Carbon-13 decoupled 1H spin echo NMR spectroscopy, with and without population inversion, was used to study carbon flow between the host, Meriones unguiculatus, and the parasite, Echinococcus multilocularis. This was accomplished by monitoring [2-13C]acetate metabolism in the liver of jirds infected with metacestodes of this parasite. Thirty minutes after injection of labelled acetate solution into the portal vein, 13C enrichment was observed in hepatic acetate, β–hydroxybutyrate, succinate, alanine, lactate and glucose. For E. multilocularis cysts, at this time,13C enrichment was observed in the same metabolites as in livers and, in addition, citrate. At 120 min there was a significant decrease in the amount of label present in all hepatic metabolites whereas more label was found in the majority of the parasite metabolites. The results confirm that exogenous acetate, through randomization of the 13C in biochemical pathways of host liver, ends up in hepatic glucose. As this biosynthetic route is not available to the parasite, the presence of 13C enriched glucose in the cysts clearly indicates that the parasite is siphoning off glucose that is newly synthesized by the host. At 120 min some of this labelled glucose was stored in parasite glycogen whereas some of it had been catabolized to succinate, alanine, lactate and acetate, end products which are excreted back into the host.

The availability of ever stronger, laser-generated electromagnetic fields underpins continuing progress in the study and application of nonlinear phenomena in basic physical systems, ranging from molecules and atoms to relativistic plasmas and quantum electrodynamics. This raises the question: how far will we be able to go with future lasers? One exciting prospect is the attainment of field strengths approaching the Schwinger critical field ${E}_{\mathrm{cr}}$ in the laboratory frame, such that the field invariant ${E}^2-{c}^2{B}^2>{E}_{\mathrm{cr}}^2$ is reached. The feasibility of doing so has been questioned, on the basis that cascade generation of dense electron–positron plasma would inevitably lead to absorption or screening of the incident light. Here we discuss the potential for future lasers to overcome such obstacles, by combining the concept of multiple colliding laser pulses with that of frequency upshifting via a tailored laser–plasma interaction. This compresses the electromagnetic field energy into a region of nanometre size and attosecond duration, which increases the field magnitude at fixed power but also suppresses pair cascades. Our results indicate that laser facilities with peak power of tens of PW could be capable of reaching ${E}_{\mathrm{cr}}$. Such a scenario opens up prospects for the experimental investigation of phenomena previously considered to occur only in the most extreme environments in the universe.

This work examines consequences of modelling approximation errors made within the context of the Navier–Stokes–Boussinesq system. Starting from a canonical Boussinesq model, where density fluctuations are allowed to interact with all accelerative terms of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in arbitrarily accelerating reference frames, a unified treatment is developed that provides a straightforward way to identify buoyancy forcing associated with gravitational effects, centrifugal forcing associated with frame rotation, as well as centrifugal-type forcing due to variations in flow kinetic energy. The results of the cases studied in inertial, rotating and mixed reference frames demonstrate that in general it may be important to apply buoyancy effects to all non-local accelerative terms, including non-gradient terms such as Coriolis acceleration. Additionally, it is shown that the common practice of ignoring terms representing interaction between density fluctuation and local fluid acceleration can lead to non-negligible error in Boussinesq modelling of highly unsteady flows. These findings have special significance for accurate simulation of flows with density variations in which there may be both background rotation and localised regions of strong swirl, but are also relevant for studies conducted in the inertial frame of reference.

Direct numerical simulations of turbulent pipe flow of power-law fluids at $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}=323$ are analysed in order to understand the way in which shear thinning or thickening affects first- and second-order flow statistics including turbulent kinetic energy production, transport and dissipation in such flows. The results show that with shear thinning, near-wall streaks become weaker and the axial and azimuthal correlation lengths of axial velocity fluctuations increase. Viscosity fluctuations give rise to an additional shear stress term in the mean momentum equation which is negative for shear-thinning fluids and which increases in magnitude as the fluid becomes more shear thinning: for an equal mean wall shear stress, this term increases the mean velocity gradient in shear-thinning fluids when compared to a Newtonian fluid. Consequently, the mean velocity profile in power-law fluids deviates from the law of the wall $U_{z}^{+}=y^{+}$ in the viscous sublayer when traditional near-wall scaling is used. Consideration is briefly given to an alternative scaling that allows the law of wall to be recovered but which results in loss of a common mean stress profile. With shear thinning, the mean viscosity increases slightly at the wall and its profile appears to be approximately logarithmic in the velocity log layer. Through analysis of the turbulent kinetic energy budget, undertaken here for the first time for generalised Newtonian fluids, it is shown that shear thinning decreases the overall turbulent kinetic energy production but widens the wall-normal region where it is generated. Additional dissipation terms in the mean flow and turbulent kinetic energy budget equations arise from viscosity fluctuations; with shear thinning, these result in a net decrease in the total viscous dissipation. The overall effect of shear thinning on the turbulent kinetic energy budget is found to be largely confined to the inner layers, $y^{+}\lesssim 60$ .

Flow past a NACA 65 blade at chord-based Reynolds number 138 500 is studied using stability analysis, generalized (spatially weighted) transient growth analysis and direct numerical simulations (DNS). The mechanisms of transition on various sections of the blade observed in previous work by Zaki et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 665, 2010, pp. 57–98) are examined, with a focus on the pressure side around the leading edge. In this region, the linearly most energetic perturbation has spanwise wavenumber $40\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}$ (five boundary-layer thicknesses) and is tilted against the mean shear to take advantage of the Orr mechanism. In a DNS, the nonlinear development of this optimal perturbation induces $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}$ structures, which are further stretched to hairpin vortices before breaking down to turbulence. At higher spanwise wavenumber, e.g. $120\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}$ , a free-stream optimal perturbation is obtained upstream of the leading edge, in the form of streamwise vortices. During its nonlinear evolution, this optimal perturbation tilts the mean shear and generates spanwise periodic high- and low-speed streaks. Then through a nonlinear lift-up mechanism, the low-speed streaks are lifted above the high-speed ones. This layout of streaks generates a mean shear with two inflectional points and activates secondary instabilities, namely inner and outer instabilities previously reported in the literature.

A novel reduced-order model for time-varying nonlinear flows arising from a resolvent decomposition based on the time-mean flow is proposed. The inputs required for the model are the mean-flow field and a small set of velocity time-series data obtained at isolated measurement points, which are used to fix relevant frequencies, amplitudes and phases of a limited number of resolvent modes that, together with the mean flow, constitute the reduced-order model. The technique is applied to derive a model for the unsteady three-dimensional flow in a lid-driven cavity at a Reynolds number of 1200 that is based on the two-dimensional mean flow, three resolvent modes selected at the most active spanwise wavenumber, and either one or two velocity probe signals. The least-squares full-field error of the reconstructed velocity obtained using the model and two point velocity probes is of the order of 5 % of the lid velocity, and the dynamical behaviour of the reconstructed flow is qualitatively similar to that of the complete flow.

The effect of streamwise-varying steady transpiration on turbulent pipe flow is examined using direct numerical simulation at fixed friction Reynolds number $\mathit{Re}_{{\it\tau}}=314$ . The streamwise momentum equation reveals three physical mechanisms caused by transpiration acting in the flow: modification of Reynolds shear stress, steady streaming and generation of non-zero mean streamwise gradients. The influence of these mechanisms has been examined by means of a parameter sweep involving transpiration amplitude and wavelength. The observed trends have permitted identification of wall transpiration configurations able to reduce or increase the overall flow rate $-36.1\,\%$ and $19.3\,\%$ , respectively. Energetics associated with these modifications are presented. A novel resolvent formulation has been developed to investigate the dynamics of pipe flows with a constant cross-section but with time-mean spatial periodicity induced by changes in boundary conditions. This formulation, based on a triple decomposition, paves the way for understanding turbulence in such flows using only the mean velocity profile. Resolvent analysis based on the time-mean flow and dynamic mode decomposition based on simulation data snapshots have both been used to obtain a description of the reorganization of the flow structures caused by the transpiration. We show that the pipe flows dynamics are dominated by a critical-layer mechanism and the waviness induced in the flow structures plays a role on the streamwise momentum balance by generating additional terms.

Direct numerical simulation was used to study laminar and turbulent flows in circular pipes with smoothly corrugated walls. The corrugation wavelength was kept constant at $0.419D$ , where $D$ is the mean diameter of the wavy-wall pipe and the corrugation height was varied from zero to $0.08D$ . Flow rates were varied in steps between low values that generate laminar flow and higher values where the flow is in the post-transitional turbulent regime. Simulations in the turbulent regime were also carried out at a constant Reynolds number, $\mathit{Re}_{{\it\tau}}=314$ , for all corrugation heights. It was found that even in the laminar regime, larger-amplitude corrugations produce flow separation. This leads to the proportion of pressure drop attributable to pressure drag being approximately 50 %, and rising to approximately 85 % in transitional rough-wall flow. The near-wall structure of turbulent flow is seen to be heavily influenced by the effects of flow separation and reattachment. Farther from the wall, the statistical profiles examined exhibit behaviours characteristic of smooth-wall flows or distributed roughness rough-wall flows. These observations support Townsend’s wall-similarity hypothesis. The organized nature of the present roughness allows the mean pressure drop to be written as a function of the corrugation height. When this is exploited in an analysis of the mean dynamical equation, the scaling problem is explicitly revealed to result from the combined influences of roughness and Reynolds number. The present results support the recent analysis and observations of Mehdi et al.(J. Fluid Mech., vol. 731, 2013, pp. 682–712), indicating that the length scale given by the distance from the wall at which the mean viscous force loses leading order is important to describing these combined influences, as well as providing a dynamically self-consistent connection to the scaling structure of smooth-wall pipe flow.

Direct numerical simulations of flows in cylinders subjected to both rapid rotation and axial precession are presented and analysed in the context of a stability theory based on the triadic resonance of Kelvin modes. For a case that was chosen to provide a finely tuned resonant instability with a small nutation angle, the simulations are in good agreement with the theory and previous experiments in terms of mode shapes and dynamics, including long-time-scale regularization of the flow and recurrent collapses. Cases not tuned to the most unstable triad, but with the nutation angle still small, are also in quite good agreement with theoretical predictions, showing that the presence of viscosity makes the physics of the triadic-resonance model robust to detuning. Finally, for a case with $45^{\circ }$ nutation angle for which it has been suggested that resonance does not occur, the simulations show that a slowly growing triadic resonance predicted by theory is in fact observed if sufficient evolution time is allowed.

This study is focused on two- and three-dimensional incompressible flow past a circular cylinder for Reynolds number $\mathit{Re}\leqslant 1000$ . To gain insight into the mechanisms underlying the suppression of unsteadiness for this flow we determine the nonlinear optimal open-loop control driven by surface-normal wall transpiration. The spanwise-constant wall transpiration is allowed to oscillate in time, although steady forcing is determined to be most effective. At low levels of control cost, defined as the square integration of the control, the sensitivity of unsteadiness with respect to wall transpiration is a good approximation of the optimal control. The distribution of this sensitivity suggests that the optimal control at small magnitude is achieved by applying suction upstream of the upper and lower separation points and blowing at the trailing edge. At high levels of wall transpiration, the assumptions underlying the linearized sensitivity calculation become invalid since the base flow is eventually altered by the size of the control forcing. The large-magnitude optimal control is observed to spread downstream of the separation point and draw the shear layer separation towards the rear of the cylinder through suction, while blowing along the centreline eliminates the recirculation bubble in the wake. We further demonstrate that it is possible to completely suppress vortex shedding in two- and three-dimensional flow past a circular cylinder up to $\mathit{Re}=1000$ , accompanied by 70 % drag reduction when a nonlinear optimal control of moderate magnitude (with root-mean-square value 8 % of the free-stream velocity) is applied. This is confirmed through linearized stability analysis about the steady-state solution when the nonlinear optimal wall transpiration is applied. While continuously distributed wall transpiration is not physically realizable, the study highlights localized regions where discrete control strategies could be further developed. It also highlights the appropriate range of application of linear and nonlinear optimal control to this type of flow problem.

We consider the development of nonlinear three-dimensional vortex–wave interaction equilibria of laminar plane Couette flow for a range of spanwise wavenumbers. The results are computed using a hybrid approach that captures the required asymptotic structure while at the same time providing a direct link with full numerical calculations of equilibrium states. Each equilibrium state consists of a streak flow, a roll flow and a wave propagating on the streak. Direct numerical simulations at finite Reynolds numbers using initial conditions constructed from these parts confirm that the scheme generates equilibrium solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations. Consideration of the form of the vortex–wave interaction equations in the high-spanwise-wavenumber limit predicts that for small wavelengths the equilibria take on a self-similar structure confined near the centre of the flow. These states feel no influence from the walls, and lead to a class of canonical states relevant to arbitrary shear flows. These predictions are supported by an analysis of computational results at increasing values of the spanwise wavenumber. For the wave part of these new canonical states, it is shown that the mass-specific kinetic energy density per unit wavenumber scales with the $- 5/ 3$ power of the wavenumber.

Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) radical anions will react with tetrahydrofuran and generate ethylene, enolates, and a partially hydrogenated nanotube backbone. The experimental evidence suggests that there are sp3 C–H binding interactions. The total gravimetric content of hydrogen on a sample averages from 3.5% to 3.9% w/w, about four times the total amount observed for nanotubes hydrogenated via traditional Birch reduction reactions. Furthermore, the hydrogen desorbs at temperatures up to 400 °C less than those observed for the hydrogenated SWNTs formed after the Birch reduction. Finally, the first room temperature electron spin resonance spectrum of a nanotube radical ion is also reported.

In Bangladesh from 1 July to 30 September 2010 there were 104 animal cases of anthrax and 607 associated human cases. This investigation was conducted in Sirajganj district in December 2010, on eight farms where animal cases had occurred. Bacillus anthracis was recovered from soil samples and turbinate bones on six farms. Canonical single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis showed that all the isolates belonged to the major lineage A, sublineage A.Br.001/002 of China and South East Asia while a multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat (VNTR) analysis (MLVA) with 15 VNTRs demonstrated three unique genotypes. The single nucleotide repeat (SNR) analyses showed two SNR types in 97 out of 99 isolates; nevertheless, due to its higher discriminatory power the presence of two isolates with different SNR-type polymorphisms were detected within two MLVA genotypes. The epidemic occurred during the monsoon season, a time of extensive flooding, suggesting that the source was contaminated feed, not grazing, which is supported by the genetic variance.

Transient energy growth of disturbances to co-rotating pairs of vortices with axial core flows is investigated in an analysis where vortex core expansion and vortex merging are included by adopting a time-evolving base flow. The dynamics of pairs are compared with those of individual vortices in order to highlight the effect of vortex interaction. Three typical vortex pair cases are studied, with the pairs comprised respectively of individually inviscidly unstable vortices at the streamwise wavenumber that maximizes the individual instabilities, viscously unstable vortices also at the streamwise wavenumber maximizing the individual instabilities and asymptotically stable vortices at streamwise wavenumber zero. For the inviscidly unstable case, the optimal perturbation takes the form of a superposition of two individual helical unstable modes and the optimal energy growth is similar to that predicted for an individual inviscid unstable vortex, while where the individual vortices are viscously unstable, the optimal disturbances within each core have similar spatial distributions to the individually stable case. For both of these cases, time horizons considered are much lower than those required for the merger of the undisturbed vortices. However, for the asymptotically stable case, large linear transient energy growth of optimal perturbations occurs for time horizons corresponding to vortex merging. Linear transient disturbance energy growth exhibited by pairs in this stable case is two to three orders of magnitude larger than that for a corresponding individual vortex. The superposition of the perturbation and the base flow shows that the perturbation has a displacement effect on the vortices in the base flow. Direct numerical simulations of stable pairs seeded by optimal initial perturbations have been carried out and acceleration/delay of vortex merging associated with a dual vortex meandering and vortex breakup related to axially periodic acceleration and delay of vortex merging are observed. For axially invariant cases, the sign of perturbation has an effect, as well as magnitude; the sign dependence relates to whether or not the perturbation adds to or subtracts from the swirl of the base flow. For a two-dimensional perturbation that adds to the swirl of the base flow, seeding with the linear optimal disturbance at a relative energy level induces the pair to move towards each other and approximately halves the time required for merger. Direct numerical simulation shows that the optimal three-dimensional perturbation can induce the vortex system to break up before merging occurs, since the two-dimensional nature of vortex merging is broken by the development of axially periodic perturbations.

We determine optimal inflow boundary perturbations to steady flow through a straight inflexible tube with a smooth axisymmetric stenosis at a bulk-flow Reynolds number , for which the flow is asymptotically stable. The perturbations computed produce an optimal gain, i.e. kinetic energy in the domain at a given time horizon normalized by a measure of time-integrated energy on the inflow boundary segment. We demonstrate that similarly to the optimal initial condition problem, the gain can be interpreted as the leading singular value of the forward linearized operator that evolves the boundary conditions to the final state at a fixed time. In this investigation we restrict our attention to problems where the temporal profile of the perturbations examined is a product of a Gaussian bell and a sinusoid, whose frequency is selected to excite axial wavelengths similar to those of the optimal initial perturbations in the same geometry. Comparison of the final state induced by the optimal boundary perturbation with that induced by the optimal initial condition demonstrates a close agreement for the selected problem. Previous works dealing with optimal boundary perturbation considered a prescribed spatial structure and computed an optimal temporal variation of a wall-normal velocity component, whereas in this paper we consider the problem of a prescribed temporal structure and compute the optimal spatial variation of velocity boundary conditions over a one-dimensional inflow boundary segment. The methodology is capable of optimizing boundary perturbations in general non-parallel two- and three-dimensional flows.

Time-periodic flows with spatio-temporal symmetry Z2 × O(2) – invariance in the spanwise direction generating the O(2) symmetry group and a half-period-reflection symmetry in the streamwise direction generating a spatio-temporal Z2 symmetry group – are of interest largely because this is the symmetry group of periodic laminar two-dimensional wakes of symmetric bodies. Such flows are the base states for various three-dimensional instabilities; the periodically shedding two-dimensional circular cylinder wake with three-dimensional modes A and B being the generic example. However, it is not easy to physically realize the ideal flows owing to the presence of end effects and finite spanwise geometries. Flows past rings are sometimes advanced as providing a relevant idealization, but in fact these have symmetry group O(2) and only approach Z2 × O(2) symmetry in the infinite aspect ratio limit. The present work examines physically realizable periodically driven annular cavity flows that possess Z2 × O(2) spatio-temporal symmetry. The flows have three distinct codimension-1 instabilities: two synchronous modes (A and B), and two manifestations of a quasi-periodic (QP) mode, either as modulated standing waves or modulated travelling waves. It is found that the curvature of the system can determine which of these modes is the first to become unstable with increasing Reynolds number, and that even in the nonlinear regime near onset of three-dimensional instabilities the dynamics are dominated by mixed modes with complicated spatio-temporal structure. Supplementary movies illustrating the spatio-temporal dynamics are available at journals.cambridge.org/flm.