In wind pollination, the release of pollen from anthers into airflows determines the quantity and timing of pollen available for pollination. Despite the ecological and evolutionary importance of pollen release, wind-stamen interactions are poorly understood, as are the specific forces that deliver pollen grains into airflows. We present empirical evidence that atmospheric turbulence acts direc...

A program able to use hybrid free rotor plus harmonic oscillator basis functions for the variational study of large and small amplitude vibrations is developed. The Hamiltonian matrix elements between harmonic oscillator eigenfunctions and polynomial terms are calculated using a recursive algorithm. This technique permits use of only one basic algorithm to compute the kinetic and potential part...

Opto-mechanical chaotic oscillation of an on-chip resonator is excited by the radiation-pressure nonlinearity. Continuous optical input, with no external feedback or modulation, excites chaotic vibrations in very different geometries of the cavity (both tori and spheres) and shows that opto-mechanical chaotic oscillations are an intrinsic property of optical microcavities. Measured phenomena in...

The deformation range, forces and frequency of the Magnetic Shape Memory Alloys (MSMAs) render them suitable for applications in electro-mechanical transducers, used to control pneumatic valves. A fast-operating electro-mechanical transducers can be designed, whose driving elements should not execute any motion, as they do in valves available to date, and which should get deformed instead. Util...

Characterization of cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB) thin films with 17, 35 and 52 wt% butyryl is carried out to select the most suitable matrix material for the U and Pu containing large-sized dried spike reference material. The virgin CAB samples were aged by vibrations, heat, humidity, UV light and X-rays. Characterization was done by thermo-analytical techniques, gel permeation chromatograp...

Parasitic wasps use a broad spectrum of different stimuli for host location and host acceptance. Here we review the published evidence for the use of mechanical stimuli, i.e. substrate born vibrations which are invariably regarded as vibrotaxis. We propose a set of criteria to class behavioural reactions as vibrotaxis or vibrokinesis and characterize 14 studies reporting the use of host-associa...

The paper aims to identify the situations in which a complex elastic system, is subject mechanical vibrations, can act as dynamic absorber of vibrations for certain frequencies. conditions that system must fulfill order achieve this goal are determined and then calculation example presented. method interesting because it allows avoid attaching an specially built this, situation complicates proj...

Refractory high entropy alloys (HEA), such as BCC NbMoTaW, represent a promising materials class for next-generation high-temperature applications, due to their extraordinary mechanical properties. A characteristic feature of HEAs is the formation of single-phase solid solutions. For BCC NbMoTaW, recent computational studies revealed, however, a B2(Mo,W;Nb,Ta)-ordering at ambient temperature. T...

On a macroscopic level, distinguishing between mechanical and thermal forms of energy is a relatively simple task – the science of thermodynamics is based on the clear distinction between work and heat. When making observations on the molecular scale, however, these definitions become less clearcut. Both forms of energy are the result of the motion of individual atoms and can be expressed as th...

We report experiments in which the vibrations of a micromechanical oscillator are coupled to the motion of Bose-condensed atoms in a trap. The interaction relies on surface forces experienced by the atoms at about 1 microm distance from the mechanical structure. We observe resonant coupling to several well-resolved mechanical modes of the condensate. Coupling via surface forces does not require...