Viscous flow is familiar and useful, yet the underlying physics is surprisingly subtle and complex. Recent experiments and simulations show that the textbook assumption of 'no slip at the boundary' can fail greatly when walls are sufficiently smooth. The reasons for this seem to involve materials chemistry interactions that can be controlled--especially wettability and the presence of trace impurities, even of dissolved gases. To discover what boundary condition is appropriate for solving continuum equations requires investigation of microscopic particulars. Here, we draw attention to unresolved topics of investigation and to the potential to capitalize on 'slip at the wall' for purposes of materials engineering.

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We present a detailed description of the recently proposed numerical renormalization group method for models of quantum impurities coupled to a bosonic bath. Specifically, the method is applied to the spin-boson model, both in the Ohmic and sub-Ohmic cases. We present various results for static as well as dynamic quantities and discuss details of the numerical implementation, e.g., the discretization of a bosonic bath with arbitrary continuous spectral density, the suitable choice of a finite basis in the bosonic Hilbert space, and questions of convergence w.r.t. truncation parameters. The method is shown to provide high-accuracy data over the whole range of model parameters and temperatures, which are in agreement with exact results and other numerical data from the literature.

Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs) are a major class of axon growth inhibitors that are up-regulated after spinal cord injury (SCI) and contribute to regenerative failure. Chondroitinase ABC (chABC) digests glycosaminoglycan chains on CSPGs and can thereby overcome CSPG-mediated inhibition. But chABC loses its enzymatic activity rapidly at 37°C, necessitating the use of repeated injections or local infusions for a period of days to weeks. These infusion systems are invasive, infection-prone, and clinically problematic. To overcome this limitation, we have thermostabilized chABC and developed a system for its sustained local delivery in vivo, obviating the need for chronically implanted catheters and pumps. Thermostabilized chABC remained active at 37°C in vitro for up to 4 weeks. CSPG levels remained low in vivo up to 6 weeks post-SCI when thermostabilized chABC was delivered by a hydrogel-microtube scaffold system. Axonal growth and functional recovery following the sustained local release of thermostabilized chABC versus a single treatment of unstabilized chABC demonstrated significant differences in CSPG digestion. Animals treated with thermostabilized chABC in combination with sustained neurotrophin-3 delivery showed significant improvement in locomotor function and enhanced growth of cholera toxin B subunitpositive sensory axons and sprouting of serotonergic fibers. Therefore, improving chABC thermostability facilitates minimally invasive, sustained, local delivery of chABC that is potentially effective in overcoming CSPG-mediated regenerative failure. Combination therapy with thermostabilized chABC with neurotrophic factors enhances axonal regrowth, sprouting, and functional recovery after SCI.chondroitin sulfate | glial scar | glycosaminoglycans | hydrogel