Academic literature on the topic 'Instanton liquid'

We are discussing the properties of the QCD vacuum which might be important especially for the understanding of hadrons with small quark core size ~ 0:3 fm: We assume that at these distances the QCD vacuum can be described by the Instanton Liquid Model (ILM). At larger distances, where confinement is important, ILM should be extended to Dyons Liquid Model (DLM). The ILM has only two free parameters, average instanton size ρ ≈ 0:3 fm and average inter-instanton distance R ≈ 1 fm, and can successfully describe the key features of light hadron physics. One of the important conceptual results was prediction of the momentum dependent dynamical quark mass M ~ (packing f raction)1/2 ρ-1 ≈ 360 MeV, later confirmed numerically by evaluations in the lattice. The estimates show that gluon-instanton interaction strength is also big and is controlled by the value of dynamical gluon mass Mg ≈ M. Heavy quarks interact with instantons much weaker. The heavy quark-instanton interaction strength is given by ΔmQ ~ packing fraction ρ-1 ≈ 70 MeV: Nevertheless, the direct instanton contribution to the colorless heavy-heavy quarks potential is sizable and must be taken into account. At small distances, where one-gluon exchange contribution to this potential is dominated, we have to take into account dynamical gluon mass Mg. Also, instantons are generating light-heavy quarks interactions and allow to describe the nonperturbative effects in heavy-light quarks systems.

Within the framework of the instanton Liquid Model (ILM) we evaluate the heavy quark [Formula: see text] potential at finite temperature. The potential in the ILM has two components: direct instantons contribution and the ILM modified one-gluon exchange contribution. The dynamical ”electric” mass [Formula: see text], which was generated by rescattering of the gluons from the ILM instantons, was taken into account.

QCD instantons generate non-perturbative spin- and flavor- dependent correlations between light quarks. We report on the results of a series of studies on the contribution of instantons to the electro-weak structure of light hadrons. We show that the Instanton Liquid Model can reproduce the available data on proton and pion form factors at large momentum transfer, and explain the delay of the onset of the perturbative regime in some exclusive reactions. We provide unambiguous evidence that instantons lead to the formation of a deeply bound scalar, color anti-triplet diquark, with a mass of about 450 MeV. The strong attraction in the [Formula: see text], scalar diquark channel leads to a quantitative description of non-leptonic decays of hyperons and provides a microscopic dynamical explanation of the Δ I = 1/2 rule.

We report on an instanton-based analysis of the gluon Green functions in the Landau gauge for low momenta; in particular we use lattice results for αs in the symmetric momentum subtraction scheme (MOM) for large-volume lattice simulations. We have exploited quenched gauge field configurations, Nf = 0, with both Wilson and tree-level Symanzik improved actions, and unquenched ones with Nf = 2 + 1 and Nf = 2 + 1 + 1 dynamical flavors (domain wall and twisted-mass fermions, respectively). We show that the dominance of instanton correlations on the low-momenta gluon Green functions can be applied to the determination of phenomenological parameters of the instanton liquid and, eventually, to a determination of the lattice spacing. We furthermore apply the Gradient Flow to remove short-distance fluctuations. The Gradient Flow gets rid of the QCD scale, ΛQCD, and reveals that the instanton prediction extents to large momenta. For those gauge field configurations free of quantum fluctuations, the direct study of topological charge density shows the appearance of large-scale lumps that can be identified as instantons, giving access to a direct study of the instanton density and size distribution that is compatible with those extracted from the analysis of the Green functions.

The ultimate goal of this thesis is to improve our understanding of the cosmology of axions. Axions couple to QCDinstantons and these non-perturbative effects are modeled within the framework of the interacting instanton liquid model (IILM). The thesis describes the significant advances made within the IILM in order to study the quark-gluon plasma in realistic parameter regimes. In particular, a determination of the temperature-dependent axion mass in the IILM lays the foundation for a critical reevaluation and update of present cosmological axion constraints. We develop grand canonical Monte Carlo routines to study topological fluctuations in the quark-gluon plasma. The model is calibrated against the topological susceptibility at zero temperature, in the chiral regime of physical quark masses. A numerical framework to derive interactions among the pseudo-particles is developed that is in principle exact, and is used to cure a pathology in the presently available finite temperature interactions. The IILM reduces field theory to a molecular dynamics description, and we show that, quite generically, the dynamics for non-trivial backgrounds in the presence of light quarks is reminiscent of a strongly associating fluid. To deal with the well-known difficulty in simulating ionic fluids, we develop advanced algorithms based on Biased Monte Carlo techniques. We study the IILM at finite temperature in the quenched and unquenched sector, with due diligence to a consistent thermodynamic limit. Of particular interest is chiral symmetry breaking and the temperature dependence of the topological susceptibility, and we study in detail the effects of instanton--anti-instanton pairs. Our determination of the topological susceptibility provides, for the first time, a well-motivated axion mass for all temperatures. The misalignment mechanism for axion production is studied in detail, solving the evolution equations exactly in a radiation dominated FRW universe with the full temperature dependence of the effective degrees of freedom taken into account. Improved constraints in the classic and anthropic axion window are derived. We generalise the latter to large angle fine-tuning by including in the isocurvature contribution to the cosmic microwave background radiation the full anharmonic axion potential effects. Finally, we reexamine bounds from axion string radiation in the thermal scenario to complete a comprehensive update of all cosmological axion constraints.

Les polarimètres de Mueller sont des instruments qui mesurent la réponse polarimétrique linéaire complète d’un milieu, dans le but de déterminer ses propriétés de dichroïsme, de biréfringence et de dépolarisation. Jusqu’à présent, ces instruments utilisaient une génération séquentielle des multiples états de polarisation nécessaires au calcul d’une matrice de Mueller, leur temps d’acquisition étant donc limité à la milliseconde. Nous proposons dans cette thèse de développer le premier polarimètre de Mueller dont le codage de la polarisation est effectué dans le domaine spectral, ce qui permet une génération parallèle des états de polarisation. Le temps d’acquisition d’une matrice de Mueller est alors limité par le temps d’intégration du détecteur, qui peut être potentiellement très court (
Mueller matrix polarimeters allow the acquisition of the full linear polarimetric response of a medium, and lead to the knowledge of its dichroism, birefringence and depolarization properties. By now, those setups used to generate the multiple states of polarization necessary for the calculation of a Mueller matrix in a sequential way, which limits their acquisition time at the millisecond scale. In this work, we propose the development of the first experimental Mueller matrix polarimeter with a spectral encoding of the polarization, so as to parallelize the generation of polarization’s states. The acquisition time of a Mueller matrix is thus limited by the acquisition time of the detector, and could be very short (

ilieu, dans le but de déterminer ses propriétés de dichroïsme, de biréfringence et de dépolarisation. Jusqu'à présent, ces instruments utilisaient une génération séquentielle des multiples états de polarisation nécessaires au calcul d'une matrice de Mueller, leur temps d'acquisition étant donc limité à la milliseconde. Nous proposons dans cette thèse de développer le premier polarimètre de Mueller dont le codage de la polarisation est effectué dans le domaine spectral, ce qui permet une génération parallèle des états de polarisation. Le temps d'acquisition d'une matrice de Mueller est alors limité par le temps d'intégration du détecteur, qui peut être potentiellement très court. L'objet de la thèse a été dans un premier temps de valider expérimentalement un polarimètre de Mueller par codage en longueur d'onde, que nous avons dénommé "le polarimètre de Mueller instantané". Il s'agit d'utiliser une source large bande (10nm), des lames de phases d'ordre élevé et un spectromètre couplé à une caméra CCD pour disperser tous les états de polarisation. L'étalonnage de l'instrument a été effectué, et s'appuie sur une modélisation détaillée des composants optiques utilisés dans le montage. La précision du polarimètre a été évaluée à 3%, grâce à des mesures sur des milieux connus. La stabilisation du polarimètre a également été envisagée, pour prendre en compte les dérives dues à la température et aux contraintes appliquées à la fibre optique. Enfin, deux pistes théoriques d'optimisation ont été proposées, à savoir le choix idéal de la configuration d'épaisseur des lames de phase et l'utilisation d'un polarimètre à deux voies de détection. L'instrument a ensuite été utilisé pour caractériser de manière statique et dynamique des cellules à cristaux liquides ferroélectriques (pure et stabilisée par polymère) en dispositif SSFLC. Cela a permis d'une part, de prouver que l'exploitation de la matrice de Mueller est avantageuse pour évaluer des organisations moléculaires dans ces échantillons, grâce à la variété d'information qu'elle propose. Puis, ces études ont également prouvé la faisabilité d'acquérir simplement et avec une bonne résolution temporelle des dynamiques de réorientations rapides ( ∼ 100μs ) avec le polarimètre instantané. Nous avons ainsi été capables en particulier de mettre en évidence le mouvement des couches smectiques lors d'une transition "up"/"down" dans une cellule SSFLC.

Les systèmes vitreux sujets à une diminution de la température présentent une dynamique très lente, et à une valeur suffisamment faible de celle-ci se trouvent dans un état désordonné dit "gelé". Cette thèse traite du cas des verres structuraux, comme les liquides surfondus, et du cas des verres de spins.Dans les deux cas, les scénarios physiques issus des théories de champ moyen sont connus et pourraient être sensibles à l'introduction des fluctuations présentes dans les systèmes de dimension finie. L'étude de leur effet dans les systèmes vitreux étant difficile, nous avons étudié des modèles simples reliés au problème de la transition vitreuse dans lesquels l'effet des fluctuations peut être analysé en détail.Concernant les verres structuraux, nous étudions tout d'abord le retour à la convexité de l’énergie libre d'un système unidimensionnel où les fluctuations sont contraintes par la taille finie du système. Ensuite, nous étudions le rôle des fluctuations de "courte" et de "longue" portée dans un système vitreux appelé ``modèle de plaquette'' en comparant les propriétés thermodynamiques du système connues sur réseaux Euclidiens à celles que nous avons obtenues sur un réseau "en arbre". Enfin, nous étudions l'existence de fluctuations spatio-temporelles au sein d'un modèle de systèmes à dynamique activée couplés via un bain thermal à faible température.Concernant les verres de spins, nous construisons une approche du groupe de renormalisation non-perturbatif afin de décrire l'effet des fluctuations critiques sur les propriétés critiques du verre de spin d'Ising en champ nul en dimensions inférieures à six
When the temperature diminishes, glassy systems present a very sluggish dynamics and at low enough temperature can finish in some arrested disordered state. This thesis deals about the case of structural glasses, to which category supercooled liquids belong to, and spin glasses.In these two cases the physical scenarios issued from the mean-field theories are known and could be fragile to the introduction of fluctuations that are present in finite-dimensional systems. Since the study of the effect of fluctuations in glassy systems is a daunting task, the aim of this thesis is to study simple related problems in which the effect of fluctuations can be thoroughly investigated.For the structural-glass case, we study first the return to convexity of the free energy of a uni-dimensional finite-size system where fluctuations are restricted by the finite size of the system. Then, we study the role of "short"- and "long"-range fluctuations in a glass-former model called ``plaquette model'' in comparing the thermodynamic properties of the system which are known on Euclidean lattices with the ones we obtained on a "tree" lattice. Finally, we study the existence of space-time fluctuations in a model made of activated-dynamics systems coupled via a thermal bath at low temperature.For the spin-glass case, we construct a scheme for the nonperturbative renormalization group to describe the effect of critical fluctuations on the critical properties of the Ising spin glass in zero field in dimensions lower than six

Doutoramento em Bioquímica
Os polissacarídeos são os componentes maioritários dos grãos de café verde e torrado e da bebida de café. Os mais abundantes são as galactomananas, seguindo-se as arabinogalactanas. Durante o processo de torra, as galactomananas e arabinogalactanas sofrem modificações estruturais, as quais estão longe de estar completamente elucidadas devido à sua diversidade e à complexidade estrutural dos compostos formados. Durante o processo de torra, as galactomananas e arabinogalactanas reagem com proteínas, ácidos clorogénicos e sacarose, originando compostos castanhos de alto peso molecular contendo nitrogénio, designados de melanoidinas. As melanoidinas do café apresentam diversas atividades biológicas e efeitos benéficos para a saúde. No entanto, a sua estrutura exata e os mecanismos envolvidos na sua formação permanecem desconhecidos, bem como a relação estrutura-atividade biológica. A utilização de sistemas modelo e a análise por espectrometria de massa permitem obter uma visão global e, simultaneamente, detalhada das modificações estruturais nos polissacarídeos do café promovidas pela torra, contribuindo para a elucidação das estruturas e mecanismos de formação das melanoidinas. Com base nesta tese, oligossacarídeos estruturalmente relacionados com a cadeia principal das galactomananas, (β1→4)-Dmanotriose (Man3), e as cadeias laterais das arabinogalactanas, (α1→5)-Larabinotriose (Ara3), isoladamente ou em misturas com ácido 5-Ocafeoilquínico (5-CQA), o ácido clorogénico mais abundante nos grãos de café verde, e péptidos compostos por tirosina e leucina, usados como modelos das proteínas, foram sujeitos a tratamento térmico a seco, mimetizando o processo de torra. A oxidação induzida por radicais hidroxilo (HO•) foi também estudada, uma vez que estes radicais parecem estar envolvidos na modificação dos polissacarídeos durante a torra. A identificação das modificações estruturais induzidas por tratamento térmico e oxidativo dos compostos modelo foi feita por estratégias analíticas baseadas principalmente em espectrometria de massa, mas também em cromatografia líquida. A cromatografia de gás foi usada na análise de açúcares neutros e ligações glicosídicas. Para validar as conclusões obtidas com os compostos modelo, foram também analisadas amostras de polissacarídeos do café obtidas a partir de resíduo de café e café instantâneo. Os resultados obtidos a partir dos oligossacarídeos modelo quando submetidos a tratamento térmico (seco), assim como à oxidação induzida por HO• (em solução), indicam a ocorrência de despolimerização, o que está de acordo com estudos anteriores que reportam a despolimerização das galactomananas e arabinogalactanas do café durante a torra. Foram ainda identificados outros compostos resultantes da quebra do anel de açúcares formados durante o tratamento térmico e oxidativo da Ara3. Por outro lado, o tratamento térmico a seco dos oligossacarídeos modelo (individualmente ou quando misturados) promoveu a formação de oligossacarídeos com um maior grau de polimerização, e também polissacarídeos com novos tipos de ligações glicosídicas, evidenciando a ocorrência de polimerização através reações de transglicosilação não enzimática induzidas por tratamento térmico a seco. As reações de transglicosilação induzidas por tratamento térmico a seco podem ocorrer entre resíduos de açúcares provenientes da mesma origem, mas também de origens diferentes com formação de estruturas híbridas, contendo arabinose e manose como observado nos casos dos compostos modelo usados. Os resultados obtidos a partir de amostras do resíduo de café e de café instantâneo sugerem a presença de polissacarídeos híbridos nestas amostras de café processado, corroborando a ocorrência de transglicosilação durante o processo de torra. Além disso, o estudo de misturas contendo diferentes proporções de cada oligossacarídeo modelo, mimetizando regiões do grão de café com composição distinta em polissacarídeos, sujeitos a diferentes períodos de tratamento térmico, permitiu inferir que diferentes estruturas híbridas e não híbridas podem ser formadas a partir das arabinogalactanas e galactomananas, dependendo da sua distribuição nas paredes celulares do grão e das condições de torra. Estes resultados podem explicar a heterogeneidade de estruturas de melanoidinas formadas durante a torra do café. Os resultados obtidos a partir de misturas modelo contendo um oligossacarídeo (Ara3 ou Man3) e 5-CQA sujeitas a tratamento térmico a seco, assim como de amostras provenientes do resíduo de café, mostraram a formação de compostos híbridos compostos por moléculas de CQA ligadas covalentemente a um número variável de resíduos de açúcar. Além disso, os resultados obtidos a partir da mistura contendo Man3 e 5-CQA mostraram que o CQA atua como catalisador das reações de transglicosilação. Por outro lado, nas misturas modelo contendo um péptido, mesmo contendo também 5-CQA e sujeitas ao mesmo tratamento, observou-se uma diminuição na extensão das reações transglicosilação. Este resultado pode explicar a baixa extensão das reações de transglicosilação não enzimáticas durante a torra nas regiões do grão de café mais ricas em proteínas, apesar dos polissacarídeos serem os componentes maioritários dos grãos de café. A diminuição das reações de transglicosilação na presença de péptidos/proteínas pode dever-se ao facto de os resíduos de açúcares redutores reagirem preferencialmente com os grupos amina de péptidos/proteínas por reação de Maillard, diminuindo o número de resíduos de açúcares redutores disponíveis para as reações de transglicosilação. Além dos compostos já descritos, uma diversidade de outros compostos foram formados a partir dos sistemas modelo, nomeadamente derivados de desidratação formados durante o tratamento térmico a seco. Em conclusão, a tipificação das modificações estruturais promovidas pela torra nos polissacarídeos do café abre o caminho para a compreensão dos mecanismos de formação das melanoidinas e da relação estrutura-atividade destes compostos.
Polysaccharides are the major components of green and roasted coffee beans, and coffee brew. The most abundant ones are galactomannans, followed by arabinogalactans. During the roasting process, galactomannans and arabinogalactans undergo structural modifications that are far to be completely elucidated due to their diversity and complexity of the compounds formed. During the roasting process, galactomannans and arabinogalactans react with proteins, chlorogenic acids, and sucrose, originating high molecular weight brown compounds containing nitrogen, known as melanoidins. Several biological activities and beneficial health effects have been attributed to coffee melanoidins. However, their exact structures and the mechanisms involved in their formation remain unknown, as well as the structure-biological activity relationship. The use of model systems and mass spectrometry analysis allow to obtain an overall view and, simultaneously, detailed, of the structural modifications in coffee polysaccharides promoted by roasting, contributing to the elucidation of the structures and formation mechanisms of melanoidins. Based on this thesis, oligosaccharides structurally related to the backbone of galactomannans, (β1→4)-D-mannotriose, and the side chains of arabinogalactans, (α1→5)-Larabinotriose, alone or in mixtures with 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid, the most abundant chlorogenic acid in green coffee beans, and dipeptides composed by tyrosine and leucine, used as models of proteins, were submitted to dry thermal treatments, mimicking the coffee roasting process. The oxidation induced by hydroxyl radicals (HO•) was also studied, since these radicals seem to be involved in the modification of the polysaccharides during roasting. The identification of the structural modifications induced by thermal and oxidative treatment of the model compounds was performed mostly by mass spectrometry-based analytical strategies, but also using liquid chromatography. Gas chromatography was used in the analysis of neutral sugars and glycosidic linkages. To validate the conclusions achieved with the model compounds, coffee polysaccharide samples obtained from spent coffee grounds and instant coffee were also analysed. The results obtained from the model oligosaccharides when submitted to thermal treatment (dry) or oxidation induced by HO• (in solution) indicate the occurrence of depolymerization, which is in line with previous studies reporting the depolymerization of coffee galactomannans and arabinogalactans during roasting. Compounds resulting from sugar ring cleavage were also formed during thermal treatment and oxidative treatment of Ara3. On the other hand, the dry thermal treatment of the model oligosaccharides (alone or when mixed) promoted the formation of oligosaccharides with a higher degree of polymerization, and also polysaccharides with new type of glycosidic linkages, evidencing the occurrence of polymerization via non-enzymatic transglycosylation reactions induced by dry thermal treatment. The transglycosylation reactions induced by dry thermal treatment can occur between sugar residues from the same origin, but also of different origins, with formation of hybrid structures, containing arabinose and mannose in the case of the model compounds used. The results obtained from spent coffee grounds and instant coffee samples suggest the presence of hybrid polysaccharides in these processed coffee samples, corroborating the occurrence of transglycosylation during the roasting process. Furthermore, the study of mixtures containing different proportions of each model oligosaccharide, mimicking coffee bean regions with distinct polysaccharide composition, subjected to different periods of thermal treatment, allowed to infer that different hybrid and non-hybrid structures may be formed from arabinogalactans and galactomannans, depending on their distribution in the bean cell walls and on roasting conditions. These results may explain the heterogeneity of melanoidins structures formed during coffee roasting. The results obtained from model mixtures containing an oligosaccharide (Ara3 or Man3) and 5-CQA and subjected to dry thermal treatment, as well as samples derived from spent coffee grounds, showed the formation of hybrid compounds composed by CQA molecules covalently linked to a variable number of sugar residues. Moreover, the results obtained from the mixture containing Man3 and 5-CQA showed that CQA acts as catalyst of transglycosylation reactions. On the other hand, in the model mixtures containing a peptide, even if containing 5-CQA and subjected to the same treatment, it was observed a decrease in the extent of transglycosylation reactions. This outcome can explain the low extent of non-enzymatic transglycosylation reactions during roasting in coffee bean regions enriched in proteins, although polysaccharides are the major components of the coffee beans. The decrease of transglycosylation reactions in the presence of peptides/proteins can be related with the preferential reactivity of reducing residues with the amino groups of peptides/proteins by Maillard reaction, decreasing the number of reducing residues available to be directly involved in the transglycosylation reactions. In addition to the compounds already described, a diversity of other compounds were formed from model systems, namely dehydrated derivatives formed during dry thermal treatment. In conclusion, the identification of the structural modifications in coffee polysaccharides promoted by roasting pave the way to the understanding of the mechanisms of formation of melanoidins and structure-activity relationship of these compounds.

AbstractLiquid water, with a vapor pressure of 6.1 mbar at freezing point, is rapidly evaporating in high vacuum, rapidly cooling off by the evaporative cooling, and is freezing to ice almost instantly. Nevertheless, liquid water free vacuum surfaces can be prepared for short instances when injecting very small, fast flowing, liquid jets into high vacuum. They provide perfectly suited targets for molecular beams analysis of molecular evaporation of monomers and dimers from liquids. Also, the microjet technology allows ultrahigh vacuum studies of atomic scale liquid surface composition and electronic structures, as will be demonstrated by using highly focused Synchrotron radiation for EUV/XUV-photoelectron spectrocopy on a wide range of chemical solutions.

For the past 100 years, film has been almost the exclusive medium for capturing, storing, and displaying radiographic images. Film is a fixed medium with usually only one set of images available. Today, the radiologic sciences are on the brink of a new age. In particular, Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) technology allows for a near filmless process with all of the flexibility of digital systems. PACS consists of image acquisition devices, storage archiving units, display stations, computer processors, and database management systems. These components are integrated by a communications network system. Filmless radiology is a method of digitizing traditional films into electronic files that can be viewed and saved on a computer. This technology generates clearer and easier-to-read images, allowing the patient the chance of a faster evaluation and diagnosis. The time saved may prove to be a crucial element in facilitating the patient’s treatment process. With filmless radiology, images taken from various medical sources can be manipulated to enhance resolution, increasing the clarity of the image. Images can also be transferred internally within hospital departments and externally to other locations such as the office of the patient’s doctor or medical specialist in other parts of the world. This is made possible through the picture-archiving and communication system (Dreyer, Mehta, & Thrall, 2001), which electronically captures, transmits, displays, and saves images into digital archives for use at any given time. The PACS functions as a state-of-the-art repository for long-term archiving of digital images, and includes the backup and bandwidth to safeguard uninterrupted network availability. The objective of the picture-archiving and communications system is to improve the speed and quality of clinical care by streamlining radiological service and consultation. With instant access to images from virtually anywhere, hospital doctors and clinicians can improve their work processes and speed up the delivery of patient care. Besides making film a thing of the past, the likely benefits would include reduced waiting times for images and reports, and the augmented ability of clinicians since they can get patient information and act upon it much more quickly. It also removes all the costs associated with hard film and releases valuable space currently used for storage. According to Dr. Lillian Leong, Chairman of the Radiology IT Steering Group of the Hong Kong Medical Authroity, a single hospital can typically save up to 2.5 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately US$321,000) a year in film processing cost (Intel, 2007). The growing importance of PACS on the fight against highly infectious disease such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is also identified (Zhang & Xue, 2003). In Hong Kong, there was no PACS-related project until the establishment of Tseung Kwan O Hospital (TKOH) in 1998. The TKOH is a 600-bed acute hospital with a hospital PACS installed for the provision of filmless radiological service. The design and management of the PACS for patient care was discussed in the first edition of this encyclopedia (Tong & Wong, 2005). The TKOH was opened in 1999 with PACS installed. At the beginning, due to immature PACS technologies, the radiology service was operating with film printing. A major upgrade was done in 2003 for the implementation of server clustering, network resilience, liquid crystal display (LCD), smart card, and storage-area-network (SAN) technologies. This upgrade has greatly improved the reliability of the system. Since November 2003, TKOH has started filmless radiology service for the whole hospital. It has become one of the first filmless hospitals in the Greater China region (Seto, Tsang, Yung, Ching, Ng, & Ho, 2003; Tsou, Goh, Kaw, & Chee, 2003).

The dynamic characteristics of the passive, semi-active, and active tuned-liquid-column dampers (or TLCD’s) are studied in this paper. The design of the latter two are based on the first one. The water-head difference of a passive TLCD is pre-set to form the so-called semi-active one in this paper. The water-head difference is released at a proper time instant during an earthquake excitation to enhance the vibration reduction of a structure. Two propellers are installed along a shaft inside and at the center of a passive TLCD to form an active one. These two propellers are driven by a servomotor controlled by a computer to provide the control force. The seismic responses of a five-story shear building with a passive, semi-active, or active TLCD are computed for demonstration and discussion. The results of this building with a tuned mass damper (or TMD) are also included for comparison.

This study describes the numerical solution and computational implementation of the isothermal transient flow of several different compressible liquids contained in a single elastic pipeline. The method of characteristics is used to integrate the equations of conservation of mass and momentum along the deforming Eulerian characteristic mesh. Integration along the deforming mesh, which is generated as integration proceeds in time, minimizes the need for interpolation so that problem variables are accurately determined at the computed mesh points. On the other hand, since calculated mesh points are not regularly spaced in the x-t plane, interpolations among the computed points become necessary to find the value of variables at a given fixed instant of time along the length of the pipeline. The computational implementation allows for the simulation of flow across locations where there may be changes in nominal pipe diameter, valves or pumps, as well as tracking the position of fluid interfaces as different batches of fluid move along the pipeline, and results are found to be numerically accurate and stable.

We have developed a “sensor particle”, which is a Lagrangian sensor system for real-time measurement of the force acting on a particle moving freely in fluid flow. The sensor particle is composed of an acceleration sensor, magnetometer, microcomputer, wireless module and cells. The built-in acceleration sensor detects the acceleration of particle at each instant of time. However, the signals contain both dynamic and static (gravitational) accelerations. Therefore we applied the external magnetic field oriented in the gravitational direction in order to identify the attitude of the sensor particle and to remove the gravitational acceleration from the measured signals. Consequently, we can obtain the force acting on a particle moving in fluid at each time through the equation of the motion. We have applied our system to oscillatory liquid flow with particle assemblage to obtain the basic knowledge on unsteady fluid force in a multi-particle system.

Liquid breakup mechanism utilization is prevalent in numerous applications. One of the most common uses of this phenomenon is in fuel injection systems. Liquid fuel is injected into an ambient air, to prepare a combustible mixture. Generally, evenly spread tiny fuel droplets are desirable. This is usually achieved through multiple liquid breaking mechanisms: Primary breakup of liquid jet, Secondary breakup of travelling liquid droplets, and Secondary breakup of wall-impinging liquid droplets. Indeed, many studies are devoted to the modelling of those phenomena. However, the absolute majority of those studies are limitedly focused on the isothermal case, where liquid is assumed to be of ambient gas’ temperature. Conversely, practical conditions, under which rather cold fuel is normally injected into hot ambient air, suggest the real case to be non-isothermal. Moreover, the non-isothermal nature of that process seems to have its effect at the most relevant to breakup regions, i.e. the breaking interfacial surfaces. It is shown that as these surfaces can be in instant contact with a hot ambient, breakup can be greatly altered by the extent of this sudden thermal exposure, through its mostly transient and even spatial effect on physical properties of breaking interfaces. This is shown to be of significant effect on all breakup mechanisms: primary and secondary. New models are suggested for these non-isothermal phenomena, which combine transient heat-transfer with inter-phase hydrodynamic breakup, through physical properties’ dependency on temperature. Results are discussed in terms of effect on spray breakup products, and a careful comparison with the trend of a limited number of so-far available experimental results is presented.

Water management is one of the most important issues for the performance of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC). Understanding of water liquid behaviors in the gas-liquid flow of PEMFC is necessary for the optimization of PEMFC. In this study, a three-dimensional and unsteady PEMFC model with serpentine-parallel channels has been incorporated to investigate not only the fluid flow, heat transfer, species transport, electrochemical reaction, and current density distribution but also the behaviors of water liquid in the gas–liquid flow of the channels and porous media. The results show that tracking the interface of water liquid in a reacting gas-liquid flow in PEMFC can be fulfilled by using Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) algorithm combined with solving the conservation equations of continuity, momentum, energy, species transport and electrochemistry. Consequently, the behaviors of liquid water were fully understood by presenting the motion and deformation of water droplets inside the channels and the penetration of liquid through the porous media at different time instants. Additionally, the presence of liquid water in the channels significantly influences the flow fields. Due to the blockage of water liquid, the gas flow became unevenly distributed, the high pressure regions took place around the locations where water liquid appears, and the reactant transport in the channels and porous media was hindered by water liquid occupation.

In this paper, molecular dynamics simulation is carried out to study the explosive boiling of liquid water film heated by a hot copper plate in a confined space. A more physically-sound thermostat is applied to control the temperature of the metal plate and then to heat water molecules that are placed in the elastic wall confined simulation domain. The results show that liquid water molecules close to the plate are instantly overheated and undergo an explosive phase transition. A huge pressure in the region between liquid film and hot copper plate formed at the beginning and leads to a low density vapor region by partially vaporizing water film. A non-vaporization molecular layer, with a constant density of 0.2 g/cm3, tightly attached to the surface of the plate is observed. The z-component of COM (center of mass) trajectory of the liquid film in the confined space is tracked and analyzed. The one-dimensional density profile indicates the water film have a piston-like motion after short period of explosive boiling. Temperatures at three corresponding regions, which are vapor, liquid, and vapor from the top plate surface, are also computed and analyzed along with the piston-like motion of the bulk liquid film.