On gravitational instability of the interstellar gas

In the galaxy, Jeans' critical length for the interstellar gas is appreciably smaller than the critical length for the stars, a necessary condition for the gravitational instability of the former to have a local character. An accurate discussion of the orders of magnitude involved leads to the establishment of a well defined limiting procedure and to simplified equations in which the effect of stars occurs only through the equilibrium, but disappears from the perturbations. The equations are spatially local, but their coefficients are time-dependent, in that they describe the evolution of a small wave packet dragged along by the supersonic gas motion. They have been solved in several interesting cases by the introduction of an effective, time-dependent wave vector, which describes the deformation of a wave profile due to the velocity gradients. The ordinary Jeans' instability is recovered only when the velocity gradient is a skew tensor; otherwise we find a stabilizing effect in accelerated and sheared flows, a destabilizing effect in a decelerated flow. Possible connections of this model with the observed turbulent structure of the interstellar gas are discussed.     

The density of Red Sea brines

The densities of artificial and real Red Sea brines have been measured at 25°C with a vibrating tube densimeter. Measurements were also made on mixtures of Red Sea brines with seawater and pure water. The results have been used to characterize the density—composition relations of waters across the interface of brine and average Red Sea waters. The results for the real and artificial brines are in reasonable agreement.The composition of the brines and mixtures with seawater have been characterized by conductivity measurements of weight diluted samples. The conductivity salinities were found to be conservative to within $\text{±0.07‰}$ for the mixtures.The densities of brines and mixtures of brines and seawater were estimated from apparent molal volume data using Young's rule. The calculated densities for all of the solutions were found to be in good agreement with the measured values, demonstrating the applicability of Young's rule to concentrated natural waters.     

Diffuse Baryons in Cosmic Structures

I review the processes that govern the amount and the thermal state of the hot plasma pervading clusters and groups of galaxies: the gravitational heating driven by the DM merging histories, the radiative cooling of baryons, and the energy fed back by SNe and by AGNs or quasars. I argue that the X-ray emissions and the entropy levels now observed from clusters to groups require the AGNs to contribute substantially to preheat the gas before it falls into clusters, and the quasars to blow some plasma out of groups and galaxies.     

Undrained instability detection under general stress conditions

Acta Geotechnica - This work proposes a criterion for the detection of undrained instability under multiaxial stress conditions at elemental level. To do so, it develops the application of the...     

In situ and nondestructive characterization of mechanical properties of heritage stone masonry

The necessity of conserving and preserving the heritage is nowadays a developing study line for several researchers. From a civil engineering perspective, one of the most important issues for the conservation of historical buildings is to ensure the structural stability. For this purpose, it is necessary to determine the mechanical properties of the ancient construction materials. However, these structures cannot be evaluated by destructive tests due to politics and restrictions for preserving the heritage built. As a consequence, new methods that do not put in risk the integrity of the materials and the structure are becoming useful tools for researchers who work on structural engineering of heritage buildings. This paper presents a nondestructive method (NDM) that has been used to characterize the mechanical properties of different constructive systems of the San Antonio de Padua Temple, which is a religious icon in Aguascalientes, Mexico. This method includes the measuring of seismic waves’ travel time in order to obtain shear and compressional velocity waves. Results show that with this method mechanical properties of masonry can be obtained such as Young’s modulus, Poisson ratio and bulk density, which are needed for the structural analysis using numerical simulation models.     

Effect of Weather-Related Episodic Events over Chlorophyll-a In a Shallow Lake: an Analysis Based on High-Frequency Data

Water Resources - With conventional monitoring at low-frequency, biological responses to weather-related events are missed. In this paper, we examine the chlorophyll-a concentrations in a shallow...     

Temporal distribution of heavy metal concentrations in oysters Crassostrea rhizophorae from the central Venezuelan coast

The oyster Crassostrea rhizophorae is a bivalve abundant in Venezuelan estuaries and consumed by local populations. No known values have been reported on trace metals in oysters from the central Venezuelan coast. We report the concentrations of Al, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sr, V and Zn in the soft parts of C. rhizophorae, which were collected bimonthly between March 2008 and March 2009, at two sampling areas from the Central Venezuelan Coast: Buche estuary and Mochima estuary. Our results show that for each metal there is a similar temporal variation pattern. The concentrations of the heavy metals reported in this work are useful as reliable baselines and can be used for comparison in future environment studies. Concentrations in C. rhizophorae from the Buche estuary can be interpreted to be high on a global scale for Cd, Cu, Ni and Mn, indicating atypically raised bioavailabilities.     

Criterion for flow liquefaction instability

This study describes a general liquefaction flow instability criterion for elastoplastic soils based on the concept of loss of uniqueness. We apply the criterion to the general case of axisymmetric loading and invoke the concepts of effective stresses and loss of controllability to arrive at a general criterion for the onset of liquefaction flow. The criterion is used in conjunction with an elastoplastic model for sands to generate numerical simulations. The numerical results are compared with experimental evidence to give the following insights into predicting liquefaction. (1) The onset of liquefaction flow is a state of instability occurring under both monotonic and cyclic tests, and coincides with loss of controllability. (2) The criterion proposed herein clearly and naturally differentiates between liquefaction flow (instability) and cyclic mobility. (3) Flow liquefaction not only depends on the potential of the material to generate positive excess pore pressures, but more importantly, it also depends on the current state of the material, which is rarely predicted by phenomenology.