Red blood cells and other non-spherical capsules in shear flow: oscillatory dynamics and the tank-treading-to-tumbling transition

We consider the motion of red blood cells and other non-spherical microcapsules dilutely suspended in a simple shear flow. Our analysis indicates that depending on the viscosity, membrane elasticity, geometry and shear rate, the particle exhibits either tumbling, tank-treading of the membrane about the viscous interior with periodic oscillations of the orientation angle, or intermittent behavior in which the two modes occur alternately. For red blood cells, we compute the complete phase diagram and identify a novel tank-treading-to-tumbling transition at low shear rates. Observations of such motions coupled with our theoretical framework may provide a sensitive means of assessing capsule properties.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Growth and decay of localized disturbances on a surfactant-coated spreading film

If the surface of a quiescent thin liquid film is suddenly coated by a patch of surface active material like a surfactant monolayer, the film is set in motion and begins spreading. An insoluble surfactant will rapidly attempt to coat the entire surface of the film thereby minimizing the liquid's surface tension. The shear stress that develops during the spreading process produces a maximum in surface velocity in the region where the moving film meets the quiescent layer. This region is characterized by a shock front with large interfacial curvature and a corresponding local buildup of surfactant which creates a spike in the concentration gradient. In this paper, we investigate the sensitivity of this region to infinitesimal disturbances. Accordingly, we introduce a measure of disturbance amplification and transient growth analogous to a kinetic energy that couples variations in film thickness to the surfactant concentration. These variables undergo significant amplification during the brief period in which they are convected past the downstream tip of the monolayer, where the variation in concentration gradient and surface curvature are largest. Once they migrate past this sensitive area, the perturbations weaken considerably and the system approaches a stable configuration. It appears that the localized disturbances of the type we consider here, cannot sustain asymptotic instability. Nonetheless, our study of the dynamics leading to the large transient growth clearly illustrates how the coupling of Marangoni and capillary forces work in unison to stabilize the spreading process against localized perturbations

Thinning and disturbance growth in liquid films mobilized by continuous surfactant delivery

A generalized linear stability analysis is applied to the case of a thin liquid film propelled to spread by a continuous supply of surfactant. The time-dependent base states for the film thickness and surfactant concentration give rise to a nonautonomous system describing disturbance propagation. As a first approximation, the nonautonomous operator is treated as time independent, thereby reducing the system of equations to a standard eigenvalue problem. For the range of parameters investigated, this modal approximation reveals a band of unstable modes corresponding to the growth of transverse, sinusoidal corrugations. A transient growth analysis of the fully time-dependent system, which requires the solution of an initial value problem, also signals the possibility of large disturbance growth. In both cases, significant amplification of infinitesimal disturbances can be traced to the region of the film most rapidly thinned by Marangoni stresses, which is characterized by large interfacial curvature and a sharp variation in shear stress. In contrast to previous models implementing a finite surfactant source that predict asymptotic stability, large transient growth and asymptotic instability are possible for the case of sustained surfactant release

Measuring carrier density in parallel conduction layers of quantum Hall systems

An experimental analysis for two parallel conducting layers determines the full resistivity tensor of the parallel layer, at magnetic fields where the other layer is in the quantum Hall regime. In heterostructures which exhibit parallel conduction in the modulation-doped layer, this analysis quantitatively determines the charge density in the doping layer and can be used to estimate the mobility. To illustrate one application, experimental data show magnetic freeze-out of parallel conduction in a modulation doped heterojunction. As another example, the carrier density of a minimally populated second subband in a two-subband quantum well is determined. A simple formula is derived that can estimate the carrier density in a highly resistive parallel layer from a single Hall measurement of the total system.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Outflanking and securely using the PIN/TAN-System

The PIN/TAN-system is an authentication and authorization scheme used in e-business. Like other similar schemes it is successfully attacked by criminals. After shortly classifying the various kinds of attacks we accomplish malicious code attacks on real World Wide Web transaction systems. In doing so we find that it is really easy to outflank these systems. This is even supported by the users' behavior. We give a few simple behavior rules to improve this situation. But their impact is limited. Also the providers support the attacks by having implementation flaws in their installations. Finally we show that the PIN/TAN-system is not suitable for usage in highly secure applications.Comment: 7 pages; 2 figures; IEEE style; final versio

Speed Limits in General Relativity

Some standard results on the initial value problem of general relativity in matter are reviewed. These results are applied first to show that in a well defined sense, finite perturbations in the gravitational field travel no faster than light, and second to show that it is impossible to construct a warp drive as considered by Alcubierre (1994) in the absence of exotic matter.Comment: 7 pages; AMS-LaTeX; accepted for publication by Classical and Quantum Gravit

The Community Structure of R&D Cooperation in Europe. Evidence from a social network perspective

The focus of this paper is on pre-competitive R&D cooperation across Europe, as captured by R&D joint ventures funded by the European Commission in the time period 1998-2002, within the 5th Framework Program. The cooperations in this Framework Program give rise to a bipartite network with 72,745 network edges between 25,839 actors (representing organizations that include firms, universities, research organizations and public agencies) and 9,490 R&D projects. With this construction, participating actors are linked only through joint projects. In this paper we describe the community identification problem based on the concept of modularity, and use the recently introduced label-propagation algorithm to identify communities in the network, and differentiate the identified communities by developing community-specific profiles using social network analysis and geographic visualization techniques. We expect the results to enrich our picture of the European Research Area by providing new insights into the global and local structures of R&D cooperation across Europe

Emissivity measurements of reflective surfaces at near-millimeter wavelengths

We have developed an instrument for directly measuring the emissivity of reflective surfaces at near-millimeter wavelengths. The thermal emission of a test sample is compared with that of a reference surface, allowing the emissivity of the sample to be determined without heating. The emissivity of the reference surface is determined by one’s heating the reference surface and measuring the increase in emission. The instrument has an absolute accuracy of Δe = 5 x 10^-4 and can reproducibly measure a difference in emissivity as small as Δe = 10^-4 between flat reflective samples. We have used the instrument to measure the emissivity of metal films evaporated on glass and carbon fiber-reinforced plastic composite surfaces. We measure an emissivity of (2.15 ± 0.4) x 10^-3 for gold evaporated on glass and (2.65 ± 0.5) x 10^-3 for aluminum evaporated on carbon fiber-reinforced plastic composite

The FOMC in 1996: "watchful waiting"

In light of recent research findings, Michael J. Dueker and Andreas M. Fischer review the 1996 policy posture of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the monetary policymaking body of the Federal Reserve System. They find several areas in which the FOMC's policy positions were consistent with the conclusions of recent research studies, whether or not these studies directly influenced the Committee's thinking. In general, the authors conclude that the FOMC intended to ensure that inflation was contained near 3 percent in 1996 but did not intend to bring down the trend rate of inflation that year.Federal Open Market Committee ; Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy - United States ; Consumer price indexes