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We study the dynamics of shear-band formation and evolution using a simple rheological model. The description couples the local structure and viscosity to the applied shear stress. We consider in detail the Couette geometry, where the model is solved iteratively with the Navier-Stokes equation to obtain the time evolution of the local velocity and viscosity fields. It is found that the underlying reason for dynamic effects is the nonhomogeneous shear distribution, which is amplified due to a positive feedback between the flow field and the viscosity response of the shear thinning fluid. This offers a simple explanation for the recent observations of transient shear banding in time-dependent fluids. Extensions to more complicated rheological systems are considered. The property that characterizes complex fluids is their nontrivial rheology, shear rate-stress relation. They are generally further categorized into shear thinning or shear thickening fluids. Both cases are additionally complicated by time dependence. Due to the stress-shear interaction, already small perturbations in the local stress can result in a positive feedback with the flow promoting shear instabilities in each case [1,2]. The understanding of complex fluids is of enormous importance for many practical applications [3] and the theory touches on many branches of physics. Recent advances make it possible to follow the suspension local velocity during a standard rheological experiment [4,5]. Quantifying the local flow field simultaneously with rheological measurements gives the possibility to measure both the intrinsic and apparent rheology. This has led to the discovery that a heterogeneous shear distribution in samples during such tests is ubiquitous. Shear banding [6] has been observed in many systems composed of substantially different building blocks, such as colloidal glasses, wormlike micelles, foams, and granular matter [7]. The current viewpoint, both phenomenologically and theoretically, is that a nonmonotonic intrinsic flow curve is what is common to most of these materials [6,8], but also other mechanisms have been suggested [9].A branch of complex fluids are the simple yield stress fluids [10]. These materials do not show aging phenomena (thixotropy). Therefore, they are expected to have a monotonic intrinsic flow curve and a steady state without shear bands [11]. However, recent experiments [12] display shear banding during startup flows in a rotational rheometer indicating timedependent behavior. These so called transient shear bands can be very long lasting, but eventually vanish with a homogeneous steady state. The transient shear banding phenomenon tests our fundamental understanding of non-Newtonian fluids, and is also important for industrial processes and simply for understanding usual rheological measurements. A particular feature of the transient shear banding is that it appears to exhibit scaling familiar from critical phenomena: The time it takes for the transient to disappear (fluidization time τ f ) is a power-law functi...

Cellular phones are now offering an ubiquitous means for scientists to observe life: how people act, move and respond to external influences. They can be utilized as measurement devices of individual persons and for groups of people of the social context and the related interactions. The picture of human life that emerges shows complexity, which is manifested in such data in properties of the spatiotemporal tracks of individuals. We extract from smartphone-based data for a set of persons important locations such as “home”, “work” and so forth over fixed length time-slots covering the days in the data-set (see also [1], [2]). This set of typical places is heavy-tailed, a power-law distribution with an exponent close to −1.7. To analyze the regularities and stochastic features present, the days are classified for each person into regular, personal patterns. To this are superimposed fluctuations for each day. This randomness is measured by “life” entropy, computed both before and after finding the clustering so as to subtract the contribution of a number of patterns. The main issue that we then address is how predictable individuals are in their mobility. The patterns and entropy are reflected in the predictability of the mobility of the life both individually and on average. We explore the simple approaches to guess the location from the typical behavior, and of exploiting the transition probabilities with time from location or activity A to B. The patterns allow an enhanced predictability, at least up to a few hours into the future from the current location. Such fixed habits are most clearly visible in the working-day length.

The rheology of nanofiber suspensions is studied solving numerically the Population Balance Equations (PBE). To account for the anisotropic nature of nanofibers, a relation is proposed for their hydrodynamic volume. The suspension viscosity is calculated using the computed aggregate size distributions together with the Krieger-Dougherty constitutive equation. The model is fitted to experimental flow curves for Carbon NanoFibers (CNF) and for NanoFibrillated Cellulose (NFC), giving a first estimation of the microscopic anisotropy parameter, and yielding information on the structural properties and rheology of each system.

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