Rotational microrheology of Maxwell fluids using micron-sized wires

We demonstrate a simple method for rotational microrheology in complex fluids, using micrometric wires. The three-dimensional rotational Brownian motion of the wires suspended in Maxwell fluids is measured from their projection on the focal plane of a microscope. We analyze the mean-squared angular displacement of the wires of length between 1 and 40 microns. The viscoelastic properties of the suspending fluids are extracted from this analysis and found to be in good agreement with macrorheology data. Viscosities of simple and complex fluids between 0.01 and 30 Pa.s could be measured. As for the elastic modulus, values up to ~ 5 Pa could be determined. This simple technique, allowing for a broad range of probed length scales, opens new perspectives in microrheology of heterogeneous materials such as gels, glasses and cells.Comment: to appear in Soft Matte

The contribution of starspots to coronal structure

Significant progress has been made recently in our understanding of the structure of stellar magnetic fields, thanks to advances in detection methods such as Zeeman-Doppler Imaging. The extrapolation of this surface magnetic field into the corona has provided 3D models of the coronal magnetic field and plasma. This method is sensitive mainly to the magnetic field in the bright regions of the stellar surface. The dark (spotted) regions are censored because the Zeeman signature there is suppressed. By modelling the magnetic field that might have been contained in these spots, we have studied the effect that this loss of information might have on our understanding of the coronal structure. As examples, we have chosen two stars (V374 peg and AB Dor) that have very different magnetograms and patterns of spot coverage. We find that the effect of the spot field depends not only on the relative amount of flux in the spots, but also its distribution across the stellar surface. For a star such as AB Dor with a high spot coverage and a large polar spot, at its greatest effect the spot field may almost double the fraction of the flux that is open (hence decreasing the spindown time) while at the same time increasing the X-ray emission measure by two orders of magnitude and significantly affecting the X-ray rotational modulation.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Les ostracodes de l'Albien-Turonien moyen de la région d'Antsiranana (Nord Madagascar) : systématique, paléoécologie et paléobiogéographie

International audienceDes associations d'ostracodes provenant de la région d'Antsiranana, ex Diego-Suarez, dans le N de Madagascar ont été étudiées au niveau systématique. Dans l'intervalle Albien-Turonien moyen, 29 espèces appartenant à 21 genres ont été reconnues, 10 nouvelles espèces, un nouveau genre (Malagasyella) et un nouveau sous-genre (Hemiglenocythere) ont été créés. L'Albien ainsi que le Cénomanien inférieur se caractérisent par des associations bien différenciées. D'un point de vue paléoécologique, la succession des faunes d'ostracodes montre une baisse progressive du niveau de la mer d'un milieu de bassin-talus à l'Albien à un environnement de plate-forme externe au Turonien. Pendant cette période les faunes d'ostracodes de Madagascar montrent de fortes affinités avec celles de l'Inde (Rajasthan) ce qui mène à proposer l'existence de province faunistique indo-malgache

Two caesium vanadium hydrogenphosphates with tunnelled structures: Cs2V2O3(PO4)(HPO4) and Cs2[(VO)3(HPO4)4(H2O)].H2O

International audienceDicaesium divanadium trioxide phosphate hydrogenphosphate, Cs2V2O3(PO4)(HPO4), (I), and dicaesium tris[oxidovanadate(IV)] hydrogenphosphate dihydrate, Cs2[(VO)3-(HPO4)4(H2O)] H2O, (II), crystallize in the monoclinic system with all atoms in general positions. The structures of the two compounds are built up from VO6 octahedra and PO4 tetrahedra. In (I), infinite chains of corner-sharing VO6 octahedra are connected to V2O10 dimers by phosphate and hydrogenphosphate groups, while in (II) three vanadium octahedra share vertices leading to V3O15(H2O) trimers separated by hydrogenphosphate groups. Both structures show three-dimensional frameworks with tunnels in which Cs+ cations are located

Predicting indoor ozone and NOx concentrations

International audienceSimple modelling of indoor chemistry using FACSIMILE softwar

Simulating the effects of spatial configurations of agricultural ditch drainage networks on surface runoff from agricultural catchments

The study of runoff is a crucial issue because it is closely related to flooding, water quality and erosion. In cultivated catchments, agricultural ditch drainage networks are known to influence runoff. As anthropogenic elements, agricultural ditch drainage networks can therefore be altered to better manage surface runoff in cultivated catchments. However, the relationship between the spatial configuration, i.e., the density and the topology, of agricultural ditch drainage networks and surface runoff in cultivated catchments is not understood. We studied this relationship by using a random network simulator that was coupled to a distributed hydrological model. The simulations explored a large variety of spatial configurations corresponding to a thousand stochastic agricultural ditch drainage networks on a 6.4 km2 Mediterranean cultivated catchment. Next, several distributed hydrological functions were used to compute water flow-paths and runoff for each simulation. The results showed that (i) denser networks increased the drained volume and the peak discharge and decreased hillslopes runoff, (ii) greater network density did not affect the surface runoff any further above a given network density, (iii) the correlation between network density and runoff was weaker for small subcatchments (< 2 km2) where the variability in the drained area that resulted from changes in agricultural ditch drainage networks increased the variability of runoff and (iv) the actual agricultural ditch drainage network appeared to be well optimized for managing runoff as compared with the simulated networks. Finally, our results highlighted the role of agricultural ditch drainage networks in intercepting and decreasing overland flow on hillslopes and increasing runoff in drainage networks

Fusion of Distance Measurements between Agents with Unknown Correlations

Cooperative localization is a promising solution to improve the accuracy and overcome the shortcomings of GNSS. Cooperation is often achieved by measuring the distance between users. To optimally integrate a distance measurement between two users into a navigation filter, the correlation between the errors of their estimates must be known. Unfortunately, in large scale networks the agents cannot compute these correlations and must use consistent filters. A consistent filter provides an upper bound on the covariance of the error of the estimator taking into account all the possible correlations. In this paper, a consistent linear filter for integrating a distance measurement is derived using Split Covariance Intersection. Its analysis shows that a distance measurement between two agents can only benefit one of them, i.e., only one of the two can use the distance measurement to improve its estimator. Furthermore, in some cases, none can. A necessary condition for an agent to benefit from the measurement is given for a general class of objective functions. When the objective function is the trace or the determinant, necessary and sufficient conditions are given