La0.7Ce0.3MnO3 epitaxial films fabricated by a pulsed laser deposition method

La_0.7Ce_0.3MnO₃ epitaxial films were successfully fabricated via a pulsed laser deposition method by controlling the experimental conditions. A series of experiments with varying the oxygen pressure and the substrate temperature demonstrated that the use of appropriate conditions is crucial for fabricating the epitaxial thin films. The existence of such suitable conditions was thermodynamically interpreted in terms of the stability of Mn²⁺ ion. Both XRD and EPMA measurements indicated that La_0.7Ce_0.3MnO₃ thin films fabricated herein form single phases, although it was difficult to present the direct experimental evidence to prove that Ce ion can really exist within the perovskite structure. The resultant films with oxygen annealing showed a metal-insulator transition and ferromagnetic property with Curie temperature of 275 K.     

A Java-based control system for the Orsay tandem accelerator

A new control system was designed for the tandem MP-9 at Orsay. Because of the existing devices located on high voltage platforms and the lack of space inside the accelerator, in-house electronic cards based on micro-controllers and an optical fieldbus were developed to collect data. VME processors under VxWorks, a real time operating system, manage the fieldbus, concentrate the accelerator information and transmit it to the supervisory software through the ethernet network. This software consists of a collection of Java virtual machines (JVM) running on several Unix work-stations and PCs under Windows. Some of the Java virtual machines manage apparatus, instruments, local display and connections to an object database and VME concentrators. Other manage general synoptics. JVMs communicate between themselves with RMI protocol and JRPC with VME concentrators. So the supervisory software can be spread over several control stations throughout the network.     

An Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for the Minimum Weight Vertex Cover Problem

Given an undirected graph and a weighting function defined on the vertex set, the minimum weight vertex cover problem is to find a vertex subset whose total weight is minimum subject to the premise that the selected vertices cover all edges in the graph. In this paper, we introduce a meta-heuristic based upon the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) approach, to find approximate solutions to the minimum weight vertex cover problem. In the literature, the ACO approach has been successfully applied to several well-known combinatorial optimization problems whose solutions might be in the form of paths on the associated graphs. A solution to the minimum weight vertex cover problem however needs not to constitute a path. The ACO algorithm proposed in this paper incorporates several new features so as to select vertices out of the vertex set whereas the total weight can be minimized as much as possible. Computational experiments are designed and conducted to study the performance of our proposed approach. Numerical results evince that the ACO algorithm demonstrates significant effectiveness and robustness in solving the minimum weight vertex cover problem.     

Apparent viscosity of a mixture of a Newtonian fluid and interacting particles

We investigate the behavior of fluid–particle mixtures subject to shear stress, by mean of direct simulation. This approach is meant to give some hints to explain the influence of interacting red cells on the global behavior of the blood. We concentrate on the apparent viscosity, which we define as a macroscopic quantity which characterizes the resistance of a mixture against externally imposed shear motion. Our main purpose is to explain the non-monotonous variations of this apparent viscosity when a mixture of fluid and interacting particles is submitted to shear stress during a certain time interval. Our analysis of these variations is based on preliminary theoretical remarks, and some computations for some well-chosen static configurations. To cite this article: A. Lefebvre, B. Maury, C. R. Mecanique 333 (2005).     

Impact of Turbulent Flow and Mean Mixture Fraction Results on Mixing Model Behavior in Transported Scalar PDF Simulations of Turbulent Non-premixed Bluff Body Flames

Numerical simulation results are presented for three turbulent jet diffusion flames, stabilized behind a bluff body (Sydney Flames HM1-3). Interaction between turbulence and combustion is modeled with the transported joint-scalar PDF approach. The focus of the study is on the impact of the quality of simulation results in physical space on the behavior of two micro-mixing models in composition space: the Euclidean Minimum Spanning Tree (‘EMST’) model and the modified Curl coalescence dispersion (‘CD’) model. Profiles of conditional means and variances of thermo-chemical quantities, conditioned on the mixture fraction, are discussed in the recirculation region and in the neck zone behind. The impact of the flow and mixing fields in physical space on the mixing model behavior in composition space is strong for the CD model and increases as the turbulence – chemistry interaction becomes stronger. The EMST conditional profiles, on the contrary, are hardly affected.     

Non-parametric clustering over user features and latent behavioral functions with dual-view mixture models

We present a dual-view mixture model to cluster users based on their features and latent behavioral functions. Every component of the mixture model represents a probability density over a feature view for observed user attributes and a behavior view for latent behavioral functions that are indirectly observed through user actions or behaviors. Our task is to infer the groups of users as well as their latent behavioral functions. We also propose a non-parametric version based on a Dirichlet Process to automatically infer the number of clusters. We test the properties and performance of the model on a synthetic dataset that represents the participation of users in the threads of an online forum. Experiments show that dual-view models outperform single-view ones when one of the views lacks information.     

Numerical Investigation of a Bluff-Body Stabilised Nonpremixed Flame with Differential Reynolds-Stress Models

A numerical investigation of a bluff-body stabilised nonpremixedflame, and the corresponding nonreacting flow, has been performed withdifferential Reynolds-stress models (DRSMs). The equilibrium chemistry model is employed and an assumed-shape beta function PDFapproach is used to represent the interaction between turbulence andchemistry. The Reynolds flux of the mixture fraction is obtained from atransport equation, hence a full second moment closure is used. Toclarify the applicability of the existing DRSMs in this complex flame,several models, including LRR-IP model, JM model, SSG model as well as amodified LRR-IP model, have been applied and evaluated. The existingmodels, with default values of the coefficients, cannot provide overallsatisfactory predictions for this challenging test case. The standardLRR-IP model over predicts the centreline velocity decay rate, andtherefore does not perform satisfactory. The modified LRR-IP model, withmodel constant C _∈1 = 1.6 instead of the standard value1.44 (here named BM-M1), gives better results for the mean velocity.However in the nonreacting case this does not lead to improvement inpredicting rms fluctuating velocities especially downstream of therecirculation zone. Motivated by the need to improve the prediction, anew modification of the LRR-IP model is proposed (BM-M2), with modelconstant C ₂ = 0.7in the pressure strain correlation rather thanthe standard value 0.6. With the new modified model, a verysignificant improvement of the prediction of flow field is obtained inthe nonreacting case, whereas in the reacting case the prediction ofthe flow field is of the same overall quality as with BM-M1. This showsthat some DRSMs have different behaviour in the nonreacting case andthe reacting case. In the reacting case also the mean and variance ofmixture fraction are considered and it is found that the best resultsare obtained with the BM-M1 model, with SSG as second best. Combiningthe results for flow field and mixture fraction field it is concludedthat the BM-M1 model is recommended for further studies of thisbluff-body stabilised flame. Grid independence of the result isdemonstrated.     

Flow instability and shear localization in a drilling mud

To have a better knowledge of problems occurring with drilling fluids in complex wells, we carried out a detailed rheological analysis of a typical drilling mud at low shear rates using both conventional rheometry and MRI velocimetry. We show the existence of a viscosity bifurcation effect: Below a critical stress value, the mud tends to completely stop flowing, whereas beyond this critical stress, it reaches an apparent shear rate larger than a finite (critical) value, and no stable flows can be obtained between this critical shear rate value and zero. These results are confirmed by MRI velocity profiles, which exhibit a slope break at the interface between the solid and the liquid phases inside the Couette geometry. Moreover, this viscosity bifurcation is a transient phenomenon, the progressive development of which can be observed by MRI. A further examination of MRI data shows that, in the transient regime, the shear rate does not vary monotonously in the rheometer gap and is particularly large along the outer (rough) cylinder, which might be at the origin of the development of a region of constant shear rate in the apparent flow curve.     

Unprecedented noncatalyzed anti-carbozincation of diethyl acetylenedicarboxylate through alkylzinc group radical transfer

The radical carbozincation of diethyl acetylenedicarboxylate, performed at room temperature in the presence of air, leads to fumaric derivatives through a selective alkylzinc group radical transfer controlled by coordination. The total trans stereocontrol is unprecedented, carbocupration is well-known to give the reversal selectivity at low temperature, while classical radical addition methodologies lead to mixtures of isomers.     

Modeling of water vapor adsorption isotherms onto polyacrylic polymer

The adsorbed amounts of water vapor onto polyacrylic polymer (polymer ×10) were measured using a thermogravimetry method as a function of pressure at 298 and 313 K. The adsorption isotherms are categorized to type II isotherms by IUPAC classification leading to a hysteresis loop between adsorption and desorption branches. The current study was completed by the measurement of the adsorption heats at 298 K using a differential scanning calorimetry. The calorimetric curves showed two adsorption heats domains. These domains have been attributed to the adsorption of “equivalent monolayer” and the condensation of water between polymeric chains. The correlation of experimental data to some chosen theoretical models shows that the GAB model is the most adequate to describe water vapor sorption isotherms.