National Technical University of Athens

About: National Technical University of Athens is a education organization based out in Athens, Attiki, Greece. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Large Hadron Collider & Nonlinear system. The organization has 13445 authors who have published 31259 publications receiving 723504 citations. The organization is also known as: Athens Polytechnic & NTUA.

DIANA-TarBase v8: a decade-long collection of experimentally supported miRNA-gene interactions.

Abstract: DIANA-TarBase v8 (http://www.microrna.gr/tarbase) is a reference database devoted to the indexing of experimentally supported microRNA (miRNA) targets. Its eighth version is the first database indexing >1 million entries, corresponding to ∼670 000 unique miRNA-target pairs. The interactions are supported by >33 experimental methodologies, applied to ∼600 cell types/tissues under ∼451 experimental conditions. It integrates information on cell-type specific miRNA-gene regulation, while hundreds of thousands of miRNA-binding locations are reported. TarBase is coming of age, with more than a decade of continuous support in the non-coding RNA field. A new module has been implemented that enables the browsing of interactions through different filtering combinations. It permits easy retrieval of positive and negative miRNA targets per species, methodology, cell type and tissue. An incorporated ranking system is utilized for the display of interactions based on the robustness of their supporting methodologies. Statistics, pie-charts and interactive bar-plots depicting the database content are available through a dedicated result page. An intuitive interface is introduced, providing a user-friendly application with flexible options to different queries.

f(T) teleparallel gravity and cosmology

Abstract: Over the past decades, the role of torsion in gravity has been extensively investigated along the main direction of bringing gravity closer to its gauge formulation and incorporating spin in a geometric description. Here we review various torsional constructions, from teleparallel, to Einstein-Cartan, and metric-affine gauge theories, resulting in extending torsional gravity in the paradigm of f(T) gravity, where f(T) is an arbitrary function of the torsion scalar. Based on this theory, we further review the corresponding cosmological and astrophysical applications. In particular, we study cosmological solutions arising from f(T) gravity, both at the background and perturbation levels, in different eras along the cosmic expansion. The f(T) gravity construction can provide a theoretical interpretation of the late-time universe acceleration, and it can easily accommodate with the regular thermal expanding history including the radiation and cold dark matter dominated phases. Furthermore, if one traces back to very early times, a sufficiently long period of inflation can be achieved and hence can be investigated by cosmic microwave background observations, or alternatively, the Big Bang singularity can be avoided due to the appearance of non-singular bounces. Various observational constraints, especially the bounds coming from the large-scale structure data in the case of f(T) cosmology, as well as the behavior of gravitational waves, are described in detail. Moreover, the spherically symmetric and black hole solutions of the theory are reviewed. Additionally, we discuss various extensions of the f(T) paradigm. Finally, we consider the relation with other modified gravitational theories, such as those based on curvature, like f(R) gravity, trying to enlighten the subject of which formulation might be more suitable for quantization ventures and cosmological applications.

Simple plasticity sand model accounting for fabric change effects

Abstract: A simple stress-ratio controlled, critical state compatible, sand plasticity model is presented, first in the triaxial and then in generalized stress space. The model builds upon previous work of the writers, albeit the presentation here is made with extreme simplicity in mind, and three novel aspects are introduced. The first is a fabric-dilatancy related quantity, scalar valued in the triaxial and tensor valued in generalized stress space, which is instrumental in modeling macroscopically the effect of fabric changes during the dilatant phase of deformation on the subsequent contractant response upon load increment reversals, and the ensuing realistic simulation of the sand behavior under undrained cyclic loading. The second aspect is the dependence of the plastic strain rate direction on a modified Lode angle in the multiaxial generalization, a feature necessary to produce realistic stress-strain simulations in nontriaxial conditions. The third aspect is a very systematic connection between the simple triaxial and the general multiaxial formulation, in order to use correctly the model parameters of the former in the implementation of the latter. The simulative ability of the model is illustrated by comparison with data over a very wide range of pressures and densities.