The water clock of Proteus mirabilis paces colony periodic and synchronous swarming

For decades, the origin of the concentric ring pattern of bacterial swarming colonies has puzzled microbiologists. Thanks to _in situ_ and real time infrared microspectroscopy and the brilliance of the infrared beam at SOLEIL synchrotron, we demonstrate here that _Proteus mirabilis_ swarming is paced by a periodic variation of the water activity at colony's edge. This periodic variation originates a phase transition within the extracellular matrix water H bond network which switches on and off the exopolysaccharides viscoelasticity and, consequently, the ability of bacterial cells to swarm. A dynamic behaviour emerges from the global properties of the multicellular entity which here relies on the ability of the bacterial cells to tune exoproducts synthesis in order to undergo sharp transitions above/below a given water activity threshold

DNS of the interaction between a shock wave and a turbulent shear flow: some effects of anisotropy

Direct numerical simulation is used to study the interaction of a Mach 1.5 shock wave and various types of anisotropic turbulent flows. We compare the interaction of isotropic, axisymmetric and sheared turbulences (sometimes combined), with a specific interest for the sheared situation. The sign and magnitude of the correlation between the velocity and temperature fluctuations are found to have a crucial influence on the kinetic energy amplification across the shock. A decrease in magnitude is observed during the interaction for the velocity cross-correlation. The balance equation of this quantity is investigated and the terms responsible for this behaviour are identified. The shear stress effect upon fluctuating vorticity and the dissipation length scale is also presented. Thermodynamic fluctuations are finally analyzed, showing the departure from the isentropic state in the sheared situation compared to the isotropic one

A study of sheared turbulence/shock interaction: velocity fluctuations and enstrophy behaviour

Direct Numerical Simulations of the idealized interaction of a normal shock wave with several turbulent shear flows are conducted. We analyse the behaviours of velocity and vorticity fluctuations and compare them to what happens in the isotropic situation. Investigation of the budgets of these quantities allows to isolate the mechanisms underlying the physics of the interaction, and reveals the importance of enthalpic production and baroclinic torque in such flows

DNS of the interaction between a shock wave and a turbulent shear flow

Direct numerical simulation is used to study the interaction of a Mach 1.5 shock wave and various types of anisotropic turbulent flows. We compare the interaction of isotropic, axisymmetric and sheared turbulences (sometimes combined), with a specific interest for the sheared situation

Les compagnies d'aventure en Italie. Ascenseurs sociaux et mondes parallèles au milieu du XIVe siècle

L'histoire des compagnies d'aventure est souvent résumée par le destin des condottieri, personnages emblématiques des difficultés politiques de la péninsule italienne, voire témoins d'une démilitarisation de la société citadine sur fonds de crise des valeurs communales

Study of the turbulent mixing zone induced by the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability using Laser Doppler Velocimetry and Schlieren visualizations

An experimental study of the compressible mixing generated by the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI) is carried out in a vertical shock tube by means of two-components Laser Doppler Velocimetry (2C-LDV) measurements and Time-resolved Schlieren visualizations. An attempt is made to quantify the RMI-induced air/sulphurhexafluoride (SF6) mixing by measuring turbulence levels inside the mixing zone at a given stage of its development and by extracting the growth rate of the mixing zone from the Schlieren images

Experimental determination of the growth rate of Richtmyer-Meshkov induced turbulent mixing after reshock

The time evolution of the width of the turbulent mixing zone arising from the late development of Richtmyer-Meshkov instability is investigated in this work. This is achieved by means of the analysis of time-resolved Schlieren images obtained with a given set of shock-tube experiments. The post-reshock growth rate of the mixing zone width is found to be nearly insensitive to the development state of the mixing at the time of reshock

Investigation of the interface stretching within a reshocked mixing zone produced by the Richtmyer Meshkov Instability

The spatio-temporal evolution of a bi-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) air/SF6 mixing layer issued from the development of a Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI) under reshock is investigated using direct numerical simulations (DNS) at moderate Mach number (M=1.2) and high Atwood number (A=0.67). This study discusses the relevance of an original criterion based on the measurement of the gaseous interface stretching in the analysis of the mixing process. The first part of the work provides an estimation of the validity of a 2D approach in time for the retained simulation cases. To this avail, a 2D simulation for one typical parameter set is compared to its 3D counterpart. As a means of comparing the development of the mixing layer in both simulations, the classical criterion relying on the evaluation of the mixing layer thickness has been chosen. This criterion is commonly used to characterize baroclinic instability as it is intuitive and easy to compute and to analyze. However, this criterion only provides the mixing zone frontiers but does not provide information about the length scale content and its evolution on the interface. In order to tackle this issue, it is proposed to adapt a still documented criterion for the determination of the interface stretching, based on the computation of the temporal evolution of the mixing interface length for the study of various cases involving different initial interface perturbations, with reshock consideration