arXiv subjects

Elie Bou-Zeid

Publications and source records attributed to Elie Bou-Zeid.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

From Heat Stress to Perception: Interpretable Data-Driven Models of Human Thermal Sensation

Heat stress indices are designed to quantify physiological thermal stress, but their relevance for inferring the thermal perception of individuals remains unclear. In this study, we show that thermal stress and thermal sensation often diverge, as evidenced by distinct global sensitivity patterns with respect to environmental drivers. Using thermal sensation vote survey data, we demonstrate that the dominant sensitivities of stress-based metrics do not align with those governing reported human thermal sensation. Given the multitude of globally-applicable thermal stress indices and the lack of comparable general thermal sensation metrics, we develop two complementary data-driven modeling frameworks for thermal sensation. First, we construct polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) surrogates to represent thermal sensation as a function of meteorological variables, enabling efficient variance-based sensitivity analysis and explicit identification of influential inputs and interactions. Second, we develop multilayer perceptron (MLP) classifiers that capture the nonlinear and subjective nature of thermal perception, while achieving high predictive accuracy. The PCE models provide physically interpretable sensitivities that can explain the drivers of thermal sensation, while the MLPs offer flexible predictive capability suited to complex environments. We apply both modeling approaches at city- and continent-scales, revealing systematic differences in sensitivity structure and performance across climates. In particular, we find that the sensitivity of TSV-based models to the variability of meteorological conditions across geoclimatic zone encodes distinct dependencies on temperature, radiation, humidity, and wind that vary geographically, and are generally different from those of heat stress indices.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2026

Data-Driven Flux Parameterization for the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Turbulent fluxes in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) govern exchanges of momentum, heat, and mass between the surface and atmosphere, shaping boundary layer structure and influencing weather, climate, and engineering applications. Yet their representation in coarse resolution models remains challenging, particularly under unstable conditions with strongly nonlocal transport and stable conditions with intermittent turbulence. Here, we develop a data driven turbulent flux parameterization in which nondimensional fluxes are represented by a linearized convolution operator acting on nondimensional mean state profiles. We train and evaluate the closure using high resolution large eddy simulations (LES) of idealized flow over homogeneous surfaces spanning multiple stability regimes. Several first order closure variants are constructed from different combinations of mean temperature and velocity profiles to predict heat and momentum fluxes, and the best model is selected by minimizing mean squared error across training and unseen test cases. The resulting parameterization improves predictive skill relative to a standard K-profile closure while retaining an interpretable operator form. Its learned kernels expose the locality and nonlocality of turbulent transport across stability regimes, linking empirical performance to physically inspectable flux--profile relationships. In a posteriori single column simulations, the closure remains stable and produces state profiles that closely match LES, demonstrating its potential as an accurate and transparent ABL flux parameterization.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2026

On the large-scale vertical velocity intermittency of turbulent wall flows

Large-scale intermittency in the vertical velocity (LSI) has received significant attention in studies of coherent structures and their detection using data-driven approaches. However, a theory that predicts the origin of LSI from the Navier-Stokes equations or some approximated version of them at very high Reynolds numbers is yet to be achieved. This letter proposes such a theory for a neutrally stratified wall-bounded turbulent flow based on a dominant balance between inertial and pressure forces. Using multiple flume and wind tunnel experiments, it is shown that the flatness factor ($FF_w$) measuring LSI collapses to a universal trend for all flow configurations within the inertial sublayer (ISL) before reaching a common minimum value above the ISL. A theory that predicts $FF_w$ using second-order statistics and explicitly accommodates large-scale energy anisotropy is tested against a wide range of Reynolds numbers from laboratory to field settings with varied surface roughness conditions. The theory also demonstrates why $FF_w$ cannot be described using down-gradient closure approximations routinely employed in large-scale meteorological and climate models.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Stratification, turbulence organization, and pressure-strain effects on surface-layer turbulence anisotropy

At large scales, the Reynolds stress tensor exhibits notable anisotropy, a key feature of all wall-bounded turbulent flows. Yet, how the drivers of this anisotropy evolve with shearing and thermal stratification in the atmospheric surface layer (ASL) remains a daunting challenge for theory and models alike. Here, the velocity variance budgets are used to explore the evolution of anisotropy in the daytime ASL close to the surface, region known to be problematic for large eddy simulations. A special focus is placed on the importance of slow and rapid pressure-strain correlations and the role of transport on partitioning the turbulent kinetic energy among the velocity components. Results obtained from near-surface observations of four datasets over flat and horizontally homogeneous terrain show persistent anisotropy over a wide range of flux Richardson numbers $R_{if}$ and wall-normal distances, and highlight the importance of different processes in three distinct flow regimes, roughly related to dynamic ($|R_{if}|\ll1$), dynamic-convective ($|R_{if}|\sim1$) and convective ($|R_{if}|\gg1$) regimes of the ASL. In particular, close to the surface in the dynamic-convective regime, a drop in wall-normal velocity variance and a substantial increase of spanwise velocity variance are shown to result from the increasing role of pressure transport and rapid distortion, related to turbulence organization. This behaviour is not captured by the classic Rotta closure but requires the inclusion of both rapid pressure-strain and transport terms. In all regimes wall blocking is found to influence turbulence close to the surface, thus requiring the adoption of an anisotropic Rotta model to accommodate its effects.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Train Long, Think Short: Curriculum Learning for Efficient Reasoning

Recent work on enhancing the reasoning abilities of large language models (LLMs) has introduced explicit length control as a means of constraining computational cost while preserving accuracy. However, existing approaches rely on fixed-length training budgets, which do not take advantage of the natural progression from exploration to compression during learning. In this work, we propose a curriculum learning strategy for length-controlled reasoning using Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO). Our method starts with generous token budgets and gradually tightens them over training, encouraging models to first discover effective solution strategies and then distill them into more concise reasoning traces. We augment GRPO with a reward function that balances three signals: task correctness (via verifier feedback), length efficiency, and formatting adherence (via structural tags). Experiments on GSM8K, MATH500, SVAMP, College Math, and GSM+ demonstrate that curriculum-based training consistently outperforms fixed-budget baselines at the same final budget, achieving higher accuracy and significantly improved token efficiency. We further ablate the impact of reward weighting and decay schedule design, showing that progressive constraint serves as a powerful inductive bias for training efficient reasoning models. Our code and checkpoints are released at: https://github.com/hammoudhasan/curriculum_grpo.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2024

Kirigami-inspired wind steering for natural ventilation

Ensuring adequate ventilation of exterior and interior urban spaces is essential for the safety and comfort of inhabitants. Here, we examine how angled features can steer wind into areas with stagnant air, promoting natural ventilation. Using Large Eddy Simulations (LES) and wind tunnel experiments with particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements, we first examine how louvers, located at the top of a box enclosed on four sides, can improve ventilation in the presence of incoming wind. By varying louver scale, geometry, and angle, we identify a geometric regime wherein louvers capture free-stream air to create sweeping interior flow structures, increasing the Air Exchange Rate (ACH) significantly above that for an equivalent box with an open top. We then show that non-homogeneous louver orientations enhance ventilation, accommodating winds from opposing directions, and address the generalization to taller structures. Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of replacing louvers with lattice-cut kirigami ("cut paper"), which forms angled chutes when stretched in one direction, and could provide a mechanically preferable solution for adaptive ventilation. Our findings for this idealized system may inform the design of retrofits for urban structures -- e.g. canopies above street canyons, and "streeteries" or parklets -- capable of promoting ventilation, while simultaneously providing shade.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2024

Estimating scalar turbulent fluxes with slow response sensors in the stable atmospheric boundary layer

Conventional and recently developed approaches for estimating turbulent scalar fluxes under stable conditions are evaluated. The focus is on methods that do not require fast scalar sensors such as the relaxed eddy accumulation (REA) approach, the disjunct eddy-covariance (DEC) approach, and a novel mixing length parametrization labelled as A22. Using high-frequency measurements collected from two contrasting sites (Utqiagvik, Alaska and Wendell, Idaho "during winter"), it is shown that the REA and A22 models outperform the conventional Monin-Obukhov Similarity Theory (MOST) utilized in Earth System Models. With slow trace gas sensors used in disjunct eddy-covariance (DEC) approaches and the more complex signal filtering associated with REA devices (here simulated using filtered signals from fast-response sensors), A22 outperforms REA and DEC in predicting the observed unfiltered (total) eddy-covariance (EC) fluxes. However, REA and DEC can still capture the observed filtered EC fluxes computed with the filtered scalar signal. This finding motivates the development of a correction, blending the REA and DEC methods, for the underestimated net averaged fluxes to incorporate the effect of sensor filtering. The only needed parameter for this correction is the mean velocity at the instrument height, a surrogate of the advective timescale.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2023

Unsteady Land-Sea Breeze Circulations in the Presence of a Synoptic Pressure Forcing

Unsteady land-sea breezes (LSBs) resulting from time-varying surface thermal contrasts are explored in the presence of a constant synoptic pressure forcing, Mg, when the latter is oriented from sea to land versus land to sea. Large eddy simulations reveal the development of four distinctive regimes depending on the joint interaction between (Mg, orientation) and thermal contrasts in modulating the fine-scale dynamics. Time lags, computed as the shifts that maximize correlation coefficients of the dynamics between transient and the corresponding steady state scenarios at maximum thermal contrast, are found to be significant and to extend 2 hours longer for sea to land compared to land to sea. These diurnal dynamics result in non-equilibrium flows that behave differently over the two patches for both orientations. Turbulence is found to be out of equilibrium with the mean flow, and the mean itself is found to be out of equilibrium with the thermal forcing. The sea surface heat flux is consistently more sensitive than its land counterpart to the time-varying external forcing, and more so for synoptic forcing from land-to-sea. Hence, although the land reaches equilibrium faster, the sea patch is found to exert a stronger control on the final turbulence-mean flow equilibrium response. Finally, vertical velocity profile at the shore and shore-normal velocity transects at the first grid level are shown to encode the multiscale regimes of the LSBs evolution, and can thus be used to identify these regimes using k-means clustering.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2023

The Influence of Synoptic Wind on Coastal Circulation Dynamics

Particularly challenging classes of heterogeneous surfaces are ones where strong secondary circulations are generated, potentially dominating the flow dynamics. In this study, we focus on land-sea breeze circulations (LSBs) resulting from surface thermal contrasts in the presence of increasing synoptic pressure forcing. The relative importance and orientation of the thermal and synoptic forcings are measured through two dimensionless parameters: a bulk Richardson number (Mg is the geostrophic wind magnitude and Wstar a convective buoyant velocity scale), and the angle alpha between the shore and geostrophic wind. Large eddy simulations reveal the emergence of various regimes where the dynamics are shown to be asymmetric with respect to alpha. Along-shore cases result in deep LSBs similar to the quiescent scenario (zero synoptic background), irrespective of the strength of Mg. Across-shore simulations exhibit a circulation cell that decreases in height with increasing synoptic forcing. However, at the highest synoptic winds simulated, the circulation cell is advected away with sea-to-land winds, while a shallow circulation persists for land-to-sea cases. Scaling analysis that relates the internal parameters Qshore (net shore volumetric flux) and qshore (net shore advected heat flux) to the external input parameters Mg and Wstar results in a succinct model of the shore fluxes that also helps explain the physical implications of the identified LSBs. Finally, the vertical profiles of the shore-normal velocity and shore-advected heat flux are used, with the aid of k-means clustering, to independently classify the LSBs in the (Ri, alpha) regime space diagram (canonical LSB, sea-driven LSB, land-driven LSB, and advected LSB), corroborating our visual categorization.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2018

Contrasts Between Momentum and Scalar Transport Over Very Rough Surfaces

Large-eddy simulations are conducted to contrast momentum and passive scalar transport over large, three-dimensional roughness elements in a turbulent channel flow. Special attention is given to the dispersive fluxes, which are shown to be a significant fraction of the total fluxes within the roughness sublayers. Based on point-wise quadrant analysis, the turbulent components of the transport of momentum and scalars are found to be similar in general, albeit with increasing dissimilarity for roughnesses with low frontal blockage. However, strong dissimilarity is noted between the dispersive momentum and scalar fluxes, especially below the top of the roughness elements. In general, turbulence is found to transport momentum more efficiently than scalars, while the reverse applies for the dispersive contributions. The effects of varying surface geometries, measured by the frontal density, can be pronounced on both turbulent and dispersive fluxes. Increasing frontal density induces a general transition in the flow from a rough boundary-layer type to a mixed-layer-like type. This transition results in an increase in the efficiency of turbulent momentum transport, but the reverse occurs for scalars due to reduced contributions from large scale motions in the roughness sublayers. This study highlights the need for distinct parameterizations of the dispersive scalar fluxes and the importance of considering the contrasts between momentum and scalar transport for turbulent flows over very rough surfaces.

physics.flu-dyn↗