927 research outputs found
Fronts in passive scalar turbulence
The evolution of scalar fields transported by turbulent flow is characterized
by the presence of fronts, which rule the small-scale statistics of scalar
fluctuations. With the aid of numerical simulations, it is shown that: isotropy
is not recovered, in the classical sense, at small scales; scaling exponents
are universal with respect to the scalar injection mechanisms; high-order
exponents saturate to a constant value; non-mature fronts dominate the
statistics of intense fluctuations. Results on the statistics inside the
plateaux, where fluctuations are weak, are also presented. Finally, we analyze
the statistics of scalar dissipation and scalar fluxes.Comment: 18 pages, 27 figure
Manifestation of anisotropy persistence in the hierarchies of MHD scaling exponents
The first example of a turbulent system where the failure of the hypothesis
of small-scale isotropy restoration is detectable both in the `flattening' of
the inertial-range scaling exponent hierarchy, and in the behavior of odd-order
dimensionless ratios, e.g., skewness and hyperskewness, is presented.
Specifically, within the kinematic approximation in magnetohydrodynamical
turbulence, we show that for compressible flows, the isotropic contribution to
the scaling of magnetic correlation functions and the first anisotropic ones
may become practically indistinguishable. Moreover, skewness factor now
diverges as the P\'eclet number goes to infinity, a further indication of
small-scale anisotropy.Comment: 4 pages Latex, 1 figur
Coarse-grained description of a passive scalar
The issue of the parameterization of small-scale dynamics is addressed in the
context of passive-scalar turbulence. The basic idea of our strategy is to
identify dynamical equations for the coarse-grained scalar dynamics starting
from closed equations for two-point statistical indicators. With the aim of
performing a fully-analytical study, the Kraichnan advection model is
considered. The white-in-time character of the latter model indeed leads to
closed equations for the equal-time scalar correlation functions. The classical
closure problem however still arises if a standard filtering procedure is
applied to those equations in the spirit of the large-eddy-simulation strategy.
We show both how to perform exact closures and how to identify the
corresponding coarse-grained scalar evolution.Comment: 22 pages; submitted to Journal of Turbulenc
Acceleration and vortex filaments in turbulence
We report recent results from a high resolution numerical study of fluid
particles transported by a fully developed turbulent flow. Single particle
trajectories were followed for a time range spanning more than three decades,
from less than a tenth of the Kolmogorov time-scale up to one large-eddy
turnover time. We present some results concerning acceleration statistics and
the statistics of trapping by vortex filaments.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Oral bacteriotherapy in patients with COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study
Background: Mounting evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 may impact on host microbiota and gut inflammation, infecting intestinal epithelial cells. This possible link and its implications can be investigated by observing the effects of modulation of the microbial flora in patients with COVID-19. The aim of this study was to compare the rate of mortality, the need of ICU hospitalization and the length of hospitalization in patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia who received the best available therapy (BAT) vs. patients treated with BAT and supplemented with oral bacteriotherapy. Methods: This retrospective, observational cohort study included 200 adults with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. All patients received therapeutic regimens including low molecular weight heparin plus one or more between hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, antivirals, and Tocilizumab. Oral bacteriotherapy was used as complementary treatment. Results: Out of the 200 patients, 112 received BAT without oral bacteriotherapy, and 88 BAT with oral bacteriotherapy. Crude mortality was 22%. Eleven percent died in the group of patients treated with BAT plus oral bacteriotherapy vs. 30% subjects in the group of patients managed only with BAT (p < 0.001). By multivariate analysis, the age >65 years, CRP >41.8 mg/L, Platelets <150.000 mmc, and cardiovascular events were associated with the increased risk of mortality. Oral bacteriotherapy was an independent variable associated with a reduced risk for death. Despite large prospective trials are needed, this study highlights a possible role for oral bacteriotherapy in the management of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 pneumonia
Chemotaxis When Bacteria Remember: Drift versus Diffusion
{\sl Escherichia coli} ({\sl E. coli}) bacteria govern their trajectories by
switching between running and tumbling modes as a function of the nutrient
concentration they experienced in the past. At short time one observes a drift
of the bacterial population, while at long time one observes accumulation in
high-nutrient regions. Recent work has viewed chemotaxis as a compromise
between drift toward favorable regions and accumulation in favorable regions. A
number of earlier studies assume that a bacterium resets its memory at tumbles
-- a fact not borne out by experiment -- and make use of approximate
coarse-grained descriptions. Here, we revisit the problem of chemotaxis without
resorting to any memory resets. We find that when bacteria respond to the
environment in a non-adaptive manner, chemotaxis is generally dominated by
diffusion, whereas when bacteria respond in an adaptive manner, chemotaxis is
dominated by a bias in the motion. In the adaptive case, favorable drift occurs
together with favorable accumulation. We derive our results from detailed
simulations and a variety of analytical arguments. In particular, we introduce
a new coarse-grained description of chemotaxis as biased diffusion, and we
discuss the way it departs from older coarse-grained descriptions.Comment: Revised version, journal reference adde
Turbulence and passive scalar transport in a free-slip surface
We consider the two-dimensional (2D) flow in a flat free-slip surface that
bounds a three-dimensional (3D) volume in which the flow is turbulent. The
equations of motion for the two-dimensional flow in the surface are neither
compressible nor incompressible but strongly influenced by the 3D flow
underneath the surface. The velocity correlation functions in the 2D surface
and in the 3D volume scale with the same exponents. In the viscous subrange the
amplitudes are the same, but in the inertial subrange the 2D one is reduced to
2/3 of the 3D amplitude. The surface flow is more strongly intermittent than
the 3D volume flow. Geometric scaling theory is used to derive a relation
between the scaling of the velocity field and the density fluctuations of a
passive scalar advected on the surface.Comment: 11 pages, 10 Postscript figure
Persistence of small-scale anisotropies and anomalous scaling in a model of magnetohydrodynamics turbulence
The problem of anomalous scaling in magnetohydrodynamics turbulence is
considered within the framework of the kinematic approximation, in the presence
of a large-scale background magnetic field. The velocity field is Gaussian,
-correlated in time, and scales with a positive exponent .
Explicit inertial-range expressions for the magnetic correlation functions are
obtained; they are represented by superpositions of power laws with
non-universal amplitudes and universal (independent of the anisotropy and
forcing) anomalous exponents. The complete set of anomalous exponents for the
pair correlation function is found non-perturbatively, in any space dimension
, using the zero-mode technique. For higher-order correlation functions, the
anomalous exponents are calculated to using the renormalization group.
The exponents exhibit a hierarchy related to the degree of anisotropy; the
leading contributions to the even correlation functions are given by the
exponents from the isotropic shell, in agreement with the idea of restored
small-scale isotropy. Conversely, the small-scale anisotropy reveals itself in
the odd correlation functions : the skewness factor is slowly decreasing going
down to small scales and higher odd dimensionless ratios (hyperskewness etc.)
dramatically increase, thus diverging in the limit.Comment: 25 pages Latex, 1 Figur
Particles and fields in fluid turbulence
The understanding of fluid turbulence has considerably progressed in recent
years. The application of the methods of statistical mechanics to the
description of the motion of fluid particles, i.e. to the Lagrangian dynamics,
has led to a new quantitative theory of intermittency in turbulent transport.
The first analytical description of anomalous scaling laws in turbulence has
been obtained. The underlying physical mechanism reveals the role of
statistical integrals of motion in non-equilibrium systems. For turbulent
transport, the statistical conservation laws are hidden in the evolution of
groups of fluid particles and arise from the competition between the expansion
of a group and the change of its geometry. By breaking the scale-invariance
symmetry, the statistically conserved quantities lead to the observed anomalous
scaling of transported fields. Lagrangian methods also shed new light on some
practical issues, such as mixing and turbulent magnetic dynamo.Comment: 165 pages, review article for Rev. Mod. Phy
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