Unified Description of Aging and Rate Effects in Yield of Glassy Solids

The competing effects of slow structural relaxations (aging) and deformation at constant strain rate on the shear yield stress $\tau^y$ of simple model glasses are examined using molecular simulations. At long times, aging leads to a logarithmic increase in density and $\tau^y$. The yield stress also rises logarithmically with rate, but shows a sharp transition in slope at a rate that decreases with increasing age. We present a simple phenomenological model that includes both intrinsic rate dependence and the change in properties with the total age of the system at yield. As predicted by the model, all data for each temperature collapse onto a universal curve.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Miscible density driven convective mass transfer process analysis based on Entransy dissipation theory

Density driven convective mass transfer process in porous media is one of the most universal phenomena in underground aquifer. In this study, an original model defining Nu (or Sh) number for miscible mass transfer system was derived, based on basic concept of integrated entransy dissipation rate. Numerical simulation results of density driven convective mass transfer process in a closed Hele-Shaw cell and porous media are analyzed. In the process of dilute brine-water mass transfer system in Hele-Shaw cell, three different stages were observed. Meanwhile, time dependent entransy variation and Nu number using our definition also show three different steps in accordance with the observing phenomenon which are perturbation growing stage, instable mass transfer stage and stabilized stage. Very different fingering patterns were observed in dilute brine-water system and PEG-Water system because the latter one has not only the Non-Monotonic Density-Concentration profile but also the strong dependence of viscosity on concentration which can cause viscous-instability accompanied with density driven instability

Human Arm simulation for interactive constrained environment design

During the conceptual and prototype design stage of an industrial product, it is crucial to take assembly/disassembly and maintenance operations in advance. A well-designed system should enable relatively easy access of operating manipulators in the constrained environment and reduce musculoskeletal disorder risks for those manual handling operations. Trajectory planning comes up as an important issue for those assembly and maintenance operations under a constrained environment, since it determines the accessibility and the other ergonomics issues, such as muscle effort and its related fatigue. In this paper, a customer-oriented interactive approach is proposed to partially solve ergonomic related issues encountered during the design stage under a constrained system for the operator's convenience. Based on a single objective optimization method, trajectory planning for different operators could be generated automatically. Meanwhile, a motion capture based method assists the operator to guide the trajectory planning interactively when either a local minimum is encountered within the single objective optimization or the operator prefers guiding the virtual human manually. Besides that, a physical engine is integrated into this approach to provide physically realistic simulation in real time manner, so that collision free path and related dynamic information could be computed to determine further muscle fatigue and accessibility of a product designComment: International Journal on Interactive Design and Manufacturing (IJIDeM) (2012) 1-12. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1012.432

The gut microbiota as a potential biomarker for methamphetamine use disorder: evidence from two independent datasets

BackgroundMethamphetamine use disorder (MUD) poses a considerable public health threat, and its identification remains challenging due to the subjective nature of the current diagnostic system that relies on self-reported symptoms. Recent studies have suggested that MUD patients may have gut dysbiosis and that gut microbes may be involved in the pathological process of MUD. We aimed to examine gut dysbiosis among MUD patients and generate a machine-learning model utilizing gut microbiota features to facilitate the identification of MUD patients.MethodFecal samples from 78 MUD patients and 50 sex- and age-matched healthy controls (HCs) were analyzed by 16S rDNA sequencing to identify gut microbial characteristics that could help differentiate MUD patients from HCs. Based on these microbial features, we developed a machine learning model to help identify MUD patients. We also used public data to verify the model; these data were downloaded from a published study conducted in Wuhan, China (with 16 MUD patients and 14 HCs). Furthermore, we explored the gut microbial features of MUD patients within the first three months of withdrawal to identify the withdrawal period of MUD patients based on microbial features.ResultsMUD patients exhibited significant gut dysbiosis, including decreased richness and evenness and changes in the abundance of certain microbes, such as Proteobacteria and Firmicutes. Based on the gut microbiota features of MUD patients, we developed a machine learning model that demonstrated exceptional performance with an AUROC of 0.906 for identifying MUD patients. Additionally, when tested using an external and cross-regional dataset, the model achieved an AUROC of 0.830. Moreover, MUD patients within the first three months of withdrawal exhibited specific gut microbiota features, such as the significant enrichment of Actinobacteria. The machine learning model had an AUROC of 0.930 for identifying the withdrawal period of MUD patients.ConclusionIn conclusion, the gut microbiota is a promising biomarker for identifying MUD and thus represents a potential approach to improving the identification of MUD patients. Future longitudinal studies are needed to validate these findings

Logarithmic rate dependence in deforming granular materials

Rate-independence for stresses within a granular material is a basic tenet of many models for slow dense granular flows. By contrast, logarithmic rate dependence of stresses is found in solid-on-solid friction, in geological settings, and elsewhere. In this work, we show that logarithmic rate-dependence occurs in granular materials for plastic (irreversible) deformations that occur during shearing but not for elastic (reversible) deformations, such as those that occur under moderate repetitive compression. Increasing the shearing rate, \Omega, leads to an increase in the stress and the stress fluctuations that at least qualitatively resemble what occurs due to an increase in the density. Increases in \Omega also lead to qualitative changes in the distributions of stress build-up and relaxation events. If shearing is stopped at t=0, stress relaxations occur with \sigma(t)/ \sigma(t=0) \simeq A \log(t/t_0). This collective relaxation of the stress network over logarithmically long times provides a mechanism for rate-dependent strengthening.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. RevTeX

Mechanisms for slow strengthening in granular materials

Several mechanisms cause a granular material to strengthen over time at low applied stress. The strength is determined from the maximum frictional force F_max experienced by a shearing plate in contact with wet or dry granular material after the layer has been at rest for a waiting time \tau. The layer strength increases roughly logarithmically with \tau -only- if a shear stress is applied during the waiting time. The mechanisms of strengthening are investigated by sensitive displacement measurements and by imaging of particle motion in the shear zone. Granular matter can strengthen due to a slow shift in the particle arrangement under shear stress. Humidity also leads to strengthening, but is found not to be its sole cause. In addition to these time dependent effects, the static friction coefficient can also be increased by compaction of the granular material under some circumstances, and by cycling of the applied shear stress.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Tidal modulation and back-propagating fronts in slow slip events simulated with a velocity-weakening to velocity-strengthening friction law

We examine tidal modulation and back-propagating fronts in simulated slow slip events using a rate and state friction law that is steady state velocity weakening at low slip rates and velocity strengthening at high slip rates. Tidal forcing causes a quasi-sinusoidal modulation of the slip rate during the events, with the maximum moment rate occurring close to or slightly after the maximum applied stress. The amplitude of modulation scales linearly with the tidal load and increases as the tidal period increases relative to the timescale for state evolution. If we choose parameters so that the model matches the observed tidal modulation of slip in Cascadia, it can reproduce only a subset of the stress drops inferred from observations and only in a limited portion of parameter space. The tidal forcing also causes back-propagating fronts to form and move back through the region that has already ruptured. The stress drop that drives these back-propagating fronts sometimes comes from the tidal load and sometimes from a stress recovery that occurs behind the front in tidal and non-tidal simulations. We investigate the slip and propagation rates in the back-propagating fronts and compare them with observations. The modeled fronts propagate too slowly to be good representations of the fronts inferred from tremor observations. For the simulated fronts to propagate at the observed speeds, the stress drops driving them would have to be more than 70 % of the stress drop driving the forward-propagating front

Frictional behavior of oceanic transform faults and its influence on earthquake characteristics

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 117 (2012): B04315, doi:10.1029/2011JB009025.We use a three-dimensional strike-slip fault model in the framework of rate and state-dependent friction to investigate earthquake behavior and scaling relations on oceanic transform faults (OTFs). Gabbro friction data under hydrothermal conditions are mapped onto OTFs using temperatures from (1) a half-space cooling model, and (2) a thermal model that incorporates a visco-plastic rheology, non-Newtonian viscous flow and the effects of shear heating and hydrothermal circulation. Without introducing small-scale frictional heterogeneities on the fault, our model predicts that an OTF segment can transition between seismic and aseismic slip over many earthquake cycles, consistent with the multimode hypothesis for OTF ruptures. The average seismic coupling coefficient χ is strongly dependent on the ratio of seismogenic zone width W to earthquake nucleation size h*; χ increases by four orders of magnitude as W/h* increases from ∼1 to 2. Specifically, the average χ = 0.15 ± 0.05 derived from global OTF earthquake catalogs can be reached at W/h* ≈ 1.2–1.7. Further, in all simulations the area of the largest earthquake rupture is less than the total seismogenic area and we predict a deficiency of large earthquakes on long transforms, which is also consistent with observations. To match these observations over this narrow range of W/h* requires an increase in the characteristic slip distance dc as the seismogenic zone becomes wider and normal stress is higher on long transforms. Earthquake magnitude and distribution on the Gofar and Romanche transforms are better predicted by simulations using the visco-plastic model than the half-space cooling model.This work was supported by NSF-EAR award 1015221, NSF-OCE award 1061203, and a J. Lamar Worzel Assistant Scientist Fund to Y. Liu at WHOI.2012-10-2

Evidence for Anthropogenic Surface Loading as Trigger Mechanism of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake

Two and a half years prior to China's M7.9 Wenchuan earthquake of May 2008, at least 300 million metric tons of water accumulated with additional seasonal water level changes in the Minjiang River Valley at the eastern margin of the Longmen Shan. This article shows that static surface loading in the Zipingpu water reservoir induced Coulomb failure stresses on the nearby Beichuan thrust fault system at <17km depth. Triggering stresses exceeded levels of daily lunar and solar tides and perturbed a fault area measuring 416+/-96km^2. These stress perturbations, in turn, likely advanced the clock of the mainshock and directed the initial rupture propagation upward towards the reservoir on the "Coulomb-like" Beichuan fault with rate-and-state dependent frictional behavior. Static triggering perturbations produced up to 60 years (0.6%) of equivalent tectonic loading, and show strong correlations to the coseismic slip. Moreover, correlations between clock advancement and coseismic slip, observed during the mainshock beneath the reservoir, are strongest for a longer seismic cycle (10kyr) of M>7 earthquakes. Finally, the daily event rate of the micro-seismicity (M>0.5) correlates well with the static stress perturbations, indicating destabilization.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

Modeling afterslip and aftershocks following the 1992 Landers earthquake

One way to probe the rheology of the lithosphere and fault zones is to analyze the temporal evolution of deformation following a large earthquake. In such a case, the lithosphere responds to a known stress change that can be assessed from earthquake slip models constrained from seismology and geodesy. Here, we model the postseismic response of a fault zone that is assumed to obey a rate-strengthening rheology, where the frictional stress varies as aσ ln(ε), ε being the deformation rate and aσ > 0 a rheological parameter. The model is simple enough that these parameters can be estimated by inversion of postseismic geodetic data. We apply this approach to the analysis of geodetic displacements following the M_w 7.3, 1992, Landers earthquake. The model adjusts well the measured displacements and implies aσ ≈ 0.47–0.53 MPa. In addition, we show that aftershocks and afterslip follow the same temporal evolution and that the spatiotemporal distribution of aftershocks is consistent with the idea that they are driven by reloading of the seismogenic zone resulting from frictional afterslip