298 research outputs found
Measuring Light Pollution with Fisheye Lens Imagery from A Moving Boat, A Proof of Concept
Near all-sky imaging photometry was performed from a boat on the Gulf of
Aqaba to measure the night sky brightness in a coastal environment. The boat
was not anchored, and therefore drifted and rocked. The camera was mounted on a
tripod without any inertia/motion stabilization. A commercial digital single
lens reflex (DSLR) camera and fisheye lens were used with ISO setting of 6400,
with the exposure time varied between 0.5 s and 5 s. We find that despite
movement of the vessel the measurements produce quantitatively comparable
results apart from saturation effects. We discuss the potential and limitations
of this method for mapping light pollution in marine and freshwater systems.
This work represents the proof of concept that all-sky photometry with a
commercial DSLR camera is a viable tool to determine light pollution in an
ecological context from a moving boat.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted at International Journal of Sustainable
Lightin
Vorticity Confinement methods for cavitating flows
Present work deals with investigations of numerical aspects of cavitating vortex dominated flows. Computations of the viscous flow on realistic, technical configurations require efficient methods and high grid resolution, which is not sufficient in most cases to capture important details of the flow. Insufficient resolution increases the numerical dissipation of vortices generated at the tip region of lifting surfaces. One possible solution to reduce the unphysical decay of the strength of the vortices (despite of moderate resolution) is the application of vorticity confinement methods. Aim of the paper is the development and the comparison of Vorticity Confinement (VC) methods for cavitating flows on unstructured grids. Applications are proposed to control devices and marine propulsion systems. The numerical dissipation of vortices is compared for different VC formulations. Especially the influence of the source terms on cavitating flows is investigated. The numerical computations are carried out by the finite volume solution method FreSCo on arbitrary grids. In the study vorticity confinement techniques are combined with different cavitation models available in the applied numerical method to investigate tip vortex flow. The cavitation models are based on Volume-of-Fluid (VoF). A NACA16020 elliptical wing is selected as a validation case. The combination of vorticity confinement formulations and cavitation models enables a better and a more detailed study of cavitation effects.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/84314/1/CAV2009-final139.pd
Implementation of on-site velocity boundary conditions for D3Q19 lattice Boltzmann
On-site boundary conditions are often desired for lattice Boltzmann
simulations of fluid flow in complex geometries such as porous media or
microfluidic devices. The possibility to specify the exact position of the
boundary, independent of other simulation parameters, simplifies the analysis
of the system. For practical applications it should allow to freely specify the
direction of the flux, and it should be straight forward to implement in three
dimensions. Furthermore, especially for parallelized solvers it is of great
advantage if the boundary condition can be applied locally, involving only
information available on the current lattice site. We meet this need by
describing in detail how to transfer the approach suggested by Zou and He to a
D3Q19 lattice. The boundary condition acts locally, is independent of the
details of the relaxation process during collision and contains no artificial
slip. In particular, the case of an on-site no-slip boundary condition is
naturally included. We test the boundary condition in several setups and
confirm that it is capable to accurately model the velocity field up to second
order and does not contain any numerical slip.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, revised versio
Rates of species introduction to a remote oceanic island
The introduction of species to areas beyond the limits of their natural distributions has a major homogenizing influence, making previously distinct biotas more similar. The scale of introductions has frequently been commented on, but their rate and spatial pervasiveness have been less well quantified. Here, we report the findings of a detailed study of pterygote insect introductions to Gough Island, one of the most remote and supposedly pristine temperate oceanic islands, and estimate the rate at which introduced species have successfully established.
Out of 99 species recorded from Gough Island, 71 are established introductions, the highest proportion documented for any Southern Ocean island. Estimating a total of approximately 233 landings on Gough Island since first human landfall, this equates to one successful establishment for every three to four landings. Generalizations drawn from other areas suggest that this may be only one-tenth of the number of pterygote species that have arrived at the island, implying that most landings may lead to the arrival of at least one alien. These rates of introduction of new species are estimated to be two to three orders of magnitude greater than background levels for Gough Island, an increase comparable to that estimated for global species extinctions (many of which occur on islands) as a consequence of human activities
Quantitative analysis of numerical estimates for the permeability of porous media from lattice-Boltzmann simulations
During the last decade, lattice-Boltzmann (LB) simulations have been improved
to become an efficient tool for determining the permeability of porous media
samples. However, well known improvements of the original algorithm are often
not implemented. These include for example multirelaxation time schemes or
improved boundary conditions, as well as different possibilities to impose a
pressure gradient. This paper shows that a significant difference of the
calculated permeabilities can be found unless one uses a carefully selected
setup. We present a detailed discussion of possible simulation setups and
quantitative studies of the influence of simulation parameters. We illustrate
our results by applying the algorithm to a Fontainebleau sandstone and by
comparing our benchmark studies to other numerical permeability measurements in
the literature.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure
Detection of a flow induced magnetic field eigenmode in the Riga dynamo facility
In an experiment at the Riga sodium dynamo facility, a slowly growing
magnetic field eigenmode has been detected over a period of about 15 seconds.
For a slightly decreased propeller rotation rate, additional measurements
showed a slow decay of this mode. The measured results correspond satisfactory
with numerical predictions for the growth rates and frequencies
Makorin 1 controls embryonic patterning by alleviating Bruno1-mediated repression of oskar translation.
Makorins are evolutionary conserved proteins that contain C3H-type zinc finger modules and a RING E3 ubiquitin ligase domain. In Drosophila, maternal Makorin 1 (Mkrn1) has been linked to embryonic patterning but the mechanism remained unsolved. Here, we show that Mkrn1 is essential for axis specification and pole plasm assembly by translational activation of oskar (osk). We demonstrate that Mkrn1 interacts with poly(A) binding protein (pAbp) and binds specifically to osk 3' UTR in a region adjacent to A-rich sequences. Using Drosophila S2R+ cultured cells we show that this binding site overlaps with a Bruno1 (Bru1) responsive element (BREs) that regulates osk translation. We observe increased association of the translational repressor Bru1 with osk mRNA upon depletion of Mkrn1, indicating that both proteins compete for osk binding. Consistently, reducing Bru1 dosage partially rescues viability and Osk protein level in ovaries from Mkrn1 females. We conclude that Mkrn1 controls embryonic patterning and germ cell formation by specifically activating osk translation, most likely by competing with Bru1 to bind to osk 3' UTR
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