Influence of sliding contact local dynamics on macroscopic friction coefficient variation

International audienceThe aim of this paper is to present a means of analysing "friction instabilities". The explicit dynamic finite element software PLAST3 in 3D is used to simulate the behaviour of the two bodies (pin and disk) of a tribometer during frictional contact. Coulomb's friction law is used at the contact surface. The phenomenon of relay between the instantaneous contact zone, the contact stresses distribution and the kinematics of the contact surfaces are presented. As the friction coefficient and velocity of the disk are considered constants in the simulations, the contact zone (stick, slip) and separation depend on a "dynamic effect". This generates wave propagation in the interface and involves a variation of normal contact stress. Definitions of macroscopic and local friction coefficients are given. The interfacial instabilities due to the dynamic effect produce a macroscopic friction coefficient that is less than the local friction coefficient. The influence of disk velocity on the macroscopic friction coefficient is also investigated

Multiscale seismic characterization and monitoring of a potentially unstable rock mass: the Madonna del Sasso (NW Italy) rockfall

Active (e.g. surface refraction and cross-hole tomography) and passive (monitoring of microseismic events) seismic methods can provide a proper characterization of the inner structure of the rock mass and are key to the comprehension of the mechanisms enhancing the instability of rock masses.We propose a multiscale approach for the characterization of the potentially unstable granitic cliff of Madonna del Sasso (NW Italian Alps) integrating prospecting surveys, laboratory tests, long-term microseismic monitoring and numerical modeling. The complex 3-D fracture setting, the geometry of the unstable sector was achieved through field observations, photogrammetric geomechanical analysis and interpretation of on-site seismic surveys, which revealed to be fundamental for constraining the fracture geometry and opening at depth within the rock mass. Physical and mechanical properties of the investigated medium were obtained through laboratory tests on granite samples. Continuous monitoring of ambient vibration at the site (October 2013 - present) did not highlight irreversible changes in the rock mass properties precursory to an acceleration to failure. However, a strong thermal control was found to govern the stability of the cliff, with reversible seasonal opening and closing of fractures resulting from thermal contraction and expansion. Moreover, the vibration modes of the unstable sector were found to be strongly controlled by the complex 3-D geometry of the main fracture planes affecting the site. Detection and location of microseismic events within the prone-to-fall rock mass highlighted the concentration of low energy releases close to the major fracture planes. Microseismic monitoring at the laboratory scale of deformation and rupture processes is expected to further highlight the relationships between energy release, seismic signatures and seismic sources. Finally, finite element modeling on the 3-D geometry allowed an experimental validation and interpretation

Seismic noise parameters as indicators of reversible modifications in slope stability: a review

Continuous ambient seismic monitoring of potentially unstable sites is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers for precursor recognition and early warning purposes. Twelve cases of long-term continuous noise monitoring have been reported in the literature between 2012 and 2020. Only in a few cases rupture was achieved and irreversible drops in resonance frequency values or shear wave velocity extracted from noise recordings were documented. On the other hand, all monitored sites showed clear reversible fluctuations of the seismic parameters on a daily and seasonal scale due to changes in external weather conditions (air temperature and precipitation). A quantitative comparison of these reversible modifications is used to gain insight into the mechanisms driving the site seismic response. Six possible mechanisms were identified, including three temperature-driven mechanisms (temperature control on fracture opening/closing, superficial stress conditions and bulk rigidity), one precipitation-driven mechanism (water infiltration effect) and two mechanisms sensitive to both temperature and precipitation (ice formation and clay behavior). The reversible variations in seismic parameters under the meteorological constraints are synthesized and compared to the irreversible changes observed prior to failure in different geological conditions

Competitive segmentation of the hippocampus and the amygdala from MRI scans

The hippocampus and the amygdala are two brain structures which play a central role in several fundamental cognitive processes. Their segmentation from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans is a unique way to measure their atrophy in some neurological diseases, but it is made difficult by their complex geometry. Their simultaneous segmentation is considered here through a competitive homotopic region growing method. It is driven by relational anatomical knowledge, which enables to consider the segmentation of atrophic structures in a straightforward way. For both structures, this fast algorithm gives results which are comparable to manual segmentation with a better reproducibility. Its performances regarding segmentation quality, automation and computation time, are amongst the best published data.L’hippocampe et l’amygdale sont deux structures cérébrales intervenant dans plusieurs fonctions cognitives fondamentales. Leur segmentation, à partir de volumes d’imagerie par résonance magnétique (IRM), est un outil essentiel pour mesurer leur atteinte dans certaines pathologies neurologiques, mais elle est rendue difficile par leur géométrie complexe. Nous considérons leur segmentation simultanée par une méthode de déformation homotopique compétitive de régions. Celle-ci est guidée par des connaissances anatomiques relationnelles ; ceci permet de considérer directement des structures atrophiées. Rapide, l’algorithme donne, pour les deux structures, des résultats comparables à la segmentation manuelle avec une meilleure reproductibilité. Ses performances, concernant la qualité de la segmentation, le degré d’automatisation et le temps de calcul, sont parmi les meilleures de la littérature

Hearing faces: how the infant brain matches the face it sees with the speech it hears

Speech is not a purely auditory signal. From around 2 months of age, infants are able to correctly match the vowel they hear with the appropriate articulating face. However, there is no behavioral evidence of integrated audiovisual perception until 4 months of age, at the earliest, when an illusory percept can be created by the fusion of the auditory stimulus and of the facial cues (McGurk effect). To understand how infants initially match the articulatory movements they see with the sounds they hear, we recorded high-density ERPs in response to auditory vowels that followed a congruent or incongruent silently articulating face in 10-week-old infants. In a first experiment, we determined that auditory–visual integration occurs during the early stages of perception as in adults. The mismatch response was similar in timing and in topography whether the preceding vowels were presented visually or aurally. In the second experiment, we studied audiovisual integration in the linguistic (vowel perception) and nonlinguistic (gender perception) domain. We observed a mismatch response for both types of change at similar latencies. Their topographies were significantly different demonstrating that cross-modal integration of these features is computed in parallel by two different networks. Indeed, brain source modeling revealed that phoneme and gender computations were lateralized toward the left and toward the right hemisphere, respectively, suggesting that each hemisphere possesses an early processing bias. We also observed repetition suppression in temporal regions and repetition enhancement in frontal regions. These results underscore how complex and structured is the human cortical organization which sustains communication from the first weeks of life on

Progress in noncommutative function theory

In this expository paper we describe the study of certain non-self-adjoint operator algebras, the Hardy algebras, and their representation theory. We view these algebras as algebras of (operator valued) functions on their spaces of representations. We will show that these spaces of representations can be parameterized as unit balls of certain $W^{*}$-correspondences and the functions can be viewed as Schur class operator functions on these balls. We will provide evidence to show that the elements in these (non commutative) Hardy algebras behave very much like bounded analytic functions and the study of these algebras should be viewed as noncommutative function theory