Complex dynamics of evaporation-driven convection in liquid layers

The spontaneous convective patterns induced by evaporation of a pure liquid layer are studied experimentally. A volatile liquid layer placed in a cylindrical container is left free to evaporate into air at rest under ambient conditions. The liquid/gas interface of the evaporating liquid layer is visualized using an infrared (IR) camera. The phenomenology of the observed convective patterns is qualitatively analysed, showing in particular that the latter can be quite complex especially at moderate liquid thicknesses. Attention is also paid to the influence of the container diameter on the observed patterns sequence.Comment: videos include

Integrated monitoring system for fall detection in elderly

Falling and its resulting injuries are an important public health problem for older adults. The National Safety Council estimates that persons over the age of 65 have the highest mortality rate (death rate) from injuries. The risk of falling increases with age; one of three adults 65 or older falls every year. Demographic predictions of population aged 65 and over suggest the need for telemedicine applications in the eldercare domain. This paper presents an integrated monitoring system for the detection of people falls in home environment. The system consist of combining low level features extracted from a video and heart rate tracking in order to classify the fall event. The extracted data will be processed by a neural network for classifying the events in two classes: fall and not fall. Reliable recognition rate of experimental results underlines satisfactory performance of our system

Automated Monitoring System for Fall Detection in the Elderly

Falls are a major problem for the elderly people living independently. Accordingto the World Health Organization, falls and sustained injuries are the third cause of chronic disability. In the last years there have been many commercial solutions aimed at automatic and non automatic detection of falls like the social alarm (wrist watch with a button that is activated by the subject in case of a fall event), and the wearable fall detectors that are based on combinations of accelerometers and tilt sensors. Critical problems are associated with those solutions like button is often unreachable after the fall, wearable devices produce many false alarms and old people tend to forget wearing them frequently. To solve these problems, we propose an automated monitoring that will detects the face of the person, extract features such as speed and determines if a human fall has occurred. An alarm is triggered immediately upon detection of a fall

Real Time Recognition of Elderly Daily Activity using Fuzzy Logic through Fusion of Motion and Location Data

One of the major problems that may encounter old people at home is falling. Approximately, one of three adults of the age of 65 or older falls every year. The World Health Organization reports that injuries due to falls are the third most common cause of chronic disability. In this paper, we proposed an approach to indoor human daily activity recognition, which combines motion and location data by using a webcam system, with a particular interest to the problem of fall detection. The proposed system identifies the face and the body in a given area, collects motion data such as face and body speeds and location data such as center of mass and aspect ratio; then the extracted parameters will be fed to a Fuzzy logic classifier that classify the fall event in two classes: fall and not fall

Implementation of Intelligent Monitoring System for year Elderly

One of three adults 65 or older falls every year. Injuries sustained among the elderly because of falls are a major problem worldwide. Demographic predictions of population aged 65 and over suggest the need for telemedicine applications in the eldercare domain. In this paper, we propose an intelligent surveillance system that monitors human activities with a particular interest of the problem of fall detection. To make the motion detection and object tracking fully automatic and robust under different illumination conditions, combination of best-fit approximated ellipse around the face and temporal changes of head position, would provide a useful cue for detection of different behaviors. The system identifies the face, collects data suchas speed of movement, and triggers an alarm on the determination of fall event. Reliable recognition rate of experimental results underlines satisfactory performance of our system

Passive obduction and gravity-driven emplacement of large ophiolitic sheets: The New Caledonia ophiolite (SW Pacific) as a case study?

International audience– The 300 km long allochthonous sheet of oceanic mantle forming the New Caledonia ophiolite displays three specific characters: 1) the ophiolite pile lacks concordant sheeted dykes and pillow basalt layers; 2) the ophiolite, refered to as the Peridotite nappe, is thrusted over the basaltic formations of the Poya terrane which are classicaly thought to originate from a different oceanic environment; 3) The basal contact of the ultramafic sheet is remarkably flat all along New-Caledonia and the Peridotite nappe has not been thickened during obduction, rather it experienced significant extension. This suggests that the peridotites have not been emplaced by a tectonic force applied to the rear. New petrological and geochemical results obtained from mantle rocks finally show that the Poya terrane may originate from the same oceanic basin as the peridotites. In this article, we consider such possible cogenetic links and we propose a simple model for the obduction of the New Caledonia ophiolite in which the Poya basalts represent the original cover of the Peridotite nappe. We infer that continuous uplift of the subducted units buried beneath the oceanic lithosphere in the northern part of New Caledonia drove passive uplift of the ophiolite and led to erosion and to initiation of sliding of the basaltic layer. During the Priabonian (latest Eocene), products of the erosion of the basaltic layer were deposited together with sediments derived from the Norfolk passive oceanic margin. These sediments are involved as tectonic slices into an accretionary wedge formed in response to plate convergence. The volcaniclastic sedimentation ends up with the emplacement of large slided blocks of basalts and rafted mafic units that progressively filled up the basin. Obduction process ended with the gravity sliding of the oceanic mantle sheet, previously scalped from its mafic cover. This process is contemporaneous with the exhumation of the HP-LT units of Pouebo and Diahot. Gravity sliding was facilitated by the occurrence of a continuous serpentine sole resulting from metasomatic hydratation of mantle rocks, which developed during the uplift of the Norfolk basement and overlying Diahot and Pouébo units. Progressive emersion of the obducted lithosphere allowed subsequent weathering under subaerial, tropical conditions. Obduction passive et mise en place gravitaire des grandes nappes ophiolitiques : les ophiolites de Nouvelle-Calédonie (SW Pacifique) sont-elles un cas d'école ? Résumé. – La nappe de manteau de Nouvelle-Calédonie, s'étendant sur 300 km de long montre trois caractéristiques im-portantes: 1) La succession ophiolitique ne contient ni dykes, ni basaltes en coussin, 2) l'ophiolite est charriée sur des formations basaltiques (nappe de Poya) que l'on considère classiquement comme originaires d'un bassin océanique dif-férent de celui d'où est issu le manteau, et 3) le contact basal de la nappe ultrabasique est remarquablement plat tout le long de l'île et celle-ci n'a pas été épaissie durant l'obduction. Cela suggère que les péridotites n'ont pas été mises en place en réponse à une poussée tectonique arrière. De nouveaux résultats pétrologiques et géochimiques obtenus sur l'ophiolite montrent en réalité que les basaltes de Poya peuvent être extraits de la fusion du manteau de l'ophiolite. Nous proposons donc un nouveau modèle pour l'obduction, dans lequel les basaltes de Poya forment la couver-ture initiale primitive du manteau de la nappe des péridotites. La surrection progressive des unités profondes enfouies lors de la subduction de la lithosphère du bassin sud-Loyauté à l'Eocène, a permis le soulèvement passif de l'ophiolite et l'érosion puis le glissement des unités basaltiques. Durant le Priabonien, l'accumulation des produits de l'érosion de la couche des basaltes et de la marge passive de Norfolk ont formé les séquences de flysch comprenant localement des débris basaltiques grossiers. Ces sédiments font partie d'un prisme d'accrétion tectonique construit en réponse à la convergence au front de la subduction. La sédimentation détritique se termine par la mise en place de grandes unités ba-saltiques glissées qui comblent le bassin. Le processus de l'obduction se termine par le glissement gravitaire de l'écaille de manteau océanique sur les basaltes. Cet événement est contemporain de l'exhumation des unités HP-BT de Pouébo et du Diahot. Le glissement gravitaire a été facilité par la présence sous l'ophiolite, d'une semelle continue de serpentines résultant de l'interaction du manteau avec des fluides métasomatiques remontant durant l'exhumation des unités en-fouies pendant la subduction continentale. L'émersion progressive de la lithosphère obduite a placé le manteau dans des conditions d'altération supergène tropicale

Fine sediment on leaves : shredder removal of sediment does not enhance fungal colonisation

Inorganic fine sediments are easily carried into streams and rivers from disturbed land. These sediments can affect the stream biota, including detritivorous invertebrates (shredders) and impair ecosystem functions, such as leaf litter decomposition. We hypothesized that fine sediment (kaolin) deposited on leaves would reduce or suppress fungal development, reducing decomposition rates of leaves. Moreover, we predicted that shredders would act as ecosystem engineers by perturbing sediment deposition, reducing its impact on decomposition and fungi. We used a fully crossed experimental design of sediment addition (control, 400 mg L-1) and shredders (none, Gammarus, Potamophylax) in laboratory aquaria. Leaf mass loss, sus- pended solids, microbial respiration, fungal biomass and spore production were measured. Sediment addition had no significant effects on the leaf mass remaining nor on shredders’ consumption rates. However, sediment slightly reduced fungal assemblage richness and the sporulation rate of three fungal species. The presence of shredders sub- stantially increased the resuspension of fine sediments ([300%),resultinginhighersuspendedloads.However,the action of shredders did not have a significant effect on fungal biomass nor on leaf mass loss. Even if shredders did not enhance fungal colonisation, they affected the settle- ment of fine sediment, serving as allogenic engineers. Our study suggests that concentrations of fine sediment of 400 mg L-1 with short exposure times (192 h) can have some effect on leaf decomposition

Three-dimensional electronic instabilities in polymerized solid A1C60

The low-temperature structure of A1C60 (A=K, Rb) is an ordered array of polymerized C60 chains, with magnetic properties that suggest a non-metallic ground state. We study the paramagnetic state of this phase using first-principles electronic-structure methods, and examine the magnetic fluctuations around this state using a model Hamiltonian. The electronic and magnetic properties of even this polymerized phase remain strongly three dimensional, and the magnetic fluctuations favor an unusual three-dimensional antiferromagnetically ordered structure with a semi-metallic electronic spectrum.Comment: REVTeX 3.0, 10 pages, 4 figures available on request from [email protected]