Descripción: The two-dimensional potential theory for translating and rotating solids developed in Minotti [Phys. Fluids 15, 3576 (2003)] is briefly revised and formulas of the force and moment of the force are given in their correct form. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: This paper deals with a finite element method to solve interior fluid-structure vibration problems valid for compressible and incompressible fluids. It is based on a displacement formulation for both the fluid and the solid. The pressure of the fluid is also used as a variable for the theoretical analysis yielding a well posed mixed linear eigenvalue problem. Lowest order triangular Raviart-Thomas elements are used for the fluid and classical piece-wise linear elements for the solid. Transmission conditions at the fluid-solid interface are taken into account in a weak sense yielding a nonconforming discretization. The method does not present spurious or circulation modes for nonzero frequencies. Convergence is proved and error estimates independent of the acoustic speed are given. For incompressible fluids, a convenient equivalent stream function formulation and a post-process to compute the pressure are introduced.

Descripción: We find the group of symmetry transformations generated by interacting fluids in spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) spacetime which links cosmologies with the same scale factor (identity) or with scale factors a and a-1 (duality). There exists a duality between contracting and superaccelerated expanding scenarios associated with (phantom) cosmologies. We investigate the action of this symmetry group on self-interacting minimally (conformally) coupled quintessence and k-essence cosmologies. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Descripción: Solvation of excess electrons in supercritical ammonia along the T = 450 K isotherm was investigated. Equilibrium aspects of solvation were analyzed using combined path integral-molecular dynamics techniques. Observations showed transition from localized to quasifree states at approximately one fourth of the triple point density.

Descripción: The dynamics of open balloons in an atmosphere may be studied with a body-fluid coupled model. A numerical approach is required to solve the corresponding equation set. Solutions under different conditions are obtained here for the vertical and one horizontal direction. Relevant dynamical features during ascent, flotation, and descent depend on balloon thermodynamics, wind, air small-scale turbulence, and perturbations to the background atmosphere. After analysis of the results it is found that approximate analytical solutions may be found in certain cases. The effect of nonlinear drag on balloon oscillation period and damping near flotation is evaluated. © 2003 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: A variety of methods have been developed for determination of drugs of abuse in urine, plasm/serum, bilis, hair and others in clinical and forensic samples. Relevance of the application of the technique of gas-liquid chromatography and different types of mass spectrometry are discussed in this paper, being sample preparation emphasized. Amphetamines, cannabinoids, cocaine and benzoylecgonine, morphine and metabolites, phenciclidine, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressants, barbiturates, opiates, local anesthetics and methadone were properly analysed and quantified by means of this methodology. © 2007 Federación Bioquímica de la Provincia de Buenos Aires.

Descripción: Towards the northeast of the Sierra de San Luis several wolfram ore deposits occur. In San Martín district they are divided into three groups: Los Avestruces, La Esperanza and Cerrito Blanco. The geology of this area is formed of the Conlara metamorphic complex composed of schists (with a strike of 300° north), granitoids and pegmatites. In the same area subsaturated chalco-alkaline lamprophyres also appear as subvertical bodies with NW-NE strikes. Toward the boundaries of these rocks, the amount of biotite rises gradually from 80 to 90% developing a biotitite rock due to metasomatic processes and the superimposed deformation. This biotitite is rich in K, Rb and W among other elements. The scheelite mineralization (with quartz, biotite and tourmaline as non ore minerals) occurs in veins that are usually hosted between the lamprophyres and the wall rocks. Scheelite also appears between the schist planes of the biotitite rocks as well as disseminated crystals in quartz aggregates. This mineralization took place from fluids with XH2O: 0.87/0.82 - XCO2: 0.11/0.16 - XNaCl: 0.015/0.013 - (CH4) meanwhile the scheelite, according to the fluid inclusions studies, precipitated from unmixing processes below 320°C and 2.3 kb. Achaliana orogeny and the intrusion of Las Chacras-Piedras Coloradas batholiths (Devonian-Carboniferous) were the responsible for the slight rise of the fluids from the basement, the generation of fault structures through which they rose, the metasomatism and the mineralization.

Descripción: With the aim of describing the mountain building process, we have previously applied the lubrication approximation to obtain the evolution equations of the problem of two stacked layers of viscous fluids with different densities and different viscosities. The lubrication approximation is a perturbation method where the small parameter is the aspect ratio (thickness/lenght) of the current. This approximation is widely used to study the slow flow of one layer of a viscous fluid, but it is not well known under which conditions it can be applied in more general settings. Here we analyze in detail the assumptions needed to apply the lubrication theory to study the flow of two stacked viscous fluid layers. We employ the same perturbation method and we found that, besides the usual conditions (low Reynolds number and gentle slope), we must require that the viscosity and density ratios are of the order of unity. These requirements determine the range of validity of the equations of our model of the mountain building.

Descripción: A simple model based on an approximation of the dropletlike model is formulated for studying adsorption of fluids into cylindrical pores. This model yields a nearly universal description of capillary condensation transitions for noble gases confined by alkali metals. The system’s thermodynamical behavior is predicted from the values of two dimensionless parameters: [formula presented] (the reduced asymptotic strength of the fluid-adsorber interaction, a function of temperature) and [formula presented] (the reduced radius of the pore). The phenomenon of hysteresis inherently related to capillary condensation is discussed. The connection to a previously proposed universality for cylindrical pores is also established. © 2002 The American Physical Society.

Descripción: The spatial stability of similarity solutions for an incompressible fluid flowing along a channel with porous walls and driven by constant uniform suction along the walls is analyzed. This work extends the results of Durlofsky and Brady [Phys. Fluids 27, 1068 (1984)] to a wider class of similarity solutions, and examines the spatial stability of small amplitude perturbations of arbitrary shape, generated at the entrance of the channel. It is found that antisymmetric perturbations are the best candidates to destabilize the solutions. Temporally stable asymmetric solutions with flow reversal presented by Zaturska, Drazin, and Banks [Fluid Dyn. Res. 4, 151 (1988)] are found to be spatially unstable. The perturbed similarity solutions are also compared with fully bidimensional ones obtained with a finite difference code. The results confirm the importance of similarity solutions and the validity of the stability analysis in a region whose distance to the center of the channel is more than three times the channel half-width. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: We determine how the differences in the treatment of the subfilter-scale physics affect the properties of the flow for three closely related regularizations of Navier-Stokes. The consequences on the applicability of the regularizations as subgrid-scale (SGS) models are also shown by examining their effects on superfilter-scale properties. Numerical solutions of the Clark-α model are compared to two previously employed regularizations, the Lagrangian-averaged Navier-Stokes α-model (LANS-α) and Leray-α, albeit at significantly higher Reynolds number than previous studies, namely, Re≈3300, Taylor Reynolds number of Re≈790, and to a direct numerical simulation (DNS) of the Navier-Stokes equations. We derive the de Kármán-Howarth equation for both the Clark-α and Leray-α models. We confirm one of two possible scalings resulting from this equation for Clark-α as well as its associated k-1 energy spectrum. At subfilter scales, Clark-α possesses similar total dissipation and characteristic time to reach a statistical turbulent steady state as Navier-Stokes, but exhibits greater intermittency. As a SGS model, Clark-α reproduces the large-scale energy spectrum and intermittency properties of the DNS. For the Leray-α model, increasing the filter width α decreases the nonlinearity and, hence, the effective Reynolds number is substantially decreased. Therefore, even for the smallest value of α studied Leray-α was inadequate as a SGS model. The LANS-α energy spectrum ∼k1, consistent with its so-called "rigid bodies," precludes a reproduction of the large-scale energy spectrum of the DNS at high Re while achieving a large reduction in numerical resolution. We find, however, that this same feature reduces its intermittency compared to Clark-α (which shares a similar de Kármán-Howarth equation). Clark-α is found to be the best approximation for reproducing the total dissipation rate and the energy spectrum at scales larger than α, whereas high-order intermittency properties for larger values of α are best reproduced by LANS-α. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: Flagella-generated fluid stirring has been suggested to enhance nutrient uptake for sufficiently large micro-organisms, and to have played a role in evolutionary transitions to multicellularity. A corollary to this predicted size-dependent benefit is a propensity for phenotypic plasticity in the flow-generating mechanism to appear in large species under nutrient deprivation. We examined four species of volvocalean algae whose radii and flow speeds differ greatly, with Péclet numbers (Pe) separated by several orders of magnitude. Populations of unicellular Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and one- to eight-celled Gonium pectorale (Pe ∼ 0.1-1) and multicellular Volvox carteri and Volvox barberi (Pe ∼ 100) were grown in diluted and undiluted media. For C. reinhardtii and G. pectorale, decreasing the nutrient concentration resulted in smaller cells, but had no effect on flagellar length and propulsion force. In contrast, these conditions induced Volvox colonies to grow larger and increase their flagellar length, separating the somatic cells further. Detailed studies on V. carteri found that the opposing effects of increasing beating force and flagellar spacing balance, so the fluid speed across the colony surface remains unchanged between nutrient conditions. These results lend further support to the hypothesized link between the Péclet number, nutrient uptake and the evolution of biological complexity in the Volvocales. © 2011 The Royal Society.

Descripción: The subfilter-scale (SFS) physics of regularization models are investigated to understand the regularizations' performance as SFS models. Suppression of spectrally local SFS interactions and conservation of small-scale circulation in the Lagrangian-averaged Navier-Stokes α-model (LANS-α) is found to lead to the formation of rigid bodies. These contaminate the superfilter-scale energy spectrum with a scaling that approaches k +1 as the SFS spectra is resolved. The Clark-α and Leray-α models, truncations of LANS-α, do not conserve small-scale circulation and do not develop rigid bodies. LANS-α, however, is closest to Navier-Stokes in intermittency properties. All three models are found to be stable at high Reynolds number. Differences between L 2 and H 1 norm models are clarified. For magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), the presence of the Lorentz force as a source (or sink) for circulation and as a facilitator of both spectrally nonlocal large to small scale interactions as well as local SFS interactions prevents the formation of rigid bodies in Lagrangian-averaged MHD (LAMHD-α). LAMHD-α performs well as a predictor of superfilter-scale energy spectra and of intermittent current sheets at high Reynolds numbers. It may prove generally applicable as a MHD-LES. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Descripción: A paleomagnetic study, carried out on 9 sites of the La Flecha Formation (facies Los Sapitos, Upper Cambrian, Marjuman-Steptoean) exposed along the la Angostura creek, Precordillera of La Rioja (29.5°S, 68.7°W), permitted to determine two magnetic components. One is postectonic and of low coercivities and unblocking temperatures (A, Dec: 7.5°, Inc: -40.3°, a95: 10.1°, N: 6), being interpreted as a recent remanence of probable viscous origin. A second, pretectonic, component was isolated in seven sites with opposite polarities and is likely carried by magnetite (B, Dec: 206.9°, Inc: 63.3°, a95: 12.8°, N: 7). The paleomagnetic pole position for this component (Lat: 63.8°S, Long: 244.6°E, dp: 15.9°, dm: 20.2°) suggests that the remanence was acquired by the end of the Permian and it is interpreted as produced by the regional remagnetization associated with the San Rafael orogenic phase found in other units of the Precordillera. An analysis of pole positions, type of magnetizations, polarities and geographic distribution of the remagnetized units suggests a pattern of time-space migration of the remagnetization from west to east, between the Early Permian and the Permian-Triassic. This pattern is consistent with a model of remagnetization by migration of fluids expelled from the orogenic area that reached rocks not involved directly in the deformation. The pole position obtained for La Flecha Formation also suggests the lack of major tectonic rotations in the study area since the Permian. © 2005 Asociación Geológica Argentina.

Descripción: In a previous paper [R. González, L. G. Sarasua, and A. Costa, "Kelvin waves with helical Beltrami flow structure," Phys. Fluids20, 024106 (2008)] we analyzed the formation of Kelvin waves with a Beltrami flow structure in an ideal fluid. Here, taking into account the results of this paper, the topological analogy between the role of the magnetic field in Woltjer's theorem [L. Woltjer, "A theorem on force-free magnetic fields," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.44, 489 (1958)] and the role of the vorticity in the equivalent theorem is revisited. Via this analogy we identify the force-free equilibrium of the magnetohydrodynamics with the Beltrami flow equilibrium of the hydrodynamic. The stability of the last one is studied applying Arnold's theorem. We analyze the role of the enstrophy in the determination of the equilibrium and its stability. We show examples where the Beltrami flow equilibrium is stable under perturbations of the Beltrami flow type with the same eigenvalue as the basic flow one. The enstrophy variation results invariant with respect to a uniform rotating and translational frame and the stability is conserved when the flow experiences a transition from a Beltrami axisymmetric flow to a helical one of the same eigenvalue. These results are discussed in comparison with that given by Moffatt in 1986 [H. K. Moffatt, "Magnetostatic equilibria and analogous Euler flows of arbitrarily complex topology. Part 2. Stability considerations," J. Fluid Mech.166, 359 (1986)]. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: Molecular dynamics simulations of water in cylindrical hydrophilic pores with diameters of 1.5 and 3 nm were performed to explore the phase behavior and the nucleation dynamics of the confined fluid as a function of the percentage of volume filled f. The interactions of water with the pore wall were considered to be identical to the interactions between water molecules. At low water contents, all the water is adsorbed to the surface of the pore. A second phase consisting of a liquid plug appears at the onset filling for capillary condensation, fonset =27% and 34% for the narrow and wide pores, respectively. In agreement with experimental results for silica pores, the liquid phase appears close to the equilibrium filling feq in the 1.5 nm pore and under conditions of strong surface supersaturations for the 3 nm pore. After condensation, two phases, a liquid plug and a surface-adsorbed phase, coexist in equilibrium. Under conditions of phase coexistence, the water surface density Tcoex was found to be independent of the water content and the diameter of the pore. The value of Tcoex found in the simulations (∼3 nm-2) is in good agreement with experimental results for silica pores, suggesting that the interactions of water with silica and with itself are comparable. The surface-adsorbed phase at coexistence is a sparse monolayer with a structure dominated by small water clusters. We characterize the density and structure of the liquid and surface phases, the nucleation mechanism of the water plug, and the effect of surface hydrophilicity on the two-phase equilibrium and hysteresis. The results are discussed in light of experiments and previous simulations. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: We report micrometric periodic assembly of live and dead magnetotactic bacteria, Magnetospirillum magneticum AMB-1, which synthesize chains of magnetic nanoparticles inside their bodies, and of superparamagnetic Fe 3 O 4 and ferromagnetic CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles in aqueous suspensions using periodically magnetized audio tapes. The distribution of the stray magnetic field at the surface of the tapes was determined analytically and experimentally by magneto-optic imaging. Calculations showed that the magnetic field close to the tape surface was of the order of 100 mT, and the magnetic field gradient was larger than 1 T mm -1 . Drops of aqueous solutions were deposited on the tapes, and bacteria and particles were trapped at locations where magnetic energy is minimized, as observed using conventional optical microscopy. Suspensions of M. magneticum AMB-1 treated with formaldehyde and kanamycin were studied, and patterns of trapped dead bacteria indicated that magnetic forces dominate over self-propelling forces in these experiments, in accordance with calculated values. The behavior of the different types of samples is discussed. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: This study was aimed at testing the hypothesis that different forms of fibronectin (FN), produced as a consequence of the alternative splicing of the precursor messenger RNA, play specific roles during development of the ovarian follicle. In particular, we were interested in determining the effect of the ED-I (also termed ED-A) type III repeat, which is absent in the plasma form. Analysis of FN levels in follicular fluids corresponding to different stages of development of bovine follicles revealed marked changes in the concentrations of ED-I + FN, whereas total FN levels remained relatively constant. ED-I + FN levels were higher in small follicles, corresponding to the phase of granulosa cell proliferation. The hypothesis of a physiological role for ED-I + FN was further supported by the finding of a regulation of the alternative splicing of FN in primary cultures of bovine granulosa cells by factors known to control ovarian follicular development. cAMP produced a 10-fold decrease in the relative proportion of the ED-I region. In contrast, transforming growth factor-β elicited a 2-fold stimulation of overall FN synthesis and a 4-fold increase in the synthesis of ED-I containing FN. This effect was evident at the protein (Western blots) and messenger RNA (Northern blots) levels. Although a negative correlation (P < 0.001) was detected between ED-I + FN and estradiol levels in follicular fluid, this steroid was unable to modulate in vitro the alternative splicing of FN. A possible mitogenic effect of ED-I + FN was suggested by the observation that a recombinant peptide corresponding to the ED-I domain stimulated DNA synthesis in a bovine granulosa cell line (BGC-1), whereas a peptide corresponding to the flanking type III sequences had no effect. The hypothesis of ED-I + FN as a growth regulatory factor was further strengthened by the fact that depletion of FN from BGC-1-conditioned medium, which contained ED-I + FN, abrogated its mitogenic activity, whereas plasma FN was without effect. We propose that changes in the primary structure of FN may mediate some of the effects of gonadotropin and intraovarian factors during follicular development.