403 research outputs found
Cluster evolution in steady-state two-phase flow in porous media
We report numerical studies of the cluster development of two-phase flow in a
steady-state environment of porous media. This is done by including biperiodic
boundary conditions in a two-dimensional flow simulator. Initial transients of
wetting and non-wetting phases that evolve before steady-state has occurred,
undergo a cross-over where every initial patterns are broken up. For flow
dominated by capillary effects with capillary numbers in order of , we
find that around a critical saturation of non-wetting fluid the non-wetting
clusters of size have a power-law distribution with
the exponent for large clusters. This is a lower value
than the result for ordinary percolation. We also present scaling relation and
time evolution of the structure and global pressure.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures. Minor corrections. Accepted for publication in
Phys. Rev.
Sickness Behaviors Across Vertebrate Taxa: Proximate and Ultimate Mechanisms
There is nothing like a pandemic to get the world thinking about how infectious diseases affect individual behavior. In this respect, sick animals can behave in ways that are dramatically different from healthy animals: altered social interactions and changes to patterns of eating and drinking are all hallmarks of sickness. As a result, behavioral changes associated with inflammatory responses (i.e. sickness behaviors) have important implications for disease spread by affecting contacts with others and with common resources, including water and/or sleeping sites. In this Review, we summarize the behavioral modifications, including changes to thermoregulatory behaviors, known to occur in vertebrates during infection, with an emphasis on non-mammalian taxa, which have historically received less attention. We then outline and discuss our current understanding of the changes in physiology associated with the production of these behaviors and highlight areas where more research is needed, including an exploration of individual and sex differences in the acute phase response and a greater understanding of the ecophysiological implications of sickness behaviors for disease at the population level
Imaging and Dynamics of Light Atoms and Molecules on Graphene
Observing the individual building blocks of matter is one of the primary
goals of microscopy. The invention of the scanning tunneling microscope [1]
revolutionized experimental surface science in that atomic-scale features on a
solid-state surface could finally be readily imaged. However, scanning
tunneling microscopy has limited applicability due to restrictions, for
example, in sample conductivity, cleanliness, and data aquisition rate. An
older microscopy technique, that of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) [2,
3] has benefited tremendously in recent years from subtle instrumentation
advances, and individual heavy (high atomic number) atoms can now be detected
by TEM [4 - 7] even when embedded within a semiconductor material [8, 9].
However, detecting an individual low atomic number atom, for example carbon or
even hydrogen, is still extremely challenging, if not impossible, via
conventional TEM due to the very low contrast of light elements [2, 3, 10 -
12]. Here we demonstrate a means to observe, by conventional transmision
electron microscopy, even the smallest atoms and molecules: On a clean
single-layer graphene membrane, adsorbates such as atomic hydrogen and carbon
can be seen as if they were suspended in free space. We directly image such
individual adatoms, along with carbon chains and vacancies, and investigate
their dynamics in real time. These techniques open a way to reveal dynamics of
more complex chemical reactions or identify the atomic-scale structure of
unknown adsorbates. In addition, the study of atomic scale defects in graphene
may provide insights for nanoelectronic applications of this interesting
material.Comment: 9 pages manuscript and figures, 9 pages supplementary informatio
Energy spectra of fractional quantum Hall systems in the presence of a valence hole
The energy spectrum of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the
fractional quantum Hall regime interacting with an optically injected valence
band hole is studied as a function of the filling factor and the
separation between the electron and hole layers. The response of the 2DEG
to the hole changes abruptly at of the order of the magnetic length
. At , the hole binds electrons to form neutral () or
charged () excitons, and the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum probes the
lifetimes and binding energies of these states rather than the original
correlations of the 2DEG. The ``dressed exciton'' picture (in which the
interaction between an exciton and the 2DEG was proposed to merely enhance the
exciton mass) is questioned. Instead, the low energy states are explained in
terms of Laughlin correlations between the constituent fermions (electrons and
's) and the formation of two-component incompressible fluid states in the
electron--hole plasma. At , the hole binds up to two Laughlin
quasielectrons (QE) of the 2DEG to form fractionally charged excitons
QE. The previously found ``anyon exciton'' QE is shown to be
unstable at any value of . The critical dependence of the stability of
different QE complexes on the presence of QE's in the 2DEG leads to the
observed discontinuity of the PL spectrum at or .Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, submitted to PR
Quantum point contact on graphite surface
The conductance through a quantum point contact created by a sharp and hard
metal tip on the graphite surface has features which to our knowledge have not
been encountered so far in metal contacts or in nanowires. In this paper we
first investigate these features which emerge from the strongly directional
bonding and electronic structure of graphite, and provide a theoretical
understanding for the electronic conduction through quantum point contacts. Our
study involves the molecular-dynamics simulations to reveal the variation of
interlayer distances and atomic structure at the proximity of the contact that
evolves by the tip pressing toward the surface. The effects of the elastic
deformation on the electronic structure, state density at the Fermi level, and
crystal potential are analyzed by performing self-consistent-field
pseudopotential calculations within the local-density approximation. It is
found that the metallicity of graphite increases under the uniaxial compressive
strain perpendicular to the basal plane. The quantum point contact is modeled
by a constriction with a realistic potential. The conductance is calculated by
representing the current transporting states in Laue representation, and the
variation of conductance with the evolution of contact is explained by taking
the characteristic features of graphite into account. It is shown that the
sequential puncturing of the layers characterizes the conductance.Comment: LaTeX, 11 pages, 9 figures (included), to be published in Phys. Rev.
B, tentatively scheduled for 15 September 1998 (Volume 58, Number 12
Abstracts from the College of Podiatry Annual Conference 2018 : Bournemouth, UK. 22-24 November 2018
“Working the System”—British American Tobacco's Influence on the European Union Treaty and Its Implications for Policy: An Analysis of Internal Tobacco Industry Documents
Katherine Smith and colleagues investigate the ways in which British American Tobacco influenced the European Union Treaty so that new EU policies advance the interests of major corporations, including those that produce products damaging to health
Oxygen- and capacity-limited thermal tolerance: blurring ecology and physiology
No abstract available
Shelters and Their Use by Fishes on Fringing Coral Reefs
Coral reef fish density and species richness are often higher at sites with more structural complexity. This association may be due to greater availability of shelters, but surprisingly little is known about the size and density of shelters and their use by coral reef fishes. We quantified shelter availability and use by fishes for the first time on a Caribbean coral reef by counting all holes and overhangs with a minimum entrance diameter ≥3 cm in 30 quadrats (25 m2) on two fringing reefs in Barbados. Shelter size was highly variable, ranging from 42 cm3 to over 4,000,000 cm3, with many more small than large shelters. On average, there were 3.8 shelters m−2, with a median volume of 1,200 cm3 and a total volume of 52,000 cm3m−2. The number of fish per occupied shelter ranged from 1 to 35 individual fishes belonging to 66 species, with a median of 1. The proportion of shelters occupied and the number of occupants increased strongly with shelter size. Shelter density and total volume increased with substrate complexity, and this relationship varied among reef zones. The density of shelter-using fish was much more strongly predicted by shelter density and median size than by substrate complexity and increased linearly with shelter density, indicating that shelter availability is a limiting resource for some coral reef fishes. The results demonstrate the importance of large shelters for fish density and support the hypothesis that structural complexity is associated with fish abundance, at least in part, due to its association with shelter availability. This information can help identify critical habitat for coral reef fishes, predict the effects of reductions in structural complexity of natural reefs and improve the design of artificial reefs
- …