Descripción: We present a parametric space study of the decay of turbulence in rotating flows combining direct numerical simulations, large eddy simulations, and phenomenological theory. Several cases are considered: (1) the effect of varying the characteristic scale of the initial conditions when compared with the size of the box, to mimic "bounded" and "unbounded" flows; (2) the effect of helicity (correlation between the velocity and vorticity); (3) the effect of Rossby and Reynolds numbers; and (4) the effect of anisotropy in the initial conditions. Initial conditions include the Taylor-Green vortex, the Arn'old-Beltrami-Childress flow, and random flows with large-scale energy spectrum proportional to k4. The decay laws obtained in the simulations for the energy, helicity, and enstrophy in each case can be explained with phenomenological arguments that consider separate decays for two-dimensional and three-dimensional modes and that take into account the role of helicity and rotation in slowing down the energy decay. The time evolution of the energy spectrum and development of anisotropies in the simulations are also discussed. Finally, the effect of rotation and helicity in the skewness and kurtosis of the flow is considered. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: Osmolarity not only plays a key role in celluar homeostasis but also challenges cell survival. The molecular understanding of osmosis has not yet been completely achieved, and the discovery of aquaporins as molecular entities involved in water transport has caused osmosis to again become a focus of research. The main questions that need to be answered are the mechanism underlying the osmotic permeability coefficients and the extent to which aquaporins change our understanding of osmosis. Here, attempts to answer these questions are discussed. Critical aspects of the state of the state of knowledge on osmosis, a topic that has been studied since 19th century, are reviewed and integrated with the available information provided by in vivo, in vitro and in silico approaches. © 2012 Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.