVID-19, as the number and dates of matches played by participating countries resembles a randomized study. Using Bayesian modeling and the gender imbalance in COVID-19 data, we attribute 840,000 (95% CI: [0.39M, 1.26M]) COVID-19 cases across 1 … |
| 01/2023 A multicolour polymer model for the prediction of 3D structure and transcription in human chromatin Massimiliano Semeraro et al. Within each human cell, different kinds of RNA polymerases and a panoply of transcription factors bind chromatin to simultaneously determine 3D chromosome structure and transcriptional programme. Experiments show that, in some cases, different proteins segregate to form specialised transcription factories; in others they mix together, binding promiscuously the same chromatin stretch. Here, we use … |
| 01/2023 SIR-Model for Households Philipp Doenges et al. Households play an important role in disease dynamics. Many infections happening there due to the close contact, while mitigation measures mainly target the transmission between households. Therefore, one can see households as boosting the transmission depending on household size. To study the effect of household size and size distribution, we differentiated the within and between household reprod … |
| 12/2022 Nucleation of chemically active droplets Noah Ziethen et al. Driven chemical reactions can control the macroscopic properties of droplets, like their size. Such active droplets are critical in structuring the interior of biological cells. Cells also need to control where and when droplets appear, so they need to control droplet nucleation. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that reactions generally suppress nucleation if they stabilize the homogeneous st … |
| 12/2022 Intermittent relaxation and avalanches in extremely persistent active matter Yann-Edwin Keta et al. We use numerical simulations to study the dynamics of dense assemblies of self-propelled particles in the limit of extremely large, but finite, persistence times. In this limit, the system evolves intermittently between mechanical equilibria where active forces balance interparticle interactions. We develop an efficient numerical strategy allowing us to resolve the statistical properties of elasti … |
| 12/2022 Evaluating vaccine allocation strategies using simulation-assisted causal modelling Armin Kekić et al. Early on during a pandemic, vaccine availability is limited, requiring prioritisation of different population groups. Evaluating vaccine allocation is therefore a crucial element of pandemics response. In the present work, we develop a model to retrospectively evaluate age-dependent counterfactual vaccine allocation strategies against the COVID-19 pandemic. To estimate the effect of allocation on … |
| 12/2022 Robustness of travelling states in generic non-reciprocal mixtures Rituparno Mandal et al. Emergent non-reciprocal interactions violating Newton's third law are widespread in out-of-equilibrium systems. It has been demonstrated recently that phase separating mixtures with such non-reciprocal interactions between components exhibit travelling states that have no equilibrium counterpart. Using extensive Brownian dynamics simulations, we investigate the existence and stability of such … |