Efficacy of Two Common Methods of Application of Residual Insecticide for Controlling the Asian Tiger Mosquito, Aedes albopictus (Skuse), in Urban Areas

After its first introduction in the 1980's the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus (Skuse), has spread throughout Southern Europe. Ae. albopictus is considered an epidemiologically important vector for the transmission of many viral pathogens such as the yellow fever virus, dengue fever and Chikungunya fever, as well as several filarial nematodes such as Dirofilaria immitis or D. repens. It is therefore crucial to develop measures to reduce the risks of disease transmission by controlling the vector populations. The aim of the study was to compare the efficacy of two application techniques (mist vs. stretcher sprayer) and two insecticides (Etox based on the nonester pyrethroid Etofenprox vs. Microsin based on the pyrethroid type II Cypermetrin) in controlling adult tiger mosquito populations in highly populated areas. To test the effect of the two treatments pre- and post-treatment human landing rate counts were conducted for two years. After one day from the treatment we observed a 100% population decrease in mosquito abundance with both application methods and both insecticides. However, seven and 14 days after the application the stretcher sprayer showed larger population reductions than the mist sprayer. No effect of insecticide type after one day and 14 days was found, while Etox caused slightly higher population reduction than Microsin after seven days. Emergency measures to locally reduce the vector populations should adopt adulticide treatments using stretcher sprayers. However, more research is still needed to evaluate the potential negative effects of adulticide applications on non-target organisms

Non-equilibrium fluctuations in a driven stochastic Lorentz gas

We study the stationary state of a one-dimensional kinetic model where a probe particle is driven by an external field E and collides, elastically or inelastically, with a bath of particles at temperature T. We focus on the stationary distribution of the velocity of the particle, and of two estimates of the total entropy production \Delta s_tot. One is the entropy production of the medium \Delta s_m, which is equal to the energy exchanged with the scatterers, divided by a parameter \theta, coinciding with the particle temperature at E=0. The other is the work W done by the external field, again rescaled by \theta. At small E, a good collapse of the two distributions is found: in this case the two quantities also verify the Fluctuation Relation (FR), indicating that both are good approximations of \Delta s_tot. Differently, for large values of E, the fluctuations of W violate the FR, while \Delta s_m still verifies it.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Lattice Boltzmann Method for mixtures at variable Schmidt number

When simulating multicomponent mixtures via the Lattice Boltzmann Method, it is desirable to control the mutual diffusivity between species while maintaining the viscosity of the solution fixed. This goal is herein achieved by a modification of the multicomponent Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK) evolution equations by introducing two different timescales for mass and momentum diffusion. Diffusivity is thus controlled by an effective drag force acting between species. Numerical simulations confirm the accuracy of the method for neutral binary and charged ternary mixtures in bulk conditions. The simulation of a charged mixture in a charged slit channel show that the conductivity and electro-osmotic mobility exhibit a departure from the Helmholtz-Smoluchowski prediction at high diffusivity.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

A microscopic model for solidification

We present a novel picture of a non isothermal solidification process starting from a molecular level, where the microscopic origin of the basic mechanisms and of the instabilities characterizing the approach to equilibrium is rendered more apparent than in existing approaches based on coarse grained free energy functionals \`a la Landau. The system is composed by a lattice of Potts spins, which change their state according to the stochastic dynamics proposed some time ago by Creutz. Such a method is extended to include the presence of latent heat and thermal conduction. Not only the model agrees with previous continuum treatments, but it allows to introduce in a consistent fashion the microscopic stochastic fluctuations. These play an important role in nucleating the growing solid phase in the melt. The approach is also very satisfactory from the quantitative point of view since the relevant growth regimes are fully characterized in terms of scaling exponents.Comment: 7 pages Latex +3 figures.p

Raman spectroscopy study of the interface structure in (CaCuO2)n/(SrTiO3)m superlattices

Raman spectra of CaCuO2/SrTiO3 superlattices show clear spectroscopic marker of two structures formed in CaCuO2 at the interface with SrTiO3. For non-superconducting superlattices, grown in low oxidizing atmosphere, the 425 cm-1 frequency of oxygen vibration in CuO2 planes is the same as for CCO films with infinite layer structure (planar Cu-O coordination). For superconducting superlattices grown in highly oxidizing atmosphere, a 60 cm-1 frequency shift to lower energy occurs. This is ascribed to a change from planar to pyramidal Cu-O coordination because of oxygen incorporation at the interface. Raman spectroscopy proves to be a powerful tool for interface structure investigation

Driven low density granular mixtures

We study the steady state properties of a 2D granular mixture in the presence of energy driving by employing simple analytical estimates and Direct Simulation Monte Carlo. We adopt two different driving mechanisms: a) a homogeneous heat bath with friction and b) a vibrating boundary (thermal or harmonic) in the presence of gravity. The main findings are: the appearance of two different granular temperatures, one for each species; the existence of overpopulated tails in the velocity distribution functions and of non trivial spatial correlations indicating the spontaneous formation of cluster aggregates. In the case of a fluid subject to gravity and to a vibrating boundary, both densities and temperatures display non uniform profiles along the direction normal to the wall, in particular the temperature profiles are different for the two species while the temperature ratio is almost constant with the height. Finally, we obtained the velocity distributions at different heights and verified the non gaussianity of the resulting distributions.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, submitted for publicatio

Discovery of stars surrounded by iron dust in the LMC

We consider a small sample of oxygen-rich, asymptotic giant branch stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope, exhibiting a peculiar spectral energy distribution, which can be hardly explained by the common assumption that dust around AGB stars is primarily composed of silicate grains. We suggest that this uncommon class of objects are the progeny of a metal-poor generation of stars, with metallicity $Z \sim 1-2\times 10^{-3}$, formed $\sim 100$ Myr ago. The main dust component in the circumstellar envelope is solid iron. In these stars the poor formation of silicates is set by the strong nucleosynthesis experienced at the base of the envelope, which provokes a scarcity of magnesium atoms and water molecules, required to the silicate formation. The importance of the present results to interpret the data from the incoming James Webb Space Telescope is also discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter on 9 January 201

Optical analogue of spontaneous symmetry breaking induced by tachyon condensation in amplifying plasmonic arrays

We study analytically and numerically an optical analogue of tachyon condensation in amplifying plasmonic arrays. Optical propagation is modeled through coupled-mode equations, which in the continuous limit can be converted into a nonlinear one-dimensional Dirac-like equation for fermionic particles with imaginary mass, i.e. fermionic tachyons. We demonstrate that the vacuum state is unstable and acquires an expectation value with broken chiral symmetry, corresponding to the homogeneous nonlinear stationary solution of the system. The quantum field theory analogue of this process is the condensation of unstable fermionic tachyons into massive particles. This paves the way for using amplifying plasmonic arrays as a classical laboratory for spontaneous symmetry breaking effects in quantum field theory.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

A Soluble Phase Field Model

The kinetics of an initially undercooled solid-liquid melt is studied by means of a generalized Phase Field model, which describes the dynamics of an ordering non-conserved field phi (e.g. solid-liquid order parameter) coupled to a conserved field (e.g. thermal field). After obtaining the rules governing the evolution process, by means of analytical arguments, we present a discussion of the asymptotic time-dependent solutions. The full solutions of the exact self-consistent equations for the model are also obtained and compared with computer simulation results. In addition, in order to check the validity of the present model we confronted its predictions against those of the standard Phase field model and found reasonable agreement. Interestingly, we find that the system relaxes towards a mixed phase, depending on the average value of the conserved field, i.e. on the initial condition. Such a phase is characterized by large fluctuations of the phi field.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, RevTeX 3.1, submitted to Physical Review

Stabilized Lattice Boltzmann-Enskog method for compressible flows and its application to one and two-component fluids in nanochannels

A numerically stable method to solve the discretized Boltzmann-Enskog equation describing the behavior of non ideal fluids under inhomogeneous conditions is presented. The algorithm employed uses a Lagrangian finite-difference scheme for the treatment of the convective term and a forcing term to account for the molecular repulsion together with a Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook relaxation term. In order to eliminate the spurious currents induced by the numerical discretization procedure, we use a trapezoidal rule for the time integration together with a version of the two-distribution method of He et al. (J. Comp. Phys 152, 642 (1999)). Numerical tests show that, in the case of one component fluid in the presence of a spherical potential well, the proposed method reduces the numerical error by several orders of magnitude. We conduct another test by considering the flow of a two component fluid in a channel with a bottleneck and provide information about the density and velocity field in this structured geometry.Comment: to appear in Physical Review