Organisms with external fertilization are often sperm limited, and in echinoids, larger eggs have a higher probability of fertilization than smaller eggs. This difference is thought to be a result of the more frequent sperm-egg collisions experienced by larger targets. Here we report how two components of egg target size, the egg cell and jelly coat, contributed to fertilization success in a se...

A hypoplastic constitutive model is implemented in a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) code for the first time. An improved wall boundary treatment is presented for better performance. The proposed approach is first validated by comparing the numerical results with the analytical solutions for oedometer test. Two more problems involving large deformation, i.e. the collapse of sand between t...

Loess grain size data used to infer transport direction or wind strength are generally derived from vigorously disaggregated samples. However, these data may not adequately represent the effective particle size distribution during loess transport, if the transported dust contained aggregates of finegrained material. Thin sections of minimally altered C and BC horizons in the late Pleistocene Pe...

This paper presents a new efficient method for animating sand and other granular materials in 3D scenes. Our method couples 2D and 3D simulation techniques in a physically based way. A surface flow model of granular material-the BCRE model-is used to separate sand piles into two layers: a surface flowing layer and a static layer. The surface layer is simulated using discrete element method (DEM...

Two novel neural chips SAND (Simple Applicable Neural Device) and SIOP (Serial Input Operating Parallel) are described. Both are highly usable for hardware triggers in particle physics. The chips are optimized for a high input data rate at a very low cost basis. The performance of a single SAND chip is 200 MOPS due to four parallel 16 bit multipliers and 40 bit adders working in one clock cycle...

Triboelectric charging is common in desert sandstorms and dust devils on Earth; however, it remains poorly understood. Here we show a charging mechanism of sands with the adsorbed water on micro-porous surface in wind-blown sand based on the fact that water content is universal but usually a minor component in most particle systems. The triboelectric charging could be resulted due to the differ...

Complex life cycles have evolved independently numerous times in marine animals as well as in disparate algae. Such life histories typically involve a dispersive immature stage followed by settlement and metamorphosis to an adult stage on the sea floor. One commonality among animals exhibiting transitions of this type is that their larvae pass through a 'precompetent' period in which they do no...