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Summer Program Seminars 2006

Thursday, July 13, 2006 @ 10:00AM
Cullimore Hall, Room 611
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Using SVM to Predict Polyadenylation Sites

Javier Diez

Researcher of CONICET, Argentina

Instituto de Fisica Arroyo Seco

Universidad Nacional

ABSTRACT

We study the evolution of a long strip of viscous fluid sitting on a horizontal glass substrate under partial wetting conditions  (contact angle 50-60 degrees). We observe that for long times this initial condition develops into an array of quasi-equidistant droplets. The special feature of this dewetting scenario is that the pearling process, consisting of succesive stages of bulge growth and pinch off, does not occur simultaneously all along the strip but propagates from the ends towards the strip center. By means of simple optical techniques we investigate the shape of the resulting drops, and measure the nonuniform contact angle along their periphery. We find that the contact surface of the droplets is non-circular, but has an almost elliptical shape. A remarkable feature of the pinching process is the formation of a chain of satellite drops of decreasing size. We find that the primary large drops, as well as the secondary and tertiary drops, share the same angular pattern and the aspect ratio of the elliptical contact surfaces. A  model based on the energy balance of the initial and final states shows that the number of drops can be predicted by assuming that the energy dissipated is proportional to the area covered by the droplets.