We present several observations into spiral turbulence in a Taylor-Couette geometry gained through a three-dimensional direct numerical simulation. Conditionally averaged flow statistics show the persistence of an azimuthal gradient of the mean flow across both the turbulent and laminar spirals, and distinct distribution features of the turbulent intensity. The data provide a physical picture q...

In most taxa, owners win fights when defending a territory against intruders. We calculated effect sizes for four factors that potentially contribute to an 'owner advantage'. We studied male fiddler crabs Uca mjoebergi, where owners won 92% of natural fights. Owners were not more successful because they were inherently better fighters (r=0.02). There was a small effect (r=0.18) of the owner's k...

Predicting markets (such as the stock market) has been and still is a topic of great interest and importance to many people. Unfortunately due to the extremely large number of factors which can affect the market, it is often difficult to accurately assess the value of a new object that is just being released into the world. In this project I will be considering a much smaller scale market in or...

In 2009, following a legislative redistricting lead by the right-wing, 18.1% of the French cities have moved from one constituency to another. The aim of this note is to provide some methodological issues about this redistricting and some insights about its influence on the electoral results. The main result goes in the sense of a partisan manipulation: due to the redistricting, the left-wing l...

Undergraduate research (UR) and problem-based learning (PBL) sessions are similar with respect to the type of skills gained through each. However, appropriate modification of PBL sessions would contribute to enhanced UR experience. Based on personal experience in UR and a PBL curriculum, in this short discourse I shall explain how studying under a PBL curriculum enabled me to gain more out of m...

The S-matrix for a scattering system provides the most detailed information about the dynamics. In this work, we discuss the calculation of S-matrix elements for the A+BC-->AB+C, AC+B type reaction. Two methods for extracting S-matrix elements from a single wave packet in reactant Jacobi coordinates are reviewed and compared. Both methods are capable of extracting the state-to-state attributes ...

The renormalization group (RG) methods are still far from being completely understood in quenched disordered systems. In order to gain insight into the nature of the phase transition of these systems, it is common to investigate simple models. In this work we study a real-space RG transformation on the Dyson hierarchical lattice with a random field, which leads to a reconstruction of the RG flo...

For a gas confined between surfaces held at different temperatures the velocity distribution shows a significant deviation from the Maxwell distribution when the mean free path of the molecules is comparable to or larger than the channel dimensions. If one of the surfaces is suitably structured, this nonequilibrium distribution can be exploited for momentum transfer in a tangential direction be...