Concept

Droit d'Angleterre et du pays de Galles

Publications associées (18)

Why do life phenomena not violate the second law of thermodynamics?

For many people, the reconciliation of Life with the Second Law of Thermodynamics remains a mystery. This law says that nothing in the universe will happen spontaneously without the generation of entropy. This function measures how many microstates are accessible to the system and may thus be interpreted in a simplified way as disorganization, or “messiness” of the system. The spontaneous increase of messiness may be easy to understand when considering avalanches thundering down mountains, or buildings coll

2026

Analytical description of seepage from disconnected surface water: improved approximate solution and insights for disconnection assessment

Seepage across a streambed is typically expressed by Darcy's law, q = Kc · ΔH / wc, where Kc and wc are the hydraulic conductivity and thickness of the bed, respectively, and ΔH is the hydraulic head gradient. When the stream is “disconnected” – i.e., an unsaturated zone exists beneath it – the suction at the lower bed interface no longer follows the groundwater head. Capturing this effect requires solving a nonlinear equation that incorporates the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity (UHC) relationship of th

2026

Writing/Drawing/Modeling Inventions: Regimes of Description and the ‘Intellectual’ in IP, France-United States ca. 1790-1850

In 1791, one year after the first US Patent Act, the French ‘Loi relative aux découvertes utiles’ sought to revolutionize the Ancien Régime’s privileges of invention, turning them into new patents or ‘brevets d’invention’. Not only did the law recast ci-devant privileges theoretically, declaring the new patents to derive from natural rights rather than royal grace, but it did so also in a more practical way. Whereas privileges of invention were only delivered after a long and tedious process of prior examin

2019

Meta-concrete by means of discrete element method

The basis of the discrete element method is to model masses interacting with each other through different forces and constraints. On each mass, the second law of Newton is applied to obtain a differential equation. From this equation and boundary conditions, a numerical integrator is used to find the trajectories of the different masses. In engineering, this method is mainly used to model discrete media, from the atomic scale with molecular dynamics to larger scale with sand or even astronomical scale with

2019

The role of the hyporheic flow on sediment transport processes : an experimental approach using particle image velocimetry.

The study of river dynamics usually considers a turbulent stream on an impervious bed. However, it is known that part of the total discharge takes place through the erodible bed, especially for mountain rivers. This hyporheic flow (or subsurface flow) is likely to play an active role in the stability of the erodible bed. The question then arises: How does the hyporheic flow affect bed stability and thereby bed load transport? Monitoring hyporheic flow under natural conditions remains a key challenge. Labora

2017

Aesthetics and Urbanity

If we study the evolution of the urban space in Switzerland we must notice the high importance assigned by different urban actors to aesthetic questions. In a sense, the subjective realm of the aesthetic has proved to be able to generate conditions that lead to action, and consequently influence the realm of the objective i.e. the ethical, the political or the law.

2016

Transport equation describing fractional Lévy motion of suprathermal ions in TORPEX

Ambrogio Fasoli, Ivo Furno, Paolo Ricci, Kyle Gustafson, Alexandre Dominique Bovet

Suprathermal ions, created by fusion reactions or by additional heating, will play an important role in burning plasmas such as the ones in ITER or DEMO. Basic plasma experiments, with easy access for diagnostics and well-controlled plasma scenarios, are p ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2014

Influence of the DSD variability at the radar subgrid scale on radar power laws

Power laws relating the different radar observables (from conventional or polarimetric radar systems) are commonly used in the processing of radar measurements (e.g., attenuation correction) and in their conversion into rain rate values (e.g., Z-R relationship). These power laws are usually established from measured raindrop size distributions (DSD) collected by disdrometers (at the ground level), that correspond to point-scale measurements. These power laws are then applied at the scale of a radar sampling

2012

Universal Scaling Law for Jets of Collapsing Bubbles

Mohamed Farhat, Danail Obreschkow

Cavitation bubbles collapsing and rebounding in a pressure gradient del p form a "microjet" enveloped by a "vapor jet." This Letter presents unprecedented observations of the vapor jets formed in a uniform gravity-induced del p, modulated aboard parabolic flights. The data uncover that the normalized jet volume is independent of the liquid density and viscosity and proportional to zeta equivalent to vertical bar del p vertical bar R-0/Delta p, where R-0 the maximal bubble radius and Delta p is the driving p

2011

Analysis of multi-stage creep and swelling oedometric tests on a French marl

Vincent Labiouse, Jean-François Mathier, Jean-Paul Dudt

The paper focuses on the delayed behaviour of marls induced by a change in stress state and by the effect of water. Seven experiments were conducted in oedometric cells on marl from the Arbus tunnel (France). The samples were subjected to a single loading step (i.e one-stage creep test) or to successive loading steps (i.e. multi-stage creep test) followed, after hydration, by several unloading stages. For the creep behaviour, Lemaitre’s law is found adequate to model the viscoplastic strain, but its paramet

CRC Press/Balkema2010

The Intrinsic Permeability of Packed SiC Particles with Monomodal and Bimodal Size Distributions

The intrinsic permeability k of preforms of packed alpha-SiC particles having monomodal and bimodal particle size distributions has been evaluated by pressureless infiltration of a wetting organic fluid at room temperature. The study was carried out using ...

SAGE Publications2008

The spectrum of heavy tailed random matrices

Let X-N be an N x N random symmetric matrix with independent equidistributed entries. If the law P of the entries has a finite second moment, it was shown by Wigner [14] that the empirical distribution of the eigenvalues of X-N , once renormalized by root ...

Springer Verlag2008

Modelling the E-J relation of high-Tc superconductors in an arbitrary current range

Bertrand Dutoit, Svetlomir Stavrev, Joseph Duron

For describing the E-J relation of high-Tc superconductors (HTS) in power applications, where the applied current I is generally limited by Ic, the critical state model, a piecewise linear generalization, or a simple power-law of the type E=Ec(J/Jc)^n are most often used. The power-law cannot be used for modelling the E-J relation with I>>I_c due to the unbound exponential increase of the electric field for currents above Ic, while in reality the non-linear HTS resistivity is limited by its normal state val

Elsevier2004

Direct evidence for Vogel-Fulcher freezing in relaxor ferroelectrics

Alexander Tagantsev

Direct evidence for freezing in two relaxer ferroelectrics, PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3 and PbSc1/2Ta1/2O3, at a certain temperature T-f not equal 0K was obtained from the temperature dependence of the maximum relaxation time, tau(max), It was shown that tau(max)(T) follows the Vogel-Fulcher (VF) law, and tends toward infinity as temperature approaches T-f. The freezing temperature T-f derived from tau(max)(T) coincides with the value of T-f obtained from the fit of frequency, omega, dependence of the temperature, T-max

1998

Asset Prices and Trading Volume in a Beauty Contest

Speculators buy an asset hoping to sell it later to investors with higher private valuations. If agents are uncertain about the distribution of private valuations and about the beliefs of others about this distribution, a beauty contest with an infinite hierarchy of beliefs arises. Under Harsanyi's assumption of a common prior the infinite beliefs hierarchy is readily solved using Bayes' law. This paper shows that common knowledge of the "beliefs formation rule," mapping the private valuation of each agent

1998

On Hack's law

Hack's law is reviewed, emphasizing its implications for the elongation of river basins as well as its connections with their fractal characteristics. The relation between Hack's law and the internal structure of river basins is investigated experimentally through digital elevation models. It is found that Hack's exponent, elongation, and some relevant fractal characters are closely related. The self-affine character of basin boundaries is shown to be connected to the power law decay of the probability of t

1996

Les politiques culturelles d'une région urbaine: le Canton de Genève. Dossier pour un projet de loi.

Yves Pedrazzini

Study realized for the Office of Culture of the Canton of Geneva, in order to plan a new law on culture

1992

The correlation of rising slope and speed of approach in ESD tests

Alain Germond, Pierre Zweiacker

The rising part of the current waveform observed when discharging an electrostatically charged person or test generator shows some phenomena which have not been explained satisfactorily. This paper describes an attempt to understand these effects using both experimental and numerical simulation. A special rotating system to simulate a defined, variable closing speed of contact has been built. The length of the arc is also measured and it can be shown that a strong correlation between arc-length and rising s

1987

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Publications associées (18)

Why do life phenomena not violate the second law of thermodynamics?

Urs von Stockar

2026

Analytical description of seepage from disconnected surface water: improved approximate solution and insights for disconnection assessment

2026

Writing/Drawing/Modeling Inventions: Regimes of Description and the ‘Intellectual’ in IP, France-United States ca. 1790-1850

2019

Meta-concrete by means of discrete element method

2019

The role of the hyporheic flow on sediment transport processes : an experimental approach using particle image velocimetry.

2017

1992

The correlation of rising slope and speed of approach in ESD tests

Alain Germond, Pierre Zweiacker

1987