A reformulation of the planetary geostrophic equations (PGEs) with the inviscid balance equation is proposed and the existence of global weak solutions is established, provided that the mechanical force satisfies an integral constraint. There is only one prognostic equation for the temperature field, and the velocity field is statically determined by the planetary geostrophic balance combined with the incompressibility condition. Furthermore, the velocity profile can be accurately represented as a function of the temperature gradient. In particular, the vertical velocity depends only on the first-order derivative of the temperature. As a result, the bound for the L ∞ (0, t 1 ; L 2 ) ∩ L 2 (0, t 1 ; H 1 ) norm of the temperature field is sufficient to show the existence of the weak solution.

We show that in bounded domains with no-slip boundary conditions, the Navier-Stokes pressure can be determined in a such way that it is strictly dominated by viscosity. As a consequence, in a general domain we can treat the Navier-Stokes equations as a perturbed vector diffusion equation, instead of as a perturbed Stokes system. To illustrate the advantages of this view, we provide a simple proof of the unconditional stability of a difference scheme that is implicit only in viscosity and explicit in both pressure and convection terms, requiring no solution of stationary Stokes systems or inf-sup conditions.

We give an error estimate for the energy and helicity preserving scheme (EHPS) in second order finite difference setting on axisymmetric incompressible flows with swirling velocity. This is accomplished by a weighted energy estimate, along with careful and nonstandard local truncation error analysis near the geometric singularity and a far field decay estimate for the stream function. A key ingredient in our a priori estimate is the permutation identities associated with the Jacobians, which are also a unique feature that distinguishes EHPS from standard finite difference schemes.

This paper presents a general methodology to design macroscopic fluid models that take into account localized kinetic upscaling effects. The fluid models are solved in the whole domain together with a localized kinetic upscaling that corrects the fluid model wherever it is necessary. This upscaling is obtained by solving a kinetic equation on the nonequilibrium part of the distri-bution function. This equation is solved only locally and is related to the fluid equation through a downscaling effect. The method does not need to find an interface condition as do usual domain decomposition methods to match fluid and kinetic representations. We show our approach applies to problems that have a hydrodynamic time scale as well as to problems with diffusion time scale. Simple numerical schemes are proposed to discretize our models, and several numerical examples are used to validate the method.

The bran fraction of wheat grain is known to contain significant quantities of bioactive components. This study evaluated the potential of solid-state yeast fermentation to improve the health beneficial properties of wheat bran, including extractable antioxidant properties, protein contents, and soluble and insoluble fiber compositions. Three commercial food grade yeast preparations were evaluated in the study along with the effects of yeast dose, treatment time, and their interaction with the beneficial components. Solid-state yeast treatments were able to significantly increase releasable antioxidant properties ranging from 28 to 65, from 0 to 20, from 13 to 19, from 0 to 25, from 50 to 100, and from 3 to 333% for scavenging capacities against peroxyl (ORAC), ABTS cation, DPPH and hydroxyl radicals, total phenolic contents (TPC), and phenolic acids, respectively. Yeast treatment increased protein content 11-12% but did not significantly alter the fiber composition of wheat bran. Effects of solid-state yeast treatment on both ORAC and TPC of wheat bran were altered by yeast dose, treatment time, and their interaction. Results suggest that solid-state yeast treatment may be a commercially viable postharvest procedure for improving the health beneficial properties of wheat bran and other wheat-based food ingredients.