Penetration of radionuclides across the skin: Rat age dependent promethium permeation through skin in vitro

The composition and the permeation properties of the skin are dependent on age. In the animal models for permation studies, age affects the mechanical as well as the permeation properties significantly. The time dependence of permeation of ¹⁴⁷Pm³⁺ from aqueous solution was established by the animal skin model and the age dependence of promethium permeation through the skin was examined. The aim was to find the optimum rat skin age model for radionuclide permeation studies and to assess the relative importance of the main permeation pathways: transepidermal and transfollicular permeation. The skin from 5-day-old rats (5DR) was found to represent the optimum animal model to study transepidermal permeation of ions. The skin from 9-day-old rats (9DR) was selected to study transfollicular permeation of ions. Comparison of the permeated amounts of promethium through the skin without hairs (3 DR to 6 DR) and with hairs (7DR to 12DR) showed that the additional permation mode via follicles significantly contributed to the permeation rate and extent.     

Measurement of the dynamic elastic constants of short isotropic cylinders

A method based on a single test is proposed to characterize the elasticity of an isotropic homogeneous material in the shape of a cylinder of any slenderness (length-diameter) ratio. Firstly, the Rayleigh-Ritz method is used to determine the natural frequencies of the cylinders vibrating axisymmetrically. The study is focused on cylindrical samples with diameter and length of similar magnitude so that the shear modulus and the Poisson ratio can be calculated simultaneously. Subsequently, the theoretical results for cylinders of slenderness ratio between 0.1 and 3 are analyzed in order to obtain the data required to determine the elastic constants from one of the two lowest measured natural frequencies and their quotient. The analysis of the results demonstrates that any slenderness ratio is useful in the calculation of the elastic constants, although in some cases the third natural frequency should be used. Furthermore, the influence of the length-diameter quotient on the sensitivity of the method is analyzed by evaluating the systematic uncertainties for both dynamic elastic constants. Finally, the method is experimentally tested by characterizing two steel cylinders with slenderness ratios 0.1 and 1, respectively. The results demonstrate that uncertainties for both Poisson ratio and the shear modulus are smaller when the slenderness ratio is 1.     

Asymptotically balanced schemes for non-homogeneous hyperbolic systems – application to the Shallow Water equations

In this work we introduce a class of balanced numerical schemes, up to second order, for the solution of general non-homogeneous hyperbolic systems of conservation laws. We give a general technique to build such schemes. We also prove that they balance up to second order a large class of steady solutions in the whole domain but some subset whose measure tends to zero as the grid size decreases to zero. We finally present an application to Shallow Water equations that exhibit the good performances of some of the schemes introduced. To cite this article: T. Chacón Rebollo et al., C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 338 (2004).     

Mapping Properties of a Projection Related to the Helmholtz Equation

We study the continuity properties of a projection derived from a recent characterization of Herglotz Wave Functions in the plane. Herglotz Wave Functions are the entire solutions of the Helmholtz equation which have L²-Far-Field-Pattern. The behavior of this projection is reminiscent of the Disc Multiplier Operator on both L^p and mixed L^p-normed spaces. In particular a Kakeya type set plays a central role in our analysis. As a consequence we answer a question posed by Alvarez, Folch-Gabayet and Pérez-Esteva.     

Lyapunov-type inequalities for nonlinear systems

In this paper, by using elementary analysis, we establish some new Lyapunov-type inequalities for nonlinear systems of differential equations, special cases of which contain the well-known equations such as Emden-Fowler-type and half-linear equations. The inequalities obtained here can be used as handy tools in the study of qualitative behaviour of solutions of the associated equations.     

Left, right, and inner socles of associative systems

We investigate the basic properties of the different socles that can be considered in not necessarily semiprime associative systems. Among other things, we show that the socle defined as the sum of minimal (or minimal and trivial) inner ideals is always an ideal. When trivial inner ideals are included, this inner socle contains the socles defined in terms of minimal left or right ideals. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Hydrophilic and hydrophobic copolymer systems based on acrylic derivatives of pyrrolidone and pyrrolidine

This article deals with the synthesis of hydrophilic methacrylic monomers derived from ethyl pyrrolidone [2‐ethyl‐(2‐pyrrolidone) methacrylate (EPM)] and ethyl pyrrolidine [2‐ethyl‐(2‐pyrrolidine) methacrylate (EPyM)] and their respective homopolymers. For the determination of their reactivity in radical copolymerization reactions, both monomers were copolymerized with methyl methacrylate (MMA), the reactivity ratios being calculated by the application of linear and nonlinear mathematical methods. EPM and MMA had ratios of r_EPM = 1.11 and r_MMA = 0.76, and this indicated that EPM with MMA had a higher reactivity in radical copolymerization processes than vinyl pyrrolidone (VP; r_VP = 0.005 and r_MMA = 4.7). EPyM and MMA had reactivity ratios of r_EPyM = 1.31 and r_MMA = 0.92, and this implied, as for the EPM–MMA copolymers, a tendency to form random or Bernoullian copolymers. The glass‐transition temperatures of the prepared copolymers were determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and were found to adjust to the Fox equation. Total‐conversion copolymers were prepared, and their behavior in aqueous media was found to be dependent on the copolymer composition. The swelling kinetics of the copolymers followed water transport mechanism case II, which is the most desirable kinetic behavior for a swelling controlled‐release material. Finally, the different states of water in the hydrogels—nonfreezing water, freezing bound water, and unbound freezing water—were determined by DSC and found to be dependent on the hydrophilic and hydrophobic units of the copolymers. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 41: 395–407, 2003     

Fitting the control parameters of a genetic algorithm: An application to technical trading systems design

This paper studies the problem of how changes in the design of the genetic algorithm (GA) have an effect on the results obtained in real-life applications. In this study, focused on the application of a GA to the tuning of technical trading rules in the context of financial markets, our tentative thesis is that the GA is robust with respect to design changes. The optimization of technical trading systems is a suitable area for the application of the GA metaheuristic, as the complexity of the problem grows exponentially as new technical rules are added to the system and as the answer time is crucial when applying the system to real-time data. Up to now, most of GAs applications to this subject obviated the question of possible “design dependence” in their results. The data we report, based on our experiments, do not allow us to refute the hypothesis of robustness of the GA to design implementation, when applying to technical trading systems tuning.