Liquid Film Coating a Fiber as a Model System for the Formation of Bound States in Active Dispersive-Dissipative Nonlinear Media

We analyze the coherent-structure interaction and the formation of bound states in active dispersivedissipative nonlinear media using a viscous film coating a vertical fiber as a prototype. The coherent structures in this case are droplike pulses that dominate the evolution of the film.We study experimentally the interaction dynamics and show evidence for formation of bound states. A theoretical explanation is provided through a coherent-structures theory of a simple model for the flow

Millennial-scale climatic variability between 340000 and 270000 years ago in SW Europe : evidence from a NW Iberian margin pollen sequence

© 2009 The Authors. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. The definitive version was published in Climate of the Past 5 (2009): 53-72, doi:10.5194/cp-5-53-2009We present a new high-resolution marine pollen record from NW Iberian margin sediments (core MD03-2697) covering the interval between 340 000 and 270 000 years ago, a time period centred on Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9 and characterized by particular baseline climate states. This study enables the documentation of vegetation changes in the north-western Iberian Peninsula and therefore the terrestrial climatic variability at orbital and in particular at millennial scales during MIS 9, directly on a marine stratigraphy. Suborbital vegetation changes in NW Iberia in response to cool/cold events are detected throughout the studied interval even during MIS 9e ice volume minimum. However, they appear more frequent and of higher amplitude during the 30 000 years following the MIS 9e interglacial period and during the MIS 9a-8 transition, which correspond to intervals of an intermediate to high ice volume and mainly periods of ice growth. Each suborbital cold event detected in NW Iberia has a counterpart in the Southern Iberian margin SST record. High to moderate amplitude cold episodes detected on land and in the ocean appear to be related to changes in deep water circulation and probably to iceberg discharges at least during MIS 9d, the mid-MIS 9c cold event and MIS 9b. This work provides therefore additional evidence of pervasive millennial-scale climatic variability in the North Atlantic borderlands throughout past climatic cycles of the Late Pleistocene, regardless of glacial state. However, ice volume might have an indirect influence on the amplitude of the millennial climatic changes in Southern Europe.This research was supported by IPEV (Institut Paul Emile Victor), PNEDC (Programme National d’Etude de la Dynamique du Climat), the Gary Comer Science and Education Foundation and the US National Science Foundation (OCE grants 8-4911100 and 8-256500)

Mechanical tuning of the evaporation rate of liquid on crossed fibers

We investigate experimentally the drying of a small volume of perfectly wetting liquid on two crossed fibers. We characterize the drying dynamics for the three liquid morphologies that are encountered in this geometry: drop, column and a mixed morphology, in which a drop and a column coexist. For each morphology, we rationalize our findings with theoretical models that capture the drying kinetics. We find that the evaporation rate depends significantly on the liquid morphology and that the drying of liquid column is faster than the evaporation of the drop and the mixed morphology for a given liquid volume. Finally, we illustrate that shearing a network of fibers reduces the angle between them, changes the morphology towards the column state, and so enhances the drying rate of a volatile liquid deposited on it

Pulse dynamics in low-Reynolds-number interfacial hydrodynamics: Experiments and theory

a b s t r a c t We analyze interaction of nonlinear pulses in active-dispersive-dissipative nonlinear media. A particular example of such media is a viscous thin film coating a vertical fibre. Experiments for this system reveal that the interface evolves into a train of droplike solitary pulses in which numerous inelastic coalescence events take place. In such events, larger pulses catch up with smaller ones and annihilate them. However, for certain flow conditions and after a certain distance from the inlet, no more coalescence is observed and the flow is described by quasi-equilibrium solitary pulses interacting continuously with each other through attractions and repulsions, and, eventually they form bound states of groups of pulses in which the pulses travel with the same velocities as a whole. This experimental study represents the first evidence of formation of bound states in low-Reynolds-number interfacial hydrodynamics. To gain theoretical insight into the interaction of the pulses and formation of bound states, we derive a weakly nonlinear model for the flow, the generalized Kuramoto-Sivashinsky (gKS) equation, that retains the fundamental mechanisms of the wave evolution, namely, dominant nonlinearity, instability, stability and dispersion. Much like in the experiments, the spatio-temporal evolution of the gKS equation is dominated by quasistationary solitary pulses which continuously interact with each other through coalescence events or attractions/repulsions. To understand the latter case, we utilize a weak-interaction theory for the solitary pulses of the gKS equation. The theory is based on representing the solution of the equation as a superposition of the pulses and an overlap function and leads to a coupled system of ordinary differential equations describing the evolution of the locations of the pulses, or, alternatively, the evolution of the separation distances. By analyzing the fixed points of this system, we obtain bound states of interacting pulses. For two pulses, we provide a criterion for the existence of a countable infinite or finite number of bound states, depending on the strength of the dispersive term in the equation. The interaction theory and resulting bound states are corroborated by computations of the full equation. We also find qualitative agreement between the theory and the experiments

Objective Measurement of the Visual Aspect of Dry Sausage Slices by Image Analysis

The visual aspect of food is a problem very often neglected for different reasons; one being the difficulty of modelling vision. However, it has been shown that , on simple synthetic images, automatic sorting in the same manner as human vision is possible. Distribution heterogeneity of spots within an image is one important parameter for its characterization. A new algorithm was tested over simple numerical pictures that gave good agreement with visual appreciation. Images of twenty dry sausage slices were analyzed and different factors corresponding to aspect structure were calculated. Principal component analyst:s based on these factors all owed discrimination between the different types of sausage. The results obtained when studying the meat part of the slices were well correlated with the visual aspect

The selectivity, voltage-dependence and acid sensitivity of the tandem pore potassium channel TASK-1 : contributions of the pore domains

We have investigated the contribution to ionic selectivity of residues in the selectivity filter and pore helices of the P1 and P2 domains in the acid sensitive potassium channel TASK-1. We used site directed mutagenesis and electrophysiological studies, assisted by structural models built through computational methods. We have measured selectivity in channels expressed in Xenopus oocytes, using voltage clamp to measure shifts in reversal potential and current amplitudes when Rb+ or Na+ replaced extracellular K+. Both P1 and P2 contribute to selectivity, and most mutations, including mutation of residues in the triplets GYG and GFG in P1 and P2, made channels nonselective. We interpret the effects of these—and of other mutations—in terms of the way the pore is likely to be stabilised structurally. We show also that residues in the outer pore mouth contribute to selectivity in TASK-1. Mutations resulting in loss of selectivity (e.g. I94S, G95A) were associated with slowing of the response of channels to depolarisation. More important physiologically, pH sensitivity is also lost or altered by such mutations. Mutations that retained selectivity (e.g. I94L, I94V) also retained their response to acidification. It is likely that responses both to voltage and pH changes involve gating at the selectivity filter

Superconductivity and Density Wave in the Quasi-One-Dimensional Systems: Renormalization Group Study

The anisotropic superconductivity and the density wave have been investigated by applying the Kadanoff-Wilson renormalization group technique to the quasi-one-dimensional system with finite-range interactions. It is found that a temperature (T) dependence of response functions is proportional to exp(1/T) in a wide region of temperature even within the one-loop approximation. Transition temperatures are calculated to obtain the phase diagram of the quasi-one-dimensional system, which is compared with that of the pure-one-dimensional system. Next-nearest neighbor interactions (V_2) induce large charge fluctuations, which suppress the d_{x^2 -y^2}-wave singlet superconducting (dSS) state and enhance the f-wave triplet superconducting (fTS) state. From this effect, the transition temperature of fTS becomes comparable to that of dSS for large V_2, so that field-induced f-wave triplet pairing could be possible. These features are discussed to comprehend the experiments on the (TMTSF)_2PF_6 salt.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp

The response of the tandem pore potassium channel TASK-3 (K2P9.1) to voltage : gating at the cytoplasmic mouth

Although the tandem pore potassium channel TASK-3 is thought to open and shut at its selectivity filter in response to changes of extracellular pH, it is currently unknown whether the channel also shows gating at its inner, cytoplasmic mouth through movements of membrane helices M2 and M4.We used two electrode voltage clamp and single channel recording to show that TASK-3 responds to voltage in a way that reveals such gating. In wild-type channels, Popen was very low at negative voltages, but increased with depolarisation. The effect of voltage was relatively weak and the gating charge small, ∼0.17.Mutants A237T (in M4) and N133A (in M2) increased Popen at a given voltage, increasing mean open time and the number of openings per burst. In addition, the relationship between Popen andvoltagewas shifted to lesspositive voltages. Mutation of putative hinge glycines (G117A, G231A), residues that are conserved throughout the tandem pore channel family, reduced Popen at a given voltage, shifting the relationship with voltage to a more positive potential range. None of these mutants substantially affected the response of the channel to extracellular acidification. We have used the results from single channel recording to develop a simple kinetic model to show how gating occurs through two classes of conformation change, with two routes out of the open state, as expected if gating occurs both at the selectivity filter and at its cytoplasmic mouth