1,054 research outputs found
Growth laws and self-similar growth regimes of coarsening two-dimensional foams: Transition from dry to wet limits
We study the topology and geometry of two dimensional coarsening foams with
arbitrary liquid fraction. To interpolate between the dry limit described by
von Neumann's law, and the wet limit described by Marqusee equation, the
relevant bubble characteristics are the Plateau border radius and a new
variable, the effective number of sides. We propose an equation for the
individual bubble growth rate as the weighted sum of the growth through
bubble-bubble interfaces and through bubble-Plateau borders interfaces. The
resulting prediction is successfully tested, without adjustable parameter,
using extensive bidimensional Potts model simulations. Simulations also show
that a selfsimilar growth regime is observed at any liquid fraction and
determine how the average size growth exponent, side number distribution and
relative size distribution interpolate between the extreme limits. Applications
include concentrated emulsions, grains in polycrystals and other domains with
coarsening driven by curvature
USING ALGORITHMS TO ANALYSE THE VISUAL PROPERTIES OF A BUILDING’S STYLE
Residential development within heritage conservation areas is regulated by Development
Control Plans (DCP) that provide guidelines about the shape and form that new houses,
alterations and additions should take (DIPNR 2004). By understanding that the visual amenity of
streets within a city plays an important role in creating a sense of place and community for its
citizens (Lynch 1960) they attempt to sustain, through regulation, an urban pattern that has
become valued by the community. The visual character of a building within a streetscape is
often associated with the style of its construction - a set of visual characteristics that a group of
buildings might share. These characteristics include the relationship of the parts of the building
to each other, and to the building as a whole, the use of ornament and visible textures, and the
scale of elements within the composition.
Using algorithms developed within robotic research that enable a computer to interpret a visual
environment (similar to those used in medicine and facial recognition for instance), this paper
outlines how algorithms can be used to study the visual properties of the built environment. One
of the methodological qualities of computer visualisation that makes it so useful for a
comparative visual analysis of buildings is that the representational and symbolic meanings of a
buildings style play no part. The organisation of the elements can be analysed without having to
interpret their possible meaning at the beginning of the process.
This paper builds on an established interdisciplinary approach, utilising architectural knowledge
and computer visualisation to evaluate the visual character of detached housing within a
heritage conservation area. The visual environment is analysed using computer software
developed to locate the visual boundaries within a view of a streetscape both as an elevation
and aerial view
MEASURING ARCHITECTURE: QUESTIONING THE APPLICATION OF NON-LINEAR MATHEMATICS IN THE ANALYSIS OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS
In the late 1970s the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot argued that natural systems frequently
possess characteristic geometric or visual complexity over multiple scales of observation. This
proposition suggests that systems which have evolved over time may exhibit certain local visual
qualities that also possess deep structural resonance. In mathematics this observation lead to
the formulation of fractal geometry and was central to the rise of the sciences of non-linearity
and complexity.
During the 1990s a number of researchers developed this concept in relation to architectural
design and urban planning and more recently architectural scholars have suggested that such
approaches might be used in the analysis of historic buildings. At the heart of this approach, in
both its theoretical and computational forms, is a set of processes initially developed by Carl
Bovill for analyzing buildings. However, the assumptions implicit in Bovill’s method (itself an
extrapolation of an approach proposed by Mandelbrot) have never been adequately questioned.
The present paper returns to the origins of Bovill’s analytical method to reconsider his original
investigation of key works of 20th century architecture and the way in which Bovill frames images
for analysis. The aim of this analysis is to question several assumptions present in Bovill’s
method about the way in which computer technology is used to understand the visual qualities
of historic buildings
Non-equilibrium Anisotropic Phases, Nucleation and Critical Behavior in a Driven Lennard-Jones Fluid
We describe short-time kinetic and steady-state properties of the
non--equilibrium phases, namely, solid, liquid and gas anisotropic phases in a
driven Lennard-Jones fluid. This is a computationally-convenient
two-dimensional model which exhibits a net current and striped structures at
low temperature, thus resembling many situations in nature. We here focus on
both critical behavior and details of the nucleation process. In spite of the
anisotropy of the late--time spinodal decomposition process, earlier nucleation
seems to proceed by Smoluchowski coagulation and Ostwald ripening, which are
known to account for nucleation in equilibrium, isotropic lattice systems and
actual fluids. On the other hand, a detailed analysis of the system critical
behavior rises some intriguing questions on the role of symmetries; this
concerns the computer and field-theoretical modeling of non-equilibrium fluids.Comment: 7 pages, 9 ps figures, to appear in PR
Polydispersity Effects in Colloid-Polymer Mixtures
We study phase separation and transient gelation in a mixture consisting of
polydisperse colloids and non-adsorbing polymers, where the ratio of the
average size of the polymer to that of the colloid is approximately 0.063.
Unlike what has been reported previously for mixtures with somewhat lower
colloid polydispersity, the addition of polymers does not expand the
fluid-solid coexistence region. Instead, we find a region of fluid-solid
coexistence which has an approximately constant width but an unexpected
re-entrant shape. We detect the presence of a metastable gas-liquid binodal,
which gives rise to two-stepped crystallization kinetics that can be
rationalized as the effect of fractionation. Finally, we find that the
separation into multiple coexisting solid phases at high colloid volume
fractions predicted by equilibrium statistical mechanics is kinetically
suppressed before the system reaches dynamical arrest.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
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Utilizing Surface Area to Volume ratios and Thermal Tolerance of Various Bee Species to Predict their Performance under Rising Global Temperatures
The purpose of this research project is to investigate how rising temperatures, for instance climate change, can affect bees of various body sizes given their essential role in the global food supply through pollination of agricultural crops. To achieve this I utilized 3D imaging and 3D modeling techniques to calculate surface area-to-volume (SA/V) ratios of the bees that otherwise cannot be obtained using conventional methods. SA/V ratios were calculated for 4 different families (Halictidae, Colletidae, Apidae, and Megachilidae) in the order Hymenoptera and were analyzed alongside the bee’s Critical Thermal Maximum (CT Max) data, the maximum heat a bee can withstand before losing mobility, to gain insight on the bee's ability to survive in extreme hot temperatures. It is evident from the data that larger bees, characterized by smaller SA/V ratios, presented a higher CT Max suggesting their greater chance of survival in higher temperatures than smaller bees due to less heat exchange relative to their body size. This data implies that with earth’s rising global temperatures larger bees will likely perform better than smaller bees.This poster was presented at the UCSB Center for Science and Engineering Partnerships (CSEP) summer colloquium in 2023
A Mean-Field Theory for Coarsening Faceted Surfaces
A mean-field theory is developed for the scale-invariant length distributions
observed during the coarsening of one-dimensional faceted surfaces. This theory
closely follows the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory of Ostwald ripening in
two-phase systems [1-3], but the mechanism of coarsening in faceted surfaces
requires the addition of convolution terms recalling the work of Smoluchowski
[4] and Schumann [5] on coalescence. The model is solved by the exponential
distribution, but agreement with experiment is limited by the assumption that
neighboring facet lengths are uncorrelated. However, the method concisely
describes the essential processes operating in the scaling state, illuminates a
clear path for future refinement, and offers a framework for the investigation
of faceted surfaces evolving under arbitrary dynamics.
[1] I. Lifshitz, V. Slezov, Soviet Physics JETP 38 (1959) 331-339.
[2] I. Lifshitz, V. Slyozov, J. Phys. Chem. Solids 19 (1961) 35-50.
[3] C. Wagner, Elektrochemie 65 (1961) 581-591.
[4] M. von Smoluchowski, Physikalische Zeitschrift 17 (1916) 557-571.
[5] T. Schumann, J. Roy. Met. Soc. 66 (1940) 195-207
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Variation in Bee Body Size Due to Anthropogenic Land Use
This study investigates the impact of anthropogenic land use on the body size of bees across 18 different species. Adult bee body size, primarily influenced by developmental nutrition, is significantly affected by the availability of floral resources. Developed land often has reduced floral diversity and density is hypothesized to produce smaller bees due to limited food resources. Specimens from the UCSB Invertebrate Zoology Collection were categorized based on their collection sites into three land use types: developed, agricultural, and forest using USGS National Land Cover Database. Measurements of head width, intertegular distance (ITD), and dry mass were taken to assess body size. A body size index was calculated as the average of these measurements. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were done in Python version 3.12.4. Results indicate that bees from agricultural habitats are significantly larger than those from developed and forest habitats across all metrics (head width, ITD, dry mass, and body size index). These findings highlight the influence of landscape changes on bee functional traits, providing essential insights into the ecological consequences of land use on bee health.This poster was presented at the UCSB CSEP summer colloquium 2024
On the action potential as a propagating density pulse and the role of anesthetics
The Hodgkin-Huxley model of nerve pulse propagation relies on ion currents
through specific resistors called ion channels. We discuss a number of
classical thermodynamic findings on nerves that are not contained in this
classical theory. Particularly striking is the finding of reversible heat
changes, thickness and phase changes of the membrane during the action
potential. Data on various nerves rather suggest that a reversible density
pulse accompanies the action potential of nerves. Here, we attempted to explain
these phenomena by propagating solitons that depend on the presence of
cooperative phase transitions in the nerve membrane. These transitions are,
however, strongly influenced by the presence of anesthetics. Therefore, the
thermodynamic theory of nerve pulses suggests a explanation for the famous
Meyer-Overton rule that states that the critical anesthetic dose is linearly
related to the solubility of the drug in the membranes.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
A nonlinear theory of non-stationary low Mach number channel flows of freely cooling nearly elastic granular gases
We use hydrodynamics to investigate non-stationary channel flows of freely
cooling dilute granular gases. We focus on the regime where the sound travel
time through the channel is much shorter than the characteristic cooling time
of the gas. As a result, the gas pressure rapidly becomes almost homogeneous,
while the typical Mach number of the flow drops well below unity. Eliminating
the acoustic modes, we reduce the hydrodynamic equations to a single nonlinear
and nonlocal equation of a reaction-diffusion type in Lagrangian coordinates.
This equation describes a broad class of channel flows and, in particular, can
follow the development of the clustering instability from a weakly perturbed
homogeneous cooling state to strongly nonlinear states. If the heat diffusion
is neglected, the reduced equation is exactly soluble, and the solution
develops a finite-time density blowup. The heat diffusion, however, becomes
important near the attempted singularity. It arrests the density blowup and
brings about novel inhomogeneous cooling states (ICSs) of the gas, where the
pressure continues to decay with time, while the density profile becomes
time-independent. Both the density profile of an ICS, and the characteristic
relaxation time towards it are determined by a single dimensionless parameter
that describes the relative role of the inelastic energy loss and heat
diffusion. At large values of this parameter, the intermediate cooling dynamics
proceeds as a competition between low-density regions of the gas. This
competition resembles Ostwald ripening: only one hole survives at the end.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, final versio
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