Computational Modeling of Drug Dissolution in the Human Stomach

A computational model of drug dissolution in the human stomach is developed to investigate the interaction between gastric flow and orally administrated drug in the form of a solid tablet. The stomach model is derived from the anatomical imaging data and the motion and dissolution of the drug in the stomach are modeled via fluid-structure interaction combined with mass transport simulations. The effects of gastric motility and the associated fluid dynamics on the dissolution characteristics are investigated. Two different pill densities are considered to study the effects of the gastric flow as well as the gravitational force on the motion of the pill. The average mass transfer coefficient and the spatial distributions of the dissolved drug concentration are analyzed in detail. The results show that the retropulsive jet and recirculating flow in the antrum generated by the antral contraction wave play an important role in the motion of the pill as well as the transport and mixing of the dissolved drug concentration. It is also found that the gastric flow can increase the dissolution mass flux, especially when there is substantial relative motion between the gastric flow and the pill.

The effect of tidal force and topography on horizontal convection

We present a numerical study on how tidal force and topography influence flow dynamics, transport and mixing in horizontal convection. Our results show that local energy dissipation near topography will be enhanced when the tide is sufficiently strong. Such enhancement is related to the height of the topography and increases as the tidal frequency $\omega$ decreases. The global dissipation is found to be less sensitive to the changes in $\omega$ when the latter becomes small and asymptotically approaches a constant value. We interpret the behaviour of the dissipation as a result of the competition among the dominant forces in the system. According to which mechanism prevails, the flow state of the system can be divided into three regimes, which are the buoyancy-, tide- and drag-control regimes. We show that the mixing efficiency $\eta$ for different tidal energy and topography height can be well described by a universal function $\eta \approx \eta _{HC}/(1+\mathcal {R})$ , where $\eta _{HC}$ is the mixing efficiency in the absence of tide and $\mathcal {R}$ is the ratio between tidal and available potential energy inputs. With this, one can also determine the dominant mechanism at a certain ocean region. We further derive a power law relationship connecting the mixing coefficient and the tidal Reynolds number.

Unveiling atmospheric transport and mixing mechanisms of ice nucleating particles over the Alps

Precipitation over the mid-latitudes originates mostly from the ice phase within mixed-phase clouds, signifying the importance of initial ice crystal formation. Primary ice crystals are formed on ice nucleating particles (INPs), which are sparsely populated in the troposphere. INPs are emitted by a large number of ground-based sources into the atmosphere, from where they can get lifted up to cloud heights. Therefore, it is vital to understand vertical INP transport mechanisms, which are particularly complex over orographic terrain. We investigate the vertical transport and mixing mechanisms of INPs over orographic terrain during cloudy conditions by simultaneous measurements of in situ INP concentration at a high valley and a mountaintop site in the Swiss Alps in late winter 2019. On the mountaintop, the INP concentrations were on average lower than in the high valley. However, a diurnal cycle in INP concentrations was observed at the mountaintop, which was absent in the high valley. The median mountaintop INP concentration equilibrated to the concentration found in the high valley towards the night. We found that in nearly 70 % of the observed cases INP-rich air masses were orographically lifted from low elevation upstream of the measurement site. In addition, we present evidence that over the course of the day air masses containing high INP concentrations were advected from the Swiss plateau towards the measurement sites, contributing to the diurnal cycle of INPs. Our results the local INP concentration enhancement over the Alps during cloud events.

Anabatic Flow along a Uniformly Heated Slope Studied through Large-Eddy Simulation

Anabatic flows are common phenomena in the presence of sloping terrains, which significantly affect the dynamics and the exchange of mass and momentum in the low-atmosphere. Despite this, very few studies in the literature have tackled this topic. The present contribution addresses this gap by utilising high-resolved large-eddy simulations for investigating an anabatic flow in a simplified configuration, commonly used in laboratory experiments. The purpose is to analyse the complex thermo-fluid dynamics and the turbulent structures arising from the anabatic flow near the slope. In such a flow, three main dynamic layers are identified and reported: the conductive layer close to the surface, the convective layer where the most energetic motion develops, and the outer region, which is almost unperturbed. The analysis of instantaneous fields reveals the presence of thermal plumes, which are stable turbulent structures enhancing vertical transport and mixing of momentum and temperature. Such structures are generated by thermal instabilities in the conductive layer that trigger the rise of the plumes above them. Their evolution along the slope is described, identifying three regions responsible for the plumes generation, stabilisation, and merging. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first numerical experiment describing the along-slope behaviour of the thermal plumes in the convective layer.

Surface and deep ocean connectivity inferred from robust extraction of coherent sets in ocean flow using models and sparse, scattered, and incomplete float data with transfer operator and dynamic Laplacian methods.

<p>Transport and mixing properties of the ocean's circulation is crucial to dynamical analyses, and often have to be carried out with limited observed information. Finite-time coherent sets are regions of the ocean that minimally mix (in the presence of small diffusion) with the rest of the ocean domain over the finite period of time considered. In the purely advective setting (in the zero diffusion limit) this is equivalent to identifying regions whose boundary interfaces remain small throughout their finite-time evolution. Finite-time coherent sets thus provide a skeleton of distinct regions around which more turbulent flow occurs. Well known manifestations of finite-time coherent sets in geophysical systems include rotational objects like ocean eddies, ocean gyres, and atmospheric vortices. In real-world settings, often observational data is scattered and sparse, which makes the difficult problem of coherent set identification and tracking challenging. I will describe mesh-based numerical methods [3] to efficiently approximate the recently defined dynamic Laplace operator [1,2], and rapidly and reliably extract finite-time coherent sets from models or scattered, possibly sparse, and possibly incomplete observed data. From these results we can infer new chemical and physical ocean connectivities at global and intra-basin scales (at the surface and at depth), track series of eddies, and determine new oceanic barriers.</p><p>[1] G. Froyland. Dynamic isoperimetry and the geometry of Lagrangian coherent structures. <em>Nonlinearity</em>, 28:3587-3622, 2015</p><p>[2] G. Froyland and E. Kwok. A dynamic Laplacian for identifying Lagrangian coherent structures on weighted Riemannian manifolds. <em>Journal of Nonlinear Science</em>, 30:1889–1971, 2020.</p><p>[3] Gary Froyland and Oliver Junge. Robust FEM-based extraction of finite-time coherent sets using scattered, sparse, and incomplete trajectories. <em>SIAM J. Applied Dynamical Systems</em>, 17:1891–1924, 2018.</p>

Reaction rates in the hyporheic zone explained by the lamellar theory of mixing

<p>At the interface between aquifers and rivers, hyporheic zones are shallow sediment layers where surface and subsurface waters mix and react. In these zones, the dynamic of solute transport and mixing is a crucial and limiting component for many biogeochemical reactive processes (arsenic and nitrates degradation for instance). In particular, the understanding of the consequence of flow path heterogeneity on solute mixing and reactivity is key to develop physically-based upscaled models of the hyporheic function. By simulating the evolution of reacting fronts under simple 2D and 3D heterogeneous hyporheic flows created by bed superficial pressure gradients, we show that incomplete mixing of reacting solutes systematically precludes the use of macro-dispersion models as upscaled models of the hyporheic function, both in steady and unsteady flow conditions.<br>Based on these simulations, we propose an alternative theoretical framework, based on the concept of solute lamellae stretched by flow velocity gradients, to correctly upscale local reaction rates at the reach and basin scale. Finally, we compare our numerical and theoretical results to reacting fronts in a laboratory scale hyporheic mixing experiment.</p>