Radial basis functions collocation and a unified formulation for bending,vibration and buckling analysis of laminated plates,according to a variation of Murakami’s zig-zag theory

In this paper, we propose a variation of the use of Murakami’s zig-zag theory for the analysis of laminated plates. The new theory accounts for through-the-thickness deformation, by considering a quadratic evolution of the transverse displacement with the thickness coordinate. The equations of motion and the boundary conditions are obtained by the Carrera’s Unified Formulation, and further interpolated by collocation with radial basis functions. This paper considers the analysis of static deformations, free vibrations and buckling loads on laminated composite plates.     

On tail dependence: A characterization for first-order max-autoregressive processes

In this paper, we consider first-order MARMA or ARMAX processes and a modified version of these involving a power transformation, denoted pARMAX. We assume Pareto-type tails, the most interesting case for inference within these processes. Some well-known dependence measures of multivariate extreme value theory are considered in a time series framework. In calculating these measures, we find that ARMAX and pARMAX have opposite behavior in concomitant extremes, covering all types of tail dependence. This characterization will serve modeling purposes.     

Quenching phenomena for a non-local diffusion equation with a singular absorption

In this paper we study the quenching problem for the non-local diffusion equation

Characterization of porosity in a 19th century painting ground by synchrotron radiation X-ray tomography

The study of the early oeuvre of the Swiss painter Cuno Amiet (1868–1961) has revealed that, up to 1907, many of his grounds were hand applied and are mainly composed of chalk, bound in protein. These grounds are not only lean and absorbent, but also, as Synchrotron radiation X-ray microtomography has shown, porous. Our approach to the characterization of pore structure and quantity, their connectivity, and homogeneity is based on image segmentation and application of a clustering algorithm to high-resolution X-ray tomographic data. The issues associated with the segmentation of the different components of a ground sample based on X-ray imaging data are discussed. The approach applied to a sample taken from “Portrait of Max Leu” (1899) by Amiet revealed the presence of three sublayers within the ground with distinct porosity features, which had not been observed optically in cross-section. The upper and lower layers are highly porous with important connectivity and thus prone to water uptake/storage. The middle layer however shows low and nonconnected porosity at the resolution level of the X-ray tomography images, so that few direct water absorption paths through the entire sample exist. The potential of the method to characterize porosity and to understand moisture-related issues in paint layer degradation are discussed.     

Kinetic model of a DC oxygen glow discharge

A simple kinetic model predicting the concentration of oxygen atoms, metastable singlet molecules O₂(a ¹) and negative ions O — in the positive column of a DC glow discharge is developed. The calculated O and O₂(a ¹) concentrations are compared to previously reported measurements for pressuresp=0.2–2 Torr and discharge currentsI=10–80 mA. The electron density calculated from the continuity equationj=n _e e v _d agrees well with experiment. The rate coefficients for electron impact processes used in the balance equations of O, O₂(a ¹), and O^– were taken from the literature as a function of the reduced electric fieldE/N forE/N=40–80 Td. A reasonable agreement is obtained between the model and the experiment with a set of 10 reactions for the production and destruction of the above-mentioned species     

Extremes of deterministic sub‐sampled moving averages with heavy‐tailed innovations

Let {X_k}_k?1 be a strictly stationary time series. For a strictly increasing sampling function g:?→? define Y_k=X_g(k) as the deterministic sub‐sampled time series. In this paper, the extreme value theory of {Y_k} is studied when X_k has representation as a moving average driven by heavy‐tailed innovations. Under mild conditions, convergence results for a sequence of point processes based on {Y_k} are proved and extremal properties of the deterministic sub‐sampled time series are derived. In particular, we obtain the limiting distribution of the maximum and the corresponding extremal index. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Isolation of Echimidine and Its C-7 Isomers from Echium plantagineum L. and Their Hepatotoxic Effect on Rat Hepatocytes

Echimidine is the main pyrrolizidine alkaloid of Echium plantagineum L., a plant domesticated in many countries. Because of echimidine’s toxicity, this alkaloid has become a target of the European Food Safety Authority regulations, especially in regard to honey contamination. In this study, we determined by NMR spectroscopy that the main HPLC peak purified from zinc reduced plant extract with an MS [M + H]⁺ signal at m/z 398 corresponding to echimidine (1), and in fact also represents an isomeric echihumiline (2). A third isomer present in the smallest amount and barely resolved by HPLC from co-eluting (1) and (2) was identified as hydroxymyoscorpine (3). Before the zinc reduction, alkaloids (1) and (2) were present mostly (90%) in the form of an N-oxide, which formed a single peak in HPLC. This is the first report of finding echihumiline and hydroxymyoscorpine in E. plantagineum. Retroanalysis of our samples of E. plantagineum collected in New Zealand, Argentina and the USA confirmed similar co-occurrence of the three isomeric alkaloids. In rat hepatocyte primary culture cells, the alkaloids at 3 to 300 µg/mL caused concentration-dependent inhibition of hepatocyte viability with mean IC₅₀ values ranging from 9.26 to 14.14 µg/mL. Our discovery revealed that under standard HPLC acidic conditions, echimidine co-elutes with its isomers, echihumiline and to a lesser degree with hydroxymyoscorpine, obscuring real alkaloidal composition, which may have implications for human toxicity.     

Tunneling rate for superparamagnetic particles by the instanton method

We derive the tunneling rate for paramagnetic molecules in the context of a collective spin model. By means of path integral methods, an analytical expression is derived. Given the very large spins in question (s3000), the observation of magnetization changes due to pure unitary tunnel effects is unlikely.