Concatenated non-stationary dispersive scenarios on complex terrain under summer conditions

International audienceThe results and discussions presented in this paper arise from a statistically representative study of the physical processes associated with the multimodal distribution of pollutants aloft and around a 343-m-tall chimney under summer conditions in the Iberian Peninsula. The indetermination of a transversal plume to the preferred transport direction during transitional periods implies a small (or null) physical significance of the classical definition of horizontal standard deviation of the concentration distribution. By experimentation and modelling, this paper analyses the atmospheric dispersion of the SO2 emissions from a power plant on complex terrain, describing the main dispersion features as an ensemble of "stationary dispersive scenarios" and reformulating some "classical" dispersive concepts to deal with the systematically monitored summer dispersive scenarios in inland Spain

Transitional dispersive scenarios driven by mesoscale flows on complex terrain under strong dry convective conditions

By experimentation and modelling, this paper analyses the atmospheric dispersion of the SO<sub>2</sub> emissions from a power plant on complex terrain under strong convective conditions, describing the main dispersion features as an ensemble of "stationary dispersive scenarios" and reformulating some "classical" dispersive concepts to deal with the systematically monitored summer dispersive scenarios in inland Spain. The results and discussions presented arise from a statistically representative study of the physical processes associated with the multimodal distribution of pollutants aloft and around a 343-m-tall chimney under strong dry convective conditions in the Iberian Peninsula. This paper analyses the importance of the identification and physical implications of transitional periods for air quality applications. The indetermination of a transversal plume to the preferred transport direction during these transitional periods implies a small (or null) physical significance of the classical definition of horizontal standard deviation of the concentration distribution

Nonlinear dynamics of coupled transverse-rotational waves in granular chains

The nonlinear dynamics of coupled waves in one-dimensional granular chains with and without a substrate is theoretically studied accounting for quadratic nonlinearity. The multiple time scale method is used to derive the nonlinear dispersion relations for infinite granular chains and to obtain the wave solutions for semiinfinite systems. It is shown that the sum-frequency and difference-frequency components of the coupled transverse-rotational waves are generated due to their nonlinear interactions with the longitudinal wave. Nonlinear resonances are not present in the chain with no substrate where these frequency components have low amplitudes and exhibit beating oscillations. In the chain positioned on a substrate two types of nonlinear resonances are predicted. At resonance, the fundamental frequency wave amplitudes decrease and the generated frequency component amplitudes increase along the chain, accompanied by the oscillations due to the wave numbers asynchronism. The results confirm the possibility of a highly efficient energy transfer between the waves of different frequencies, which could find applications in the design of acoustic devices for energy transfer and energy rectification

A study of dispersion in complex terrain under winter conditions using high-resolution mesoscale and Lagrangian particle models

A mesoscale model (MM5), a dispersive Langrangian particle model (FLEXPART), and intensive meteorological and COrrelation SPECtrometer (COSPEC) measurements from a field campaign are used to examine the advection and turbulent diffusion patterns associated with interactions and forcings between topography, synoptic atmospheric flows and thermally-driven circulations. This study describes the atmospheric dispersion of emissions from a power plant with a 343-m tall chimney, situated on very complex terrain in the North-East of Spain, under winter conditions. During the field campaign, the plume was transported with low transversal dispersion and deformed essentially due to the effect of mechanical turbulence. The main surface impacts appeared at long distances from the emission source (more than 30 km). The results show that the coupled models (MM5 and FLEXPART) are able to predict the plume integral advection from the power plant on very complex terrain. Integral advection and turbulent dispersion are derived from the dispersive Lagrangian model output for three consecutive days so that a direct quantitative comparison has been made between the temporal evolution of the predicted three-dimensional dispersive conditions and the COSPEC measurements. Comparison between experimental and simulated transversal dispersion shows an index of agreement between 80% and 90%, within distance ranges from 6 to 33 km from the stack. Linked to the orographic features, the simulated plume impacts on the ground more than 30 km away from the stack, because of the lee waves simulated by MM5

The importance of meteorological scales to forecast air pollution scenarios on coastal complex terrain

Some of the meteorological approaches commonly considered in urban air pollution models do not take into account the importance of the smaller scales in the meteorology of complex-terrain coastal sites. The aim of this work is to estimate the impact of using the proper meteorological scales when simulating the behaviour of the pollutant concentrations emitted in the lower layers over coastal complex terrain areas. The availability of experimental measurements of a power plant plume near the Castellón conurbation (on the Spanish Mediterranean coast) has allowed us to use this plume as a tracer of opportunity of the lower atmosphere to check the results of a simulation exercise using the RAMS mesoscale model coupled to the HYPACT particle model. The results obtained show that in a complex-terrain coastal site, because of the strong effect of the meteorological interactions between the different scales on the integral advection and the turbulent dispersion of pollutants, using an inadequate scale to solve the meteorology can result in a very big gap in the simulation of lower-layer pollutant behaviour at urban scales

Predictive impact of rare genomic copy number variations in siblings of individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Identification of genetic biomarkers associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) could improve recurrence prediction for families with a child with ASD. Here, we describe clinical microarray findings for 253 longitudinally phenotyped ASD families from the Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC), encompassing 288 infant siblings. By age 3, 103 siblings (35.8%) were diagnosed with ASD and 54 (18.8%) were developing atypically. Thirteen siblings have copy number variants (CNVs) involving ASD-relevant genes: 6 with ASD, 5 atypically developing, and 2 typically developing. Within these families, an ASD-related CNV in a sibling has a positive predictive value (PPV) for ASD or atypical development of 0.83; the Simons Simplex Collection of ASD families shows similar PPVs. Polygenic risk analyses suggest that common genetic variants may also contribute to ASD. CNV findings would have been pre-symptomatically predictive of ASD or atypical development in 11 (7%) of the 157 BSRC siblings who were eventually diagnosed clinically

Surface-reconstructed Icosahedral Structures for Lead Clusters

We describe a new family of icosahedral structures for lead clusters. In general, structures in this family contain a Mackay icosahedral core with a reconstructed two-shell outer-layer. This family includes the anti-Mackay icosahedra, which have have a Mackay icosahedral core but with most of the surface atoms in hexagonal close-packed positions. Using a many-body glue potential for lead, we identify two icosahedral structures in this family which have the lowest energies of any known structure in the size range from 900 to 15000 lead atoms. We show that these structures are stabilized by a feature of the many-body glue part of the interatomic potential.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Modes of Oscillation in Radiofrequency Paul Traps

We examine the time-dependent dynamics of ion crystals in radiofrequency traps. The problem of stable trapping of general three-dimensional crystals is considered and the validity of the pseudopotential approximation is discussed. We derive analytically the micromotion amplitude of the ions, rigorously proving well-known experimental observations. We use a method of infinite determinants to find the modes which diagonalize the linearized time-dependent dynamical problem. This allows obtaining explicitly the ('Floquet-Lyapunov') transformation to coordinates of decoupled linear oscillators. We demonstrate the utility of the method by analyzing the modes of a small `peculiar' crystal in a linear Paul trap. The calculations can be readily generalized to multispecies ion crystals in general multipole traps, and time-dependent quantum wavefunctions of ion oscillations in such traps can be obtained.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures, v2 adds citations and small correction

Symmetry broken motion of a periodically driven Brownian particle: nonadiabatic regime

We report a theoretical study of an overdamped Brownian particle dynamics in the presence of both a spatially modulated one-dimensional periodic potential and a periodic alternating force (AF). As the periodic potential has a low symmetry (a ratchet potential) the Brownian particle displays a broken symmetry motion with a nonzero time average velocity. By making use of the Green function method and a mapping to the theory of Brillouin bands the probability distribution of the particle coordinate is derived and the nonlinear dependence of the macroscopic velocity on the frequency and the amplitude of AF is found. In particular, our theory allows to go beyond the adiabatic limit and to explain the peculiar reversal of the velocity sign found previously in the numerical analysis.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Molecular dynamics simulations of lead clusters

Molecular dynamics simulations of nanometer-sized lead clusters have been performed using the Lim, Ong and Ercolessi glue potential (Surf. Sci. {\bf 269/270}, 1109 (1992)). The binding energies of clusters forming crystalline (fcc), decahedron and icosahedron structures are compared, showing that fcc cuboctahedra are the most energetically favoured of these polyhedral model structures. However, simulations of the freezing of liquid droplets produced a characteristic form of ``shaved'' icosahedron, in which atoms are absent at the edges and apexes of the polyhedron. This arrangement is energetically favoured for 600-4000 atom clusters. Larger clusters favour crystalline structures. Indeed, simulated freezing of a 6525-atom liquid droplet produced an imperfect fcc Wulff particle, containing a number of parallel stacking faults. The effects of temperature on the preferred structure of crystalline clusters below the melting point have been considered. The implications of these results for the interpretation of experimental data is discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 18 figues, new section added and one figure added, other minor changes for publicatio