Testing "microscopic" theories of glass-forming liquids

We assess the validity of "microscopic" approaches of glass-forming liquids based on the sole k nowledge of the static pair density correlations. To do so we apply them to a benchmark provided by two liquid models that share very similar static pair density correlation functions while disp laying distinct temperature evolutions of their relaxation times. We find that the approaches are unsuccessful in describing the difference in the dynamical behavior of the two models. Our study is not exhausti ve, and we have not tested the effect of adding corrections by including for instance three-body density correlations. Yet, our results appear strong enough to challenge the claim that the slowd own of relaxation in glass-forming liquids, for which it is well established that the changes of the static structure factor with temperature are small, can be explained by "microscopic" appr oaches only requiring the static pair density correlations as nontrivial input.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figs; Accepted to EPJE Special Issue on The Physics of Glasses. Arxiv version contains an addendum to the appendix which does not appear in published versio

Direct measurements of biogenic dimethylsulphide fluxes from the oceans : a synthesis

Author Posting. © National Research Council Canada, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of National Research Council Canada for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 61 (2004): 836-844, doi:10.1139/F04-047.This paper provides a brief overview of the state-of-the-art of techniques that are currently used for field measurements of trace gas fluxes and the subsequent derivation of gas transfer rates over the oceans. Special attention is given to the relaxed eddy accumulation (REA) and gradient flux (GF) techniques, which rely on empirical functions thus far mainly validated over land. The universality of these functions and their application at sea have not yet been fully evaluated. New experiments have shown that the emission of dimethylsulphide (DMS) can be measured by the REA and GF techniques. Moreover, these measurements have provided parameterizations of gas exchange rates that are within the range of relationships between wind speed and gas transfer that have recently been derived from eddy correlation (EC) and deliberate tracer measurements. Using DMS as a model, gas is potentially a powerful approach to intercalibrate the REA, GF, and EC techniques, test their applicability in the marine environment, and investigate processes that determine trace gas exchange across the ocean surface