Calculations of water free energy in bulk and large biological systems 

    Coronas Serna, Luis Enrique (Date of defense: 2023-03-28)

    [eng] This thesis develops, validates, and explores applications of the Franzese-Stanley (FS) coarse-grained model for bulk water, ultimately intended to represent the solvent in large-scale simulations of biological ...

    Calorimetric force spectroscopy experiments in DNA and protein folding 

    Rico Pastó, Marc (Date of defense: 2022-03-22)

    In the present thesis, single-molecule experiments have been carried out using optical tweezers with a temperature controller. Employing equilibrium and non-equilibrium experiments, the free energy, enthalpy, and entropy ...

    Competition and Response: from Active Matter to Electrolytes under Confinement 

    Dal Cengio, Sara (Date of defense: 2020-12-16)

    Most systems in Nature manifest complex transport phenomena arising from the interplay of multiple time and length scales, be them intrinsic in the system’s dynamics or externally enforced. It is the case, for instance, ...

    From Dynamics to Structure of Complex Networks: Exploiting Heterogeneity in the Sakaguchi-Kuramoto Model 

    Rosell Tarragó, Gemma (Date of defense: 2022-06-16)

    Most of the real-world complex systems are best described as complex networks and can be mathematically described as oscillatory systems, coupled with the neighbours through the connections of the network. The flashing of ...

    A geometric approach to the structure of complex networks 

    García Pérez, Guillermo (Date of defense: 2018-11-16)

    Complex networks are mathematical representations of the interaction patterns of complex systems. During the last 20 years of Network Science, it has been recognized that networks from utterly different domains exhibit ...

    Guiding active particles through surface interactions 

    Katuri, Jaideep (Date of defense: 2018-09-20)

    Living organisms and systems are continually converting energy, either internally stored or transduced from their surroundings, into motion. This activity and the resulting self-propulsion constantly push these biological ...

    Human collective behavior models: language, cooperation and social conventions 

    Amato, Roberta (Date of defense: 2018-04-13)

    The topics dealt with in this thesis are all part of the general problem of social consensus, namely how a convention flourish and decay and what motivates people to conform to it. Examples range from driving on the right ...

    Hydrodynamic effects on active colloidal suspensions 

    Navarro Argemí, Eloy (Date of defense: 2018-10-25)

    The goal of this thesis is studying hydrodynamic effects on active colloidal suspensions. Hydrodynamic interaction is propagated through the fluid in which the colloids displace due to the flow they create during their ...

    Noise-correlation force spectroscopy in molecules and cells 

    Gironella Torrent, Marta (Date of defense: 2022-04-27)

    In this thesis, we employ noise-correlation force spectroscopy measurements using LOT to extract valuable information about the passive and active fluctuations of DNA molecules and red blood cells. We have chosen the laser ...

    Non-Equilibrium Self-Assembly: Formation and Function of Meso-Structures with Applications in Biology and Material Science 

    Arango-Restrepo, Andrés (Date of defense: 2022-12-15)

    [eng] A set of disordered interacting building blocks may form ordered structures via self-assembly. External intervention in the system through the addition of chemical species or the application of forces leads to different ...

    Theoretical and experimental approaches for the initiation and propagation of activity in spatially embedded neuronal cultures 

    Hernández Navarro, Lluís (Date of defense: 2018-05-08)

    Spatial embedding and inherited metric constraints are a fundamental trait of biological neuronal circuits. However their role in shaping connectivity and dynamics has been often disregarded, with models of neuronal networks ...

    Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Nucleic Acids Folding 

    Rissone, Paolo (Date of defense: 2023-04-20)

    [eng] This doctoral work investigates nucleic acids' thermodynamic and kinetic properties. The main objective is the characterization of the energetics and the folding mechanisms driving the hybridization of DNA and RNA ...