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News from Hangzhou-ICAM Annual Conference, April 7-9 2011

Thu, April 07, 2011 - 11:31pm

The meeting, followed by workshops on metamaterials and superfluidity, has been essential in bringing four new Chinese branches (Nanjing University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, and the International Center for Quantum Matter of Beijing University) to ICAM to join our previous Chinese Branches (the KITP Beijing/Xiamen University consortium, the Zhejiang consortium, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics branch, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology). The leaders of the CAS/IOP branch (Prof. Hong Ding) and the Zhejiang branch (Prof. Sailing He) helped welcome the participants

Biological Matter

The first session focused on biological matter.  Steve Boxer from Stanford addressed what he sees as grand challenges in the study of biological matter, and made the case that while we have reductionist tools to study these complex systems, and reductionist models such as supported bilayers, that the real systems are highly complex and that some of the complexity is highly selected for. An example of this is cell membranes-over four hundred different lipids make up the bilayer membranes of living eukaryotic cells, and this heterogenous composition appears to be critical for cell function.  Hence, a challenge is to determine how we can take the relevant biomolecular inputs and reconstitute living matter. 
Chao Tang of Beijing University and UC San Francisco spoke of his efforts to elucidate design principles for biological regulation circuits.  As an example, he considered the protein regulation network which arises in the formation of stripes for Drosophilia in its developmental growth.  The approach he uses is novel: he examines coarse grained nodes which represent all forward linked elements of a given network, and then enumerates all possible networks for a given set of nodes.  For each network motif a nonlinear Michaelis-Menten kinetics rate equation is simulated over a wide range of sampled parameters, and the subset of resultant networks which can represent the observed regulatory behavior.  For the coarse grained three node network relevant to the developmental stripes of Drosophilia there are 387420489 possible circuit arrangements, but of these only about 150000 can possibly give the robust stripe behavior experimentally observed.  Of these 45 have a two node motif which scores high on the parameter robustness measure.  Apparently, evolution has carried out an equivalent sampling to reduce the landscape of functional circuit motifs! 

Soft Matter

The soft matter session was split into two parts. The first part took place in the afternoon of Thursday (April 7) and consisted of three invited talks. Ping Sheng from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology discussed the microscopic mechanism of the giant electrorheological effect in colloidal systems. He started by introducing both experiments and the theoretical framework related to the well-understood conventional electrorheological effect, which can provide only fairly limited electric control of mechanical properties of colloidal dispersions. To explain the limitations of the conventional electrorheological fluids, Ping Sheng gave an example of the electric-field-induced solid state of the system that can only reach the yield strength comparable to that of tofu. He then described novel unconventional electrorheological suspensions of coated nanoparticles that show electrically controllable liquid–solid transition with the solid state and can reach a yield strength of 130 kPa, comparable to that of plastics. He then described the analytical theoretical model and finite-element simulations, based on the model of saturation surface polarization in the contact regions of neighbouring particles, that explain these experimental findings.

The second invited talk in the session was given by Peter Palffy-Muhoray of Kent State University, USA. Peter started from an introduction to liquid crystals and then focused on both challenges and recent advances in the theoretical description of mesomorphic ordering and dynamics in various liquid crystalline systems, ranging from small-molecule liquid crystals to elastomers, chromonic systems, and colloidal dispersions of particles. Yanlei Yu of Fudan University in China gave the the third invited lecture in the session and discussed light-responsive actuation materials based on photodeformable liquid crystal polymers. Professor Yu gave an overview of recent literature advances and approaches taken by her own research group in the development of light-responsive polymers that can be controlled by visible light or light in the infrared part of optical spectrum, which clearly have numerous advantages as compared to the more conventional approaches utilizing actuation with ultraviolet light. Yanlei discussed research aspects related to the synthetic chemistry and doping with upconversion nanoparticles that enabled this facile response to visible and infrared light illumination. She demonstrated a number of very visually attractive and applications-appealing experiments in which photo-actuation with, for example, conventional flashlight alone was sufficient to manipulate rather large (centimeters) objects in a very sophisticated way. One of the questions from audience was related to possible uses of such direct conversion of light energy to mechanical work or further to electricity as a possible replacement of photovoltaic solar cells. Professor Yu clarified that the currently achievable photoconversion efficiencies are still rather low, much less than 1%, however, there is room for substantial improvements.

The keynote lecture on grand challenges in soft matter was given by Noel Clark of the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. Professor Clark started from a rather philosophical discussion on what can be identified as the grand scientific challenge, giving several different perspectives and examples of challenges related to (a) applications such as liquid crystal displays, (b) search for new types of phases, and (c) understanding of self-assembly mechanisms responsible for origins of life. He then focused on two such grand challenges in the remaining part of his talk. The first part of the lecture dealt with the search for ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal fluids first discussed theoretically by Max Born but so far never observed experimentally. Noel demonstrated that one of the smectic liquid crystal phases formed by bent-core molecules exhibits a ferroelectric liquid crystalline fluid that would be the closest (although still very different) to what was theoretically discussed by Max Born. The second grand challenge topic, rather orthogonal to the first one, was on how liquid crystalline self-assembly of short fragments of DNA could possibly have played an important role in the pre-biotic world, allowing to obtain rather long fragments of DNA chains that are important from the standpoint of the origins of life. The lecture received a great deal of interest, which was evidenced by a number of questions and comments.

Energy
Minghui Kong from the Chinese Academy of Sciences spoke about the energy research programs supported by the CAS.  One of their programs is in Advanced Nuclear power with commitment to build a thorium reactor and a transmutation facility.  The CAS now has an explicit cooperative agreement with the DOE.  For 30+ years China has enjoyed a very successful cooperation on high energy physics.  Secretary of Energy Chu became a Foreign Academician of the CAS in 1998.  Covers High Energy physics, nuclear physics, fusion energy sciences, basic energy sciences, biological sciences, and mathematical sciences.
One agreement is on fossil energy technology, and another is on processing.  The Shanghai advanced renewable energy lab has an agreement with NREL.  The Thousand Talent Program authorized by the Chinese Communist party is authorizing hiring of talented faculty from ANYWHERE to China. 


Sondan Durukanoglu Feyiz from Sabanci University spoke about the unique campus atmosphere at Sabanci, and a new Global Initiative on Energy and Climate.  She noted that from 2007-2035 demand will increase by 84% in nonOECD countries, and 14% in OECD countires.  Non-OECD is Asia Pacific (especially China and India), Latin America (Brazil), and sub-saharan Africa.  The projection was that the biggest increases will be for coal and natural gas.  Now there is one car for every 40 in China, though the number of cars doubled between 2000 and 2006, vs. 1 car per person in the US.  In 2004, OECD consumed 56% of energy, and in 2030 projections are that this will be 40%.  The emerging countries in the petroleum and natural gas markets are the Middle East, Russia, and the Caucasus.  The emerging consumption markets are in China, India, and the Middle East. 


The Istanbul International Center for Energy and Climate (IICEC) will be the first international center at the strategic nexus of the energy production and consumption world.  It will establis strong regional inks with think tanks and governements, and to organize annual symposia on the relevant issues of sustainable energy and climate. 


She also noted that Sabanci University does not have a department system, just broad faculties in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, and humanities.  During the question session Daniel Cox noted the similarities with UC Merced and asked Prof Feyiz about the success of Sabanci,  She said 98% of the graduates are very happy and very successful at getting jobs.  Cristiane Morais-Smith noted that Utrecht University is similarly structured and in both cases the university language is English.  Cox noted that the departmental system reinforces the tendencies of eg, physicists, not to think about materials for energy.

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