An accurate and efficient Lagrangian sub-grid model

A computationally efficient model is introduced to account for the sub-grid scale velocities of tracer particles dispersed in statistically homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flows. The model embeds the multi-scale nature of turbulent temporal and spatial correlations, that are essential to reproduce multi-particle dispersion. It is capable to describe the Lagrangian diffusion and dispersion of temporally and spatially correlated clouds of particles. Although the model neglects intermittent corrections, we show that pair and tetrad dispersion results nicely compare with Direct Numerical Simulations of statistically isotropic and homogeneous $3D$ turbulence. This is in agreement with recent observations that deviations from self-similar pair dispersion statistics are rare events

Closed sequential pattern mining for sitemap generation

A sitemap represents an explicit specification of the design concept and knowledge organization of a website and is therefore considered as the website’s basic ontology. It not only presents the main usage flows for users, but also hierarchically organizes concepts of the website. Typically, sitemaps are defined by webmasters in the very early stages of the website design. However, during their life websites significantly change their structure, their content and their possible navigation paths. Even if this is not the case, webmasters can fail to either define sitemaps that reflect the actual website content or, vice versa, to define the actual organization of pages and links which do not reflect the intended organization of the content coded in the sitemaps. In this paper we propose an approach which automatically generates sitemaps. Contrary to other approaches proposed in the literature, which mainly generate sitemaps from the textual content of the pages, in this work sitemaps are generated by analyzing the Web graph of a website. This allows us to: i) automatically generate a sitemap on the basis of possible navigation paths, ii) compare the generated sitemaps with either the sitemap provided by the Web designer or with the intended sitemap of the website and, consequently, iii) plan possible website re-organization. The solution we propose is based on closed frequent sequence extraction and only concentrates on hyperlinks organized in “Web lists”, which are logical lists embedded in the pages. These “Web lists” are typically used for supporting users in Web site navigation and they include menus, navbars and content tables. Experiments performed on three real datasets show that the extracted sitemaps are much more similar to those defined by website curators than those obtained by competitor algorithms

Scalar Turbulence in Convective Boundary Layers by Changing the Entrainment Flux

Abstract A large-eddy simulation model is adopted to investigate the evolution of scalars transported by atmospheric cloud-free convective boundary layer flows. Temperature fluctuations due to the ground release of sensible heat and concentration fluctuations of a trace gas emitted at the homogeneous surface are mixed by turbulence within the unstable boundary layer. On the top, the entrainment zone is varied to obtain two distinct situations: (i) the temperature inversion is strong and the trace gas increment across the entrainment region is small, yielding to a small top flux with respect to the surface emission; (ii) the temperature inversion at the top of the convective boundary layer is weak, and the scalar increment large enough to achieve a concentration flux toward the free atmosphere that overwhelms the surface flux. In both cases, an estimation of the entrainment flux is obtained within a simple model, and it is tested against numerical data. The evolution of the scalar profiles is discussed in terms of the different entrainment–surface flux ratios. Results show that, when entrainment at the top of the boundary layer is weak, temperature and trace gas scalar fields are strongly correlated, particularly in the lower part of the boundary layer. This means that they exhibit similar behavior from the largest down to the smallest spatial scales. However, when entrainment is strong, as moving from the surface, differences in the transport of the two scalars arise. Finally, it is shown that, independently of the scalar regime, the temperature field exhibits more intermittent fluctuations than the trace gas

The decay of homogeneous anisotropic turbulence

We present the results of a numerical investigation of three-dimensional decaying turbulence with statistically homogeneous and anisotropic initial conditions. We show that at large times, in the inertial range of scales: (i) isotropic velocity fluctuations decay self-similarly at an algebraic rate which can be obtained by dimensional arguments; (ii) the ratio of anisotropic to isotropic fluctuations of a given intensity falls off in time as a power law, with an exponent approximately independent of the strength of the fluctuation; (iii) the decay of anisotropic fluctuations is not self-similar, their statistics becoming more and more intermittent as time elapses. We also investigate the early stages of the decay. The different short-time behavior observed in two experiments differing by the phase organization of their initial conditions gives a new hunch on the degree of universality of small-scale turbulence statistics, i.e. its independence of the conditions at large scales.Comment: 9 pages, 17 figure

Lagrangian Structure Functions in Turbulence: A Quantitative Comparison between Experiment and Direct Numerical Simulation

A detailed comparison between data from experimental measurements and numerical simulations of Lagrangian velocity structure functions in turbulence is presented. By integrating information from experiments and numerics, a quantitative understanding of the velocity scaling properties over a wide range of time scales and Reynolds numbers is achieved. The local scaling properties of the Lagrangian velocity increments for the experimental and numerical data are in good quantitative agreement for all time lags. The degree of intermittency changes when measured close to the Kolmogorov time scales or at larger time lags. This study resolves apparent disagreements between experiment and numerics.Comment: 13 RevTeX pages (2 columns) + 8 figures include

Lyapunov exponents of heavy particles in turbulence

Lyapunov exponents of heavy particles and tracers advected by homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flows are investigated by means of direct numerical simulations. For large values of the Stokes number, the main effect of inertia is to reduce the chaoticity with respect to fluid tracers. Conversely, for small inertia, a counter-intuitive increase of the first Lyapunov exponent is observed. The flow intermittency is found to induce a Reynolds number dependency for the statistics of the finite time Lyapunov exponents of tracers. Such intermittency effects are found to persist at increasing inertia.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Acceleration statistics of heavy particles in turbulence

We present the results of direct numerical simulations of heavy particle transport in homogeneous, isotropic, fully developed turbulence, up to resolution $512^3$ ($R_\lambda\approx 185$). Following the trajectories of up to 120 million particles with Stokes numbers, $St$, in the range from 0.16 to 3.5 we are able to characterize in full detail the statistics of particle acceleration. We show that: ({\it i}) The root-mean-squared acceleration $a_{\rm rms}$ sharply falls off from the fluid tracer value already at quite small Stokes numbers; ({\it ii}) At a given $St$ the normalised acceleration $a_{\rm rms}/(\epsilon^3/\nu)^{1/4}$ increases with $R_\lambda$ consistently with the trend observed for fluid tracers; ({\it iii}) The tails of the probability density function of the normalised acceleration $a/a_{\rm rms}$ decrease with $St$. Two concurrent mechanisms lead to the above results: preferential concentration of particles, very effective at small $St$, and filtering induced by the particle response time, that takes over at larger $St$.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figs, 2 tables. A section with new results has been added. Revised version accepted for pubblication on Journal of Fluid Mechanic

Heavy particle concentration in turbulence at dissipative and inertial scales

Spatial distributions of heavy particles suspended in an incompressible isotropic and homogeneous turbulent flow are investigated by means of high resolution direct numerical simulations. In the dissipative range, it is shown that particles form fractal clusters with properties independent of the Reynolds number. Clustering is there optimal when the particle response time is of the order of the Kolmogorov time scale $\tau_\eta$. In the inertial range, the particle distribution is no longer scale-invariant. It is however shown that deviations from uniformity depend on a rescaled contraction rate, which is different from the local Stokes number given by dimensional analysis. Particle distribution is characterized by voids spanning all scales of the turbulent flow; their signature in the coarse-grained mass probability distribution is an algebraic behavior at small densities.Comment: 4 RevTeX pgs + 4 color Figures included, 1 figure eliminated second part of the paper completely revise

Nonperturbative Spectrum of Anomalous Scaling Exponents in the Anisotropic Sectors of Passively Advected Magnetic Fields

We address the scaling behavior of the covariance of the magnetic field in the three-dimensional kinematic dynamo problem when the boundary conditions and/or the external forcing are not isotropic. The velocity field is gaussian and $\delta$-correlated in time, and its structure function scales with a positive exponent $\xi$. The covariance of the magnetic field is naturally computed as a sum of contributions proportional to the irreducible representations of the SO(3) symmetry group. The amplitudes are non-universal, determined by boundary conditions. The scaling exponents are universal, forming a discrete, strictly increasing spectrum indexed by the sectors of the symmetry group. When the initial mean magnetic field is zero, no dynamo effect is found, irrespective of the anisotropy of the forcing. The rate of isotropization with decreasing scales is fully understood from these results.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to PR

E-kayak: A Wireless DAQ System for Real Time Performance Analysis

Abstract The use of microelectronic measurement systems properly designed for sport performance monitoring is, in recent years, increasingly common to give helpful feedback in training of professional athletes. Different are the systems today available, some of them make use of video analysis while others are based on the measure of specific kinematic or dynamic parameters. In this paper, we present a study on a new portable data acquisition system (E-kayak – ApLab Rome Italy) for real time monitoring of the boat and paddling dynamics. The system gives real time feedback to the athlete during the training session. Moreover, the training data can then be downloaded to a PC for further analysis from the coach. The acquired data can help evaluating the paddling technique and spotting technical flaws, to improve performance. A first prototype of the system has been manufactured and at the moment is still in the testing phase. Some results of the preliminary tests are presented in this paper