Helicity advection in Turbulent Models

Helicity transfer in a shell model of turbulence is investigated. In particular, we study the scaling behavior of helicity transfer in a dynamical model of turbulence lacking inversion symmetry. We present some phenomenological and numerical support to the idea that Helicity becomes -at scale small enough- a passively-advected quantity.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, contribution to the proceedings of the conference: Disorder and Chaos, in honour of Giovanni Paladin, September 22-24, 1997, Rom

Helicity Transfer in Turbulent Models

Helicity transfer in a shell model of turbulence is investigated. We show that a Reynolds-independent helicity flux is present in the model when the large scale forcing breaks inversion symmetry. The equivalent in Shell Models of the ``2/15 law'', obtained from helicity conservation in Navier-Stokes eqs., is derived and tested. The odd part of helicity flux statistic is found to be dominated by a few very intense events. In a particular model, we calculate analytically leading and sub-leading contribution to the scaling of triple velocity correlation.Comment: 4 pages, LaTex, 2 figure

Intermittency in the large N-limit of a spherical shell model for turbulence

A spherical shell model for turbulence, obtained by coupling $N$ replicas of the Gledzer, Okhitani and Yamada shell model, is considered. Conservation of energy and of an helicity-like invariant is imposed in the inviscid limit. In the $N \to \infty$ limit this model is analytically soluble and is remarkably similar to the random coupling model version of shell dynamics. We have studied numerically the convergence of the scaling exponents toward the value predicted by Kolmogorov theory (K41). We have found that the rate of convergence to the K41 solution is linear in 1/N. The restoring of Kolmogorov law has been related to the behaviour of the probability distribution functions of the instantaneous scaling exponent.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, 3 Postscript figures, to be published on Europhys. Let

Human Apolipoprotein B Transgenic Mice Generated with 207- and 145-Kilobase Pair Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes. Evidence that a distant 5'-element confers appropriate transgene expression in the intestine

We reported previously that ~80-kilobase pair (kb) P1 bacteriophage clones spanning either the human or mouse apoB gene (clones p158 and p649, respectively) confer apoB expression in the liver of transgenic mice, but not in the intestine. We hypothesized that the absence of intestinal expression was due to the fact that these clones lacked a distant DNA element controlling intestinal expression. To test this possibility, transgenic mice were generated with 145- and 207-kb bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) that contained the human apoB gene and more extensive 5'- and 3'-flanking sequences. RNase protection, in situ hybridization, immunohistochemical, and genetic complementation studies revealed that the BAC transgenic mice manifested appropriate apoB gene expression in both the intestine and the liver, indicating that both BACs contained the distant intestinal element. To determine whether the regulatory element was located 5' or 3' to the apoB gene, transgenic mice were generated by co-microinjecting embryos with p158 and either the 5'- or 3'-sequences from the 145-kb BAC. Analysis of these mice indicated that the apoB gene's intestinal element is located 5' to the structural gene. Cumulatively, the transgenic mouse studies suggest that the intestinal element is located between -33 and -70 kb 5' to the apoB gene

Behavioral dominance between female color morphs of a Lake Victoria cichlid fish

Species that exhibit genetic color polymorphism are suitable for studying the evolutionary forces that maintain heritable phenotypic variation in nature. Male color morphs often differ in behavioral dominance, affecting the evolution of color polymorphisms. However, behavioral dominance among female color morphs has received far less attention. We studied a polymorphic population of the cichlid fish Neochromis omnicaeruleus from Lake Victoria, in which 3 distinct female color morphs coexist, black-and-white blotched (WB), orange blotched (OB), and plain (P) color morphs. First, we investigated dominance relationships among female morphs using triadic and dyadic encounters in the laboratory. In triadic encounters, both WB and OB females dominated plain, whereas WB females dominated OB females. Dominance of WB over OB was confirmed using dyadic encounters. In a second experiment, blotched (WB or OB) and plain full-sib sisters were bred by crossing a blotched and a plain parent. In dyadic encounters, WB female morphs dominated their plain sisters, suggesting that dominance of WB females is a pleiotropic effect of color or that genes coding for color and those influencing behavioral dominance are genetically linked, explaining the association between color and behavioral dominance despite gene flow. We conclude that behavioral dominance asymmetries exist among female color morphs of the fish N. omnicaeruleus, and discuss possible mechanisms that may account for the tight association between color and behavioral dominanc

Time-reversible Dynamical Systems for Turbulence

Dynamical Ensemble Equivalence between hydrodynamic dissipative equations and suitable time-reversible dynamical systems has been investigated in a class of dynamical systems for turbulence. The reversible dynamics is obtained from the original dissipative equations by imposing a global constraint. We find that, by increasing the input energy, the system changes from an equilibrium state to a non-equilibrium stationary state in which an energy cascade, with the same statistical properties of the original system, is clearly detected.Comment: 16 pages Latex, 4 PS figures, on press on J. Phy

‘O sibling, where art thou?’ – a review of avian sibling recognition with respect to the mammalian literature

Avian literature on sibling recognition is rare compared to that developed by mammalian researchers. We compare avian and mammalian research on sibling recognition to identify why avian work is rare, how approaches differ and what avian and mammalian researchers can learn from each other. Three factors: (1) biological differences between birds and mammals, (2) conceptual biases and (3) practical constraints, appear to influence our current understanding. Avian research focuses on colonial species because sibling recognition is considered adaptive where ‘mixing potential’ of dependent young is high; research on a wider range of species, breeding systems and ecological conditions is now needed. Studies of acoustic recognition cues dominate avian literature; other types of cues (e.g. visual, olfactory) deserve further attention. The effect of gender on avian sibling recognition has yet to be investigated; mammalian work shows that gender can have important influences. Most importantly, many researchers assume that birds recognise siblings through ‘direct familiarisation’ (commonly known as associative learning or familiarity); future experiments should also incorporate tests for ‘indirect familiarisation’ (commonly known as phenotype matching). If direct familiarisation proves crucial, avian research should investigate how periods of separation influence sibling discrimination. Mammalian researchers typically interpret sibling recognition in broad functional terms (nepotism, optimal outbreeding); some avian researchers more successfully identify specific and testable adaptive explanations, with greater relevance to natural contexts. We end by reporting exciting discoveries from recent studies of avian sibling recognition that inspire further interest in this topic

A possible mechanism for cold denaturation of proteins at high pressure

We study cold denaturation of proteins at high pressures. Using multicanonical Monte Carlo simulations of a model protein in a water bath, we investigate the effect of water density fluctuations on protein stability. We find that above the pressure where water freezes to the dense ice phase ($\approx2$ kbar), the mechanism for cold denaturation with decreasing temperature is the loss of local low-density water structure. We find our results in agreement with data of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A.Comment: 4 pages for double column and single space. 3 figures Added references Changed conten

Cell capacity of LMDS systems in typical traffic scenarios

Broadband access and multimedia technologies are expected to be primary drivers for the telecommunications market of the next few years. The increasing bandwidth needs, together with the plethora of different services and heterogeneous traffic flows, requires accurate methodologies for resource dimensioning, especially in the field of wireless technologies where efficient bandwidth usage is crucial. New methodologies need to be based on up-to-date traffic source modeling and usage scenarios. Therefore, in this article we propose a survey of statistical characterization of single traffic sources, QoS requirements and different traffic demands. When possible, we consider the aggregate traffic resulting from a large number of heavy tailed ON/OFF sources, relying on the theory of long-range dependent flows. This method is particularly useful when time- and resource-consuming simulations are needed in order to dimension the system resources, which is always the case in the multimedia scenarios of future networks. We use such a traffic framework to estimate by simulations the capacity of an LMDS system