On Multiplicity-Free Products of Schur P-Functions

Recently Stembridge obtained the classification of multiplicity-free products of Schur functions, and thus of multiplicity-free outer products of irreducible characters of the symmetric groups. In this paper, the multiplicity-free products of Schur P-functions are classified, and then this is applied to the case of projective outer products of spin characters of the double covers of the symmetric groups.     

A new synthesis of aryl hetaryl ketones via SRN1 reactions of halogenated heterocycles with potassiophenylacetonitrile followed by phase-transfer catalyzed decyanation

Reaction of halogenated pyridines, quinolines, pyrimidines, and pyrazines with potassiophenylacetonitrile ( 5 ) in liquid ammonia under near-uv irradiation affords secondary nitriles, which then undergo oxidative decyanation under phase-transfer catalytic conditions to afford aryl hetaryl ketones in excellent yields.     

On a conjecture of huppert for alternating groups

We prove a character degree property of the alternating groups, recently conjectured by Huppert.     

Voice Handicap Index Results for Older Patients with Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia

Adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD) adversely affects a speaker's ability to effectively communicate. For many individuals suffering with ADSD, botulinum toxin (Botox) is the chosen treatment to remediate the symptoms. Although Botox's effects on symptom remediation have been examined before, patient perception of improvement post-Botox has been examined less frequently. Further, no studies have addressed the symptomatic changes in older adults that occur after Botox treatment. The Voice Handicap Index (VHI) was used as the instrument to assess older patient's (>65 years) perception of how ADSD impacts certain areas of their life pre- and post-Botox injection. The outcome of the VHI was related to a clinical judgment of voice severity. Participants also completed the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) to examine overall stress level, and the outcome of the SRRS was correlated to postinjection VHI scores. Results indicated no significant correlation between VHI scores and voice severity or SRRS ratings. The current study suggests further study of voice outcomes with older adults with ADSD is needed.     

Evaluation of the influence of arsenic species on the nitrogen metabolism of a model angiosperm: nasturtium,Tropaeolum majus

How the various organic and inorganic arsenic species affect the nitrogen metabolism of a model plant, Tropaeolum majus, was studied in order to evaluate the toxicological impact of the various chemical forms of arsenic. For this purpose, the effects on the (a) entire nitrogen pool, (b) protein fraction, and (c) non‐protein fraction were distinguished. The arsenic‐dependent effects on the nitrogen cycle were assessed by using ¹⁵N‐labelled KNO₃ as a nutritive substance and optical emission spectroscopy to analyse how ¹⁵N is incorporated into the nitrogen cycle. In addition to the ¹⁵N‐tracer experiments, the uptake and metabolization of the arsenic compounds were examined. The work shows that biochemical indicator systems like ¹⁵N‐tracer studies are able to characterize the degree of the influence of metabolic processes by arsenic species. For example, the incorporated ¹⁵N concentration decreased linearly and independently of the ¹⁵N fraction with increasing dimethylarsinate (DMA) concentrations. This behaviour indicates that DMA has prevented the uptake of ¹⁵N and hence the formation of amino acids and proteins. Arsenite‐treated plants exhibited an elevated concentration of non‐protein ¹⁵N, which could be an indication either for a stimulated uptake of nitrate or for an interrupted amino acid/protein synthesis. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Insufficiency of four known necessary conditions on string unavoidability

The reductive decision procedure for unavoidable strings was recently shown to have an exponential lower bound. Hence, as a special case of generalized pattern matching, the existence of an efficient algorithm deciding string unavoidability remains an interesting open question. It has been hypothesized that some combination of the four necessary conditions implied by the known decidability results would be sufficient. Three of these criteria are determined in polynomial time, and the fourth provides the needed recursion. In this paper, however, we demonstrate the existence of arbitrarily many avoidable strings meeting any extended conjunction of the four necessary conditions. These insufficiency results are achieved by analyzing the appropriate graphical interpretations of the given algorithms. We provide a new combinatorial operation on the corresponding strings and generate arbitrary counterexamples from an empirically located minimal set. Thus, string unavoidability cannot be efficiently decided by the known reductive method or its immediate implications.     

Derivative with respect to discontinuities in the porosityDérivée par rapport aux discontinuités du coefficient de porosité

We investigate the sensitivity of hydrostatic pressure of flows through porous media with respect to the position of the soil layers. Indeed, these induce discontinuities of the porosity which is a piecewise constant coefficient κ of the partial differential equation satisfied by the pressure u and it leads to the computation of the derivative of u with respect to changes in position of discontinuity surfaces of κ. The analysis relies on a mixed formulation of the problem. Preliminary numerical simulations are given to illustrate the theory. An application to a simple inverse problem is also given. To cite this article: C. Bernardi, O. Pironneau, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 335 (2002) 661–666.